Best Final Cut Pro tutorial

[offtheroad]

What is the easiest tutorial for Final Cut Pro. I have many old digital video tapes All with Time Code breaks. Will FCP accept these? I need to use the camera as a player also. I do have a PYRO AW Link to convert Analog to Digital. Im very much new at this. Thanks

[smrpix]

Here's a pretty decent one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L42qR0dx6vM

FCP will handle DV files natively. Do not use any of the conversion options.

Pyro AV link is a windows based box that will ruin your footage. You need to go firewire into your mac.

The most likely route is camera to (adpater cable 1) Firewire 400 -> Firewire 800 , then (adapter cable 2) Firewire 800 -> Thunderbolt , to mac.
This is the only combination that works.

[offtheroad]

I need a deck that will take my Hi8mm (if thats what they are). Using my camera as a deck is out because it's corrupted.I have waiting on me a 8TB external HD to dump all this too before editing. I was told to search for a Sony TVD 200 deck. Any advice. I see this on etsy.com Sony EV-C200 Hi8 8mm Editing Video Cassette Recorder Player 348.00 ouch!

[smrpix]

I see.

Hi8 is analog, not digital as you previously indicted. Your Pyro AV Link would need to be added to the front of the chain I previously described.

But there are better ways to do the capture that are (apologies) beyond my knowledge as to best available hardware. Hopefully someone else will chime in.

[offtheroad]

I'm shopping for a Hi8 deck. I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico and no place here to shop for one.
Also I have a PYRO AV Link and was told it may make my imported video inferior?

[johnmeyer]

I used to have a 1980s Sony 8mm deck. It failed and the repair didn't fully get it running. So, I bought a Digital 8 camcorder on eBay. The captures from this unit are far better than anything I ever got from my old deck. It has a TBC built in; it can capture 8mm, Hi8, and Digital 8. In addition, it outputs in DV digital format. Some are not a fan of the color that DV captures, but it has the advantage of being a rock-solid way to digitize a tape. All you need is a Firewire/1394 board.

However, if you don't like DV or don't have a Firewire/1394 board, then you can output from most Digital 8 camcorders using composite analog output and then feed that to a capture device.

The one I got is a Sony DCR-TRV110. I highly recommend it.

[offtheroad]

So your saying a camera is far better than a deck for my capture editing?

[aedipuss]

since dv transfer over firewire is a file transfer, anything that gets the file to the computer will produce identical results. what's on a DV tape stays the same over firewire. used cams on ebay are much cheaper than the hard to find decks that were made in small quantities to begin with. a cam would be easier to resell after you are done with it also.

[offtheroad]

Thanks for the reply I guess I'll use my old Sony TRV25 camera and Final Cut Pro.

[LMotlow]

What you haven't been told is that analog isn't "transferred" 1:1 via Firewire thru a DV camnera. It's first encoded to lossy DV at a 50% chroma loss with compression artifacts (mosquito noise, buzzy edges, noisy motion) that don't exist in the original source (because analog sources don't usually have digital artifacts. Get it?), and signal level problems (usually blown-out highlights that cant be recovered). After this analog-to-DV damage occurs, your signal is transferred to Firewire in that condition. johnmeyer and other DV fanboys, who claim to be "pros" who still can't manage to make a lossless capture no matter how hard they try, will be glad to show you how to clean up the mess. By the time you finish, though, it will still look more like DV than DVD and you'll be exhausted. Hint: you won't be able to use FinalcutPro for the cleanup except maybe color correction, but signal leverls will still look borked.

People should tell you this before you find out for yourself. But they usually don't.

Your move.

[offtheroad]

Thanks, Where or how is it encoded? I'm hoping I can just use my camera and transfer it straight into my external HD for later to use FCP to do all the editing?