[KeyLimePi]

Okay, I'm stupid, but I'm confused about FCP3's "OfflineRT" format. Basically it means that I can grab about five hours worth of low-res video and edit it on a 10Gb drive. Right?

So let's say I edit that five hours down to two hours. Then what? Does FCP oull only those two hours back off the original tapes and edit it to make a hi-res version of my low-res edit? And, won't I still need more HD space since my two-hour high-res final won't fit on the 10GB HD anyway?

[Euphrates]

As I understand it, FCP will remember what you took from where, and once you come back to where your tapes are, it'll get rid of the extra offlineRT stuff so you have room from your project, or you get an external hard drive(?). I know what you mean about not having enough space after your done editing. I'm not really sure.

[Demonhood]

the apple site coulda done a better job explaining it. it seems like it works this way:

1) capture time-coded footage of project using Photo-JPEG codec at half size.
2) edit your project, adding effects, titles, etc..
3) decide to finally render project, reconnect DV source
4) based on time-codes, FCP3 pulls your original footage from your camera (most likely your source), applies all the things you did to it, and then outputs it to a file (DV Stream I'm assuming, since that's what you'd slap into Cleaner eventually).

basically you've saved on a ton of space. instead of capturing everything (because you never know what you're going to use), you capture this pint sized version of everything. the most space you'll take up is with the finished project. but instead of having hours of footage on your drive and the finished project, you just have the project and a small batch of files.

sounds pretty spiffy to me. first time i've heard of this being done on a DV system. that is, if i'm reading all this right.

[a holck]

OfflineRT is a 660 kbps recompression of the DV input in realtime. It uses the photo jpeg compressor, and was actually also possible in fcp 2.0 by making a special capture setting.

For recapture into dv quality of 120 minutes youll need ATLEAST 120x60x3.5 mb = 25.2 GB

[3dAnimation]

KeyLime: what you described is exactly what happens. All mjpeg systems have operated this way. In the old days, no one had enough space to do otherwise.

However, What I think they tried to slip past us, is all that really great REAL TIME stuff, you only get when using the super-duper small ofline files, not the "native, full rez" (5 to 1 compressed) DV.

I still can't wait! The color correction looks SWEET!

-GregM.

[KeyLimePi]

Thanks for the help, guys. I've messed around with FCP and Premiere, but always with low-end projects, so it was pretty easy towork with the files. I guess I have to remember that FCP was designed for high-end, broadcast quality stuff, and it's aim is to make it just as easy.