Are you using OS X? i never had any problems with the reader and i didnt install any drivers in OSX. i just plugged it into the USB port and insert the memory stick. image capture on the mac automatically launches and im good to go allowing me to DL any or all pix etc.

I don't think you really need drivers with OSX or 9.2x. However I've never used the Sony reader, I have a "Dazzle" reader that accepts memory sticks, compact flash, PC cards, SD cards, etc. and it works fine without having to install any drivers. Sometimes I've needed to reboot with the card already in the reader for it to appear however...

Newer Macs don't seem to have this bug, Marcello, but you are not alone. I was unable to load jpeg files into my G3 running 8.6, until I..... Well, here is a tutorial I put together on the dilemma:

Those of you who use a PC need read no farther. This brief lesson is regarding loading images to a memory stick for use in Sony cameras, such as the PD150 and the VX2000. This is a piece of cake for the PC folks who can use the software that comes with the Sony cameras, but unfortunately the software is not Mac compatible. When we try to upload images to the stick, they appear in the Mac, but will not load from within the camera. As many Mac users have discovered, the solution to this problem is not readily available on the Net.

I wanted to be able to place SMPTE color bars on the beginning of a tape, ala normal professional style shooting, and of course, the supplied camera bars are usable but do not contain some of the information that is useful for setting up a monitor in the field, or, in a post edit bay. Plus, there are times when it would be handy to be able to create a custom matte to be able to actually make the composite on the shoot, much like a matte painting. Anyway, I finally have the answer to the problem, thanks to a software called Graphic Converter from www.lemkesoft.com If you want to load accurate color bars to a memory stick, you should also download the free app, Test Pattern Maker from www.syntheticaperature.com. There are a lot of color bars floating around, and many of them are bogus. You can really make yourself crazy if you set up a monitor to incorrect color bars, and then wonder why your tapes all look weird. If you are curious about the bars you are using, import them to Photoshop and take a look at them, refering to the Info tab. You may find some strange levels. Anyway, once you have these two applications in your Mac, here is what you do:

With Test Pattern Maker, create the standard bars you wish to use, but be sure to make them 640X480 size, as those are the only dimensions you can import to the memory stick. You can make more than one set of bars, if you wish. One can be 0 setup and another 7.5. This opens up another discussion, and its your decision.

Next, open the newly created bars file in Graphic Converter. All you need to do is "save a copy" in the JPEG format pulldown. Be certain to give the copy a new name that is consistent with the files in the stick, such as, DSC00075. When asked, save at maximum quality. That's all there is to it. Unfortunately, you won't be able to get an icon with the file, even if you select that option. Maybe someone who is more computer savy than myself can figure that one out.

Now, to copy to the memory stick, simply drag and drop the new file to the memory stick in the folder which contains your still photos (that is, if you didn't save it directly from the Graphic Converter app). An important note; there must already be at least one saved photo in the file folder, otherwise there will be no folder. So if your memory stick is empty, take a still picture with your camera to create the folder, and you will be good to go.

Remember, you can create other graphics to import to the stick for compositing in the field, such as a "range finder." Sure, you could probably do it in post, but sometimes its just more fun to see the final composite when you shoot it. And often more helpful. You can also create a custom title which you can composite over the scene at the shoot. Since you can see the actual title at the shoot, you may think up ways to have your subjects interact with the title. Be sure to refer to the operating manual for tips on using chroma key or luma key stills for use with the memory stick.

I hope this brings back a smile to some Mac owners who have been cursing the Sony techs for their obvious snub.

Marcello, I hope this helps. Be sure to pay attention to the note about already having a photo on the stik.

shooting in 4x3, editing into a 16:9 movie. tips?
 

with an xl1s, if i shoot in 4x3 with the guidelines on, how do you go about cutting to "create" a 16:9 movie? i will be using final cut pro. is there a specific fcp effect that will do this for me effortlessly? thanks!

Yes, there is a filter in FCP 3 that lets you mask to any of a number of cinematic aspect ratios.

thanks for the tip, ken. can you point the way? i'm looking through all the effects but can't seem to find one related to what i want done...

scratch that... found it under FXScript DVE's. thanks again, ken!

Alternately, you can create your own mask and apply it to your sequence easily. Our own Rob Lohman has an excellent page featuring calculators and masks for this purpose.

<<<-- Our own Rob Lohman has an excellent page featuring calculators and masks for this purpose. -->>>

that is indeed an awesome tool! thanks!

don't forget that your monitor will definitely be a factor in whatever video editing you do. ever try running final cut pro using 1024x768? NOT PRETTY!

i'm not a fan of editing video on an ibook or a powerbook. rendering on my dual 1.25ghz is already a chore. before this machine, i had a quicksilver 867mhz and it was just torture using that machine. also, laptop hard drives are known to be small. unless you've got yourself a firewire drive of some sort, you'll find yourself filling up that internal hdd fast. not to mention all the other apps you'll have installed. those will take up space as well. and keep in mind laptop internal drives can't be upgraded!

basically, if you're looking to buy a machine for editing, i'd recommend looking into a fast desktop. if you're going at it the other way around, (getting a machine for every day use and video editing on the side or as a hobby) then get what you may.

FCP / XL1S / FPS question...
 

i am using the movie mode feature on my canon xl1s. i believe this will cause my camera to record at 30fps. when using fcp, should i edit the fps settings for sequence, capture and device control to 30fps as well? the defaults are all set at 29.97.

or am i totally off here and the movie mode feature is recording at a fps speed other than 30? thanks.

Leave all the presets at 29.97 fps. That is the specification for NTSC video. The frame rate gets abbreviated to 30 fps (quicker to write I guess) all the time but it is always 29.97.

FCP Capturing
 

Just wondering how people captured their videos here? Batch , scene detection , or just capture the whole tape if you have the room?

Hi Joe,
With large disk space so relatively inexpensive these days, I find it much easier to grab whole chunks of a tape and just use scene detection to break it up. It's just so much quicker than cueing and logging every little scene. (Not to mention less wear on my deck.)

I log and capture probably 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time I capture the whole tape (usually less than a half hour of footage).

Fw drives - hub or daisy chain
 

My iMac just has 2 FW ports and I need to keep one available to plug the camera or an iPod into. I have three FW drives (1 Maxtor and 2 WD). Mostly I use iMovie and iTunes on this computer with some Elements and iPhoto.

My question is whether it is better to run all the drives via a powered hub or to just daisy chain them together. I've not tried the hub but did have some strange behavior when they were all daisy-chained together (I'm pretty sure it was a bad cable).

I usually only turn on one FW drive at a time, only rarely two (to transfer data) and I don't think I've ever had them all running at once.

So, hub or daisy-chain?

If daisy chain then is there a source for good short cables. I don't need a 6' Belkin cable (or even 3') for a daisy chain. None of the local places I've chacked in Boulder, nor the Apple store, carry shorter cables.

In the future I'll be moving to FCP4 if that matters.

Thanks.

it all matters...
 

FW is more problematic than many people think so the questions are very reasonable but the answer isn't easy because it depends on the drives you have, the cables you have, how well defragged the drives are, etc. It really is a matter of playing with it to find what works for you. That said, you might check

granitedigital for good quality short cables. I'm sure there are other sources.

if you are chaining the drives, put the main media drive first. Keep it defraggged for dv work.

a hub is theoretically better but of course that's one more piece of hardware that might cause a problem. If you chained drives work, great. If they don't, try the hub.

imovie is much more forgiving than FCP. For FCP I'd recommend getting a 120 gig internal and using that drive for your main working drive, and using the media manager to offload work to an external when you are done with a project and want to keep the footage on a hard drive.

fcp4 may be better for FW support...we'll see.

you can run the itunes chained with no problem ( I have three external fw drives with all my itunes on the last drive in the chain)

ditto, Bud's remarks
 

I've worked both ways and both work fine. Currently, I'm working on small projects, so I use a hub and only hook up the drive that has the project I'm working on. When working on big projects, I daisy-chain, cause I have 4 external drives, but only a 4 port hub (and since one port goes to the computer, that only leaves 3 ports...)

With that said, I've had difficulties capturing to the external drives through either configuration, except to capture direct to the first external drive.

But I have an internal drive, which I can use and then copy the files out to an external drive before editing.

Belkin does make 3' cables. I have seen 1.5' cables, but I can not find a source at the moment...

Joe,
I log and capture the whole tape, unless I've managed to gather a time-code break -- and I work hard to prevent those. I always leave my tapes at the end after a shoot, then when I go to capture, I immediately know where to stop, and I always record a header on each and every tape, so I know that I can start within the first 20 seconds of a tape and miss nothing. Then I can watch my tape during the capture and review online to learn (remember) where everything is.

Of course, if there's a break, then you have to find it and log each part...

Why the whole tape? The camera wear and tear issue for one. Two, I usually need everything I shot anyway. 3, it's easier to search, review, and mark on the computer than on the camera, and 4, disk space is cheap and time is money.

I have three daisy-chained FW drives and don't have problems capturing, editing or playing back on a G4/733. However, I note that I'm using FCP 3 under MacOS 9.2, not OS X. When I used one of the same drives on my PBG4 667 under OS X I experienced dropped frames. However this was a year ago with an older version of OS X. Your mileage may vary...

The older lap tops have FireWire performance issues. The new ones (667 DVI and newer) have a different bus controller if I remember correctly. I daisy chain FW drives of my Ti 800 without dropped frames or other problems in OS X.

Superdrive firmware question
 

I have a 867 QS with the DVR-103 and had updated the firmware to vs. 1.90 when the update was released months ago .When i run software update i get a "Power Mac SuperDrive Update 1.0" as not installed.Is this the same firmware update and why wouldnt it recognize that the version was already installed? Thanks for any info.

It's possible the update didn't install properly. Use the Apple System Profiler to check the version (should be v1.90). If it doesn't show the correct version download the installer and update again. Post back if you need help with any of this.

Jeff the system profiler has version 1.90 listed as the firmware version.Would there be any harm in trying to install the update again? Thanks for all the help.

It won't install twice, firm ware doesn't work like that. Just disable it in the Software update menu. Then it won't bother you any more.

EXTERNAL monitor
 

Hey

Im having continuous problems with my playback monitor. Im using mac osx 10.2.6 FCP and digiVoodoo with SDI OUTs, my playback has SDi also... The desktop shows in the monitor fine. In after Effects, it works fine. In FCP, it doesn't work at all, or it turns a solid color, or the image splits in three, leaving two distrorted versions at the top half of the screen and a black rectangle on the bottom. Weird. Any help would be appriciated? Need more info on my settings? Just ask specifics?
Thank you
Michael Estepp

best internal/external drive for 22 MBS
 

Hello!

New to the forum but very excited...people here seem to really have a good line on information. I am running Final Cut Pro using an Aurora Igniter Card under OSX. I can get and would like to make use of the 22 MBS codec offered by the card but my external 7200 RPM Lacie's can't hack it. What would you recommend to allow me to make this happen. I'd prefer an external, but internal is fine.

Thanks!

You could do an IDE RAID 0 (internal - less noise, more heat), or an external FireWire RAID O (less heat - more noise). The best performance, but the gap is narrowing, is SCSI in a RAID 0 config. The solutions I've outlined are from least expensive to most expensive. An internal IDE RAID 0 with two 200gb drives should be less than $800. A similar SCSI config would be around $3,000 and the FireWire would fall around $2,000.

Tell me a little bit more about your machine and I can make specific product recommendations for you.

If you are connecting the SDI output from the digital Voodoo to the SDI input of the monitor you should be good to go. Is that how the cables are configured? Try swapping cables, check for the latest drivers for your card, and check with digital Voodoo support.

Thanks!
 

Jeff,

Thanks, that was exactly what I needed. It will have to be the $800 solution, which really isn't that bad.

Take care,

Chris

Western digital has new IDE hd's out that are 10,000 rpm, apparently they are very quiet and super fast.

http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=170451

That is a review of the drive, apparently it has really nice and fast read/write speeds, in the region of 40mb/s, which would be fast enough for your codec.

Anyways,

Good luck hunting for a solutions.

Zac

These drives are not compatible with Apple hardware at this time. Also, they offer little improvement over 7200rpm drives in a sustained read/write test (only 8%). Sustained read/write (not average) of very large files is what is important for video use. The review linked to above, did not perform those exact tests. The most performance bang for the buck will be 200mb drives with a 8mb cache and RAID 0 config.

HAHAHA thats funny.... Digital VooDoo Support... HAHA funny... They are in australia. You have to call during their business hours. Everytime I have called, (9 times over 3 months) their Support Techs have been on vacation. Something tells me they're never coming back. Anyway, Yes, my cables are going from SDI to SDi, I can take pictures of everything and post them if that will help.
Let me know.
Michael Estepp

I see your dilemma. I talked to an acquaintance with a digital vooDoo card for OS X and he has troubles with certain features also. He said he has been persistent with their tech support and they have emailed patches for some of his issues. Unfortunately he had no suggestion for your monitor issue.

I am at a loss for further suggestions. Hopefully another member or guest will voice a suggestion or two.

shooting in the dark
 

I do not have a digital vooDoo card, but the last time I saw something like that on an external monitor, I was using FCP1, and I had the Sequence settings wrong. They weren't set for NTSC output... And the monitor looked exactly as you describe, more or less.

Make sure your sequence is configured correctly for the digital vooDoo.

Comparison of speed options
 

One of my favourite web sites to answer questions like this is BareFeats. They recently posted a test comparing various drive arrangements including a four drive Raid O arrangement with Firewire 800 drives and four seperate channels. Check it out at:

http://www.barefeats.com/fire36.html

Installing ata100 drive on dual g4 1.25
 

Sorry to be posting this here, but I got myself a nice 120gb ata100 drive for my dual g4 1.25. I've read the manual and it says to pull the grey tab on the rear most drive carrier and pull up. I keep pulling the tab but the thing won't move at all. Anyone had any problems like this?

Thanks in advance

(If I understand what you're doing...) Did you first remove the screw that fastens the carrier to the chassis?

HAHAHAHA daaaaaaaaamn..... thanks.... ok this is why things like this should be done during the day :)