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Editing 1080p footage - What kind of external?

Stang68

Stang68

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 29, 2007
793
0
USA
Hey everyone,

I'm editing uncompressed 1080p footage in Final Cut Pro 7 and I wanted your advice. I have a LaCie USB 2.0 Rugged Hard drive but I think I am going to buy a 1TB LaCie. Is USB 2.0 ok to edit 1080p footage with? Or should I do I have to use Firewire 800? What do you all suggest?

Thanks!
 
bigbossbmb

bigbossbmb

macrumors 68000
Jul 1, 2004
1,759
0
Pasadena/Hollywood
are you really editing uncompressed HD (you probably aren't and shouldn't btw)?

if you are, uncompressed requires a 4-disk RAID0 or better connected via internal SATA or externally via mini-SAS. FW800 is not fast enough and USB2.0 is not even close.
 
Stang68

Stang68

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 29, 2007
793
0
USA
bigbossbmb said:
are you really editing uncompressed HD (you probably aren't and shouldn't btw)?

if you are, uncompressed requires a 4-disk RAID0 or better connected via internal SATA or externally via mini-SAS. FW800 is not fast enough and USB2.0 is not even close.
Click to expand...

I believe it's uncompressed. One minute of footage is roughly 1gb. Is firewire 800 enough?
 
bigbossbmb

bigbossbmb

macrumors 68000
Jul 1, 2004
1,759
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Pasadena/Hollywood
what camera shot the footage?

1gb/min sounds like DVCProHD which is far from uncompressed. That can be edited on most FW drives.

avoid LaCie at all costs... go to OWC and get one of their FW800 drives or go with a high quality company like Caldigit and get a 2-disk RAID0 FW800 drive.
 
Stang68

Stang68

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 29, 2007
793
0
USA
bigbossbmb said:
what camera shot the footage?

1gb/min sounds like DVCProHD which is far from uncompressed. That can be edited on most FW drives.

avoid LaCie at all costs... go to OWC and get one of their FW800 drives or go with a high quality company like Caldigit and get a 2-disk RAID0 FW800 drive.
Click to expand...

I'm shooting on the Panasonic HMC150 (sweet cam, btw :)). You're not a fan of LaCie? I have been using them for years, love 'em. Bad experience?

Thanks for your help, btw :)
 
TheStrudel

TheStrudel

macrumors 65816
Jan 5, 2008
1,134
1
I've observed quite a few LaCie issues as well. And that's not even counting the fact that they're overpriced compared to OWC's offerings. If you're getting any single drive enclosures, OWC's options are good, and Fantom Drives are also pretty good.

But yeah, that's definitely not uncompressed HD video. In fact, you're using AVCHD. Not even as high a bitrate as HDV. You'll be able to handle that on a regular old Firewire 400 drive. Firewire 800 will definitely be sufficient No need for speed there. Your only real requirement is that it should be firewire.

Sure it's 1 GB/minute? It's probably a lot less unless you're capturing straight from its output into a capture card...
 
LethalWolfe

LethalWolfe

macrumors G3
Jan 11, 2002
9,370
124
Los Angeles
TheStrudel said:
But yeah, that's definitely not uncompressed HD video. In fact, you're using AVCHD. Not even as high a bitrate as HDV. You'll be able to handle that on a regular old Firewire 400 drive. Firewire 800 will definitely be sufficient No need for speed there. Your only real requirement is that it should be firewire.
Click to expand...
FCP doesn't edit AVCHD natively, it all gets transcoded to ProRes and ProRes 422 1080p24 will clock in at around 1gig/min including audio.

OP,
LaCie's have a very bad rep for failing which is why you'll rarely find a pro recommend them.


Lethal
 
Stang68

Stang68

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 29, 2007
793
0
USA
hmm...all this negative talk about LaCie has me worried. You guys have mentioned OWC...how about this drive: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEAQ7S1TB32M/

I'm sure it's 1gb/minute. I'm taking the footage from the SD card and putting it on my desktop, so we can dump the footage on set quickly. That folder is usually 5gb bc its compressed. Then, I'm importing into Final Cut Pro from that desktop folder where it comes in uncompressed.

This is what my bin setting looks like for my clips:
Screenshot2010-02-28at94859AM.png
 
bigbossbmb

bigbossbmb

macrumors 68000
Jul 1, 2004
1,759
0
Pasadena/Hollywood
ok, ProRes is not uncompressed... it is just an editing codec used because you can't edit AVCHD natively. You are correct in using the regular ProRes and not the HQ version (wouldn't give you a benefit coming from AVCHD). You could actually save more space with ProRes LT if you have FCP7 (you would retain all of your quality, but with about half the file size).

any FW800 drive should be plenty fast for either flavor of ProRes. That drive you linked to looks perfect.
 
Stang68

Stang68

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 29, 2007
793
0
USA
Ok, that's great to hear. We're shooting on a normal Extreme SD card (32gb). I do, in fact, have FCP7...so how do I log and transfer in ProRes LT? I would love to save the space you talked about haha

Thank you!
 
Stang68

Stang68

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 29, 2007
793
0
USA
bigbossbmb said:
you can change the setting in the Log & Transfer window... there's a dropdown in the upper right where you can go to L&T prefs.
Click to expand...

Yup, I found it! It does save space, not toooo much, but definitely a difference :)
 
TheStrudel

TheStrudel

macrumors 65816
Jan 5, 2008
1,134
1
I haven't used it in a while, so can anybody tell me how Apple Intermediate Codec compares? I can't remember if it's more or less efficient than ProRes (undoubtedly has a lower quality bar, but that's not going to matter with AVCHD and its meager bitrate).
 
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