NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2004

[Ray Echevers]

Maybe Adobe After Effects? Don't know, but I do know that for video editing Final Cut Pro rocks.

[Jeff Donald]

After Effects, Shake, Maya, almost any compositing software will do that.

[Matt Stahley]

Is it possible to daisy chain a couple external FW dvd writers together and use Toast to make a few copies at once? Similar to the stand alone dupers? Using the internal drive as the master and duping to the externals.

[Nicholi Brossia]

I've had Toast Titanium 6 for quite some time and was fairly pleased with its performance. Recently, I burned a video DVD and noticed that the result was very jittery when viewed on television, almost as if stuttering between fields/frames.

I first noticed the problem after updating to 6.0.5 and just trashed Toast, then installed 6.0.3 again and it worked fine. Now, still using 6.0.3, the stuttering is back. I've tried changing field dominance and even deinterlacing in FCP, but keep getting the same results.

I've burned numerous junk DVDs and am hoping for some advice regarding what I'm doing wrong, or how this can be fixed. Basically, I've just been burning Final Cut movies (both self-contained and not) to DVD, letting Toast do the video encoding (standard). I'm pretty sure that the problem lies in Toast's encoding because I've eliminated most other variables.

Any Toast users out there experiencing, or have experienced, this problem? and if so, do you have any advice?

Also, I have Compressor, but haven't ever used it. Would it be possible to encode to MPEG-2 before burning with Toast? and if so, how would I make it playable on DVD players?

Any help will be very appreciated.

[Jeff Donald]

Try another encoder (Compressor) and just let Toast do the burn.

[David Slingerland]

I want to subtitel my recent project. Do I use text in FCP or lifetype?. I used LiveType so far but I then have to render twice...pretty timeconsuming..
I tried importing video in Lifetype to subtitel, but there is no audio feature? so I cant put the titels were I want them... Maybe I am doing something wrong?

[Rob Moreno]

Better to stick to FCP for subtitles. LiveType is more for flashy, moving titles. Plus it's easier to edit the subtitles in FCP if you have to make changes. There's also the advatage that subtitles can be played back in real time without having to render, depending on your hardware.

[Dave Perry]

I'm primarily used to working with DV but my employer shoots Beta SP only. His new G5 use an AJA IO and Medea Raid. It's only a 250 gig raid and we are constantly using up space and having to weed stuff out.

My understanding is that DV takes up about 13 gig/hr and uncompressed 10 bit about 70 gigs/hr. Is this correct? Also, he thinks he has to spend anothe 5K on a RAID set up. Will FW 800 work for us?

Thanks, Dave

[Luis Caffesse]

If you plan to stay in the SD realm, you probably don't need to spend 5K on a Raid setup.

Take a look at Medea's new 'G Raid' series, as well as ProMax's raids.

Both of them make 1TB raids for under 2000 that offer data transfer rates fast enough for uncompressed 10bit SD work.

I would stay away from the Lacie 'Big Disk Extreme' by the way,
although it is fast enough also, it lacks a fan or any decent form
of cooling, and so it tends to overheat.

Hope this helps,

-Luis

PS.
Both of the drives I mentioned use FW800, but they also have FW400 ports on them. But, I'm not sure if FW400 would still be
fast enough for uncompressed SD work. You should contact
the manufacturers of the drives and see what they say.

[Nicholi Brossia]

Okay, here's what I understand... use Compressor to encode the file as MPEG-2, drag the file to Toast and burn as a video DVD, and Toast will provide the necessary files to make it playable on a DVD player.

I know this is an extremely simple situation that could be solved with, "Just try it." However, I've already wasted too many DVDs and would like to double check in order to avoid any more duds.

Thanks for the help.

[Jeff Donald]

Yes, that should give you better results in my opinion.

[Mark Sloan]

You could fake something like it using FCP too using green screen tech, just shoot the people, the background and the car separately and then put them all together at the end, simply dropping out the green background of the crew, putting the car with its green background dropped out under that "layer", and then the static, normal shot of the background acting as the base shot. Maybe I'm over complecating it? But at first glance you could shoot it that way with very little work to set up and very little post work.

[Mark Sloan]

Ray, check out barefeats or other speed comparison sites. I wouldn't say that the internal would be more reliable though. The nice thing about external is you end up using it for other things that you wouldn't have thought of necessarily. Like it is a great way to collaborate on a project, simply taking the drive from one location to another...

[Filmon Mebrahtu]

Hello

I've been working on a one hour doc in Premiere and I'm about to hand over a rough-cut to an editor who uses FCP 4.5. What's the best wasy to get the project moved over to a Mac? I have two options on Premiere - EDL and AAF - Which is the way to go? I know all the video files have to be recaptured which is fine. Does FCP import an Adobe batch list? Otherwise I'll have to manually enter the batch lists, right? I'm ok with losing some transitions, color correction, scaling etc. but I want to preserve all the edit points.

Thanks!!!

[Jeff Donald]

AAF usually doesn't work well, so EDL will be the long way. Automatic Duck is also an option but it is pricey.