Been there. Glad to have helped.

Printing to tape with FCP
 

Hello,

I'm printing my project to tape. Will I get better results (higher resolution) going to my DV deck via firewire or via the s-video cable/input? I once saw a web page that had all the compression numbers...but I lost it...any comments always greatly appreciated!

Take care,

Chris

The DV format is a 5:1 compression no matter what you do. The transfer process has no influence on resolution. I'd recommend just using Firewire to get the cleanest digital transfer.

The resolution would in theory be higher with DV than S-Video. Also DV would eliminate several steps (D/A then A/D) that would induce more noise in the signal. So, for best quality keep the signal digital for as long as possible.

For kicks I installed FCP3 on an iBook 600 mhz and it ran fine...full time DV (no offline RT) and it performed well (aside from the slowed render times)......but I can attest to it's working perfectly without issue.....as for render time.....that's a whole 'nother issue.

I also captured to an outside FW drive (120GB) and it worked perfectly- not a single dropped frame!

$999 new- u gotta love it.

3D software preferences
 

Hello all,

I'm trying to get more familiar with the software and 3D animation field, and I was wondering what people's preferences were (if any) of 3D rendering and animation software. I've been reading a lot about it and the main names I keep seeing are Maya, Electric image Universe, and Lightwave. (some people say Cinema 4D as well). Anyone have any experience with any of these??

thank you!!! :)

I'm not bad at 3D modeling, texturing, and animation... But that's only with Metacreations Infini-D. They sold it years ago, not long after they bought it from Specular. Then it kinda died/ faded away.

It's extremely easy to learn and use, very intuitive. Very capable of amazing results, but kinda buggy. It is also nowhere as robust or capable as Max 3D or Bryce, and not even in the same neighborhood as Maya or Lightwave. But then, I could never use Bryces interface, barely capable of using Max, and more or less clueless with Maya and Lightwave. They are out there, and you either get it, or you don't.

I have worked extensively with two packages, Strata 3d Pro http://www.strata.com/products/strata3d.html and Bryce http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli...=1042551234521.

In the case of Strata, well it was one of the first full featured 3d modeling and animation packages to be available on the Mac and seemed like that best choice back in 1995 when I got it (was then called Strata StudioPro). There's such a steep learning curve the 3d that I've been reluctant to make a switch, and I can make it do pretty much what I want. Here are some Strata projects:

http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/per.../sketch/04.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/capuleti/sketch/04.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/capuleti/sketch/06.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/tro...concept/05.pdf

I started with Bryce about 3 years ago and love the way you can easily create skies and landscapes. Often I render these out and use them as backdrops in Strata models. Here are a few recent examples of these "hybrids":

http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/tro...concept/08.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/tro...concept/02.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/tro...concept/07.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/tro...concept/11.pdf

As far as animation goes, both these programs will do it, but you need to be very patient. Some of the sequences I've been working on can take up 3 hoursto render one second of output. Here are a few examples of those, some were done with each program (sorry they're pretty big files... should probably recompress).

http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/trovatore/video-1

Audio Does Not Show Up In Timeline (Adobe Premiere 6.5)
 

I was up until 1:30 am last night trying to make my .mov files (I made them in Quicktime Pro from .mpg files) to show it''s audio in A.P 6.5. I get the video portion ok, I can even hear the audio in the project window and in the Source window, not in the timeline.
* I can only hear the audio portion of the .mov file in Premiere 6.5 when I use "Hinted Movie"as an export option in Quicktime Pro. Again that is only audible in the Source window and Project window NOT the timeline. If I export my .mov file in Quicktime Pro as a "movie" no audio is available in AP 6.5.

Again I am having geat troubles getting my .mov files (audio portion) to show up in the timeline. I SEE NO AUDIO WAVES IN THE TIMELINE.

Thanks for any help you may give.

Bill

Maya is used throughout the industry but it is difficult to learn and use. Not intuitive and a steep learning curve. Those who know it well frequently tweak it with plugins and MEL, the embedded language. It's renderer is crap and most people use a different one, though I heard the latest version uses MentalRay.

I have 2.5 but have not had the motivation to learn it completely, like a project of some sort.

What OS are you using Bill and what version of QuickTime?

Audio does not show up in Premiere
 

Thanks for the reply. I found the answer after I posted.

It was interesting, I read at a post in Apple's Quicktime forum that mpeg files are combined together. This poster mentioned you need BBDemux and SoundApp. What BBDumex does is to seperate the audio from the video (m1v and m1a) then you convert the m1a file into Aiff file in SoundApp. Then import the m1a file into Quicktime Pro, then copy it to the Clipboard, then import the m1v file into Quicktime Pro as well. Then you use "Add Scale" from the edit menu to add the sound to the video. I saved it as a Quicktime Movie and imported into Adobe Premiere 6.5 mac. It worked! I was finally able to see the audio wave files in the audio portion of the timeline I was very excited, It was really amazing to me.

It all started with a tutorial book I had bought called "Complete Course" I really liked the book, but I couldn't continue with the lessons because there were so many mpg files that were used in various lessson in the book. I found out from Adobe's web site that you can't import mpg files into Adobe Premiere 6.5 (mac). You need Quicktime Pro. That is, Adobe's web site states that. But I found out after hours and hours of frustrtation you need to seperate the mpg file's audio and video in order to work in A.P. 6.5's timeline.

The author wrote the book on a Windows computer and of course you can import mpg's in Adobe Premiere (Windows). I guess that can be some of the problems you run into when you write a book in Windows.


Quite interesting I thought.

Bill

Firewire drive vs...drives connected by firewire?!?
 

I was chatting with an Apple reseller the other day and asked him which brand of firewire drives he likes. He told me that he doesn't like them, because they aren't reliable, tending to dump data after a period of time. He prefers (and sells) setups that use IDE drives that are built into housings and connect through to the CPU via firewire. HE claims these are much more reliable, as much as an internal drive.

I was a bit confused. Does anyone (Jeff?) have thoughts on this? It costs more for the setup he described.

To my knowledge all Firewire drives are basically IDE drives in bridge housings. Certainly all 6 FW drives I own are of that ilk.

I have two IDE drives that are in enclosures that are then daisy chained using Firewire Oxbridge connections. You can capture to them okay just as long as you're not doing anything else across the same chain at the same time. Usually that is the reason why there are dropped frames in my experience. I would rather capture to an internal IDE drive as it is faster. If I'm rendering out to the external Firewire drives that's fine as well.

The reason why I will stick with the enclosures is that you can swap drives out of them in some models or just shut them down and unscrew the casing to switch drives out in my case. The really expensive ones are hot swappable. If you're not doing anything like that then just get the ones which don't need them.

iDVD 90 Minute Block
 

I have 101 minutes of footage in three seperate chunks that I am trying to burn to DVD using iDVD. iDVD will give me a warning stating that "Your movie is over 90 Minutes long and you can't burn until it is unde 90 minutes". I can't trim it down because none of the footage can be sacrificed, and I don't have time to learn how to use DVD Studio Pro. My question would be; is there a way around this in iDVD? I have standard 4.7GB discs that say 120min. on the box. I run OSX and made all of the clips Final Cut Pro Movies and dragges them directly into iDVD. If not I guess it will go on 2 discs. Has Apple fixed this with iDVD/iMovie upgrades I have heard about?

Thanks

Render Quality
 

While exploring menus one day I clicked the "Edit render Quality" button in the Timeline. Naturally, everything eventually gets rendered at the Hi Res setting. But I noticed that the default setting did not have the box labeled " High Quality Playback" checked. I checked this box and it seems to have done nothing. I assumed it would want me to render my Timeline again with this new setting. I usually play directly from the Timeline to tape (Print to Tape often fails me) and I want it to look its best. Does anyone use this setting? Does it make a difference in quality?

After FX plug ins
 

Where is the best place to get After FX plugins for FCP 3? Are there any that you would consider essential? On a side note; can you use I-Movie's effects/transitions in FCP without importing your footage into I-Movie?

iDVD will only allow the 90 minutes.even in the latest release its still the same 90 min limit.

My follow-up would be: Does DVD Studio Pro allow you to burn over 90 minutes?

I have had no problems with the external firewire box made by Granite Digital (GD). You buy the bare drive, place it in a GD enclosure and slide it into the drive box. It's even hot swappable. I always buy the fastest IDE bare drives I can. Last one was a 7200 rpm. I have heard that some of the laptop internal drives are only 4200 rpm. What also appears to matter is the "bridge" or transfer protocol. An Apple guy demoing FCP4 said the Oxford 911 bridges are the most reliable, and that's what the Granite Digital uses.

Since bare drives are getting so darned cheap, I've started buying a new drive for each new project and keeping it online, rather than erasing the drive. That way, if there is a change a couple of months, a year, later, it is no trouble to load the whole project back into the box and make changes.

LS-A

I dont own DVDSP as of yet but yes it will allow over 90 min for it lets you adjust the bit rate when convering to mpeg2. I'm sure some of the DVDSP users here can give a more in depth answer on this.

Sounds like a lot of double talk to me, Charles. Some models had a separate FireWire connection on the board. I think this has been done away with.

The Oxford 911 bridge board set the standard for FireWire 400. Oxford has a new chip set out for FireWire 800, the 922. Indigita is also doing great work on a FireWire RAID card that is said to offer best of class performance.

Any IDE drive can be paired up with an enclosure. Good enclosures can be had at OWC, Granite, and Weibe Tech. For comparisons look at Bare Feats

Sounds like the sales droid is just under the impression that retail firewire drives that are "pre-built" are somehow technologically different than firewire enclosures that allow you to buy the drive separately.

Examples include the Maxtor or Western Digital "drive in a box" packages that are already housed, versus a Pyro box and an OEM drive that you just toss in. They're really no different, everybody uses the same tech on the inside, as described in the above posts. About the only difference I can think of is that usually you can get a better deal on the empty enclosures and an add-in drive.

No, the iMovie transitions only work in iMovie. But, as you have already figured out you can export and import your footage between the two programs.

AE plugins are available through many small companies. Use Version Tracker to search for various plugins.

Many people feel that Joe's Filters are an essential for FCP. Joe is also a member here at DV Info.

I don't remember what that does. So I guess that shows how often I use it. I am away form the office for a few weeks and I don't have FCP on my laptop. You can use the help function, within FCP, to find your answer. Sorry to pass the buck. Anyone else remember what it does?

DVD SP is limited only by the total size of your project, bit rate you choose and the media you are going to. General Authoring media is limited to around 4.3GB of data. I know the disc says 4.7GB but it's the difference between bits and bytes. There are also some files that need to be present as part of the DVD spec and these take up 100mb or so.

Audio... from pd150 to iMovie2
 

Could anyone tell me if iMovie2 can capture more than one channel (audio)? If yes, how?

Thank you.

Anybody?

Doesn't my question make sense?

I don't use iMovie, but to the best of my knowledge it captures a left and right channel (channel 1 and channel 2). It should do it as a part of the normal capture. iMovie help indicates that iMovie uses 3 tracks, one video and two audio.

If it doesn't capture to both tracks it may leave one track for music and sound effects.

simple imovie2 question
 

When feeding two separate channels of audio off a miniDV tape via firewire into imovie2, does it end up mixing the two down to one channel or am I missing something here? For separation of two channels, do you have to go to FCP or can imovie do that? If so, how?

Lynne, I posted the same question today myself, but haven't gotten any solid answers yet.

Hope someone will respond to your threat with THE answer.

Switching to PAL
 

Hi I'm new to the forum so if this question has already been asked please forgive me. I'm using FC3.01 and upuntil now I've been working on an NTSC system. Well due to some technical reading and a good deal on ebay I've sold my XL-1 NTSC and bought a PAL xl-1 but I"mhaving hella problems with FCP. First I noticed that when i was importing video in NTSC that was 16:9 the program went ahead and letterboxed it for me but would not do that when I imported the footage in PAL. I played around with my settings and switched everything over to PAL but now either my program won't load or when it does it won't read my camera a a deck, I know that the camera works because I was usigng ti to import footage before I started messing around with it. Has anyone else made this switch or does anyone have any suggestions?

did you just switch your settings or trash your prefs? I switched from PAL to NTSC and ended up missing one setting and the same thing happened. Try trashing your pref and see if that helps.

I feel like a real twit, turns out I had an NTSC project open with all of my audio vdeo settings switched over to PAL. Opened up a new project with the new settings everything worked perfectly (as happens so often with FCP) even the 16:9 was letter boxed. No just a matter of getting good sound and audio to go into the project...
Thanks Joe.

Man don't worry I was sitting there for 3 days complaining to my wife before I realized I hadnt switched from PAL to NTSC.. It happens...

help, rookie shooting mistake
 

shot with shutter @ 1/250 under florecent lights, yeah, i kn ow, how could i? shooting kids....makes me in inattentive and crazy.
anyway, how can i take 1 frame and strech it out for 5-10 seconds?
thanks

There is no way of seperating the audio that is imported in from the camera into L & R tracks as far as i know.You can stack audio tracks on top of each other if you need to mix more than 2 seperate stereo tracks.This works pretty well say for a voice over on top of a music track on top of camera audio but if you start overlapping too many tracks its gets complicated telling them apart in the audio timeline.

nevermind, found "freeze frame" function.

video monitor preview. how to??
 

Hello,

I was thinking that I would like to monitor the video I work on in FCP. But I have no idea how to go about doing this.

How do I send a video out to a tv monitor from my Mac? Do I need to get another video card with composite or s-video outputs? How would I send just the preview from FCP to that output?

please steer me in the right direction. Thanks.