key clips
 

howdy all,

My tutor left about 4 hours ago teaching me how to key and matte video shot on a green wall. well I just went to open my project and all of the effects are gone!

Now starting from scratch, follwing his/my notes yet i keep getting the green wall behind my subject everytime i use the oval mask in Matte.

I am doing something backwards but i dont know what.
end result is backgorund as hoped for except behind subject, then background is green.

The tolarence level is also much different than when he was here. I get much less of my subject before the green in the screen becomes overwhelming.

any thoughts?

oh yeah, he brought over for me to borrow a really cool CD, "Secrets of Final Cut Pro 2."

However, it loads up on my OSX g-4 using classic OS9 fine except for the audio. scrambled. how can i fix that?

Best External Firewire Drive
 

Hey everyone--So I'm looking for recommendations on an external firewire drive. It should be Mac/PC compatible, which it seems most are. I'm looking for something in the 150GB to 250GB range. Durability/reliability is most important, and as long as it's fast enough to handle video I'll be happy. It's very difficult to find anything halfway conclusive on the web as to reliability etc. Anyone have some solid recommendations? Thanks!

Peter

A firewire drive is made up of an enclosure with an internal ATA drive.

Good internal drives are IBM deskstars and Western Digital Caviars with the 8MB buffer.

A good enclosure should be durable and have the oxford 911 bridge chipset.

Lacie makes firewire drives with the oxford chip and WD drives. Many people report sucess with them. Or you can build your own.

I have both the IBM Deskstar and a Western Digital Caviar 120s. They haven't failed me yet.

I believe the new Oxford 922 chip set is available. It will give you greater options for future expansion and compatibility..

In OS X open QuickTime, File>Open in New Player. Click on CD Icon, the files are usually in a folder labeled Video, click on files and they'll play in new player. This may be adjusted in the Info window, depends on the type of files you're watching.

Sounds like a problem with old tapes. Analog deteriorates over time and you may be having problems with the quality of the signal. But if one tape works fine and the other doesn't, and nothing in the setup changed, it points to the tape.

Monitors are very forgiving instruments. You can feed them signals way out of spec and they'll still display them OK. A capture device is much more picky and I have a feeling the tape is old and out of spec. The sync signal has deteriorated and the device doing the conversion is losing the phase of the color signal. Just a guess, a scope would be need to correctly analyze the signal and diagnose the problem.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=13937
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=12502

Thanks
i figuered out the key clip problem. I was keying the darkest part of the screen, leaving about 80% of the lighter green show thru.

man, this is a process.

I've got a nice set of Levels filters for FCP at www.nattress.com that allow you to see the curve you're generating. They even have a special mode for S-shaped curves.

Graeme

<<<-- Originally posted by Tim Tonner : Thanks for the info...however, will the VHS deck record with such a configuration? In other words, does the DV deck simply just have to be turned on, with outputs leading from it to the VHS deck, to get a successful VHS tape to record the project? I guess I'll give it a shot... -->>>

Tim let me first say, I wish I where in Stowe right now. SoCal is nice, but I miss New England seasons.

The DV deck should (hopefully) have a setting someplace for electronic passthrough. This allows it to be teh middleman between your computer and VHS deck. Also make sure the settings on the dv deck ar set for the proper input (dv) and output (ntsc video or whatever it is).

Thanks for the help guys. I will look into the LaCies.

Peter

Experience with LaCie Porsche Drives
 

Hi everyone--So I'm researching external firewire drive solutions and am leaning towards one of these drives:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10096

The new LaCie drives designed by Porsche. Especially appealing is that they are supposedly very quiet, and of course they look great. Does anyone have any experience with LaCie drives, or these drives in particular? I noticed they only had a 2MB buffer, which seems pretty low, but they also run the Oford 911 chipset, which I hear is good. I'm trying to find out what harddrives are actually in the enclosures, I heard Western Digitals. Anyway, any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Peter

AVI files?
 

Help out a Mac only guy! I have a lot of video edited in FCP and compressed with the QuickTime DV codec. What would I need to do to convert this to AVI files? We are using some presentation software called "Dataton Watchout" to drive a big DLP projector. This software runs on both Macs and PC's and can use Quicktime, but according to the user manual AVI files are preferred for the best DV output.

I'll check for that pass-through setting...I knew it had to be something like that! As for Stowe...autumn is fantastic. However, when it hits -35 in January, SoCal will sound pretty good! Thanks for the info.

Boyd you can export to .avi within quicktime itself.

Never done this before, don't want to mess up
 

I just got a 120GB LaCie d2 hard drive. What do I have to do to format it, if at all? (I've go an eMac with OS 10.2)
Any additional advice is welcome.

Thank you.

This is easy. Go to your Applications Folder>Utilities Folder>Disk Utility>Start Program.

In the left hand window your new drive should appear. Click once on it, to highlight the drive.

If you want to partition the drive click the Partition Tab. Set up the size and names of the partitions and when ready click the partition button in the lower right.

If you want to use OS 9 click the box to enable OS 9 drivers.

RAM Recommendations?
 

I'd like to at least double the amount of RAM in my dual 1 Ghz G4 (mirrored drive doors, noisy fans, DDR RAM, etc). Is there any particular brand of RAM that is recommended that will get along with what is already installed? Also are there any particular dealers (online) recommended with good prices and reliable service?

Thanks.

chip merchant is one good source NT
 

chip merchant is one good source NT

Actually I am looking for RAM for the Mac (described above), not an NT system. Thanks.

Anyway you have a link to this "chip merchant"? What is it? can anyone recommend specific RAM?

The RAM you want is probably kingston or crucial. Anyways, no one needs to remember this. Pretend you are buying "mac RAM" (google search that) and find I site where you have to enter in what your Mac is. You will find the RAM that is from the right manufacturer (generic doesn't count, stay away from that), speed (DDR-something), and brand (manufacturers usually have high performance RAM and normal RAM- you probably want the normal RAM because you don't get an advantage from better RAM).

newegg.com has good prices for computer parts (don't know about RAM). crucial.com has an online store for crucial RAM. There are some "hot deals" websites around on the internet if you can wait for a hot deal.

Cinema Tools
 

Does anyone know of a web site that has a descriptive explanation of 1. all of the functions of Cinema Tools and 2. how to properly use these functions? Thanks for any help.

Thank you for your reply, Jeff.

Actually there was no need for me to format the drive because it comes preformatted. So all I had to do was to plug it in.

Found 1 file that doesn't belong in this project?
 

Done search on this but wasn't able to find an answer.

I just copied 3 short video projects from my eMac's hard drive to my external Lacie d2 120GB drive. Now whenever I open two of these projects (either from my eMac's internal HD or from the Lacie one) , I get the following message in iMovie 2.1.2:

"Found 1 file that does not belong in this project"

And it asks me whether I want to trash that file or leave it alone. So far I have chosen the "Leave the file alone" option. The project nevertheless seems to function properly. I have been using iMovie for some 6 months now and never had any problem.

Can anyone guess why I'm getting this message? Is there a solution to/workaround for this?

Any help will be greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.

Move the 1 files that doesn't belong out of the media folder?

Well, yes, that would have been a way to relosve this issue. However, I have checked the media folder and found no file that doesn't belong to my project. In other words, all the files in the media folder are being used.

end media?!?
 

I'm exporting a clip thats going to be played on television. So end time must be specific. In my timeline i have the clips ending at 28m.30s. But my "End media" is up till 28.31? so when i export the clips into a single quicktime file it says my clips are total time of 28.31, but they arnt!? I'm very confused over this, cause now i have to edit out a portion of the ending of the show, and it makes the ending, end just a little too quickly. Can someone help with why it does this? and how can i fix it?!!

Thanks in advance,
Todd

What editing platform are you using? (Mac or PC? Final Cut Pro? Avid? Premiere? Vegas?)

How are you performing the export from your editor?

sorry bout that,

I though i posted into the Final Cut Pro thread. But I am working with Final Cut 4 ion a Power Mac G4.

Your program should start at 00:00:00;00 and the end time will be the total run time (TRT). You might have a break in timecode or the program didn't start at 00.

Perhaps you have a leader of bars, countdown or black?

TC calculator - Time Master II
 

I just ordered one of these, never knew anything like this existed... I usually just use a pencil and paper but this just looked like a gadget I had to have.

http://www.calculated.com/products/9226.html?specialty


I guess the only thing I will save is a little time and some paper but I thought i would put this link out here incase anyone else thinks it may help them.

There is also software that does TC calculations. It can be downloaded at Version Tracker.

Anyone received a DP G5 Yet?
 

Just wanted to know if anyone has bought and/or played with the Dual G5 yet? If so, how do you like it? How is FCP 4 taking to it? Run across any problems yet? Or have any advice for a buying a dual G5.

Any comments or advice will help. I'm looking to buy one soon, well, as soon as they start stocking up.

Thanks

DVCAM and Timecode
 

OK now, i just purchased a Sony DVCAM DSR-11 and have it hooked up to my Power Mac G4, running final cut pro 4. The reason for purchasing this deck is so it can take the timecode from my Final Cut. When i have it set that way, and i try to print to tape, the timecode doest seem to carry over. actually the timecode in the tape stays at 00:00:00;00 the whole way through. Is there a setting that i missed in my final cut? i talked to sony and they say that i have to set final cut to export timecode through the firewire. But it seems the only way to set it that way is in PAL format? i must be doing something wrong. Please help! I:M LOST! lol

thanks in advance,
Todd

I'm not sure if you deck will do this, but you should be able to stripe it with timecode (i.e. start at 00:59:00;00) and then do an insert edit so that your program starts at 01:00:00;00.

I don't believe that the timecode you want is sent down firewire.

If you're buying one get 3rd party RAM, it's about half the price. Crucial and Kingston PC3200 RAM should work (need to buy them in pairs; matched pairs would be preferred). crucial.com, prciewatch.com, newegg.com would be places to start.

yes, when i purchased the deck the guy did explain that timecode will be transfered through the firewire. So thats what should happen. You can also set the deck to take External timecode. Its one of the functions.