What type of outputs does the Sony have?

Hey Jeff,

It has a remote digital I/0 for use w/ a special sony optical cable, and a phones/line out jack for analog connections (I know the latter can be used with a mac via the mic jack on the computer, but apparently this results in less than desirable audio.

It reads like you need something with S/PDIF coaxial connections. This might do the trick, USBPre from Sound Devices. (http://www.sounddevices.com/products/usbpremaster.htm)

Hi,

I am trying to hook up an external monitor in this configuration:
PowerMac 8600/300 (using fcp 1.0.1)--->firewired to Canon GL2--->RCA to TV.

Im under the impression device control needs to be enabled for this to work, but when i turn it on the i get this message:

"device control will not be available using the currently selected firewire protocol. the firewire or dv enablers are missing."

the protocol is set on apple firewire basic, but i have tried them all.

I searched for the enablers on my mac and found (in the extensions folder)
firewire enabler---version 2.7
firewire support---version 2.7
quicktime firewire dv enabler---version 2.2
quicktime firewire dv support---version 2.2

My ultimate goal is to monitor fcp on a tv monitor. if im correct that device control needs to enabled does anybody know why i get the above message.
or is there a way to hook up a monitor without having to enable device control.

im very new at all this so any help would be great.

Colin.

Hi everyone,
I'm looking at adding a larger external hard drive soon.
quick question for FCP users. Is anyone editing DVCpro or above and using any Firewire 800 cards and hard drives? How about HD editing? It Seems that the throughput might be fast enough to edit 720p HD @ 100 Mbps- any confirmation from the field?
I have a G4, 1 gig ram, FCP 4.

Thanks,

Jeff

Thanks - I took a look at the Sound Devices. It seems perfect, but alas a little more than I can spend right now. I also found the following sound card, with fire wire connectivity, for just around $75. What do you think?


http://www.core-sound.com/Firewire-Audiophile.html

It's been a while since I've edited on my beige G3 with OS9, but I do remember having to deal with the extensions you've mentioned.

My first thought is that since you've chosen Basic Firewire, you may only be able to see the image going through the camera, and not control it.

Have you gotten the same error on all settings?

Make sure that you've updated to the latest version of Quicktime that you can install on your machine. I've known this to be a problem.

Is this the first time you've tried doing this or is the a new problem that has recently surfaced?

There are a coule of forums you might want to try that target FCP users. One that I like is PostForum.com. And they have a lot more forums than Final Cut.

These are my initial thoughts, but if something jogs my memory, I'll post.

Good luck.
Peace!
Chris

What is the best workflow with regards to codecs and maintaining image integrity when doing post work on DV footage in AfterEffects and rendering it out to be used in FCP 4.1?

I would have assumed that simply rendering my AE material out using the DV codec would be fine, but I am wondering if I am going to take an unwanted hit in quality as I recompress my DV material.

Does it make more sense to render out as lossless any interative DV post material and only render out as DV when it is ready to finally go back to FCP?

An thoughts on this?

Hi everyone,

I have a major problem with my export at the moment, and this forum is a brilliant place to find solutions.

I've recently got into the videography industry, and are still somewhat new (though proficient) at Final Cut Pro. I have some footage at the moment of a School Speech Night, which includes students walking across a stage to shake hands with the principal and recieve an award.

I have two queries with this work. Firstly, one of the cameras was being used by a friend of mine who was stuck with a dodgy tripod, that could not fluidly pan or stay still without a vibrating effect. What is the best way to minimise the camera shakes in this footage (baring in mind that it cannot be reshot)?

Secondly, when exporting footage in MPEG2 format for DVD use, the footage struggles with movement. I don't know the name for the problem, but the footage has obvious lines through movement. The effect I am talking about can be found if you tried to use a still frame from a frame rich with movement; there are lines breaking up the shot. Now I understand why this happens in a still shot, but is there a way to stop it in the actual video?

Thanks in advance folks,
Tim

I am directing a read along series for kids and am
trying to figure out the best way to produce the
effect I want. I am editing this in FCPHD. I am
looking for a text creation and tracking method so
that the text fades in grey and as it is read turns to
black. I have tried creating this using
illustrator/photoshop combo and have also experimented
with Livetype. The ill/photoshop method basically
entails creating a still for each word. With this
method I get a nice pop as each word appears, but the
text does not seem to be as crisp or clear as I would
like.
Using Livetype the clarity seems to be a bit better
but I do not get that same pop and trying to keyframe
each word was extremely difficult. Is there a filter
or some technique to add clarity to the Photoshop
technique, or is there some easy way that I am missing
to do this using Livetype or the text generator within
FCP. OR is there a program out there that this could
be done in that could solve all of these issues?
Surely someone out there has encountered something
like this, worked on a similar project, or just has some words of wisdom. Below is a link if you would like to see a screenshot. Thanks in advance!
http://us.f1f.yahoofs.com/bc/227d6c75/bc/KICSFLIX/3Bears.png?bf.MJtBBx49l_kh0
copyright Franklin Media Networks LLC

It doesn't hurt to do it lossless to make sure you don't degrade your work unnecessarily... I mean, disc space is pretty cheap.

A lot of people will use Animation... be ready for high file sizes!

First, what program are you going to use to author the DVD?
I ask because I've never had much luck "exporting" from FCP to another format. I always just make a self contained movie and do my compression with Cleaner. I haven't even spent that much time with "Compressor" because I already know what works and what doesn't in Cleaner. For DVD's I use iDVD or DVD Studio Pro, both of which do a fine job for my needs.

Second, what kind of lines are you talking about? Vertical or Horizontal? Are you seeing the interlacing of the video (fine horizontal lines, called fields)? Are you previewing this on an NTSC monitor or just on your computer screen?

Third, depending on how bad the camera shake is, you can try to use FCP's "image stabilizer" filter (found in filters-video) or look for a third party plugin (they usually have a free demo to try before you buy). Other than that you might need to do a bunch of key framing to help correct it. Now you see the value in a very nice tripod huh?

Rhett,
Believe me, a quality new tripod is the first thing on my long shopping list. I'm punching myself now for not organizing a quality hire earlier on.

To answer your initial question, I'm using DVD Studio Pro to author the DVDs. I might start looking seriously at Cleaner, is there anything to your knowledge that Cleaner does, that Compressor does not?

In relation to these lines, I'm talking about horizantal lines, which as you described probably is the interlacing of the video, I just never knew the term. I'm previewing through a PAL monitor (in a complex series of wires, before I can afford a deck), that has the problem of constantly seeming to skip frames; these frames aren't skipped on the computer monitor, but the video monitor can be very distracting for this reason. My theory is that it is the connection, but when I export to MiniDV, the same frame skipping problem occurs.

I'll give the image stabilizer a try... are the third party plugins generally of a high enough quality to pay for?

If you are using DVD Studio Pro you can encode it there instead of out of FCP and will get much better results. Just export as QuickTime movie with the settings at "current settings" (probably "DV Pal 48K" in your case) and choose make "movie self contained" (NOT recompress all frames), then add that file to your DVD project. That gives you a pure DV file to work with and compress it in DVD Studio Pro.
Cleaner has a bunch of variables you can adjust to tweak the output of your file. Like I said, I haven't used Compressor much but from just looking at it, it seems to have similar settings available, I just haven't tried it much because I have thousands of hours invested in Cleaner (for web use) and it will do WMP and Real player as well. I also have Cleaner on my PC so I can set it to encode (although it's much slower on the PC's) and then use my Macs to work on something else. I have a new video for web project coming up (no huge deadline) and I am planning on using Compressor on it as a learning project.

As far as third party plugins, yes, many of them are well worth the money, some are not though. There are infinite ways to create custom settings in FCP and some plugins are just presets of those settings so you don't have to fuss with trial and error. Just Google "FCP Plugins" as a start.

As far as the field problem, make sure you are encoding it in the same field order as you captured it (lower first is FCP default). If it's for computer use de-interlace the footage when you encode it.
DUh! Sorry about that, obviously you would need to view it on a PAL monitor if it's PAL footage. Though it shouldn't show the artifacting as much unless it's just a bad encode, which it may have been. Try using the DVDSP approach and see if that helps. Also use the 2-pass VBR method. It takes longer but is worth it in the long run. Find a 30 second segment with stills and motion and use it as a test piece so you aren't stuck waiting for a long process only to see in needs more tweaking.

Thanks a lot for the advice Rhett...

I'll give some of these things a shot, and post my results, be they good or bad.

- I loaded a bunch of footage through my XL2 via Firewire.

- I edited.

- I went through the process of re-loading everything for ONLINE.

- All edit points are off (have drifted) by a significant number of frames. That is to say, the footage that is loaded is a few seconds off (from inpoint to outpoint). It's as if timecode was not LOCKED but approximate instead. It is SO NOT MONEY.

- An AVID editor looking for some FCP redemption. Any help?

Did you shoot at 24fps progressive? You may have to change either your capture settings or/and your timeline settings to 23.98 with the advanced pulldown. I'm just an amateur, so I'm guessing.

If you don't get any good responses here, try the Apple FCP forum:

http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?13@80.Njd4apZEnaC.2@.ee6bcd7

There are many very helpful folks that can probably fix you right up.

Good luck.

I could be smoking something here... but I think that even when you shoot 24p, it goes to tape at 29.97. It gets downcoverted to 29.97 before it hits tape?

I dunno.
Anyway, I did change my capture preset.
It was using the DV Time and I changed it to LTC.
We'll see what that does.

Cheers!
Luke

hey guys.
i was wondering how to achieve the lighting effect that is used in many music videos...it sort of looks like a photocopy beam is crossing over the video rapidly and randomly...it should be some sort of filter in after effects but i can't seem to find it.

thanks a lot!
matt stawski.

If print quality is 300DPI and TV is 72 DPI- what DPI is Hi-Def TV?
What resolution does graphics have to be for hi definition tv/video

Printers use DPI to show how much info they put in an inch of space so you get measurements like 300 dots per inch. The higher the DPI the more detailed the print.

A video signal simply tells you how many pixels you are getting (more or less), and not how densely those pixels are packed, so 72 DPI isn't a real measurement. A TV can be 12" or 40" and still only show the same number of pixels. A DVD playing Standard Definition has 720x480 resolution. As for HD...

From: http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/learn/about/chapters/0,,2076_3105627_3105648,00.html

1080i and 720p
How do 1080i and 720p compare? 1080i actually has higher resolution than 720p, but doesn't render motion quite as well. 720p-with its progressive scanning-delivers smoother motion (especially important for fast-moving action, such as in sports) but has lower resolution than 1080i. Still great, but lower. (Don't worry; any HDTV receiver can receive both formats, and a true HDTV television can display both formats.)

Pixels
Another way to compare the two is by looking at their pixel count (pixel is short for "picture elements", the individually addressable areas of light and shadow on your screen). The 720p format creates an image with 720 lines, each with 1280 pixels, so it has a resolution of 1280 x 720. The 1080i format creates an image with 1080 lines, each with 1920 pixels, so its resolution is a higher 1920 x 1080. Denser pixels = a better picture.

Hi everyone,
I want to get my 12 yr old son a tapeless camera for christmas.
Are there any of these types of cams that dont burn an MPEG4?

Will Imovie import MPEG4?
I have an Imac G3 w/ a 400 MHz and 512 MB.
OS 10.2.8
Firewire ans USB ports.
Also, cheap is a plus.
Am I spitting in the wind here?
thanks

I think it will be difficult to do this with iMovie unless you have a DV camera with firewire. AFAIK iMovie only works with 720x480 DV, so you would need to convert the MPEG somehow. QuickTime Pro can probably do that, but it would involve a number of steps along the way. I got my daughter a cheap Sharp ViewCam when she was a few years older than your son. She and her friends had lots of fun making videos (some were really good in fact). They edited on an iMac just like you described, although I think it was a 600mhz G3 using a firewire interface. A 400 mhz machine might be borderline.

I believe there are some inexpensive USB based devices that can capture analog video that might do what you want. I had one of these in the days before iMovie came out. It captured relatively low res (something like 320x240) from any camera with composite output and came bundled with editing software from Strata (something like "Videoshop" I think). It was all very inexpensive and might be enough for a beginner.

Download genarts sapphire.
The glows are wonderful and mixed with other tratments and masks, you can get some pretty wonderful looks. There is no template for this. Play and cerate.
If you can't afford sapphire effects, you can fake glows by duplicating layers, adding brighness n saturation, burs and opacity changes.

Matthew,

Also play around with Effect>Render>Beam

Apply this effect to a black solid in your comp and set the transfer mode to Add. There are different parameters you can change like start/end width, softness, color, etc. Get the beam looking how you like then just animate its position.

Or better yet. Try filming an actual photocopier :) You never know.

peace
jes

Does anyone know who makes the best training DVD's?

I'd prefer those that you sit and watch the tutor giving a demonstration on film rather than me reading and doing tutorials.

Any suggestion would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Jonathan

Check out the Magnet Media DVD at the LAFCPUG store; it is quite good. There are others there, as well.

http://www.digitalmediatraining.com/products/fcphd/index.html

http://www.apple.com/motion/trial/

Nice 30 day free trial! (http://www.apple.com/motion/trial/) Some with older machines note before you do the hefty download that you might want to check the specs and see if your machine can handle it http://www.apple.com/motion/specs.html


Motion PowerStart Now Shipping! * LA Motion User Group (http://www.dvcreators.net/products/motionps.html)

The only time I've seen this happen is when you have ALSO recorded some regular DV on the same tape. Don't mix DV and DVCAM on the same tape. I've seen people burn bars and tone at the head in DV (even on another camera or deck when bulking up for a shoot) then switch to DVCAM or reuse a tape that had been used for DV previously. Also, are you moving the tape at all between the stop and start? Meaning, do you stop the tape while recording, view it, then record some more? Make sure you use "end search" if so.

Talk about fixing it in post...

I just got back from the other side of the globe where I shot in 16:9 anamorphic squeeze mode (DVX100A) and noticed, upon digitizing (FCP 3) that seen in full frame a lot of footage has some curved vignetting on the left side of the screen (especially upper and lower corners). This was caused by a mattebox error, which I failed to notice on location as it was cropped out of the camera viewfinder and LCD.

Should I worry about this showing up on wide screen televisions, or will it naturally be cropped in any non-NLE/pro monitor playback environment? If this is an issue, what are my best options? I know I can crop it out on FCP by blowing up the shot, but I fear this will greatly affect the resolution.

Any thougths would be appreciated.

Also, to avoid this happening again, does the anamorphic 16:9 viewfinder adaptor available for the DVX show the full frame?

Many thanks in advance.

Just about all prosumer cameras overscan unfotunately. The anamorphic viewfinder adaptor is just a lens that squeezes the existing image into proportion, it can't change the overscan problem.

My 16:9 LCD monitors (Sony 17" and Samsung 22") both overscan by about 3%, which is pretty comparable to the viewfinders on my Sony cameras. Since you're on a Mac you might want to download the free program "Test Pattern Maker." It creates 720x480 JPEG's of a variety of charts, one of which is an overscan chart. By sending this chart to your camera from FCP via firewire you can see how much the viewfinder or a monitor overscans: http://www.synthetic-ap.com/downloads/tpmmdown.html.

Instead of stretching the video to eliminate the vignetting you could crop it a little which would result in some very narrow black bars that probably wouldn't be too noticeable, if they show at all on a consumer TV.

I'm trying use an older TV as a preview monitor to FCP. By "older" i mean that the TV only has a coaxial input - no RCAs. To get the video from FCP to the monitor, I'll go FW to a Dazzle! bridge, then RCAs from the bridge to a VCR, then coax from the VCR to the TV.

Is this a good idea or should I just front $70 and go get a cheap TV that has RCA inputs?

I'd invest in a new telly.

Graeme

Thanks very much Boyd. I couldn't have hoped for a clearer, more helpful response.

I'm looking into cropping as you suggested, though I'm not certain that eliminating the vignetting on one side of the frame with black bars on either side would be any less distracting, in the event that a given monitor displays that much of the image.

I see that I need to create a new sequence to crop and center a shot - though I am still not clear on how to reintigrate these shots afterwards into the original timeline, among the uncropped shots.

Hi
More a question that answer!
Wouldn't your set give huge latancy and additional noise to the signal?
I have tried using a TV with FCP though FW to Canopus to TV and found moderate latancy,
Cheers
Nigel

It probably wouldn't look the best Nigel, but I figured that if I can make it look good through that system, then it would look awesome on better systems.

when I was a staffer at CMT, we had old 25" Magnavox consumer TVs as the client monitor in every linear suite. Never told lies on title safe, showed how certain colors would bleed and we even turned down the studio monitors and listened through the little mono speaker every now and again while mixing. Not a bad thing to have at home.
Swing by radio shack and grab an RCA to coax adapter.

Mark I think your dead right there which was my plan, however the latency I was getting put me off, it seemed to make my "contour" shuttle behave like spagetti mixing!

Having said that, what I was concerned about in your message was noise induced by the "multiple" connections through a multitude of devices,
but Grinner seems to have answered that one nicely, thanks Grinner.

Me I went out and bought a sony trinitron TV and run it straight out of my mac's S video port now. Nice colours, crisp image and no latency noticable really. But I have to watch it's tendancy to gointo "dynamic mode" on switching on with the S vidio plugged in, as that blows seeing what I have really have for a sony inhancement.

Cheers Mark and again for the advice grinner.

nig

hey ive been trying to learn shake and its quite confusing. i was wondering if anybody knew a place with good tutorials or good books on it. thanks

Apple Pro Series training books..

I have been working in soundtrack to add some beats to a project I am currently doing. I have however noticed that the quality compared to other tracks(from cd or from the net) is rather poor....Is there anybody out there that has worked with soundtrack for a film or series? I have some interesting samples from Powerfx that came straight of a cd so I am suprised about the poor quality.

I am having trouble wrapping my brain around an effect I am creating.
I need to have 20 full res frames of video fly in and twist (they can move as 1 wall of video or independently, either will work for me) and then come toward camera, maintaining their relationship to one another until one of my 4 center frames completely fills the screen in full resoulution. These 20 frames are individual pieces of video, so a simple multiplication effect won't work.

I have tried layering all 20 tracks, nesting and throwing a BCC DVE on and reducing to 15%, but then when I click in to position my individual tracks, they blow back up to 100% and I cannot see far enough out on the edges to create a proper placement.

Any ideas, filters I may not have that will do the trick easily, filters I do have but have not yet used?

Please help, under a deadline.

Thanks,

Evan

Got my answer from the local FCPUG.

Thanks to anyone who at least thought about it.

Any tips for shooting Hi8 then converting it to DV ? I am trying to get the best quality possible until i can get my GS400.

Get an analog to digital converter?

Shot on Canon XL2 at 24P - 16:9
Loaded in Firewire / DV NTSC Anamorphic codec
Have selected "none" in the field order pulldown box of my sequence preferences. Footage looks STELLAR!

I have slowed some footage down (on the sequence side).
When dissolving to another slow-mo clip, the previous clip plays at 2x REVERSE!

I have also experienced the outgoing footage freeze-framing on the dissolve out.

Now, I have found ways around this (still perfecting before I post a solution). But I wanna know why it does this. This is doofy.

Cheers!
Luke

Some Sony D8 cameras are backward compatable and will play out footage shot on a Hi 8 camera. This can be transfered to another DV deck or computer by firewire.

Hey all. I'm shooting a project in a few weeks with multiple cameras. The main one is the XL2 on which i'll be shooting in 16x9 24p. but there are also supplementary handicam type things that will be getting secondary shots that i'll use from time to time. Is there an effective way to cut the 16x9 24p shots with the 4:3 regular dv shots so that it doesnt look horrible? I know that you'll be able to tell the difference in quality, I just don't want to a) drag down the quality of the 24p or b)compress the 16x9 (i'd rather stretch the 4:3). How should I capture both of them?

I don't know about HD, but when I first got into FCP, I sat in on a few classes at the Apple stores. The classes were free and really helped me wrap my head around the entire subject. Then, I stayed after and asked the guy teaching about specifics. Now, when I have questions, I call that individual. He's always happy to get off the sales floor and talk NLE with me.

I should have did this in the first place, but I called the canon tech support and they told me that the canon GL2 is only compatible with final cut 4 and later and you have to be running mac os 10.1 to 10.3.

so it looks like i'm in for an upgrade.

thanks for trying to help out chris!!