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-   -   NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2003 (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/final-cut-suite/1512-nle-mac-final-cut-questions-2003-a.html)

Jeff Donald March 11th, 2003 09:48 PM

What format are you editing (DV, Betacam SP, HD)? There are no cards available for a PowerBook, no internal slots or expansion slots or bays. If you are going to originate on DV (or a derivative) then the built in FireWire port is all you need.

Trevar Mazza March 11th, 2003 09:53 PM

Were starting out on DV. I was under the impression that a higher quality videocard would capture footage at a higher quality (less compression?) However, I may be way off!

Thanks.

Jeff Donald March 11th, 2003 10:17 PM

I'm out of town right now and don't have a copy of FCP on my laptop yet, so I'm doing this from memory. Someone check and see if FCP has a luminance key, as well as a chroma key. A simple luminance key set to the value of the blown highlights would allow you to key a layer of brightly colored video onto the highlights. Set the clip level of the key fairly high and your all set.

The key could be made very bright, solid colors or even have cycling colors.

Jeff Donald March 11th, 2003 10:31 PM

The compression (5:1) is applied in the camera. You could capture as DV and edit uncompressed or run the DV signal through a transcoder and uprez and capture as uncompressed. Either method would require a capture card, probably a SCSI RAID 0 hard drive array, and a transcoder. What type of budget do you have for this? Depending on what you need in a card you'll spend $3,000 to $15,000. The SCSI RAID array will cost $1,500 for a fairly small array. How many hours of footage will you shoot? If you plan on having 50 hours of uncompressed footage on line figure on $6,000 to $10,000 for the drives. A decent transcoder will cost $3,000 to $4,000.

You might be able to rent a whole FCP system, with RAID, transcoder etc. A reasonable budget for purchase is between $15,000 to $30,000 for a complete system, monitors etc.

Jeff Donald March 11th, 2003 11:00 PM

Open the window in question. Click on the desktop, go to the menu bar, choose view>show view options and look at how the view is being sorted (keep arranged by). Is it being sorted by size or, date? Have it sort by name and all should be good.

Jeff Donald March 11th, 2003 11:09 PM

The rendering times would be about 10% faster, not a very significant difference. The OS 9/X signifies that it is a dual boot system. It will run both OS 9 software and OS X software. If you have a lot of older software it may be helpful. Most of the new systems only boot in OS X.

Simon Plissi March 12th, 2003 07:53 AM

Very strange. The view by options for the folder shouldn't bear on how the folders are displayed in the open/close box. Just carried out a test and they still appear in their logical order, regardless what sorting order they appear in the folder. Some sorte of haxie are similar causing this maybe?

Andrea Stockert March 12th, 2003 09:00 AM

Jeff,

Thank you for the clarification in speeds.

I have older software (an adobe bundle with Photoshop 6.0) right now and FCP v.2 (with an upgrade to 3 on the way). Will I be left in the dust in the future if I go with the OS9 boot system?

In the future am I able to upgrade to a straight jaguar boot?

Sorry if this seems elementary- I just want to make sure that I spend the money wisely.

humbly...

Jeff Donald March 12th, 2003 12:43 PM

The future of Apple, Macs and FCP is OS X. I would not pay for any upgrade until FCP 4 is released, probably around the first or second week of April (probably announced at NAB). You don't wan t to pay for two upgrades. Steve Jobs has said it and so have most of the Mac pundits, OS 9 is dead. Dual boot is only useful for a short while to maintain compatibility with old software, principally Quark 5. Photoshop 8 will be out around the first of the year and promises some exciting new features for photographers and video enthusiasts. Photoshop 7 had a lot of improvements for Web work so for many it isn't worth the upgrade. I would save my money and get the 1.25G dual processor and use the extra money for more memory or more hard drives.

Simon Plissi March 13th, 2003 10:06 AM

Still Life 2.0 looks good (rostrum app)
 
The questions been asked a few times on this board for info on rostrum applications. I've previously mentioned how the app Still Life http://www.grantedsw.com/still-life/ looked promising, well version 2 looks really quite good. Using OpenGL to allow realtime rostrum effects should really be built into FCP IMHO, which is what Still Life uses.

I can think of a good use for Still Life as a way to quickly make animated backgrounds for iDVD.

Just thought I'd pass on the info.

Mike Finnerty March 16th, 2003 11:50 PM

Clock/Counter Effect?
 
I'd like to have a simulated clock or time code display superimposed over some video.

I have a font that looks like a digital readout. Now, I just need to find a way to get the numbers to move.

Does anyone know if there is an easier way than have many one second long graphics keyed over the background video?

Is there any type of effect that will generate a clock or counter in Final Cut?

Thanks for any info you can provide!

Ed Frazier March 17th, 2003 07:35 AM

Mike, I did something like this on a recent hunting video. I shot some video of a digital stop watch, zoomed to fill the frame. Then I created a graphic in which to place the timer. The stop watch video was scaled and cropped to size and placed on top of the graphic which was placed on top of the hunt video.

This may not be what you are looking for, but it worked for me.

Simon Plissi March 17th, 2003 03:53 PM

Just off the top of my head?

If you just have FCP you could do it all by hand. Output a series of stills, of set the font as a text effect in FCP, and each second swap the number +1. If you think about it you only need to do this for two sets of numbers. So, if you wanted something like this- 10:10:10:25 = H:M:S:F
One set going from 00 to 10 and another set going from 00 to 25 or 30 for NTSC.

Once you set up a series of still images with the numbers advancing +1 each sec. You can then just overlay another sequence over the top and posistion it where the next set of numbers would be, i.e. the first set is for the H, then the next overlayed would be for the M and so on.

For the frames repeat as as above.

Bit long-winded but can be quite quick and does allow for the look you're after.

After Effects would be better for this but FCP is mor than capable.

Keith Loh March 17th, 2003 04:26 PM

I've done this in After Effects and I couldn't think of a way either than the tedious frame by frame animation.

Sharon Dennis March 18th, 2003 04:22 PM

i-movie 2 vs final cut pro
 
I'm a broadcast journalist who isn't interested in the "Ken Burns effect" or sepia toned, slow motion editing. I'm interested in an editing system that is straight forward...my only need for a high quality "effect" is for dissolves.
Having said that, what can final cut pro offer me that i-movie can't? Are the transitions--ie dissolves more professional and the audio portion of the edit better and in what ways?

Thanks for any input


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