Hello everyone,

I've been doing a job for the past month where we shoot using the Panasonic Varicam DVCPRO HD Camera and load the footage into FCP 5 via the 1200A deck.

I'll post my experiences here.

First off....HD is beautiful. I'm very spoiled right now. It's hard to edit SD footage anymore.

The turnaround for this job is crazy - so I'm actually capturing the footage on set into my Powerbook G4 1.25 when they are finished with a tape. I then take all of the footage and load it into the G5 at the office to continue the cut.

Capture HD on a Powerbook? Yes its possible.

I have a Powerbook 1.25ghz with 1.25 gigs of RAM running FCP 5.0.4. I am capturing to a GRAID 500 gb drive off of a LaCie FW800 PCMCIA card in the slot. (Do NOT try to use the built in FW800 - it shares the same bus and crashes abound)

I actually am controlling and capturing with the deck via the built in FW800 port as I found that you get slightly better performance in searching timecodes on the deck.

One thing that I found - at least on my laptop - is that if I change the easy setup or capture settings with the 1200A deck attached - FCP crashes. Simple solution - disconnect the deck, easy setup to the correct setting, and then restart with the deck attached.

I do not have this problem on the G5 at work - go figure.

So the workflow is this - if you're shooting 23.98 with the Varicam it is simple. Simply choose the 23.98 DVCPRO HD Easy setup and it will capture and remove the duplicate frames giving you the 23.98 footage.

The one caveat is to start capturing a couple of seconds after the bars - otherwise it wont recognize the 23.98 and capture at 60fps.

But shooting offspeed is where the fun begins. If you shoot at say 12fps - you need to change your Easy Setup to 60fps and capture the footage at that rate.

Then once the footage is in you select each clip in the project window (it cannot be in a soloed bin for some reason) and then you go to the tools and choose the DVCPRO HD framerate converter tool.

Then you choose 23.98 and all the checkmarks and it will convert the footage for you. The caveats is that you will loose all of the TC info. I usually create a folder on my media drive called "Varicam Converted" to put all of these newly created Media Files.

I've sometimes gotten an error stating that the file isn't a 59.94 file when I know it is. If this happens - simple open up a temp project, import the media into it, and do the conversion again. This time it'll work. Once again, go figure.

This was all kind of a ramble. Maybe I'll put it more succinctly together for an article...but let me know if you have any questions.

In a couple of weeks we're probably going to use the HVX200 P2 on this job. I'll let you know how that goes as well.

Best Regards,
Chris Wright
Studentfilms.com

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Studentfilms.com,

It sounds like you had a blast Chris! Good job with the filming. I've never had the opportunity to film with that camera, or in HD at all thus far but from what I hear it is nice. I recently bought a DVX100b and use that to make all my movies now. I will be working with an HVX on a T.V. show pilot soon though and will also post my experiences as well. If P2 cards go down in price than that may just be my next upgrade.

For now though, my DVX is amazing and fantastic for SD footage.

And oh, I agree with you about turning that into an article. I think it will be helpful for those looking to take that next step towards HD.

-Kegan