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I've been playing with this for a while now, and was initially interested in Edius as a tool to assist me ingest DVCPROHD footage, from Varicam, into Avid for editing. I've so far been very impressed with Edius in this respect and others.
I'll post a little detail here - as I've detailed in my earlier thread there are significant workflow difficulties in using the Varicam at 25fps for the PAL world. As the Varicam always operates at a 60/59.94Hz system frequency it means that neither Avid nor FCP will communicate directly via Firewire with my deck (AJ-HD1400) while in a 25fps project mode. They will only capture from a 50Hz device in those modes.
However Edius, very uniquely, is able to capture from a deck at 59.94Hz into a 25fps project. And while I am not nearly comfortable enough with Edius to try editing a broadcast TV series in it yet, it very neatly fill this niche for me.
My workflow, so far, is this:
There are a few hurdles in both Edius and Avid that I am working through.
I haven't done any Full Tape test yet, so I don't have a really strong idea about processing time in these processes, but it's not too bad. So far it appears that the visual quality of the image is not compromised in the process.
In Avid, to set Timecode I have to use the 'Modify Clip' function, for each clip, to set a Source name and then I can modify the timecode easily.
There are a couple of things in Edius I need to play with too. If I capture with the 'Constant Rate Shooting over 60p' Edius generate 25 frame timecode, which is sensible, but isn't actually what the deck puts out (it outputs timecode that starts at 00 and ends at 29, but only counts 25 frames - 5 frames are simply skipped in the counting).
This way it creates timecode that is probably not going to create an EDL I can use later (although I don't know for sure). It I use the '720/59.94p' capture mode, I also get a 25fps clip, but it does actually line up with the Tape timecode (00-29 with skipped numbers) - but there is no way I can get my clips in Avid to duplicate this, so that may not help.
However one side effect of the Constant Rate (retimecoding) option is that it generates Divide Files (if I have 'On Timecode Break' selected) which make the export more difficult (as I can't export clips, I have to export a sequence) as it resets it's frame count each time the camera is stopped (between takes). However this may actually be functionality of the deck, I am not totally sure.
I'll post a little detail here - as I've detailed in my earlier thread there are significant workflow difficulties in using the Varicam at 25fps for the PAL world. As the Varicam always operates at a 60/59.94Hz system frequency it means that neither Avid nor FCP will communicate directly via Firewire with my deck (AJ-HD1400) while in a 25fps project mode. They will only capture from a 50Hz device in those modes.
However Edius, very uniquely, is able to capture from a deck at 59.94Hz into a 25fps project. And while I am not nearly comfortable enough with Edius to try editing a broadcast TV series in it yet, it very neatly fill this niche for me.
My workflow, so far, is this:
- Capture into an Edius "Generic OHCI HD 50Hz 960x720 25p over 60p" project
- 'Print to File' captured footage through ProCoder, as Quicktime using Avid DNxHD 720p25 codec.
- Import in Avid 720p50 or 1080i50 project
There are a few hurdles in both Edius and Avid that I am working through.
- In Edius I can't export clip through ProCoder directly from Bin, I have to build a sequence first.
- Avid can't import Timecode from Quicktime movies (and I don't think it's being embedded in there anyway).
- Avid has no 720p25 project type at present. This means I have to upres in software to 1080 or use 720p50, which means each frame is doubled, and requires care about where cuts are made (to avoid 'half-frame' edits).
I haven't done any Full Tape test yet, so I don't have a really strong idea about processing time in these processes, but it's not too bad. So far it appears that the visual quality of the image is not compromised in the process.
In Avid, to set Timecode I have to use the 'Modify Clip' function, for each clip, to set a Source name and then I can modify the timecode easily.
There are a couple of things in Edius I need to play with too. If I capture with the 'Constant Rate Shooting over 60p' Edius generate 25 frame timecode, which is sensible, but isn't actually what the deck puts out (it outputs timecode that starts at 00 and ends at 29, but only counts 25 frames - 5 frames are simply skipped in the counting).
This way it creates timecode that is probably not going to create an EDL I can use later (although I don't know for sure). It I use the '720/59.94p' capture mode, I also get a 25fps clip, but it does actually line up with the Tape timecode (00-29 with skipped numbers) - but there is no way I can get my clips in Avid to duplicate this, so that may not help.
However one side effect of the Constant Rate (retimecoding) option is that it generates Divide Files (if I have 'On Timecode Break' selected) which make the export more difficult (as I can't export clips, I have to export a sequence) as it resets it's frame count each time the camera is stopped (between takes). However this may actually be functionality of the deck, I am not totally sure.
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