I'm making a documentary from 125 hours of 1080i HDV footage.


I've only used iMovie 5 HD before.

Barely touched Final Cut Pro 4.5... and FCP is confusing to me compared
to iMovie HD.


What are the major differences I should be concerned with between
iMovie, FC Express HD, and FC Pro HD?


My documentary is a very serious project, but I am totally new to Final
Cut Pro HD.


I also have limited $$ to buy Harddrives to edit down 125 Hours of HDV
1080i footage to 3 hours of documentary.



Is iMovie HD enough, since it is so easy --- or do I really need to
learn FC Pro HD?  (Also will the FC Express version do instead?)


Also, any recommendations for importing 125 Hours of 1080i HDV footage?  
Should I just downgrade it to regular DV?  I heard Apple changes 1 HOUR
of HDV into almost 50GBs per hour!  That means 6.25TBs just for the
footage itself!



.................................................................
       Posted via TITANnews - Uncensored Newsgroups Access
-=Every Newsgroup - Anonymous, UNCENSORED, BROADBAND Downloads=-

Are you really going to import the whole 125 hours? Wouldn't it make
more sense to import just the bits you need?

I agree with you on FCP and iMovie HD. It takes a lot of time to learn
and use all the features of FCP. If you don't have or don't want to
take the time, I'd stick with what I know: iMovie HD or iMovie.

By the way, a friend that does documentaries of various dancers uses
Vegas (it has more tracks available for sound. I believe he said it had
99 tracks available for sound vs iMovie's 2. Big consideration if your
documentary is heavy on sound.)

GrassDog

125 hours?????  Bloody 'ell a shooting ratio of 40:1.  3 weeks of solid
logging more like 4-5 weeks actual.  Good luck.

The only way to do this is to do a "paper edit" then capture the footage you
need.  From your copius notes you will have taken while logging you'll be
able to go back for addition footage once you've got the narrative or the
back bone of the documentary on the timeline.

If you try and capture 125 hours of footage you'll kill the project off and
waste money on drives you don't need.  Your project wll die.  You will have
to be absolutely ruthless when choosing the footage so be absolutley clear
what the narrative is before you start.  Only choosing the right footage to
support the narrative and drives it forward.

Whoever though 125 hours of footage was needed for a 3hr doc needs their ass
kicked.  I've never seen a 3 hour doc either its going to have to be pretty
compelling to keep people interested for that length of time.  What is the
doc and what are you hoping to do with it?

Forget iMovie.  You need minimum FCP and better hope the Media Manager
doesn't mangle your project.

()()

You have lots of good advice from fellow readers, now let me give some.
  Learning final cut pro is NOT easy.  Its not that any single step is
hard, its just that if you wait any amount of time before revisiting
that step, you lose it.   If you throw yourself into FCP for this
project it will work.  But prepare for huge amounts of time conquering
little stops.  (how do I create a new folder?, how do I move from
browser to canvas).  Those things are simple to do once you know them,
but you will have to conquer them each several times at first, hard to
do if you have any time constraints at all.  But I do know several
people who were forced into FCP during one project, and they just
fought their way into it.  Its a good way to learn, but very
frustrating.

One argument is why choose?   A documentary in good taste can have just
straight cuts and dissolves, and almost nothing else, perhaps an
occassional slow zoom onto a still photo.  All those things you can do
in Imovie.   Why not build the 99% interior of the movie, but then use
FCP for some fancy and production heavy beginning, or for other key
points?  You could even hire someone from the local college for that.
For example, have them build you a nice beginning.   Have them build
you a "lower 3rd) to put on screen to ID each interviewee.   Use them
both.   Use what you know for the part it can easily do.

One warning though that no one has mentioned.  When you use Imovie, it
does not edit in native HDV, or even native DV for that matter.  It
changes things when you download into the Apple Intermediate Codec.
Now in fact, the codec did not cause the image quality loss some
feared.  It looks very very acceptable.  You download and it converts
to the intermediate codec, you edit, then when you come out of the
computer it reformats the video into DV or HDV.   This process is why
Imovies stunningly beat almost every other editing system in the race
to have HDV editing.

I am convinced its a good way to edit.  But there is one draw back.
HDV is a "big" signal.  It takes up lots of disk space.  But get this:
when you transcode into Apple's intermediate Codec, the HDV signal is
made even bigger.  Lots bigger.  10 minutes of HDV becomes a HUGE
signal.  When you edit in native HDV at least it stays the original
size.   This becomes prohibitive when editing as much footage as you.

So the other writers are right.  You must 'pre-produce' the video a
first time, then finish it a 2nd time in the good format.  If you can
only edit on your Apple because those are your limits (eg paper editing
does not click to you" you could probably download the stuff into
Imovie a little at a time, then quickly use the "share" (compress)
program to make it into a very tiny email Quicktime movie.  Those (i
believe) can be imported into Imovie and edited.  You might see if when
downloading the footage that first time you can make the time code show
on the video image for your logging.   Make the full video, then make
it again, this time with full production skills.

Again, use both editing softwares, why not?  Who says you can only use
one?

Bruce

I have tried a number of NLEs and Final Cut Pro is one of the simpler,
more straightforward ones IMO. It's not really that big a jump-up if
you're already in imovie.  The advantages would be as has been said in
better bin and clip management, which is no small consideration when
you're dealing with somethign this big.  You get more audio tracks to
layer, more compositing choices and better graphics, thre ability to
nest sequences and hold many multiple versions and iterations that you
can compare and mix between.

On a project of this size, you indeed need to make the first rough cuts
at the digitizing stage, screening everything, but only digitizing the
best takes.  Another consideration is, you could theoretically have
more than one person work on this at the same time, cutting one section
towards the end while you work on the beginning and things like that.
Such an approach will save time but create a certain 'feel" in each
person's work, unless all hold to strict criteria on style.

Three hour docs are not impossible: you just air them as three one-hour
chapters on successive nights or etc.

Go to www.turnhere.com and check out SANDY BLVD, PORTLAND OREGON.

Go to www.turnhere.com and check out SANDY BLVD, PORTLAND OREGON.

DVD burning advice sought
Capture Sony PC9 video
miniDV or DVD Camcorder in 2006
Cleaning MiniDV Camera
Problem with Sony TRV308
How to capture video from a JVC GVR-DL300
Canon Elura 100 Any comments or Reviews?
1:2 Shoe adaptor
DCR-TRV110 the superior panel turns off
Tv chassis mitsubishi.