Workflow help with final cut

I’m editing a short film that was shot on 1080i HD. Panasonic ag-hmc154er. The videos are encoded with H.264

My iMac has a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, with 2 GB of ram.

I’m using FCP 7. I’m also storing all footage on a shared server which slows editing down considerably, and the iMac itself doesn’t have a lot of free space.

I also have a limited amount of time within which to work – roughly 5 hours to cut the final edit. The final product is for SD DVD, projected onto a big wall.

Can you give any workflow suggestions? I’ve heard of MPEG Streamclip but not sure how it can help.

Thanks Rudolf

Import the video via Log & Transfer, convert to ProRes LT there. FCP will respond better during the editing, and export will go MUCH faster.

Your footage is progressive, leave it that way.

Scratch Drive should be an external FW800 drive, not on internal system drive.

You posted the same question 4 times.

Just a quick word - H.264 is a Capture / Delivery codec (highly compressed) .. You can get it to ProRes 422 (LT) or standard ProRes422 by many means but as indicated Log & Capture is one of the best but not the only way (e.g. Mpeg StreamClip) . ProRes422 is an editing friendly codec.. The main reason it is better to have the scratch area on another drive is to do with i/o access and how the OS and Apps will be already utiling much of that for the main HD... The External (in the case of an iMAC this could be a secondary internal HDD ofcourse) drive will need to be fast.

JimKells
www.jimkells.com