Ha... a good question for the Avid forum.  A friend of mine has just enquired about whether I would be able to capture (in my Avid) 4 hours worth of DVCam footage which is to then be edited on Final Cut Pro (not by myself).

I said I don't think there's anything I can do unless I was to capture the footage and then export as Quicktimes.  Which would mean compression and would take a long time.  He's idealy looking at it to be as uncompressed as possible.  The thought of 4 hours worth of uncomprssed Quicktimes give me the hebeejeebees before I've even started.  Anyway, before I say I can't help I thought I'd run it past the forum and see if anyone has any ideas.  To be honest.. I could do with the extra work so any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks

The media files are completely different.  Avid has it's own and Apple uses Quicktime.  And, in order to convert Avid media into Apple's ProRes codec, you have to have FCP installed.  Which you can't do if you're on PC.

You'd be better off renting the deck to your friend and letting him capture via FW into his FCP system.

First off, he's worried about compression and he's shooting on DV? Talk about closing the barn door after the horse has left....

You are correct. The only way for FCP to use the footage you capture is with quicktime movies.

Thanks guys... as I thought really.

Interesting about the ProRes codec though.  So FCP can't work with standard Quicktimes?  Maybe I should ask a different forum that question, somewhen.. but even the thought of subscribing to an FCP forum is worse than the hebeejeebees I got when thinking about 4 hours worth of uncompressed quicktimes ;)

Cheers

When people say "looking at it to be as uncompressed as possible," they mean "without further compression."

Of course FCP takes Quicktime files, but QT is just the wrapper. You need to use a codec that's available on both the source and target machines, which is a bit of pain between Windows and OS X (there are a lot of DV25 codecs).

The Sheervideo codec is one cross-platform solution, but it may be more than you need.

B.J. Ahlen:

When people say "looking at it to be as uncompressed as possible," they mean "without further compression."

No...really? Sorry, it's only my second day here.....

At least once a year I hear someone talking about DVCAM (DV25) and uncompressed in the same sentence, and so far it has always turned out that what they really wanted was to transfer the exact bits on the tape in some contorted way through multiple machines. I think they're afraid of someone hooking up their computer to a deck via SDI or component analog, and then recompressing that to DV25 on the capture machine.

There is a of course a very legitimate need to transfer DV25 to a better codec for post work, but I never hear that from DVCAM people (who tend not to even know why this would be useful), only from those who like me work with DV25 only as an import format when there is no other footage available.

BLKDOG:

No...really? Sorry, it's only my second day here.....

Hahahahahahaha!

adios,
Carl

Sorry, just trying to help.

If I'm incorrect in any of my information, please feel free (I trust this won't be a problem :O) to correct me.

Otherwise it will be like with the Masochist and the Sadist:

Masochist: "Hit me, hit me!"

Sadist: "Noooo...!"

I was just giving you a hard time. Being a little cheeky today. Of course the aim is to not compress further but my (tongue in cheek ) point was, if compression were a concern, you wouldn't shoot DV at all.

Amen to that!

What scares me the most is that so many DVCAM shooters don't even know what they're missing. They think, "Well, I paid $13,000 for my DSR-570 and put on a famous $8,000 broadcast lens. It must be good!"

6-7 years ago when I was getting back to shooting after a long hiatus being legally blind, everyone told me to get a DSR-500/570. I borrowed one and shot some footage to see if any miracles had happened while I was "out of sight" so to speak.

But it quickly became clear to me that no miracles had happened, and I could not accept what I saw. In the absence of better tape-based alternatives, I switched to shooting uncompressed direct to disk with a DXC-D50 I'm still using (it's got the same head as an $85,000 DigiBeta). Better believe it looks good.

Still, occasionally I have to import some DV25 footage shot by others, and I 'm getting progressively better at applying lipstick on it....