I don't use Virtual PC, but I haven't heard of a compatibility problem. However, many programs that involve heavy processor work, like encoders, run very, very slowly on Virtual PC.

It will be better (higher quality) if the file is uncompressed. Your friend can import the uncompressed avi into QT Pro and convert to whatever format he needs.

Search audio sync in this forum and you'll see some of the usual suspects to round up and look at.

A lossless codec like animation (Quicktime) will be the same quality as uncompressed by at around 40% of the size. The Microcosm codec (costs money) compresses more than animation. If you need to go even smaller then a lossy codec is in order, but you could probably just span CDs with something like winRAR.

Anyone have a good method for color balancing against a Macbeth card? I'm looking for a way to use it as an RGB reference, but can't find a tool to balance anything but for what white is, or to manually tweak the image to taste. Nothing for specific colors on the card.

Most cameras are designed to white balance to white or a neutral shade of grey. Higher end cameras (and to some degree the DVX100) have the ability to use a curve to adjust the color responce.

Some of the squares in the Macbeth card have known RGB values that could be measured with a color picker tool. Then a curve would have to be applied to match those colors and the scenes rendered.

Yeah, after a bit of research, it seems as though I would be better off just buying a cheap-o PC running Windows XP. Supposedly, and likely, Macs communicate just fine with XP. As long as I can move files back and forth, I can use the PC and Windows Media Encoder to crunch the video into .wmv files.
I know the two computers can be linked together via ethernet, but is it possible to use firewire? Would the PC mount on the Mac desktop? This isn't really a big deal, I'm just wondering.

So, are you saying to create a red, blue and green color/gamma curve based on a sample RGB value on the color card, then create a profile? I've done that in Photoshop. I wasn't aware it could be done in FCP

You would need to do that in After Effects. Why do you want to use a Macbeth color checker and what issues are you having with color?

I'm looking at taking video from telecine sessions and performing an accurate color grade that will represent what the final release print will look like before I have it finalized. I want to be able to previsualize my final grade and make changes on the desktop before getting into the expensive color timing phase.

Hey everyone,

I'm looking to add a third HD because I'm taking on a rather large project (35+ hours and counting) and want the room to maneuver.

Right now, I have the stock Apple 80 gig HD that came with my G4 and I added a 160 gig Western Digital Caviar (8meg cache, 7200 RPM).

The question, before I buy a 3rd HD, is: Is there any issue in getting a 3rd HD from another company or should I stick with Western Digital? (Not that WD isn't great; I've had zero problems so far. <knock on wood>) And though I seriously doubt it, is there any issue in jumping up to a 200/200+ HD (Western Digital or otherwise) on this G4?

And of course, any brands that I should stay away from in particular or hover to...in the past, I've heard recommendations of IBM, Seagate, WD. How about Maxtor, etc?


Thanks,

Joshua

It won't matter at all. I'm using a variety of HD's on my system. I used to be a total Maxtor fan until they were bought and have had a lot of reported problems. But..looking at my portables and G4 system, I've got a mix of IBM, Maxtor, and WD, plus even a Seagate in there.

Warning! Total Newbie question...

I just installed FCE2 (eMac 1GHz, 1GB, 80GB), my only experience is with iMovie.

I have about 45 minutes of tape shot at my son's 7th birthday party last week. I want to edit it into a coherent story and add some music, then burn a DVD.

I started to capture it clip-by-clip, but the camera whirr-click-buzz seems to eat a lot of time and put a lot of wear and tear on the hardware.

Should I just transfer the whole tape in one big chuck and then chop it up in FCE2, or is the clip-by-clip transfer the better way to go? How do you usually transfer whole tapes?

Also, i feel really overwhelmed by the complexity of FC, I assume it's not as huge as it seems at first? How long will it take to become reasonably competant with this software? I figure I can spend one hour per day learning it.

Thanks...

Hang in there Dan.

Was in your situation 9 months ago. Now I would not go back to iMovie. (even though it is a great programme too.

Import your total footage. It is not worth wasting time and effort selecting clips here and there. (Having batch capture would have helped here but this is not FCP!)

My tip is

Create 2 video tracks
Drag the whole clip (45 Mins) to one of these and drag it over to the right of the time line to give you room to create say a 10 minute movie starting at zero.

Go to the section you want.
Use the blade tool (keyboard b or b+b to cut video and audio) to cut to create a clip
If the snapping to the nearest cut is on (and this annoys you), toggle this setting by pressing "n"
copy and paste (again use AppleC and Apple V)
Place in in the 1st track
Get next clip and repeat
Put this in the 2nd track with a small overlap of the first
You can adjust the boundary by dragging the edges (To get the arrow pointer back at any time, click A)
Repeat this process until you have your movie
The top track will always superimpose on the lower when you play back
Whilst doing this going back and forth, get used to using the z tool to zoom in ans Z+Z twice to soom out.
For transitions, open the transitions and drag to the clip edges you want.

Hope this helps.

Regards P

I have a DV project which is taking longer than I would like to render on dual 2 gig G5.
In the middle of the project I decided that I would try offlineRT, so I exported the clips as offlineRT NTSC and converted the timeline to photoJPEG then I reconnected the DV NTSC media to the exported offlineRT media.
Due to the 320x240 frame size of offlineRT the each of these clips appear to need resizing to 720x480, this seems cumbersome. Do I resize all of the clips then shrink them down again after I recoonect the original DV footage?
I am sure that I am doing something wrong here, can anyone point out what it is?

Do you guys all do a quick format of your media drive at the end of one project before starting another? Any advantage or disadvantage to doing it?

And is there any harm to not partitioning your drives (maybe because they're too big - 160gb or 200+gb)?



Joshua

Promax recommends IBM drives since they were the most reliable in their experience with thousands of drives. Seagate and WD come #2, and they don't like Maxtor. Generally IBM, Seagate, and WD are fine. Seagates are slightly slower but they are the quietest.

If you want to RAID later then get 2 drives of the same model. Otherwise I'd just get the largest WD/IBM drive you can afford. IBM sold their drive division to Hitachi, so they're Hitachi now.

You don't need to partition your drives. It *may* help in reducing fragmentation since fragmentation stays on one partition only, and you can selectively clean up that partition by defragging it or deleting everything on it.

Fragmentation really isn't a problem if you keep only large files on a drive. Some people just quick format their drives when they're done a project so they don't have to worry about fragmentation.

That's what I do personally, just format the drive and start all over again!

Thanks for any input guys. I just went out and bought the WD 250GB 8mb cache HD at Best Buy. $259 + $90 rebates and I had 80 bucks on a gift card. So in the end, it worked out alright for me.

That and I already have the WD 160gb so it just felt right. WD's done alright by me so far. <knocking on wood some more>

So I went into Disk Utility and the 160 gig hard drive showed like this:

149.05 GB WDC
Media

"Media" being the name and there being no partitions on the drive. So I clicked on "Media" and went to Erase. It was in "Extended" format already and after having read, "http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/mac_not_mother.html" I kept it that way - on Mac OS Extended. I hit Erase and it cleared everything in a matter of about 5 seconds.

Being raised on a PC, that felt too quick. Should I have highlighted the "149.05 GB WDC" and hit erase there or am I just being paranoid? I checked the drive and indeed, it was all gone...


Joshua

What is the difference between the Setups

DV-NTSC
and
DV-NTSC 48 kHz-FW Basic?

Thanks,
Shawn

I just writes a new directory that ignores all the old files, so it looks empty. When you start capturing to the drive it overwrites the old files. If you want to format the drive (write zeros and ones) that will take hours.

Just upgraded to FCP4, everything works fine, even the FCP3 project that I have to finish was imported without problems (quite a relief that...)
I noticed though that there is a difference between some clips' display in the bins: some have the standard appeareance, others have jagged edges.
Both types of clip play ok though, have looked in the manual but couldn't find out what this is. No differences in clips when I go to "item properties".
Not really a problem, but I would like to know what this means. Btw I've only opened a FCP3 project so far.
thx in advance
Michiel
(I wanted to attach a picture of a screen grab but can't attach anything to this message. If you want to help but don't know what I'm talking about send me an email and I'll send the screengrab over)
vanderzeeuw@planet.nl

Hi all, if anybody can please help me out with this...

A few days ago I took my PB to a friend's so we could rescue a project and print it to video (his boot HD had died). We were able to boot off my PB as a FW drive and print his project, a great lifesaver... we could never have got away with something like that on PCs. Anyway, after getting back home my FCP4 would ask me for his disks, and there seemed no way of reconfiguring my setup so I trashed some FCP preferences files (don't remember exactly which). Now, everything works as usual BUT i am dropping frames and seeing something like half-res, half-frame rate video previewed over firewire. I don't want to have to reinstall everything, but I will as a last resort. Does anybody have a clue about what might be going on? Of course I stupidly did not save a backup of the files I trashed. Any other solution before resintalling the whole thing? Thanks...

Re-install if you don't know what you trashed. Just trashing preferences won't do what you say. When you restart after trashing the preferences (and emptying the trash) FCP recreates new preferences, using the default settings. You probably trashed a file other than the preferences.

> When you restart after trashing the preferences
> (and emptying the trash) FCP recreates new preferences,
> using the default settings.

Oh it did. It just seems that when determening the defaults for this machine something when wrong, it's as if FCP were set up to run on a much slower computer.

If you think you only trashed the preferences, then do it again and see if the results are the same.

DV-NTSC is 12 bit 32 kHz instead of the 48 kHz for the other?
On my NLE [pc] the difference between the presets is listed so
you can see for yourself.

Michiel, you can't attach files within these boards indeed. If you
want I can host a screengrab for you at my site. Shoot me an
e-mail at visuar@iname.com

Michiel,

Go ahead and send me the screengrab and I'll see if I can help you out. If not, I'll share it with some of the other Mac wranglers... between all of us, we'll track it down probably.

I'm weighing different ideas on how to split the screen with three vertical images (a three-way phone conversation showing all the people at the same time)... and I'm sure there are more ways than that.

Anyone have any input on what would be the best way to do this in FCP?

I've put the screengrab up for all to see: www.visuar.com/DVi/zeeuw.jpg

Some cameras use the "firewire basic" protocol instead of firewire. All Sonys are firewire, most Canons are firewire basic.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/qualification.html <-- check there.

Also check that the capture settings match your camera footage. 32khz audio sampling rate corresponds to 12bit on your camera, and 48khz to 16bit. You should set your camera to record 16bit unless you can't or want to record 4 channels on a XL1s. If your footage is already 12bit (in the camera) then capture using 32khz.

FCP3 captures clips differently than FCP4, maybe the jagged edge is to indicate the difference? That's my wild guess.

nope both clips come from FCP3, from the same tape even. They were captured in one run on the same machine.

Three video layers, each with a simple matte layed in to create the proper shape, and probably position adjusted left and right to place the faces in the right spots. My guess is that it would be far harder to coordinate the timing of the dialogue amongst three people. The easiest way would be have an actual a three way phone conversation, which would require three simultaneous camera setups. Otherwise you are looking at possibly mis-timing of the dialogue--it's a bitch.

Hi folks:

I'm doing some multi-filter 3-way color corrects, and when I attempt to do a "limit effect" layer that focuses on a particular color/section of the frame, I am able to see the changes on a still frame and in a preview version, but upon rendering, the limit effect is not showing up. The other color correction filters that don't involve limits do still work. I'm just baffled on this one. Thoughts? Clarifications needed?

I fixed it. What happened was that for some weird reason FCP reverted to the DC30 driver for handling DV... so it was sooo slooow because there is no DC30 card in my system...

Easily fixed with a few clicks in the right place.

Thanks for the suggestions and keep up the great work This is such a nice place.

Aha and oho. My editing guru (who is, damn his talented soul, all of 21) just stopped by and pointed out that I needed to switch from Unlimited RT to Safe RT, even when looking at still frames. Apparently Unlimited is only an approximation of the final effect, so I was dialing in a look based on a non-accurate preview. Well geez, maybe if I had a sexy G5 under my desk instead of that oh-so-passe dual 1gHz G4...!

Hello everyone,
I started out using imovie but i really need to have more.
Can anyone suggest me a good tutorial book that's complete and easy to use ?

and also: what mac do you suggest ?
I thought to get an iMac, 1gb ram, 160 GB int. HD
What do you think? is the G5 a must? is ext. HD a must?


thanks for your help.
stefano

I am reading and really like Jerry Hoffman on FCP. The DVD has some beautiful footage and excellent exercises that makes the tutorials a joy to edit. He also gives incite into his editorial thinking and the "whys" not just the "how to."

My other favorite is Editing Techniques with Final Cut Pro by Michael Wohl.

As for the computer. The bigger, faster the better. Is a G5 essential? No. Does it make editing easier and faster? For sure.

Enjoy the journey.

Mickey Stroud

A G4 tower would be nice for a few reasons:
dual processors (2nd processor lowers render time by ~70%)
easy to install RAM
can install internal hard drives, which are cheaper and better than FW
can drive dual monitors (dual monitors are cheaper than one big one)

The G5 1.6ghz is a bit underwhelming in my opinion. Probably get a reburbished G4 off http://www.smalldog.com or maybe eBay (if you trust eBay). Installing your RAM is usually half the cost of Apple-installed RAM and very easy to do. www.crucial.com is one place to get RAM.

You can buy many of the FCP training products off the lafcpug.org store, possibly at a discount. The forum there is excellent btw.

There are a couple of good books and videos out there.

EDITING TECHNIQUES WITH FINAL CUT PRO is a great book because it is from the point of view of an editor so he talks about editing first and only in the second part of the book does he get into the 'how to do that in FCP'.

I like Jerry's stuff too.

Final Cut Pro 3 Editing Workshop by Tom Wolsky is good too. even if you find the one for FCP 2 on Half.com or eBay cheap buy it

that also goes if you can find any training videos or CDs off eBay (like the POWERSTART series) buy them if the price is right. Even if it's for FCP 3 it will give you good information and teach you the basics which do not change.

Same goes for FCP 3 books.... you need the basics down first.

I would not recommend the Visual Quickpro book for beginners at all. It's a reference, not a book to teach you.

I was lucky enough to watch the INSIDE FCP 4 dvd at a client's shop recently and it's pretty good but the price is steep.

a week ago I was doing fine. Now Final cut is telling me my camera is not turned on when it's firewired and on and all that other good stuff.... whats up with this? I need to get some work done and the NLVE gremlins are pullin my hardware apart....

I assuming that you plugged the camera in before opening FCP? That is usually my problem.

Try trashing the FCP preferences and then restarting FCP.

If that does not work, do you have another deck or camera to try on that firewire drive? I have had my firewire on a G4 go screwy on me and not work. I had to add more firewire ports.

The time has now come for me to make a choice. I am going to take a class and I must chose between Avid and FCP. I realize this is a hot topic and I am not trying to make trouble. I am totally green and have no opinion. I am also not what you would call a computer guy. I am totally open to all thoughts.

My intention is do this as a part time job, so I am concerned about which system will give my future customers confidence. (Apple offers a "Certification" title if I pass a test. Would somethinglike that be a intangable asset to my future production busines or just a waste of $150)

Is there a great difference in hardware costs?

Flexability is also a factor, as I have no idea if I'll be doing corporate training, indie films, or music videos.

I guess I want to know how you came to choice FCP.

More questions than answers. Thanks for any help you can give.

--Chris please note-I'm going to post this, reworded, on the Avid forum as well to get the Avid POV. If this is a bad idea, please remove it or do what ever you think is best ;-) --

It could be a bad cable, try swapping cables.

What nobody edits in offlineRT? Any help would be appreciated.

I have a great Mac system pushing Avid Express DV. The only problem I have is when I am digitizing long clips of video/ audio (or long clips of video/ audio are playing) the sound begins to pop violently. The audio does not digitize with the popping sound, it only happens during playback. I am using the USB soundsticks and I have heard that may be the problem. Anyone have any insight on this REALLY annoying problem???