Example workflow needed:Hacked GH2-Macbook-FCP7.

Hi folks,

I am really struggling with getting a workflow together.I have recently started using a GH2 which has the Driftwood Apocalypse now patch on, the camera works well apart from not playing back the videos(I have read this can happen with some of the higher bit rate patches so I guess I will just have to live with that).However putting the footage onto my mac and editing it is proving an absolute nightmare.

Firstly I struck gold,finding the panny plug in that allows MTS files to be readable by the mac,good start.
However when the files are played back on the mac,either in FCP7 or VLC,they are horrible and jumpy,freezing often and just being a pain.

I have now downloaded MPEG Stream which when used to export the MTS files as quicktime files (.MOV?) does allow correct playback in VLC but gets a media offline and unrendered message in FCP7 also 1.the quality seems to have suffered 2.it took almost an hour to export a 30 second clip and 3. the array of options when exporting was baffling,I guess at aspect ratios etc.

This workflow seems very long,seeing as I can't preview clips on the camera, it will take more than an hour to go from shooting to actually seeing the footage back and checking it is ok.

Does anyone have a better workflow for this setup?Something a bit more user friendly and/or quicker?

The macbook is a 2011 pro upgraded to 8gb ram and a 500GB hard drive running at 5400rpm, I would have thought at these specs it would handle the files comfortably?

Cheers folks.
 
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Ok quick update,exported MP4 files work in FCP7 but I'm not sure if the quality has taken a knock. The problem now is FCP7 has to think for a few seconds before I can press anything at all,this would make editing impossible.
 
Your MPEG Streamclip settings are wrong. For Quicktime go with Prores 422 LT at 100% quality. For MP4 H.264 you would also want 100% quality, but FCP does not like H.264 MP4's which is why you want an a Quicktime format that it does like.
 
Micster always coming to my rescue it seems!Where in the UK are you mate? It is currently exporting a clip in Prores 422 LT at 100 percent quality with unscaled ticked(I assume this just leaves the footage as it came out of the camera,which again i assume is 16:9?).

In theory my system should run files this size fine correct?

Cheers again.
 
I flip flop between Wolverhampton and Essex. Yeah leave things unchecked, except for interlace because you don't want your lovely progressive footage to be interlaced
 
Yeah, playing back high bit rate mts files sucks on most any computer... transcoding is just handy and diskspace is cheep.

I use 5DtoRGB for trans-coding, doing the same thing as streamclip im sure.. Im also on a PC so my world is sorta different.
 
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