Best format for FCP

fixler wrote on 10/18/2006, 10:50 PM
Hey Guys,

I was looking for some advice. I completed a project for a client a year or two ago, and they now need to add this project to another to be edited in FCP. I orinally provided a DVD but they now require a format they can use in the new project.

They first asked for an uncompressed Quicktime which from a 12.20min project produced a 28Gb file... Far too big to get to them.

Any ideas...? Thanks

Comments

Former user wrote on 10/19/2006, 6:08 AM
Have the editor or production company provide you with an external drive to transfer the uncompressed file to.

They won't be happy with anything else.

Dave T2
Laurence wrote on 10/19/2006, 6:45 AM
That's still going to be a problem because the Mac setup is going to require a FAT32 formatted hard disk, but FAT32 has a 4 gig file size limit.
Former user wrote on 10/19/2006, 6:46 AM
It is my understanding that a mac can read NTFS, but can't write to it. Am I incorrect in that?

OF course the other option is to break the video in segments. And if you are going to break it into segments, you could just send them 7 DVDs.

Dave T2
Coursedesign wrote on 10/19/2006, 7:34 AM
Spend $30 on getting an 80GB drive (ask the Mac guys if they want ATA or SATA), and $36.99 on MacDrive 6.

The latter allows you to read, write, and format Mac disks of all types including also data CDs and DVDs.

I have found through long experience that even though Macs can read NTFS volumes, many (non-geek) Mac users get shaky knees even thinking about this.

You'll get major brownie points if you deliver on a Mac volume, and more importantly the work will start immediately rather than two weeks later while they're waiting for their guru to come back, the one who knows also the dark side of the Force.

Get used to delivering on hard drives! Even Hollywood productions do it everyday, so why shouldn't you?

There is no data medium that is within even an order of magnitude for cost and widespread acceptance. There are a few large capacity data tape cartridges that cost about as much as harddrives, but you won't see drives for those in a lot of NLE bays...

Just be sure to pack properly if you have to ship. Easiest and best both is to double-box. This is just putting the bubble-wrapped drive in a tight small box inside a larger box with crumpled newsprint, newspaper, kraftpaper, or more bubble wrap inbetween.

[Newsprint = paper with no printing on it, a popular packing material available in box and packing stores.
Newspaper = same as above but printed.
This terminology makes sense? No.]

ForumAdmin wrote on 10/19/2006, 8:18 AM
Print it to tape and let them recapture it- that should eliminate all potential problems with codecs, files, operating systems etc.
Former user wrote on 10/19/2006, 8:21 AM
ForumAdmin,

As long as you know what tape formats they can use!! :)

Dave T2
Coursedesign wrote on 10/19/2006, 8:28 AM
Except problems caused by going back and forth to the DV25 codec on tape, if the intermediate files are of higher quality (i.e. in a better codec).
fixler wrote on 10/19/2006, 3:29 PM
Thanks for all the advice. After speaking to the company again, I understand it is not a major job, simply a personal edit (BarMitzvah) so they are not keen on putting a great deal of money or time into this transfer.

They have asked me to produce a compressed (lossy) quicktime for them to import. Of course I advised against it, but they still wanted to go ahead with it. Any ideas on the best specs to use for the export of that file?
GlennChan wrote on 10/19/2006, 7:28 PM
I would try to give them a miniDV tape.

If not that, Quicktime DV.

DV is editable, reasonable quality, and widely compatible.

2- If you want to be a bit picky about quality, I think you should convert color spaces. Quicktime DV encode from Vegas wants to see computer RGB color space.
So if your Vegas project is studioRGB color space (this is the default for Vegas 5+), then apply the studioRGB to computer RGB preset in the color corrector filter to the entire project.

I would nest it in another veg, and apply the effect to the .veg. This avoids accidents where you forget to turn it off (i.e. when you render to new track).

3- Or, just print to DV tape.
kentwolf wrote on 10/19/2006, 7:49 PM
I work sometimes with a guy who actually uses Final Cut Pro and I always send him stuff via Print to Tape (DV).

Works great. Never had a problem.
Patryk Rebisz wrote on 10/19/2006, 7:58 PM
Export to QT with PHOTO JPEG compression.
Sidecar wrote on 10/20/2006, 3:32 PM
Just for the record, System X on the Mac can write only to a FAT32 formatted drive.

It can read from an NTFS formatted drive, but not write to it.

So, if you format your portable Firewire drive to FAT32, all is well, right?

Problem is, under XP, it will not allow you to format a drive larger that 30gb. All FAT32 options in Disk Management are grayed back.

If you partition the drive first into partitions smaller than 30gb each, then the FAT32 option becomes available for each partition. This is a royal pain.

Windows 98 could format a drive of any size into a single FAT32 partition, but not XP.

I never did find out how to format a large (bigger than 30gb) drive into a single FAT32 partition. There is probably a utility out there that can do it.
Coursedesign wrote on 10/20/2006, 4:34 PM
Why make things so complicated?

Just spend $36.99 on MacDrive as per my earlier post above.

No size limit, everybody happy, can both read and write files. Gives you time to enjoy some ice cream, too.

:O)