nice system
 

you said you were considering go with a real nice final cut sys. I'm thinking about that to. I was wondering exactly what would that system consist of, AJA IO or cine wave rt or Auora Ignigter. Just wondering

Torrey C. Harris

The cinewave I believe is the only card that gives meaningful real-time acceleration.

The other cards have their own codecs which can reduce storage needs. They are online codecs in the sense that they are (virtually) lossless at low compression ratios. see codecs.onerivermedia.net.

I don't have any experience with setting up online systems so take that info with a grain of salt.

Still hoping for some help on photo resolution issues...
 

Thanks for the help so far guys but a few questions left...

I am dealing with about 100 photos all about 2272 x 1704 resolution. They were given to me that way. For the time being, I decided to do any panning/zooming in FCP3 because I've found it easier to cut it to music that way...(so far, in AE5.5 I have found that I can import audio but that it doesn't play unless I specifically go to Composition->Preview->Audio and then only the audio plays, not the visuals along with it).

Here's my problem:

Even with their high resolution, when I bring these .jpgs into the viewer, their quality drops just a tiny bit but its noticeable. When I drag them into the timeline/Canvas, the quality becomes even worse.

Whether or not I render them in the timeline, it doesn't seem to matter. The pictures just look terrible.

I thought it might be that they're in .jpg format (compressed) so I tried one as a .tiff but that didn't help. Is this an issue of adjusting the resolution to be proportional to 720x480?

Please help; until this is fixed, I cannot finished my project.

In case you need to know, I'm running on a dual 1.42ghz g4 mac with 1 gig of RAM, a 160 gig Media HD (unpartitioned but solely for media with the 80 gig stock for OSX and software installs) and FCP 3.0.4.



Thanks,


Joshua

You will want to look at this tutorial and this site in general. There are plenty of tips and tricks you may find helpful in your project.

I've used CineWave in both Mac and PC and found them to be basically garbage. We have to constantly re-start the cards, fix settings, etc. It's such a nightmare compared to even AJA Kona SD cards, which I've really never had problems with.

heath

DV to SD...
 

I'm planning on saving some cashola and shoot my next film on the DVX100 (or any other 24p DV camera that may come out). Do I need to capture the footage uncompressed and upres it to 4:2:2 to edit, etc., then go to 35 mm film? Is it necessary to go to SD?

heath

WHat would anyone here recommend for my new G5 Dual 1.8?

Bought this with a 250 installed and now want another drive of similar size?

Thanks P

I think you've got to capture it DV to do the pulldown removal. Then it would be least strain on your system to edit it DV and then convert to uncompressed to output to whatever format - will they take it on firewire drives, or do you need to dump out to DigiBeta?

For chroma-uprezzing, you can take a look at the one I have in my Film Effects package which is quite a bit better than the Apple one and has a great degree of control.

For converting the whole seq to uncompressed, can you just go into the timeline settings and change the codec?

Graeme

G5's support the larger drives. Any SATA drive will work. You'll have a choice of several brands. I've had good luck with the Western Digitals.

Anybody going to Macworld San Francisco?
 

Just want to send out an invitation to anyone who may be attending Macworld San Francisco this week. Stop by the Canon booth and say hello! I'll be in the Canon booth and Dan will be on the show floor producing some cool Final Cut Pro related events.
http://www.macworldexpo.com/macworld...x.cvn?ID=10364

On Wednesday night, January 7th, the FCPUG Network will host a fun evening at the Mezzanine with a theme of "FCP 4: From DV to HD", featuring Sean Cullen who was First Assistant Editor to Walter Murch on the film "Cold Mountain" http://www.apple.com/pro/film/murch
http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/cold_mountain

Looking forward to meeting some new faces at the show!

- don

Edit Suite/Equipment....
 

Looking into beefing up my current set-up.

At present, i have a sony portable deck, old school g4, premiere, AE etc and a consumer tv.

Looking at getting pssibly a G5, Final Cut Pro and a production monitor etc..

I mostly do my own captures of dv/dvcam cam/deck and edit out for tvc/corp videos etc. But i'd like to spend money on something that is expandable if needed...

Do i need another card for the g5?

Which Pro monitor is best bang for buck 4:3/16:9 switchable?

My budget is probably gonna start about 5K. Any recommendations?

I just want to be able to go to 35 mm.

heath

IBM, Western Digital, and Seagate seem to be the top brands right now. The IBM SATA drives seem to be a top performer right now, but maybe not for video (see http://www.storagereview.com). Promax recommends IBM drives because they have had a good recent track record in terms of reliability. Keep in mind IBM has had its fair share of disasters (the desk/deathstar line of HDs). Seagate also make pretty reliable drives and they are the quietest. WD makes good drives too, and have 3yr warranties on some lines where other manufacturers don't.

Maxtor doesn't have a good reputation in terms of reliability.

In terms of performance on applications and OS, check out storagereview.com. WD makes the best performing PATA drives and hitachi for SATA drives. 8MB buffer gives about a 30% boost with applications. For video work, I think all brands are pretty close. http://www.barefeats.com has some extra benchmarks (look at the sustained transfar rates in particular). Larger drives will give better performance and are better for video. The more storage you have the better. Once you run out of storage you are in trouble. And you can use the extra space to archive old projects, so the extra capacity isn't wasted.

Final Cut Express 2
 

Apple's new products are up on the website. Final Cut Express 2 is up here http://www.apple.com/finalcutexpress/.

LaCie Electron Blue IV, and Blue Eye Calibrator Questions
 

This isn't quite a "video" editing question yet I felt compelled to ask it on a Mac forum beings LaCie seems to be popular amugst Mac folk.

Just got my LaCie Electron Blue IV 22" tonight- have a few questions:


1. Should the monitor hood have two velcro fasters on the middle/top peice of the hood? Mine doesn't- it only has the two on either side.

2. Does it come with only 1 cd which contains the PDF manuals for both the 17" and 22" models including the ICC profile for each? I ask becase in the quick install guide they display a LaCie "Color CD" being inserted...is that the same thing or am I missing this CD.

3. Do you "have" to use both the Lacie INF *and* ICC profile. When I was installing the INF file so my computer would list more than just "Plug n Play monitor" it specifically asked for the ICC file. Why would a monitor INF "need" the ICC. Aren't they two completly different things. The INF tells the computer what kind of monitor is connected and the ICC is a monitor/colorspace profile?!


Regarding the Blue Eye calibrator- would it help with non print work? I primarily do web graphic work.

Am not impressed with the new $99 upgrade to FCX 2.

Does not seem to be worth it.

If soundtrack is $299 and the upgrade is and extra $99 on top then I may as well pay and extra $200 on top of this and get Final Cut Pro for the $599 upgrade fee from FCX to FCP (assuming that soundtrack is worth having (it comes with FCP)

I might just do this! (maybe that is Apple's thinking too!!)

All a bit too clever.

Regards P

The best items that come with FCP is LiveType and Compressor the best being LiveType. This one app is by far the best reason to get FCP as you have such control over a presentation.

But compressor comes with DVD SP (which I have).

What does live Type do?

Regards P

LiveType checkout Apples site and read about it. Did you ever see the text on the newscaster and the moving type this app can do that and more. Watch some of the QuickTime movies and see what it does.
Also you get full features of Color Correction and 24p editing.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/livetype.html

Just got some quotes on some Sony Pro monitors... I was surprised to find that the 14inches are more expensive than the 20inch. Why so?

Considering the Sony BVM and PVM series.

??

It probably asked for the ICC file so it could install it into the
engine, probably just as a convinience so you don't have to do
it later by hand.

Most people here seem to use LaCie for harddisks though I think.

FCX 2 should render faster than FCX. And the 2-way color corrector will actually be real-time.

Yeah I mean that Mac people like Lacie products in general. Seems to be more marketed towards that crowed for some reason.
But yeah...I'm happy with it- kick the crap out of my old Sony E540. I think it's the same model as the Mitsubishi Diamondpro 22. The stats are practically identical...plus LaCie refers to the screen as "Diamondtron Aperature Grill".

Tweaked FCP Icons
 

For those of us with some old project still lingering a version back, here are some tweaked FCP icons that may help make life a little more sane.

I keep both versions of FCP handy and needed a way to make sure that I was opening certain projects in v3 rather than constantly launching the newer version. After deciding the subtle differences in tones and stripes of the current icons weren't enough to remind me which version was which on the dock, I tossed together these slightly more legible versions.

http://www.globalartways.org/fcp_icons/

HTH,
Clayton

I just realized that the archives are not retaining the icons on the files (used built-in 'archiving' feature of OS X.) Let me try stuffing them with DropStuff. Just a sec.

Well it looks like they're working now.

FWIW, I guess I'm used to using an older version of Stuffit - the latest version uses .'sitx' as the file extension and seems to confuse the browser as to how to handle the file on download. I've changed them to '.sit' and they seem to be working alright. Hopefully your mileage doesn't vary too much. Well back to the real work I guess...

Best,
Clayton

Thanks, Boyd.

I learned this the hard way, and once in a while I still drop the clip in while the right arrow is showing and I have to Command-Z it and re-drop the clip, this time checking to be sure it's got the down arrow.

It's still a heck of a lot easier than the jog-shuttle wheels on an old Panasonic edit controller! :-)

Help! No real time playback on FCP4 w/ Dual G5???
 

Hello, all. I'm having some difficulties here with FCP4, and could use your expertise...

I have a sequence on the timeline, shot with the DVX100 24pA. I can play back the sequence fine on an external NTSC monitor, but if I try to put one of the clips in slow motion (50% speed) the program crashes!

I'm working on a Power Mac Dual 2GHz w/1.5GB RAM, and over 200 GB of HDD. I can't imagine this computer not being able to handle a simple slo-mo. Are there any settings I need to be aware of? I'm new to FCP, so any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

I am not sure why it is crashing, but try changing the real time settings. On the top left corner of the timeline window you will see a tab called RT. Click it and check your settings. Change Safe RT to Unlimited RT and change the playback quality to whatever is the best. These settings even work on an eMac so they should surely run fine on your G5 except for complex video that has lots of filters/transitions/etc which you would need to render first no matter what.

Also double check your sequence's settings to make sure they are correct for that 24PA footage.

What size do you have your viewers at, 100%, fit to screen?

dvd studio pro 2 w/ dual 500 mhz g4
 

will this work ? when apple says system requirement for dvd studio pro 2 is a single processor g4 733 mhz , does that mean that i can't use my dual 500 mhz g4 at all to use this application ? or that is merely not reccomended ? anyone running less than 733mhz g4 using dvd studio ?

that would utterly blow since my machine should be faster than the single 733 mhz.

My girl friend Gabby is running DVD SP 2 as well as FCP 4.1 without any problems. The key she found out was the RAM, max the RAM on the motherboard and it works great

Seems to work on a Dual G4/450 with 896 MB RAM
 

Compressor takes forever but I can live with that.

Mike Harpe

Got it to work! I set it on Unlimited RT and put the playback quality as "best", and now it works perfectly. The reason it was in Safe RT and low quality playback before was because I got some problems when I first started working on the timeline, and a dialog box came up that suggested I use the low quality/Safe RT settings. Weird...

Anyway, thanks a lot for your replies! Right now I'm playing with the 3-way color correction tool... WOW! I thought DVX100 footage was impressive by itself, but now it looks spectacular!

Thanks again!

Softedge blends in Premiere?
 

O.K., I'm an old multi-image slide guy. Back before the big one (desktop video), we used feathered masks to blend multiple images together vs. a sharp, hard edge. It doesn't seem like such an unusual thing to want to do in video, but I can't seem to find anything in Premiere 6.5 that would allow me to do it. There is a filter called edge feather or something like that...seems logical but it doesn't really do much of anything. I'm assuming either Premiere can't do it or I can't find the right combination of things to make it happen, or I need to get out my slide projectors again (please save me from that).

Any thoughts? I appreciate the advice. Oh, if Premiere doesn't do it, is there anything out there in Mac land that does?

Thanks!

I highly doubt Premiere 6.5 would have that tool. Basically it's
what they made After Effects for. You might have more luck with
the new Premiere Pro, but since I haven't looked at that package
yet I'm unsure whether it has that feature.

I do believe that feathered masks is still more of a high-end tool
that perhaps is more common in compositing applications then
NLE's.

Deck Control in FCP4
 

Here's another one for my boss who just upgraded to FCP4 from FCX on his home system. Using a G5 and a Panasonic 2000 deck, he gets VTR O.K. but still lacks control from the computer when attempting to log and capture. In Express, it worked just fine. I use Premiere so I've not been much help.
Is there someplace where he must select the Panasonic deck in order for it to work? (that's what you do in Premiere.) He didn't seem to think he had to specify.

Thanks for the help!

Check this list of compatable equip. on the Apple Web Site:

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/qualification.html

May point you in the right direction

Has your Boss read the built in help info on this subject? FCP has a help button on the menu button he can access. It clearly explains how to set-up compatible decks for FCP machine control.

If it doesn't work after setting up per the instructions (assuming the deck is FCP certified) then you might try disconnecting all FireWire inputs (camera, drives, burners etc.) except the deck. Restart and try starting the FCP while the unit powered on etc. The FireWire drivers can be finicky about how and when some decks are powered up. Try different combos and post back if he is still having problems.