You would at least need software that would support this. I'm on
the PC where I believe Nero does this. Not sure about the Mac.
Would this be for a onetime thing or do you want to do this more
often? A duplication station might be a better way to go then?

I'm not sure. But if you have a friend with a PC you should be
able to convert the ASF footage to something you can read like
QuickTime if he has QT installed and a program that can read
the file (like Vegas).

How large is the file? Otherwise someone here might be able
to do it for you (myself included).

Thanks Rob! I do have a PC at work. I'll see if I can work it out on this end. Pretty funny footage actually. It's like " Okay smile! Dang, out of memory, hold on..." Hehe. It's just wierd reaching for another button to take hi-res stills...

Hi,

Does anyone know when rendered type from Livetype looks jagged? It doesn't look aliased at all.

I'm editing HDV footage, so the footage looks great. But, the titles look horrible.

Any idea?

Thank you!!

Murph

I am working on a feature that I filmed on a DVX-100A in the 24p advanced mode (3:2) and recorded sound externally to DAT. The DAT was run at 29.97fps. Using FCP 4 I will be editing my video footage at 23.98fps.

My question is, which of the following is the best workflow solution:

1. Use FCP's "log and capture" to remove the 2:3:3:2 pulldown then sync sound.

2. Log and capture footage at 29.97, sync sound, THEN reverse telecine to remove the pulldown using Cinema Tools.

I am extremely worried about losing sync with my sound in the conversion. Also, what is the best way to finish so that I can preserve my 24p cut to keep my options open in regards to *maybe* printing to film.

Any and all advice regarding these systems will be exremely helpful. Thanks!

Help!!! I created a quicktime file and imported into FCX. When I inserted the clip into the timeline, the audo was missing except for a repeating beep.

Am I missing something simple? Can I either silence the beep or restore the original sound?

Thanks.

I'm thinking about purchasing a 320GB Lacie Big Disk Extreme to use for backing up my video files. I tried searching for some reviews on the web but couldn't find any. Does anyone whose used it have any comments on it?

Thanks

The beeping means that the audio needs to be rendered. You should see a red line at the top of the timeline indicating as such.

Render the audio and see if the beeping goes away.

Anyone have an easy/effective method or workflow to move content currently on Beta SP into FCP (while maintaining quality image and audio)?

If this exists elsewhere in the forums, please feel free to redirect me.

thx t

FCP is a little strange with Quicktime files sometimes and I don't understand it myself. FCP files are really just Quicktime movies. But I was capturing a bunch of clips in FCPjust yesterday, which I saved using the "save clip" command. Then when I tried to play one of these files back immediately afterwards I got the beeping you described. I checked its properties and my settings were all correct. So I closed the file, and tried dragging its icon to the browser which added it to the clip list. When I opened it by double-clicking in the browser it was fine, no more beeps. Strange.

So anyway, you might try what I did. But Steve is correct in that for some reason FCE wants you to render the audio. This might be necessary for a number of reasons depending on its format. Create a new sequence, drop the Quicktime clip to it and render. That should fix the problem regardless of the source.

Hi Chris,

I might be able to help you as the folks here at DVcreators.net just spent the last couple of months creating a LiveType tutorial DVD-ROM.

Couple of questions:

Does the Rendered Output look bad on your NTSC monitor?

Or just in your Viewer/Canvas?

How are you outputting from LiveType?
Are you using File>Render Movie?

Or are you dragging and dropping the document icon from LiveType to the FCP timeline?

What are your Project Properties set at in LiveType ?

Do your FCP titles look good?

Thank you. I will attempt to render the quicktime file and I'll let you know the results.

I shot a short on a DVX 100 in anamorphic. I log and captured all my clips and then edited my short toghether. Then I tried to make the sequence anamorphic by switching on the anamorphic option in the browser. Now, on my camera it looks like it switched it to anamorphic but when I play it back on my television everything is stretched out. Does anyone know what the problem may be? I am pretty sure I'm doing everything right. I use Final Cut Pro three. Oh, and when I make my clip anamorphic before I lay it down in the timeline, it switches to widescreen.

I have the 250 gig unit and with the PCMI card (firewire 800), it is simply mahvelous...quick, accurate and it sure takes a load off the computer drive...

I just got a brand new g5 with fcp. I was in a hurry to get a project out, so I read the quick tutorial book and started off (I'll get to the manuals when i can). Coulnd't quite seem to get the Batch Capture going right (probably something i did). So I decided to just do "capture now" on this first project. The book says that capture now will last for 30 minutes then shut off and you must make a new file. But when I hit capture now, it doesn't get far at all, say 3 minutes at the m ost, and then it stops, repositions some frames, and captures some more stuff. Sometimes this goes on for a bit and i capture pretty much what. Most of the time I have to babysit the thing becasue I know it's going to stop working at any time and I'll have to start capturing were it left off.

Is this a common problem? or is i tpossible my camera (vx-1000) is just getting old and the heads in it have a hard time reading the track on the video tape (thus leading to the code line breaking and the computer gets stumped?) I think the footage I'm using was shot on an older tape too. (Erased over the first tape with other footage). Perhaps this makes for drops in time code. Not sure.

Any advice?

Thanks!

Laurence

Laurence, all of the things you mentioned (old tape, heads out of align, etc.) could be the potential causes of your problems. Check you FCP preferences to make sure FCP is ignoring TC breaks

I'm about to shoot my first dv short and edit it with final cut express on my emac. I'm shooting my short with my GL2.
I have made some minor adjustments with the color presets. I have a small color tv that I plan to use on set to monitor the video as I shoot it.

How do I use the color bars and tone in FCE so that my final product on dvd looks & sounds like I intended it to?

Are color bars and tone even necesssary?

Any takes/opinions appreciated!

Thanks

The main use for the color bars would be calibrating your monitor. Do a search, this topic comes up a lot.

The tone provides a reference for your decisions in presenting the audio. The Final Cut Pro manual actually has a pretty good section on this and I'm guessing that FCE also covers it in the manual, have a look in the index. But basically, depending on the nature of your sound (dialog, music, etc) you need to choose a reference level and adjust the tone to match that. It can then be used for equipment calibration when someone else uses the tape.

Hey there,

I'm pretty new to the board and modern day video editing. New to FCX and my camera. Whew!

Anyway, I've just bought the DVX100A, shot some footage in 24p mode and captured clips to final cut express on my G4 Tibook.

When I captured the clips, I noticed that the frame rate was 29.97 instead of 24. I've since learned that FCX doesn't support 24p editing so maybe that is what's causing the following problem problem during editing.

When I capture the clips, they look fine. However, when I'm asked to render the clips, FCX crops the top and bottom.

Is there any way to get around this in FCX? Or is it time to move up to FCP to alleviate the issue?

I realize that this may have been answered in some form already in archives, but I didn't find a result in my searches.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Not quite understanding your problem here.... The correct sequence for editing anamorphic is to make sure each clip is flagged as anamorphic as you capture. You can do this by using a capture preset with the anamorphic property checked. I also use FCP3 - there's a box that says "anamorphic 16:9", be sure to check that. Now if you forgot to do this and captured as 4:3 that's no problem. Open each clip in the viewer and choose Edit > Item Properties. Now check the anamorphic box.

The next thing you need to do is make sure your sequence is also anamorphic. Again, this can be done with the sequence preset or manually. Create a new sequence and notice whether it's in the 16:9 proportion when you open it in the canvas. If not then choose Sequence > Settings and check the anamorphic box. You should see the canvas change proportions from 4:3 to 16:9.

Now your clips and sequence will both be anamorphic and will match. But you need to do this BEFORE you add clips to the sequence. If you change the sequence after editing you'll distort things.

What confuses me is your statement "when I make my clip anamorphic before I lay it down in the timeline, it switches to widescreen." What does that mean? This is what's supposed to happen. You also say "when I play it back on my television everything is stretched out." Does that mean that everything looks too tall and skinny when you play the sequence on a standard 4:3 TV (as opposed to a widescreen TV)? That is also what's supposed to happen. When you edit inside FCP everything will look properly proportioned inside a 16:9 window. But when you view on an external monitor it will look tall and skinny if the monitor is 4:3 but will look correct if the monitor is 16:9. That's just the way anamorphic video works.

Do you want your video to be letterboxed for a 4:3 monitor? If so then create a new 4:3 sequence in FCP (eg: don't check the anamorphic box) and then drop your finished 16:9 sequence into it. That will letterbox it, but of course you will need to render and will need to use separate versions for 4:3 and 16:9 TV's. Another approach would be to leave everything anamorphic and burn the finished video to a DVD. The DVD player will automatically letterbox your widescreen video for 4:3 TV's.

Does any of this help?

Thanks for the advice Boyd. I did search and read alot of different things on the topic. I'll try and find more info on it in the manual.....

I don't shoot 24p so I'll let someone else answer that. When you say the top and bottom is cropped do you mean it's letterboxed inside a 4:3 window? If so then it sounds like you captured the clips as anamorphic 16:9 and then put them into a 4:3 sequence. This will cause FCP (and I assume FCE) to letterbox.

Make sure that the sequence settings match the clip settings before you start. In FCP you would open the sequence and choose Sequence > Settings, then check the anamorphic box. That will change the canvas window to the 16:9 proportion.

Note that when you edit anamorphic 16:9 it will look correctly proportioned on your computer screen inside the program, but if you send output to an external 4:3 monitor it will look squashed (too tall and skinny) but will look correct on a 16:9 monitor. So you need to determine what your final output is for before using anamorphic vs letterboxed. One way to get around this would be burning the finished project to DVD so that the DVD player will automatically letterbox when connected to a 4:3 TV.

<<<-- Originally posted by Boyd Ostroff : I don't shoot 24p so I'll let someone else answer that. When you say the top and bottom is cropped do you mean it's letterboxed inside a 4:3 window? If so then it sounds like you captured the clips as anamorphic 16:9 and then put them into a 4:3 sequence. This will cause FCP (and I assume FCE) to letterbox. -->>>

Aaah. I will definitely try that tonight! Thanks so much.

Aaah. I will definitely try that tonight! Thanks so much. -->>>

Oh, I forgot to answer that the clips were letterboxed. I hope that your suggestions will provide a fix. Since I sequenced a number of these clips and saved the project, I wonder if I'll have to redo that over again or even recapture them again.

Putting bars and tone on your tape is only necessary if you are going to have your show dubbed to another format or broadcast on TV. The color bars and reference tone are for dub facilities and TV stations to calibrate their equipment to the color and audio on your tape.

If you are just going to DVD, ignore these. When was the last time (first time) you saw a DVD with bars and tone. When have you seen ANYTHING with bars and tone? THey are not foryou, but for the technicians.

1) Dub the footage to DVCAM. If you are going to digitize and work with this footage with FCP basic setup (firewire drives, DV footage, etc) this would be the best route to go. Make sure that when you have the footage transferred that the timecode from the beta tapes is transferred too, just in case.

2) This one enters into an area of higher cost. Purchase a capture card such as an AJA I/O or Decklink SP. Both these cards can capture an analog component signal. The only this is that with this you will now need to look at buying a drive array capable of working with uncompressed footage. External SATA RAID arrays are the best route.

3) If you don't care about the TC and will never go back to the original tapes for ANY reason, purchase the Canopus ADVC-100 converter. It will convert a composite or SVHS signal to DV...and it is the most stable of this type of conversion. The only problem is that you'll have to manually press play on the beta deck and "capture now" using the non-controllable device setting...thus you won't capture any time code so the footage cannot be redigitized in sync in the future.

Hey Guy,

I might just go ahead and order that DVD...it looks pretty cool. Thanks!

Murph

I used to think this too, but not anymore. The bars don't seem particularly useful, but the tone is. I want to establish consistent levels when adjusting the volume of my monitor speakers.. So - following the advice in the FCP manual - I decide on a reference level for starters (in the case of opera which has a huge dynamic range I use -20 dB) so I put the tone at -20 db at the head of my master tape. That way if I or someone else wants to come back and use the tape later it will be easy to see what my assumption was.

However when I burn a DVD from this material I do not include the bars and tone, and that's easy enough to do.

Chris, what to you want the final results to be? Anamorphic video that will look right on a widescreen TV but not on a 4:3 TV?

You should not have to recapture regardless. Select the clip in the browser, or opening it in a clip window and choose Edit > Item Properties. You can see if the anamorphic box is checked, but from what you describe it will be. If not then you can check it.

Again, guessing that isn't your problem since a 16:9 clip won't letterbox unless it's dropped into a 4:3 sequence. Open your sequence and check the settings; I'll bet the anamorphic box is NOT checked, so now check it. You'll probably go "yikes!" at this point because it will squash your clips even more, but don't panic. Go to the timeline and individually open each separate clip by double-clicking on it. In the viewer window click on the Motion tab then click the triangle next to the Distort property. Notice what it says in the Aspect Ratio box. It will probably be -33.33. Change that number to 0 and your clip will change to the proper proportions both in the viewer and canvas. You will need to do this will all clips that have been inserted into the previous 4:3 sequence FROM THE TIMELINE. Normal video shouldn't need to be rendered but effects and transitions may have to be.

In the future just be sure that your sequence is set for 16:9 anamorphic before you start dropping anamorphic clips into it and you can avoid the whole mess!

Caveat: this is how I would do it all in FCP, but I suspect FCE will be similar in principle if not identical in the details. Hope this helps.

<<<-- Originally posted by Boyd Ostroff : . Go to the timeline and individually open each separate clip by double-clicking on it. In the viewer window click on the Motion tab then click the triangle next to the Distort property. Notice what it says in the Aspect Ratio box. It will probably be -33.33. Change that number to 0 and your clip will change to the proper proportions both in the viewer and canvas. You will need to do this will all clips that have been inserted into the previous 4:3 sequence FROM THE TIMELINE. Normal video shouldn't need to be rendered but effects and transitions may have to be.
Hope this helps. -->>>

Boyd, I will check it out tonight when I get home from work. I might end up either dumping it back to the camera or connecting my powerbook to my sony VPL-HS10 projector to check out the footage, so 16:9 is the goal.

Thanks for the quick and informative responses.

Ok, after rendering the clip, I now have the audio! Thank you again.

Thanks. Have used the first suggestion in the past and was worried that too much was lost in the conversion. Will look into the other two suggestions.

Hi,

I've just bought a g5 with FCP HD and all that comes with it. For some reason, I assumed it came bundled with some type of 3D object creation and mapping software. (Well, really it does, but you have to know programming to do that in LiveType). I need to be able to create simple objects like jigsaw puzzle pieces and map them with with video footage and the like. I fiddled with Graphic Coverter, but don't think it will do quite that.

Can someone suggest a good 3D graphics package that doesn't get me into Lord of the Rings type effects? Things like motion are 2 grand etc. !!!!! Right now all I need is basic object creation and mapping that I can import into FCP HD. Not sure if After FX does this (don't have it). I figured there has to be something out there under $500 bucks. I'd like to be able to do impressive 3D stuff for like industrial videos and news broadcast looking stuff. I figured that Motion would do these things . . . but unfortunately I need something this week. If common programs like Photoshop can do this, please let me know, and perhaps a bit on how to do it.

Thanks!

Will do, thanks!

For cheap 3D I suggest you check out Cinema4D. Alot of motion graphics folk use this for their 3D work and then combine it with programs like After Effects.

If you are doing puzzle pieces that need to explode outward or combine to create a complete image, there is a plug-in that comes with After Effects (pro) called Shatter that will do what you want.

My 3D program of choice (for now) is LightWave from NewTek.

Motion - when it is released from Apple - will not do 3D, rather it is a cheap compositing program that only costs $299, not 2K.

As a last resort, you could always hire a freelancer to do the work for you.

Cheers

Maybe it's more involved than you want, but I have been using Strata 3d on the Mac ever since 1995 or thereabouts, it's one of the oldest ones out there. Cost is a little more than what you want though, about $700. However you can download a free trial version that is fully functional for 30 days, so maybe that's a way to get your project done for nothing? http://shop.strata.com

you can also take a peep at this very basic package... 3D Invigorator.

I exported a project as xml on my G5 and would like to import it to my G4. Do I just transfer the xml file or are there other folders to transfer as well, like clips.

Don't overlook Cararra Studio ( http://www.eovia.com ). This is a nice full-featured 3d animation and modeling studio with good all-around performance and features. It also runs on both MAC and PC platforms. Not "real expensive" for what you get.

Soon I will be working on a project that requires numerous 1 hour sessions to be taped to miniDV, burned to DVD, and recorded to VHS. The intention is to use one continuous shot without cuts or further editing (of course, we'll see how this goes). Generally, this process will include many stages - record to miniDV, capture to computer, encode to MPEG-2, burn DVD, record VHS. I would like to make this production as efficient as possible by accomplishing as many tasks at one time as I can.

At this point, I plan to record to miniDV (camcorder), capture to iMovie (firewire), and maybe even VHS (analog out), all at once. That would knock out a lot of time, leaving only the MPEG-2 encoding stage and DVD burning. If possible, I'd like to incorporate the encoding stage into the initial record/capture. My plan would be to use a live/realtime MPEG-2 encoder (firewire or analog out) that would replace the need for iMovie. Unfortunately, I don't know much about live MPEG-2 capture and encoding or if it is even worth using for this production.

Are there any low-cost (< $500), software or hardware based applications available?
Is there a better, more efficient way of accomplishing this? maybe with a stand-alone dvd recorder?

In FCP4, how do you set cross dissolve to a "default" time setting, so i don't have to keep changing the time i want?
(I've been using 00:00:00;15, i belive, nice and quick)

Also, in Audio Mixer, how can you change all the audio of all (or most) of your clips so you can lower or raise them to a desired level, without have to do it clip, by clip?

What's the easiest option for sandwiching a clip between two clips on the timeline without overwriting the clips?

Nevermind, I already figured it out - FCP beginner here...

Open the Dissolve folder in the Video Transitions folder.
Copy the Cross Dissolve transition to the Favorites folder.
Open the Favorites folder.
Change the name of the cross dissolve copy to something you like.
Double click on the Length value and change the length of the transition to :15.
Put the cursor over the name of your new 15 frame cross dissolve.
Hold down the control key as you click on the name.
Select "Set Default Transition" from the popup.

Ok heres the deal.
I just shot a 50th birthday party on a gl2 and an xl1s. Now i am going to capture the tapes to my powerbook (final cut pro hd). so i am trying to capture from my gl2 to my computer, but when i go under the capture mode on final cut and it seems to capture fine for about 5 seconds, then it just stops, and on the lcd on the gl2 i get a pause triangle logo in the corner, it looks like the logo you get in the top right corner when you pause your tape in vcr mode, but it is reversed with the pause logo then the triangle. anyways if anyone can help me so that i can capture the tape that would be great, thank you.

alex

Do your tapes have time code breaks or did you reuse them? Try capturing after changing your preferences to not stop on TC breaks.

what FCP are you using?

lets us know what you figured out please, because thats all this forum about!

rendering
we should write poems about it
its the most powerful computerprograms can do
actually its the only work they do
without you
you do the rest

advise

don't render too fast
you have more time to do....

Whats the biggest external disk at the moment available?