download the Motion Checker application (http://images.apple.com/motion/pdf/Motion_Checker.zip) and you'll find out if your video card qualifies. The tech specs for Motion are here. (http://www.apple.com/motion/specs.html)

o man, thanks for the (late) offer, i found somebody a long time ago, otherwise i would have shot myself. , i still almost throw and break things daily.

oh, give me back two analog tracks of audio and one analog track of video and the fleetest fingers to make those Beta decks sing.

All the tricks and flash this non-linear technonlgy provides us,
has not improved storytelling as far as i can see.
it will however, distracted the hell out of the viewers of a bad story.

I am about to install FCP 3 on my eMac and want to do it the right way. I have spent a great deal of time reading almost everything I've found on- and off-line that's related to installing FCP and many folks seem to find it necessary that a clean installation of the operating system be performed prior to installing any video editing software; however, no-one has a solid explanation as to why that's necessary. So, I was wondering, how many of you think that a clean install is a must and why?

I've never done that.

People may suggest doing a clean install for a couple of reasons, but really you should be fine. What I would suggest is using the disk utility to fix permissions both BEFORE and AFTER you install FCP 3. What version of OS X are you using?

Thank you both for replying.

Mark, my eMac came with both OS 9.2.2 and 10.2. Now, I am still unsure which OS I should install FCP 3 on. Initially I wanted to install it under 10.2 but it turns out that the QT Pro Key that came with FCP is good only for QT 5, not version 6, which is the one that was pre-installed on my eMac; and, I don't want to downgrade the existing version of QT because I am afraid I will mess things up with iMovie (v. 2.1.2), which I still use and want to continue using. So, I am thinking it might be better if I install FCP under 9.2.2. Any advice/suggestion will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I was told by an Apple Store employee to zero out your drive before installing FCP because the guys at Apple ProVideo won't talk to you unless you've done so - something about isolating bad portions of the drive. When I eventually talked to ProVideo I was told it wasn't necessary to do so - go figure.

Do you have AppleCare? You can always ask the ProVideo guys simple questions like this.

Good to hear! I've been in the same boat trying to pinpoint problems w/ an ext drive.

Thanks for posting back with the ultimate outcome Ron. All drives need to be formatted HFS+ (Extended). This was a frequent problem with early versions of FCP and there are numerous posts here about formatting drives for capture issues.

I have a short where in some shots the sky is blue and in some shots the sky is white. What's the best way to match the sky color so it looks the same. Like say I wanted to make the blue sky look white.

Use the secondary color corrector.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/cc_legal_fcp4.html
Secondary Color Correction

This type of color correction refers to being able to adjust one color value in a scene without affecting other colors, also referred to as selective color correction. This can be used to change the color of a sky or intensify the blue in a sky without affecting the rest of the scene. It can be used to change any colored object in an image, like a shirt, from one color to another.

This technique is similar to blue screen effects, where the blue screen is keyed out (made transparent) to replace the blue background with another scene.

To perform this color correction, we can use the Color Corrector 3 Way or Color Corrector filters. The controls are the same for each filter. I like the Color Corrector filter for this, as it gives a lot of flexibility for modifying the chosen color, even if the desired color shift is substantial.


(search for "secondary color correction"... you will need to scroll down)

2- You could also try to do things with gradients. i.e. generate a gradient somewhere and add blue to the white skies.

3- You can also use garbage mattes to isolate the sky more.

Ran a search and came up w/ nothing. What does the smooth point tool do in FCP HD? I know what the pen tool and delete point tool do, but not sure about the smooth point.

In a sequence I'm working on, the thumbnails of a few clips in the timeline say "Media Offline," but they're not offline. They're in the browser with no line through them, they play and edit normally, and nothing seems amiss, except the thumbnail is displaying this message.

I've tried doing the preference trash trick, reconnectint the media, and a few other things, but they're still there. I'm getting inclined to forget about it and just continue working, but it still bothers me. I hate odd inconsistencies because they sometimes lead to odder and bigger inconsistencies.

Has anyone encountered this before or have a solution?

thanks.

Try recapturing.

I'll try that as a last resort. As I said, it all seems to work. In fact, twice now, the thumbnails appeared, then disappeared a few minutes later.

Odd behavior, and it makes me worried, but it's only in one sequence out of about 20 total, so I'll just keep an eye on it and see how it goes.

So I guess this hasn't happened to anybody else? If so, please let me know.

Just as a follow up to this question: I found a free tool that runs on OS X and converts ASF to DV. It's called ffmpegx and can be found here: http://homepage.mac.com/major4/download.html

Screenshot of it in action here:
http://www.ftmyers.com/ffmpegx.JPG

I purchased an external Hard Drive (40 Gigs) so I can use iMovie 3 on OS X on an iMac DV, 400 mhz drive with 512 ram. However, is it best to move files from the HD to the external to create more HD space for iMovie editing? OR should I (or can I) use the external for editing....? Stupid question I know....

Your going to have to experiment. That is a relatively slow iMac, but should do OK with iMovie. I would try capturing to the external FireWire drive.

imovie captures to wherever the project file is saved
save it to your hd and try that
just make sure your external hd has some speed to it.

This sounds like a permissions problem. If you're running OS X, try repairing permissions on your hard drive. (Other problems may go away also)

Motion is programmed not to install if it doesn't detect one of these cards.

Theoretically, Motion could run on other cards (with a hack, let's say), but since it relies upon OpenGL, what you see in realtime with an untested card may not be what you actually get.

Best to stick with a G5 with a 9800 Mac Special Edition 256 MB card.

If the filter is not working you can bring in a simple black and white matte image, place in timeline under the clip you want to matte, then set the top clip's composite mode to "Travel Matte - Luma".

<<<-- Originally posted by Josh Mellicker : This sounds like a permissions problem. If you're running OS X, try repairing permissions on your hard drive. (Other problems may go away also) -->>>

Yeah, that's actually the first thing I tried. That and the permissions workaround that involves deleting the three FCP permissions, etc.

Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. Very strange, but it doesn't seem to affect anything. If I have any time, I can try recapturing, but that's another few hour of work that I'm trying to avoid now if I don't have to do it.

You could go to the offending clips in the timeline and do a match frame and replace edit if there aren't too many of them- perhaps if the browser clips are working fine this would fix whatever weirdness the timeline clips are exhibiting...

Hi all

I've recorder an interview using a single mic so I have the left channel of a stereo channel with dialogue. I've deleted the right channel becuase there is notihng on it. Obviously when played back it's on the left channel only.

This is FCP 4.5 HD I'm usign by the way...

Question is how do I convert this to a stereo track? Is there a magic way, do I jsut copy and paste the left to the right? Would that cause problem with phase?

Any help appreciated, I'm reading the manual but it doesn't appear to cover this particular problem or I just havn't found it.

Many thanks
Donie

I think you already identified the easiest way, just copy the audio you have into the other track.

To copy one track to another (video or audio) in the timeline, select the track while holding down the option key, then drag the clip to the target track. To make sure the copy stays in sync, hold down the the shift key before releasing the mouse button.

Donnie,

When you bring a clip with one channel of audio into the timeline, make sure you only have one audio track in the timeline targeted. This will automatically get rid of the dead audio track and when played back, the audio will play in both left and right channels as indicated by the VU meters.

Another option is to process your audio separately. This typically what I do. When I've finishde a project, I export the audio alone then process it in Bias Peak and tweak the EQ, add compression, and sometimes some reverb.

If you have a mono track you can give it a psuedo stereo effect that gives it a slightly different ambience. Be careful not to over do it or it will sound fake and processed.

Thanks for that guys, I will have a go using Dave's method and see how that goes. Appreciate the help.

Donie

I tried adding Barry's 16:9 XL-2 footage to a an FCP 4.5 sequence set to Anamorphic but FCP still insists on rendering it. I removed the 16:9 function while in QuickTime and re-saved the movie. After importing it to FCP I made sure the clip was set to Anamorphic just like the sequence was.

It displays correctly in the Canvas but there is a single red bar above the clip in the timeline. The FCP manual says no rendering is required.

Anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Greg

In an interview I recently shot indoors, The subject was wearing glasses and the result was that in the the left hand side of his eye glasses there is a large bright reflection of a window and outside.

I am now looking to minimalise this mistake in post is there any way to do this?

Any suggestions welcomed.

Thank you.

1- Maybe you could color correct it so that attention is drawn to the other side of the subject's face???

Tools to try:
Add vignetting, or some sort of gradient that goes from left to right. With the gradient, make the left side dark, the middle part would have the transition area of the gradient, and the right side light.

If you're really good you can make it look like it was lit that way. I doubt this, but haven't tried.

You can isolate off areas of the face with:
mask things off with a garbage matte. There are some filters you can get which gives you more than 4 points on the garbage matte.
secondary color corrector - target colors that are in the face but not in the background.
??? difference key. If the camera does not move, you may be able to pull off a difference key.

Use curves or a secondary color corrector to bright down the brightness of the highlight.

2- Do something artistic to distract the viewer's attention away from the highlight, or make it look intentional.

Distracting: Soft focus (duplicate video onto itself, set the top layer's opacity to ~50% and add gaussian blur)

Make it look intentional: Use curves and blow all the highlights out. Add some other 'artistic' filters/tricks like the soft focus trick above.

That's all I can think of right now.

3- Post a still frame grab?

4- I don't think Final Cut has a curves filter by default. I'm not sure where you can get a free one.

I don't know anything about the clip you're talking about. However you should be able to open it in the viewer and make sure the item properties are set for anamorphic 16:9. Create a sequence and make sure it is also set to 16:9. No rendering should be required.

Sounds like you did all this. In that case, my guess would be that the clip in question was not compressed with the DV codec, and that would require you to render regardless of how you set everything else.

<<<-- Originally posted by Boyd Ostroff : I don't know anything about the clip you're talking about. However you should be able to open it in the viewer and make sure the item properties are set for anamorphic 16:9. Create a sequence and make sure it is also set to 16:9. No rendering should be required.

Sounds like you did all this. In that case, my guess would be that the clip in question was not compressed with the DV codec, and that would require you to render regardless of how you set everything else. -->>>

Boyd,

The clip is the beach/bird footage posted by Barry in the XL-2 forum. It is probably the codec thing. Thanks.

Greg

If I make a DVCAM master tape from my NLE and then recapture this DVCAM master tape, it looks like I am losing some resolution. I would have thought that since I am in the digital domain I wouldn't lose any resolution. Can this be due to the DV codec?

From the tape to the computer and back again is all digital so there will not be any loss of resolution no matter how many round trips the data takes. All the codec is doing in this case is converting (decoding) the digital DV data to soemthing quicktime can display on your screen. Only if you alter the image in the NLE will the codec get involved in encoding the changes into DV data.

Perhaps you changed some capture settings or the timeline is set for reduced quality.

Yeah, unless you edited the footage and added dissolves or something it should be a straight digital to digital copy. The only problem "might" be that the head on your deck/camera, whatever you are recording with, might be dirty or something. You might want to clean your heads first if it has been awhile since you last used it.

Purchased a ShuttlePro2 to use w/ FCP HD. Ever since I started using it, FCP seems to crash abnormally. I haven't lost any work and haven't trouble-shooted yet as Jeff Donald suggests, Is FCP acting strange? (http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26728/)

I just want to know if anyone has had trouble using this device w/ FCP HD?

Not so far, but I use version 1. Keep use posted Matt.

Is there another program than can be used to generate titles with effect other than Live Type?

Motion! More can be found at Apples website: http://www.apple.com/motion

Thanks Glenn.

I appreciate you taking the time to offer advice.
I will now go and have a play with your suggestions and see what happens.

Thanks again,
Hayden

Thanks Greg,

I'm in a real bind, my fcp didn't come with the "data disk" for live type so I have no efects installed (they guy I bought it from sworeit was legit and compleat, live and learn) so I can't use live type.

"Motion" looks like a great program, I've been looking for a reason to buy it.

The downside is I have a mirror drive G4, so I'll have to get a new video card, and from what I've read, I'm very confused about which one to get. When the time comes I'll call a retailer with my specs and intentions and see what I'm told.

Thanks I thought I was really sunk.

My question is simple, can FCP handle the MXF-file structure of the new sony XDCAM optical disk camera's?

I don't believe there is at the present time. It may be supported by some of the third party capture cards available. I would suspect that by the time the camera ships Apple may have an update to accommodate the camera. Or you may have to wait until FCP is updated.

I think xdcam is the next revolution, considering cost, storage and its filebased structure it will be appealing to a lot of shooters and the quality is excellent. Panasonic will have a working p2 camera on the IBC so i am curious about that as wel!!

OK - OK you guys if you've got $2500 to laydown for a new mac , which would you chose , a new decked out 20" imac or a basic 15" pwb- programs are the usual suspects. thanks Kurth

iMac with the G5 processor wins in every category except portability and weight.

This might just be something you can't fix in post. Hopefully you can improve it though.

greetings to all; if you are doing DV, the Imac is a consideration, because you can use an external firewire 800 hard drive and have the power of a G5 and the cost benefits of an Imac. Rocstor has in upcoming product that will make this an even better option for those that are working with a budget
the question is expansion, here there is no contest, the tower G5 has the connections for any format, the Imac has a limit to firewire conversion
One of the great things about the new G5, my clients that are doing DV have a very easy upgrade path to DV/SDI conversion, direct SDI and direct HDI.
thanks, brian
apple pro video

Hello, all! I'm working on a MiniDV feature shot with the DVX100 and edited on Final Cut Pro 4. Now I'm getting to the phase of color-correction, and I need your help.

When I do color correction on a clip with large areas of a uniform color, artifacts show up. Big, blocky, posterization artifacts. These do not appear on the original, unmodified footage, only when I change the colors to make it look really dark and cold. I understand that DV has limitations because of the severe compression inherent in the medium. But due to the nature of the scene (shooting day-for-night) I HAVE to do a lot of color correcting on it.

Is there any way to minimize the appearance of these artifacts? Any color-correcting techniques that I could apply to prevent them from showing up, or to at least diffuse them? I know some people here do color correction by up-rezzing the footage to "preserve color space"... Does this help with posterization artifacts? Would adding a grain-type filter be a solution, or would that just muddy up the final image?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.