NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2002

Matt Stahley · August 16th, 2002, 12:15 AM

check out

www.granitedigital.com

they offer firwire cases with the oxford 911 chipset for $159.also swappable bay FW drives and raid systems.
i have one of these with an ibm 60GB IBM deskstar and although its not my main media drive i have used it with FCP &iMovie with no problems whatsoever.

i never heard of a warning on not buying the 911 chipset????

Nathan Gifford · August 16th, 2002, 05:06 AM

I tried going back through the CS newsgroup to see what was said about this (end-of-life). There are rumors of a new CS offering in the future, but I have not seen anything that I could call 'official.'

That said, CS3 is still being sold and there are no new releases indicating any new activity past about May 2002.

If you have version 2 of EditDV, you can upgrade to CS3 for about $150 (according to their website).

Hope this helps,
Nathan Gifford

Jay Henderson · August 16th, 2002, 11:13 AM

so if you have mac osx AND os9, and "classic," would you just run fcp3 and the rt mac in os9? that's the situation i'm in. i have a pal xl1, g4, fcp3, and i need to output to vhs (conversion to ntsc will be done with dvfilm atlantis when i get it).
i could get another dv camera (ntsc) for output to vhs, instead of relying on rtmac...but the dual display, real time, analog input, and other features have me leaning toward plunking down the cash for the rtmac.
what are some other solutions guys?
p.s. maybe i'll just get dazzle to output to vhs? that's the crucial thing for me right now, moreso than real time or dual display support.

Jeff Donald · August 16th, 2002, 11:30 AM

The Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge is a respectable product. It will do what you want and it runs between $250 and $300. Other products that are similar are Formac studio http://www.formac.com/2k/products/studio_products.html. The Dazzle http://www.dazzle.com/products/hw_bridge.html and Formac are the only two 3rd part hardware devices qualified for FCP 3 by apple. The Sony DVMC-DA2 has been widely used with FCP but i'm not sure it is still available. A search on Sony's site showed no results.

Jeff

Jay Henderson · August 16th, 2002, 02:08 PM

thanks, Jeff. i'll check those out.

Daniel Berube · August 16th, 2002, 06:47 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Keith Loh : I'm pretty sure that I'm going to go for a FireWire enclosure and then use it to serve up a 120g hard drive. I haven't yet seen a recommendation on an enclosure brand or vendor aside from warning to get one with the Oxford (#?) chipset. Anyone have a favourite? -->>>

I just bought the OWC Eilite Firewire enclosure and have slapped a WD Caviar (Special Edition) 7200 Hard Drive with 8mb buffer and it screams connected to my Mac. I have not yet experienced any problems so far in digitizing to it via FCP.

I recommend going the enclosure route because then you can always upgrade the internal HD later on in the game. I paid $300 for both the enclosure and drive and I am very happy with the performance.

For more info:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Item_Specials.cfm?ID=3479&Item=OWCMEFW
http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=4095&Item=WDGWD1200JBSE

Happy filmmaking!

Daniel Berube · August 16th, 2002, 06:58 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Jeff Donald : I hope they run the same tests after Jaguar is released. I'm currious to see if the OS will make a difference.
Jeff -->>>

Maccentral just posted a fairly thorough review of Jaguar at:
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0208/16.jaguar.php

Worth the reading. There will be performance boosts using Jaguar ie: Quartz Extreme on compatibile Macs. My sense is that the refinements to the interface and naming and navigation will improve all of our workflows, for those that utilize the refinements.

Daniel Berube · August 16th, 2002, 07:03 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Nathan Gifford : I tried going back through the CS newsgroup to see what was said about this (end-of-life). There are rumors of a new CS offering in the future, but I have not seen anything that I could call 'official.
Nathan Gifford -->>>

CineStream is dead, at least that is the word from the Discreet contacts I have spoken with. It's unfortunate that Media 100 did not have the follow through it should have had with CineStream dev.

My suggestion is to finish and back up your present projects with the software, and then switch to FCP 3. If you feel you can stay with the program for the time being, all the power to you.

Daniel Berube · August 16th, 2002, 07:21 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Jason Bagby :
also I don't know if i'd settle for 5400 rpm's- video files are so picky and if you have a segment with a couple of audio tracks the read arm has to jump from the video to the audio to the other audio track, and 7200 will surely eliminate some dropped frames, but i have no proof. -->>>

Treat your external space as an investment and opt for a compatible 7200RPM drive. I just bought an OWC Eilite Firewire enclosure and have slapped a WD Caviar (Special Edition) 7200 Hard Drive with 8mb buffer and it screams connected to my Mac. I have not yet experienced any problems so far in digitizing to it via FCP.

I recommend going the enclosure route because then you can always upgrade the internal HD later on in the game. I paid $300 for both the enclosure and drive and I am very happy with the performance.

For more info:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Item_Specials.cfm?ID=3479&Item=OWCMEFW
http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=4095&Item=WDGWD1200JBSE

Daniel Berube · August 16th, 2002, 09:07 PM

Straight from the Apple website at:
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/

FCP and QuickTime 6

Final Cut Pro 3.0.2 has been qualified for use with QuickTime 6 included with Mac OS X v10.2. Users running earlier versions of Mac OS X should continue to use QuickTime 5.x .

Time to buy that copy of Jaguar!

Thank you Apple!

Chris Hurd · August 16th, 2002, 11:05 PM

<< Man Chris Hurd rubbing elbows with Robert Rodriguez! >>

Actually I was in film school at UT-Austin the same time as Rodriguez, although we never met. He had already built a bit of celebrity for himself drawing the highly popular comic strip "Los Hooligans" for the student newspaper, The (almost) Daily Texan. Plus his student film, "Bedhead," was a huge hit at the student film screenings at the end of the year. He spent most of his time in The Box Car, or Building CMA, at our College of Communication campus at the corner of 26th and Guadalupe. I spent most of my time next door, in CMB, taking every writing-intensive course I could get, plus as many video production classes as they would allow, because I couldn't afford the costs of the Film Production track. About the only thing Rodriguez and I had in common was that Charles Ramirez-Berg was my favorite instructor, and his as well. I completed my RTF degree there in 1990. Hope this helps,

Nathan Gifford · August 16th, 2002, 11:30 PM

Regardless, CS3.1 works pretty darn good. You will need to make a choice for yourself.

If you do check out Ron Bridegroom and Claire Watson's CD on Cinestream: its excellent. That CD will show you how to do things no one though possible CS.

Let us know how it goes.

Nathan Gifford

Paul Sedillo · August 17th, 2002, 04:21 AM

Chris,

Man that is a great story. I've read his "Rebel without a Crew" which talks about his college days. I had a chance to catch "Bedhead" on the DVD version of El Mariachi. Very funny short movie.

DaveWatson · August 17th, 2002, 11:35 PM

Daniel,

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us. I think this site is great.

For the last couple years, I have edited downtown on an Avid 9000 and paid the high hourly rate. But now I have several people telling me I can get the same quaility from a home system like Avid Express 3. Is this true?

What's the best editing system for indep. producers like myself?

Thanks,

Dave

Martin Munthe · August 18th, 2002, 11:57 AM

I guess you are refering to Avid Xpress DV. That's a FireWire/DV native NLE. Your stuck with 5:1 compression DV. The more high end Avids does less compression on the video footage. But Avids does not by any mean produce the best video image. If you'd like 10-bit uncompressed D1/digibeta you should look into an AJA SD card (or perhaps the Digital Voodoo cards) and Final Cut Pro 3. This will bring you way ahead of most Avid systems image quality wise. FCP is really a great app. I use it for commercials, music videos and feature film editing. It handles OMF, EDL's and has a great media manager.

You can view codec comparisons at http://www.onerivermedia.com/codecs/index.htm

August 16th, 2002, 05:06 AM	#602
Nathan Gifford Wrangler Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Tickfaw, LA Posts: 1,217	I believe CS is still alive. I tried going back through the CS newsgroup to see what was said about this (end-of-life). There are rumors of a new CS offering in the future, but I have not seen anything that I could call 'official.' That said, CS3 is still being sold and there are no new releases indicating any new activity past about May 2002. If you have version 2 of EditDV, you can upgrade to CS3 for about $150 (according to their website). Hope this helps, Nathan Gifford

August 16th, 2002, 06:47 PM	#606
Daniel Berube Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Boston, MA USA Posts: 91	Try OWC enclosure and WD 120gig 8mb drive <<<-- Originally posted by Keith Loh : I'm pretty sure that I'm going to go for a FireWire enclosure and then use it to serve up a 120g hard drive. I haven't yet seen a recommendation on an enclosure brand or vendor aside from warning to get one with the Oxford (#?) chipset. Anyone have a favourite? -->>> I just bought the OWC Eilite Firewire enclosure and have slapped a WD Caviar (Special Edition) 7200 Hard Drive with 8mb buffer and it screams connected to my Mac. I have not yet experienced any problems so far in digitizing to it via FCP. I recommend going the enclosure route because then you can always upgrade the internal HD later on in the game. I paid $300 for both the enclosure and drive and I am very happy with the performance. For more info: http://eshop.macsales.com/Item_Specials.cfm?ID=3479&Item=OWCMEFW http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=4095&Item=WDGWD1200JBSE Happy filmmaking! __________________ Daniel Bérubé • BOSFCPUG http://www.bosfcpug.org

August 16th, 2002, 06:58 PM	#607
Daniel Berube Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Boston, MA USA Posts: 91	<<<-- Originally posted by Jeff Donald : I hope they run the same tests after Jaguar is released. I'm currious to see if the OS will make a difference. Jeff -->>> Maccentral just posted a fairly thorough review of Jaguar at: http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0208/16.jaguar.php Worth the reading. There will be performance boosts using Jaguar ie: Quartz Extreme on compatibile Macs. My sense is that the refinements to the interface and naming and navigation will improve all of our workflows, for those that utilize the refinements. __________________ Daniel Bérubé • BOSFCPUG http://www.bosfcpug.org

August 16th, 2002, 07:03 PM	#608
Daniel Berube Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Boston, MA USA Posts: 91	Re: I believe CS is still alive. <<<-- Originally posted by Nathan Gifford : I tried going back through the CS newsgroup to see what was said about this (end-of-life). There are rumors of a new CS offering in the future, but I have not seen anything that I could call 'official. Nathan Gifford -->>> CineStream is dead, at least that is the word from the Discreet contacts I have spoken with. It's unfortunate that Media 100 did not have the follow through it should have had with CineStream dev. My suggestion is to finish and back up your present projects with the software, and then switch to FCP 3. If you feel you can stay with the program for the time being, all the power to you. __________________ Daniel Bérubé • BOSFCPUG http://www.bosfcpug.org

August 16th, 2002, 07:21 PM	#609
Daniel Berube Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Boston, MA USA Posts: 91	Re: no problems with firewire <<<-- Originally posted by Jason Bagby : also I don't know if i'd settle for 5400 rpm's- video files are so picky and if you have a segment with a couple of audio tracks the read arm has to jump from the video to the audio to the other audio track, and 7200 will surely eliminate some dropped frames, but i have no proof. -->>> Treat your external space as an investment and opt for a compatible 7200RPM drive. I just bought an OWC Eilite Firewire enclosure and have slapped a WD Caviar (Special Edition) 7200 Hard Drive with 8mb buffer and it screams connected to my Mac. I have not yet experienced any problems so far in digitizing to it via FCP. I recommend going the enclosure route because then you can always upgrade the internal HD later on in the game. I paid $300 for both the enclosure and drive and I am very happy with the performance. For more info: http://eshop.macsales.com/Item_Specials.cfm?ID=3479&Item=OWCMEFW http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=4095&Item=WDGWD1200JBSE __________________ Daniel Bérubé • BOSFCPUG http://www.bosfcpug.org

August 16th, 2002, 12:15 AM	#601
Matt Stahley Major Player Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Waynesboro, PA Posts: 648	check out www.granitedigital.com they offer firwire cases with the oxford 911 chipset for $159.also swappable bay FW drives and raid systems. i have one of these with an ibm 60GB IBM deskstar and although its not my main media drive i have used it with FCP &iMovie with no problems whatsoever. i never heard of a warning on not buying the 911 chipset????

August 16th, 2002, 11:13 AM	#603
Jay Henderson Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Orlando, Florida Posts: 45	so if you have mac osx AND os9, and "classic," would you just run fcp3 and the rt mac in os9? that's the situation i'm in. i have a pal xl1, g4, fcp3, and i need to output to vhs (conversion to ntsc will be done with dvfilm atlantis when i get it). i could get another dv camera (ntsc) for output to vhs, instead of relying on rtmac...but the dual display, real time, analog input, and other features have me leaning toward plunking down the cash for the rtmac. what are some other solutions guys? p.s. maybe i'll just get dazzle to output to vhs? that's the crucial thing for me right now, moreso than real time or dual display support.

August 16th, 2002, 11:30 AM	#604
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	The Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge is a respectable product. It will do what you want and it runs between $250 and $300. Other products that are similar are Formac studio http://www.formac.com/2k/products/studio_products.html. The Dazzle http://www.dazzle.com/products/hw_bridge.html and Formac are the only two 3rd part hardware devices qualified for FCP 3 by apple. The Sony DVMC-DA2 has been widely used with FCP but i'm not sure it is still available. A search on Sony's site showed no results. Jeff

August 16th, 2002, 02:08 PM	#605
Jay Henderson Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Orlando, Florida Posts: 45	thanks, Jeff. i'll check those out.

August 16th, 2002, 09:07 PM	#610
Daniel Berube Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Boston, MA USA Posts: 91	FCP Qualified for Use With QuickTime 6! Straight from the Apple website at: http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/ FCP and QuickTime 6 Final Cut Pro 3.0.2 has been qualified for use with QuickTime 6 included with Mac OS X v10.2. Users running earlier versions of Mac OS X should continue to use QuickTime 5.x . Time to buy that copy of Jaguar! Thank you Apple! __________________ Daniel Bérubé • BOSFCPUG http://www.bosfcpug.org

August 16th, 2002, 11:05 PM	#611
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,366 Images: 513	<< Man Chris Hurd rubbing elbows with Robert Rodriguez! >> Actually I was in film school at UT-Austin the same time as Rodriguez, although we never met. He had already built a bit of celebrity for himself drawing the highly popular comic strip "Los Hooligans" for the student newspaper, The (almost) Daily Texan. Plus his student film, "Bedhead," was a huge hit at the student film screenings at the end of the year. He spent most of his time in The Box Car, or Building CMA, at our College of Communication campus at the corner of 26th and Guadalupe. I spent most of my time next door, in CMB, taking every writing-intensive course I could get, plus as many video production classes as they would allow, because I couldn't afford the costs of the Film Production track. About the only thing Rodriguez and I had in common was that Charles Ramirez-Berg was my favorite instructor, and his as well. I completed my RTF degree there in 1990. Hope this helps, __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

August 16th, 2002, 11:30 PM	#612
Nathan Gifford Wrangler Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Tickfaw, LA Posts: 1,217	Regardless, CS3.1 works pretty darn good. You will need to make a choice for yourself. If you do check out Ron Bridegroom and Claire Watson's CD on Cinestream: its excellent. That CD will show you how to do things no one though possible CS. Let us know how it goes. Nathan Gifford

August 17th, 2002, 04:21 AM	#613
Paul Sedillo Major Player Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 607	Chris, Man that is a great story. I've read his "Rebel without a Crew" which talks about his college days. I had a chance to catch "Bedhead" on the DVD version of El Mariachi. Very funny short movie. __________________ Paul Sedillo Image::Studio http://www.image-studio.com Houston, Texas

August 17th, 2002, 11:35 PM	#614
DaveWatson New Boot Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Nashville, TN Posts: 10	What's the best? Daniel, Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us. I think this site is great. For the last couple years, I have edited downtown on an Avid 9000 and paid the high hourly rate. But now I have several people telling me I can get the same quaility from a home system like Avid Express 3. Is this true? What's the best editing system for indep. producers like myself? Thanks, Dave

August 18th, 2002, 11:57 AM	#615
Martin Munthe Major Player Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Stockholm, Sweden Posts: 331	I guess you are refering to Avid Xpress DV. That's a FireWire/DV native NLE. Your stuck with 5:1 compression DV. The more high end Avids does less compression on the video footage. But Avids does not by any mean produce the best video image. If you'd like 10-bit uncompressed D1/digibeta you should look into an AJA SD card (or perhaps the Digital Voodoo cards) and Final Cut Pro 3. This will bring you way ahead of most Avid systems image quality wise. FCP is really a great app. I use it for commercials, music videos and feature film editing. It handles OMF, EDL's and has a great media manager. You can view codec comparisons at http://www.onerivermedia.com/codecs/index.htm __________________ Martin Munthe VFX Supervisor/DP/Director