I checked Thursbys' site and it said I needed to download Dave 4.0.2 and select "uninstall" from the installer. Problem is that their DMG file cannot even mount. I am using the latest incarnation of the Mac OS X.2.

Yes, I am quite upset.

Security Camera Look
 

Does anyone know if it's possible, and if so how, to make a clip into a duotone (black and white footage that has a bluish tint to it) and then to add noise with as much control over the hue and noise as in Photoshop?

I'm going for a security camera effect...but the thing is I'm trying to match video footage with still images that will appear side-by-side with the video footage and have them appear with the same noise and hue. The still images were made to look like security camera footage using the noise and duotone functions of Photoshop mentioned above.

FCP version 3.0
Quicktime version 6.1

I turned off stop on drop frames and timecode error in preferences and was able to capture properly, but then the audio is so far out of sync it doesn't matter.

Looks like capturing with Imovie works though.

What version of FCP are you using? I've been able to create this type of effect with the Color Correction filters in FCP 3. I'm happy to get more detailed if appropriate.

because...
 

you can work faster and more easily. once you use a big screen or a dual screen setup (for those of us that can't afford a big flat screen) you'll never look back. The small project I'm doing now is an example. On my left 17" monitor I have the viewer and canvas at 50% as well as the browser with the effects and project tabs. The latter are in a long column. There is space below the viewer and canvas windows to drag the filter or motion tab when working with them so as to be able to view the filters or motion screens and see the effects on the video. On the right monitor I have my timeline which is currently comprised of 4 audio tracks and three video tracks and will certainly grow beyond that. I don't know how in the heck people work on fcp on a single monitor. I know it's doable and I've had to do it here and there but it's very cumbersome once you have used a large screen. I'd prefer a 23" flat screen but dual 17" crts are a decent compromise since my video work is just family stuff at this point.

John,

Don't forget the very apparent scan line appearence of security footage, i have some nice plug ins for after effects to achieve this effect, as well as noise and overly contrasty video.

If this is a controlled shoot, try and shoot it at 60i not in frame mode, and also load your stills onto your dv tape either by shooting them or via firewire then capture them back as video, it may be easier to match the looks then.

Zac

OK I was able to finally get the DMG file to mount and uninstalled Dave, and now I am free to transfer the files back and forth to get the video work done. I am relieved, but still upset that Dave buries itself so deep into the system. That reminds me of Windows programs that needed uninstallers instead of dragging them to the trash like you can do with most Mac apps.
Oh well. Live and learn.

Hi Curtis,

Thank you for keeping us posted with how it went for you. Much appreciated. I will look into it and see what I can find out, not sure how long that will take though hehe my schedule is totally swamped as it is! Perhaps Jeff or another user here can chime in with an answer to your question?

In case you run into any snafus booting up with Jaguar, it's a good idea to read this article and perhaps have it printed out and handy.
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage...eding_jag.html

Don't forget to keep all of your original Jaguar install disks and system restore disks handy, in fact you should burn a copy of them for added safety.

- don

There are known problems with QT 6.x.x and FCP 3.0.4 regarding audio sync problems with tapes recorded on Canon cameras. The sync adjust feature in preferences is not working.

Text for iDVD
 

I'm creating a project in iDVD that includes a slide show consisting of text pages. When I display the text "slides" on a TV monitor, the text seems to show "ghosting" around the individual letters . . . and basically is less sharp than I want. Can somone suggest methods for dealing with text in this format that will provide better legibility and resolution?

Thanks, Dick

I'm not sure what ghosting looks like. Is it color bleed from too strong a color (over saturated reds etc.) or an encoding problem with iDVD? Can you post or email me some examples?

ghosting
 

Jeff:


Hmmmmm . . . ghosting. Well it's similar to a halo around certain parts of certain letters. So instead of getting a clean foreground (letters) against a background parts of the text/background seem unevenly lit (perhaps glowing or pulsing describes it better). Is this a function of the scanning technology inherent in NTSC monitors?

I hope this helps. And thanks!!

I don't use iDVD, but my best guess, without seeing the artifacts is, the MPEG 2 encoding is causing the text troubles. Are you using the current versions of iDVD and QuickTime?

The other possibility is you choice of colors. Try using neutral colors like shades of grey etc. and do a test clip to see if it disappears.

If you think it is your NTSC monitor, try taking you DVD to a friends or neighbors and view it there. If it looks substantially different then your monitor may be partly to blame.

John,
how about shooting your footage off of the tv and play with different white balance settings. I once shot some video of a friend and made it b/w and then played it back on the tv, then shot that with my video camera and I think I got it to look blue-ish and have the scan lines in it, the more you zoom in on the tv image the bigger the scan lines.

If you mess with your tv/camera controls, you can do some noise effects in real time and get a more analog feel to it. Do a dub of a dub and play that tape back and you can get more noise in it. Before NLE was affordable, me and my friends did all our stuff the analog way, shooting off the tv, feedback video, everytime my friend plays his experimental videos people wonder what software he used and they are surprised to find out he does it using tv feedback and shooting straight off the tv.

I'll send you a photo right now.

frame capture using an outside signal
 

I'm looking for help for a project I'm preparing.
I'm going to shoot some footage from a moving car, having a rev. counter ading a signal (a beep or whatever) on the soundtrack every 10 meters. Is there a way I can edit this film, by tacking a frame every time the beep apears on the sound track? I would like the end result to be the car looks like it's driving at a constant speeds of 240 meters per second (24 frames per second, each 10 meters from eachother), no matter what the actual speed of the car is. The sampling rate of the frames out of the basic footage will be varaible, correlated with the speed of the car.