Aww, geez, even the "feed the cat" maneuver failed? Wow, that is serious.

Well it sounds like the Firewire port is still working, eh? That's good.

I know there must be some other clever tricks to try. But, frankly, when I'm faced with such a problem I delete my FCP preferences file.

Ken Stone has a good dance-step page on this topic.

Thanks Jeff. According to Apple's site, they are both 1680x1050. That's why I wondered.

For not alot more, I think I'll get one of the dual 1.8GHz G5's instead :)

Hum removed but new problem with audio arises
 

I had a noticeable hum in my footage in FCP 3 & managed to remove it pretty well using a High Pass filter (setting Frequency to 1200 and Q to 1) but the overall sound of the video is now very "tinny." Can anyone offer suggestions on how to fix this?
Thanks,
Erik

You can try setting the high pass filter lower, or the hum removal plug-in (actually that would probably be more appropriate).

Alternatively you can try adding a simple delay that would cancel out hum very well but it might mess up your audio. see jay rose's articles over at dv.com.

Thanks Jeff.

sound soap
 

if you aren't an audio engineer and you are struggling with basic audio filters to remove hum, buy SoundSoap. It's very effective. search google

I'll 2nd Bud's recommendation for Sound Soap. It's a Bias product, the same folks who make Peak. Sound Soap is very definitely worth the relatively modest investment, particulary if you are not a dedicated audio geek (as I am not).

I will warn you, however, that SS uses the same principles and techniques for noise removal that you would emply with various filters and equalizers. That said, you can also flatten your sound with SS. It can be a bit hard to monitor because SS is continuosly adjusting and adapting. Sometimes the sound during scrubbing and preview will sound like it's coming from a cardboard tube. My point: don't assume it will be an immediate elixir that will fix you up in 15 minutes. It, too, takes a bit of practice.

FCP4 questions
 

Just a few questions with some troubles I'm having.

Ok first one, I was shooting a cathedral in Barcelona and due to the really low light I get a flicker in my footage. Any ideas if any to get this out? I tried the flicker filter, but it seems to be worse with it on.

Secondly, is it possible to take a clip ... say 10 seconds long and automatically cut every .5 seconds into a seperate clip? I do this now with the razor blade and on loger clips it gets tedious.


Thanks in advance.

I can't answer the first question without seeing the footage. But the second question, I would just use the razor blade if it is only 10 seconds. That's only 20 cuts and you only have to go through it once.

Sorry I should have been more clear, the 10 seconds was an example. Last night I did a 30 second clip with about 60 cuts, As I use this technique alot it would be nice to know if there was a shortcut.

FCP 3 minor problem
 

I was looking for keyboard shortcuts, pushing keys, and now the canvas has no picture, and the last image I hit "stop" on is frozen. I checked my video output, which was to my camera. So what key or button did I hit, and what can I do to get my picture back?

Thanks,

heath

Compressor vs. BitVice -- which is superior?
 

Has anyone ever done an in-depth comparison of MPEG-2 files compressed with the latest version of BitVice and Apple's Compressor? I used to use BitVice when it was version 1.2.5, and it seems that the quality is about the same, although the BitVice files are much smaller. The BitVice website says that the latest version is even better and faster. Is the difference in quality worth the price: $300 vs. free?

Check your external video settings?

FCP may be trying to send video to your camera instead of your canvas or vice versa.

I forget the shortcut for toggling that setting, but it might be command + shift + F12.

Compressor is fairly well regarded in terms of image quality, speed etc. for a software solution. I've not seen any comparisons to date. Have you tried Compressor and had quality problems? If not, I'd try Compressor, everything I've seen looks very good.

Yeah, try View > External Video > All Frames. The other thing which can affect this is under the Audio/Video Settings in the FCP menu. Click on the External Video tab and look at your setting for "View During Playback", also the "Mirror on desktop during Playback" checkbox.

The only other possibility that comes to mind is to make sure that either "Image" or "Image+Wireframe" is checked under the View menu, but from your description that doesn't sound like the problem.