Semi Professional Cam/Final Cut Pro

1. Luckyo
   Member

   

   Hi

   I am working with a MacPro/Final Cut Pro and am looking for a great SDHC or other card-based semiprofessional camera that greatly integrates with that. I used lowlevel consumer cameras like the Kodak Zi8 or the Legria HF200 and especially the zi8 was horrific to import/render in Final Cut Pro. Lasted for a whole day on a powerful macpro to render one hour of footage. So I decided I need a semiprofessional HD camera in the 1000-2000 Dollar/EUR range that produces a file format that allows me to import/render quickly and has great low-level performance and manual focus ring. I would be happy to hear any suggestions. Also I have access to a EOS 550D and it can record HD video and I was told I could buy lenses for this. Is this a good alternative or the wrong direction?

   I want an alround camera. But since I will record a lot of indoor presentations, it should have good performance in low light and whatever else is important in this setting. 

    

   Thanks so much for your time!

   Posted 1 year ago #

2. vid-e-o-man
   Member

   

    Luckyo, I'm sure others will chime in here soon, but there are always questions about which camcorder to buy on the forums. If you use the search function for these forums you will see lots of threads about this topic and quite a discussion about camcorder vs. DSLR for videomaking. Some investigating on your part into whatever details you can give to narrow the selection process will help focus our suggestions. I think that a semipro HD camcorder will probably exceed your 1000-2000 dollar (Euro?) range unless you can find one used. Good shopping.

   Posted 1 year ago #

3. Rob Grauert
   Post Production Host

   

   The situation is more specific than simply getting an SDHC camera. It's about how to deal with the codec a particular camera records. Cameras that record Long GOP compressed codecs will always take long to render in Final Cut. And unfortunately, SDHC cameras always record some flavor of Long GOP compression, whether its H.264, AVCHD, or HDV. I'm guessing this is because SDHC cards can't write fast enough to support the higher bit rates Intra-frame codecs like DVCPro HD or AVC-Intra.

   So if you're looking for a 2000 SDHC camera, your stuck with Long GOP compression. The best thing you can do is transcode all your footage to ProRes422 with Compressor. Then start editing.

   Rob Grauert, Jr
   http://www.robgrauert.com
   http://command-r.tumblr.com

   Posted 1 year ago #

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