5D II Movies and editing

[tashley]

Evening all!


It's been a while since I shot and edited video and I have an old version of FCE (1.1) which doesn't support HD.

I am shooting 12 minute long clips which will need no editing other than to be looped and possibly colour corrected. I might also want to remove sensor dust - but my scenes are entirely static so that should be OK as long as there's a software way of doing it.

My eventual viewing media will be HD screens and TVs.

My questions are:

With no mini HDMI cable as yet, is there an easy way to see my shot files on an HD TV in full HD between now and when I buy FCP or FCE? Clearly making a DVD is no good because it's not Blu Ray and therefore not HD.

Would my needs be met by upgrading to the current version of FCE or do I really need FCP? Might I even get away with iMovie (I'm a Mac boy) since my needs are not for editing at all, just for correction and if possible dust removal?

Talking of which, is there a way of editing the sensor dust spots off movies I have already made and can't re-shoot? The one I am thinking of in particular has one dust speck in the sky and the camera doesn't move the whole way through the twelve minute shot.

My files shown on a 30" cinema display via QTpro on an eight core mac pro with 8 gig ram don't really look 'HD' to me, am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance for anyone who has the time, knowledge and patience to help!

Apologies to anyone who has seen a similar post by me elsewhere: information seems sparse!

Tim

 

[Terry]

Tim,
Are you saying you don't have a mini HDMI cable or you haven't found one? Just got one from Panasonic direct for my Panny cameras. Does Canon use a different sized jack on the camera side?

 

[tashley]

Tim,
Are you saying you don't have a mini HDMI cable or you haven't found one? Just got one from Panasonic direct for my Panny cameras. Does Canon use a different sized jack on the camera side?

Hi Terry,

I just don't have one yet - will pick one up next week.

How do your vids look on HDTV?

Best

Tim

 

[Terry]

I was playing them from the TS1 which is an underwater rugged P&S shoot so nothing spectacular. I've never worked with video before so it is a compete learning experience for me. Not sure if I am going to get a GH1 as I'm trying to sort out how I would use video. My best still shots get wall space not sure where my best video would reside.

 

[kevinparis]

one thing to think of... if you are looking at your footage full screen on a 30" display ... remember that HD video is only 1920 by 1080 pixels... your 30" at 2500 x 1600 does much more than that so picture is going to look softer if you fill the screen

as for editing.. well h264 which i think is the codec used in the canon offers great playback quality... but editing is a b*strd... basically because it doesn't store individual frames like a cine camera just keyframes and the changes between them .

consequence is that if you have to edit or change frames you have to decompress them to individual frames, apply the changes and then recompress... all of which will kill even an 8 core mac

I don't think even FCP handles editing H264 natively.. but rather converts it to prores or apple intermediate codec to allow it to edit... both options make for big big files. I movie kinda cheats and makes a smaller version of your source material.


cheers
K

 

[tashley]

I was playing them from the TS1 which is an underwater rugged P&S shoot so nothing spectacular. I've never worked with video before so it is a compete learning experience for me. Not sure if I am going to get a GH1 as I'm trying to sort out how I would use video. My best still shots get wall space not sure where my best video would reside.

My personal answer to that question is 'in the same place' !

 

[tashley]

one thing to think of... if you are looking at your footage full screen on a 30" display ... remember that HD video is only 1920 by 1080 pixels... your 30" at 2500 x 1600 does much more than that so picture is going to look softer if you fill the screen

as for editing.. well h264 which i think is the codec used in the canon offers great playback quality... but editing is a b*strd... basically because it doesn't store individual frames like a cine camera just keyframes and the changes between them .

consequence is that if you have to edit or change frames you have to decompress them to individual frames, apply the changes and then recompress... all of which will kill even an 8 core mac

I don't think even FCP handles editing H264 natively.. but rather converts it to prores or apple intermediate codec to allow it to edit... both options make for big big files. I movie kinda cheats and makes a smaller version of your source material.


cheers
K

Thanks Kevin. That's incredibly useful. Can I trouble you a bit more since you seem to know the territory?

When I view the clips as 'present movie' under QT Pro version 7.6 at 'actual size' they look pretty good if not exactly what I'd expect from seeing HD on my plasma screen - no jerking, no dropped frames. But when I export to MPEG4 at highest available quality the result is a jerky mush.

It's my eventual aim to display these sequences on large-ish HD capable picture frames and these all seem to play MPEG4 so I was wondering what I can do to get the best possible quality?

Thanks!

Tim

 

[jeff stevens]

You can play the unedited clips in Canon's Zoombrowser and they look fantastic on my monitor.

I have played with editing using CineForm's NeoScene to converting them to .avi and then using Sony Vegas. It works like a champ for smooth editing, but the quality is not as good as when I just view the unedited clips in Zoombrowser.

I'm new to video editing. Before owning the 5dmk2 I just captured and edited my HV20 footage in Vegas. I didn't play with the 24p stuff before so most of this is new to me. But I do love the video part of the mk2.

 

[cookedart]

I don't think even FCP handles editing H264 natively.. but rather converts it to prores or apple intermediate codec to allow it to edit... both options make for big big files. I movie kinda cheats and makes a smaller version of your source material.

I believe Snow Leopard and the new Final Cut Studio support hardware accelerated h.264 editing.. but you'd probably still want a fast/modern machine in order to take advantage of that.

Another low-cost option for mere mortals is to invest in an intermediate codec like CineForm Neoscene (available here: http://www.cineform.com/neoscene/ ) as in intermediate codec instead of ProRes or Apple Intermediate... the file sizes are much more manageable coming from NeoScene.

The last is option (the one I'd probably use) is let media manager in FCP create compressed, low-res proxies of all my original footage that i can edit and cut together, then online and render once my edits are complete.

Of all the things I wish canon would do to improve DSLR video, the #1 would be to give us a easily editable codec!

 

[bradhusick]

iMovie 09 works very well for HD video. Stick your CF card in a reader and import to iMovie at original resolution.

 

[nostatic]

I have FCP v6 (Studio 2) and it'll suck in h.264 and you can edit but have to re-render to see your changes run in real time (stills show up fine). If you convert to prores or other uncompressed you don't have to render. But for simple things it isn't a big deal. I've cut a number of pieces on my laptop using FCP and a variety of source formats and codecs.

iMovie I think still is more universal, in part because it does convert when it imports.

 

[Don Hutton]

You can also use Pinnacle Studio HD - cheap and pretty good - also gives you an output option as AVCHD, which means you can burn HD output onto a regular DVD and play it back with a Bluray or PS3... although you only get about 30minutes onto a DVD, it's a nice option to have. Editing in 1080P will give your machine a real workout. BTW, Bluray burners are not that expensive either...