soundtrack quality
 

I have been working in soundtrack to add some beats to a project I am currently doing. I have however noticed that the quality compared to other tracks(from cd or from the net) is rather poor....Is there anybody out there that has worked with soundtrack for a film or series? I have some interesting samples from Powerfx that came straight of a cd so I am suprised about the poor quality.

Complicated Effect in FCP HD. Please Help
 

I am having trouble wrapping my brain around an effect I am creating.
I need to have 20 full res frames of video fly in and twist (they can move as 1 wall of video or independently, either will work for me) and then come toward camera, maintaining their relationship to one another until one of my 4 center frames completely fills the screen in full resoulution. These 20 frames are individual pieces of video, so a simple multiplication effect won't work.

I have tried layering all 20 tracks, nesting and throwing a BCC DVE on and reducing to 15%, but then when I click in to position my individual tracks, they blow back up to 100% and I cannot see far enough out on the edges to create a proper placement.

Any ideas, filters I may not have that will do the trick easily, filters I do have but have not yet used?

Please help, under a deadline.

Thanks,

Evan

Got my answer from the local FCPUG.

Thanks to anyone who at least thought about it.

Hi8 to DV - Tips ?
 

Any tips for shooting Hi8 then converting it to DV ? I am trying to get the best quality possible until i can get my GS400.

Get an analog to digital converter?

Footage Reverses In Dissolve
 

Shot on Canon XL2 at 24P - 16:9
Loaded in Firewire / DV NTSC Anamorphic codec
Have selected "none" in the field order pulldown box of my sequence preferences. Footage looks STELLAR!

I have slowed some footage down (on the sequence side).
When dissolving to another slow-mo clip, the previous clip plays at 2x REVERSE!

I have also experienced the outgoing footage freeze-framing on the dissolve out.

Now, I have found ways around this (still perfecting before I post a solution). But I wanna know why it does this. This is doofy.

Cheers!
Luke

Some Sony D8 cameras are backward compatable and will play out footage shot on a Hi 8 camera. This can be transfered to another DV deck or computer by firewire.

Editing 24p with non 24p in the same sequence?
 

Hey all. I'm shooting a project in a few weeks with multiple cameras. The main one is the XL2 on which i'll be shooting in 16x9 24p. but there are also supplementary handicam type things that will be getting secondary shots that i'll use from time to time. Is there an effective way to cut the 16x9 24p shots with the 4:3 regular dv shots so that it doesnt look horrible? I know that you'll be able to tell the difference in quality, I just don't want to a) drag down the quality of the 24p or b)compress the 16x9 (i'd rather stretch the 4:3). How should I capture both of them?

I don't know about HD, but when I first got into FCP, I sat in on a few classes at the Apple stores. The classes were free and really helped me wrap my head around the entire subject. Then, I stayed after and asked the guy teaching about specifics. Now, when I have questions, I call that individual. He's always happy to get off the sales floor and talk NLE with me.

I should have did this in the first place, but I called the canon tech support and they told me that the canon GL2 is only compatible with final cut 4 and later and you have to be running mac os 10.1 to 10.3.

so it looks like i'm in for an upgrade.

thanks for trying to help out chris!!

Never saw that one coming. Glad to hear you've got it figured out.

Peace!
Chris

I too have recognized this. Not sure what to do. Garage band . . . same thing. My guess is these weren't meant to do professional work. Not entirely sure though.

Note: I'm not a Mac or FCP user, but these are some of my general
thoughts about these things.

If you just have a couple of shots of 4:3 footage I would stretch
them to 16:9 indeed. If you have a lot of 4:3 shots I would
convert everything to 4:3 letterbox.

However, if at all possible I would record all the camera's at the
same settings. Because I assume that those 4:3 camera's will
also not be doing 24p? That's probably gonna be troublesome
to incorporate and have it look good (unless it is some sort of
making of where you are mixing footage, doesn't make a difference
too much then I'd say).

Best thing you can do (as always) is TEST your workflow before
you commit to the ways you are going to do things. Test, test
and do some more testing! <g>

Good luck!

iDVD cross compatability question::::
 

Hey all,
I am trying to burn my iDVD project. (i know it's no pro-sumer software but that's what i have to use) Here's my scenario and question:

I have a Powerbook with iDVD 4 and a compiled project that sits on an external drive. My Powerbook doesn't have a Superdrive, so my options are: open the project on someone else's system that has a superdrive and burn it there, or get an external DVD writer hooked up to my Powerbook and burn locally. Option 1 is more viable to me since my friend has a Powerbook with a Superdrive and I don't have access to an external DVD writer. The only issue is this: My friend doesn't have iDVD 4. I have heard that iDVD 4 creates a product that looks much better than 3. If I compile my project in iDVD 4, let everything encode with the "best quality" setting, then Archive my project AND include the theme, can I then transfer the Archived project (image i assume) to my friend's Powerbook and burn it from there with iDVD 3 with no picture degradation or other discrepancies?


___Luc

1st scenario:
Last I checked, iDVD won't burn to an external DVD burner, it has to be internal. That might have changed, but that was pretty standard. You CAN of course work in iDVD on one computer, archive it, and move it to a machine that DOES have an internal burner.

Try patch burn if you want an external burner with iDVD: http://www.patchburn.de/faq.html#PB3Frage2

2nd scenario:
Because iDVD4 has newer features than iDVD3 I don't know if it is backwards compatible, or will work as long as you use a version 3 theme and do not use any new features like autoplay. Thing is, I think the Archive is an only an iDVD4 feature, so I would guess it won't work because iDVD3 doesn't know what to do with an Archived project.

Good luck...