I personally have never heard of someone booting off of an external firewire drive for speed. Putting the OS or FCP on an external drive doesn't make sense to me because once loaded, the OS and FCP simply live in RAM, which HD they live on should have no effect. Put your OS and Applications on the internal drive, even if it is 5400rpm.

Your disk issues will be your scratch space and where your project lives. I'd keep that on a FW 800 drive and check www.barefeats.com to see which FW 800 drive would best. Because the FW 800 and the FW 400 are on the same FireWire bus, I would suggest using only one FW port at a time for maximum results. If you don't see any problems, go ahead and try using the 400 port at the same time (I don't think there would be much of a performance hit).
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/Developer_Notes/Macintosh_CPUs-G4/15inchPowerBookG4/index.html

You can even slow down the performance by moving the software to places other than where the OS installs it. In other words, FCP will be installed in the applications folder, with all the other apps. That is where it should be and it should not be installed on a separate drive or partition. I would designate a separate drive (not partition) to me the scratch disk and to be the location of the FCP media files.

Thanks for the link.

I don't think you mentioned how big your internal drive was... how big is it?

I agree Mark and Jeff, I wouldn't install the OS and FCP on the external drive.

On thing you may look into is partitioning your main drive. Keep you apps on one partition, have the other partition be for media files, scratch, ect as well as having the external for that.

You want to have your app drive have lots of extra space if at all possible for things like virtual memory and temp space for render cache and things like that.

Partitioning your drive also makes the two partitions a little faster since they have limited area to move around stuff.

External Firewire drives have gotten fast enough to make them a real option for media drives and since I've maxed out my possible number of internal drives I'm going that way next.

Although I do have an external drive that I use as a back up device. I have a program that sends stuff over to it and I drop it into a fireproof box in my office... on the days when I'm being good and not forgetting or at least before I go away for a couple of days. Sometimes....

When he loads the disk into his Mac, does he see the file and can't open it or (as I think you are describing) does he insert the disk and his system does not see the file at all... ie: a blank disk but sees that there is some of the disk taken up??

If it's the latter, there's something gone wrong in the way you burned the disk.

Macs can read all PC disks. It can see files on a PC formated CD, DVD, Floppy... anything.

it might not be able to open them (like .exe files) but it can see them.

When you burned the DVD, did you mount it and were able to see the contents and the disk?

How did you burn it? ISO?

Did you try to burn it as a DVD or as a Data DVD?

I think all the questions have been asked and the options said. If anyone wants to open .exe files on mac you do this with Virtual PC. And you may need to check the flatten movie option when encoding QT files for PC's. VLC should solve things as Matt said.

Jake

JVC GR-HD1 and Final Cut Express?
 

I have the opportunity to upgrade my Panasonic PV-GS200 to the JVC GR-HD1 with Beach Camera. All I have to do is pay a 10% restocking fee which is like $79. No big deal as I've had the camera for a month and didn't even expect them to consider it.

Question: I have Final Cut Express en-route from Apple. Will I be able to edit HD footage from the JVC in FCE? Thanks in advance!

According to Apples list of compatible devices...no.

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

Thanks for the replies, very helpful!
Since I have a Powerbook (15" 1.5) my internal drive is a somewhat limited 80Gb. It's also only 5400 rpm.

I had just heard someone mention how his computer ran really fast when he booted from an external drive and ran the app on it.

I'm getting an OWC (Other World Computing) 160 Gb 800 fw drive as i've heard good things about them on speed and reliability. So I'll use that as my scratch disk and keep the files on it and use my other, smaller fw drive as a backup (really smart idea to keep it in a separate location)

<<<-- Originally posted by Kevin Burnfield : On thing you may look into is partitioning your main drive. Keep you apps on one partition, have the other partition be for media files, scratch, ect as well as having the external for that. -->>>

Uh...no.

Partitioning your internal drive is not a bad idea, but NEVER put any media on either partition. While it is not on the same PARTITION as the OS, it still resides on the same DRIVE. Never capture media onto the same drive as your OS.

I have my internal drive partitioned into two and it actually does improve system performance. I put the OS and apps on one partition, and files, pictures, iTunes music, movie trailers on the other.

Powerbook for Editing
 

Will I be able to edit on my G4 Powerbook, 15", 60GB, 1.2K MHZ, 512 MB ram? I got the best one available without any custom upgrades, so is that good enough for smooth editing? If these statistics aren't good enough, what should I upgrade to?

I want to get Premiere or Final Cut ASAP, but for now I'm planning to use iMovie.

That model of PB will work fine as an editing station. But you really need to increase your memory to 1Gb. Video editing can be a very memory-intensive operation. You should also plan on using an external Firewire drive for your footage, not the internal system drive.

For big projects you will need more memory. FCP projects can get quite big. It is not hard to get them up to 30MB. With 10 undos, that's about 330MB just for project files in RAM.

I am not sure if FCP handles projects like that but it does make sense.

2- Some people are more successful capturing to the internal drive on the laptop then to an external drive. If you want success with the internal drive, then faster is better (i.e. 5400rpm instead of 4200rpm). Also, bigger is better (more GB is slightly better) but to a much lesser degree.

For external drives, you may want to get a PCMIA firewire card if your configuration does not work. Look for firewire drives with the oxford 911 chipset or FW800 drives.

You will need an external drive if you do not have enough room. DV is ~13GB/hour and there is less useful drive space than you think (about 85% is the max you can use for video and all your software). This is because the computer numbering system is different than th drive numbering system and you lose some space to file formatting, so a 200GB drive may only give 180GB. Also, you need to leave some room to avoid file fragmentation (more than 90% gets sticky).

IMO you can be fine with 60GB and 512MB. You just have to keep project complexity down, which you have to anyways considering it's a powerbook.

4- There's no point getting Premiere on Mac unless it's free or something like that. You'll probably like FCExpress or FCPro better.

Edit: I can't foresee a project of mine longer than 30-40 minutes, so I don't think length is a problem. I do plan on buying an external in the future though. As for needing extra ram, how would I go about installing it? Need a professional to do that?

Thanks for all the info!

you wouldn;t need a professional to help you upgrade your RAM...

so not to worry...
its more like a plug and play kinda thing

Exporting my final cut out to tape on my DVX 100
 

I am trying to record my finished cut back to mini dv into my DVX 100 from the computer(FCP4) but am not getting audio? Only getting video. Does the svideo input have anything to do with this? Help would be awesome, thanx

Are you using firewire? Check your preferences and make sure you have control of your device. Use Print to video and check the settings.

I just transferred to VHS through my DVCam via firewire and RCA (video, audio L-R) cables yesterday so it is all working fine. Check your cables and preference settings.

Good luck.

S-Video (S-VHS) only carries a video signal, no audio. To record audio using S-Video, you also need to use RCA audio cables. FireWire carries both audio and video.

Fcp Hd Fo' Free?
 

I was just on the apple site, and from the looks of it ,I can upgrade ("Update") from FCP4 to FCPHD for nothing. That is no $'s. Is this true? Crazy. Will I still need the lumiere hd thingy?
I'm still learning my way through FCP, but it looks like I'll be shooting a project on an HD10 later this year, so I'd like to get my NLE suite ready to go.
Thanks
Michael

Thanx for the reply, yes I am using firewire and everything seems to work fine except the audio signal does not output. When I digitize into my FCP the video and audio transfer fine. Is it possible that its my DVX 100 thats the problem? Doesn't make sense, I should be getting audio when I output my project to the camera from FPC, right?

Just making sure of what is going on -

1) Your camera is attached to the computer via firewire?

2) Your camera is attached to your monitor via s-video?

3) Is your camera attached to your monitor with any audio cable?

4) When you say you are getting no audio, is it via the monitor or are you double-checking the tape? How are you double-checking the tape (how is the camera attached to the monitor)?

Yes, the update is free. Whether or not you will need an additional capture card or can capture the HD via firewire I think depends on the camera? At least on of the Panasonics will let you capture directly via firewire with no card, not sure about any other HD camera.

NIWOT?
 

Thanks Jeff, I'm right down the road from you as I type this- in Longmont, at the Seagate plant. Niwot is a very nice little town. I go there for lunch from time to time.

Michael

So, when do we see 250 gb SATA Seagate drives with the same sort of rebate discounts that CompUSA always has on the smaller Seagate SATA drives? I would have loved to have gotten a Seagate but ended up with a Maxtor (which, I guess, is another local company...)

All right, I know this is OT.....

I was unaware that people actually PAY for disc drives. That is so very strange- I mean... what?

Actually, Jeff, I am a lowly test engineer (don't get excited, I only test packaging, Newton's Laws are the most complicated science I deal with- that and this crap @$$ PC they make me work on)

I would also like a 250 GB sata drive, but right now I have about 500 gigs of storage at home so I'm not going to complain too much.

Sigh... Maybe next year.
Michael

To continue the story . . .

I sent the deck in to the Sony repair depot in New Jersey. It happens that the DV input had indeed failed. It will require replacement of an IC at $76 and $300 in labor.

Sony is not considering this a warranty repair, apparently, so I guess it's being put down to "abuse."

Moral of the story. Be careful with firewire I suppose.

Tommy:

YES you should be getting audio if you are sending back to the camera via firewire. Just make sure your camera is not confused or anything and that you are just using firewire and not the S-VHS cable. Who knows how the electronics in the camera may read multiple cables!!!!

In any event, if you transferred to your computer with Firewire and received sound - your project should transfer back to your computer via the same firewire connection. As long as FCP took control of your camera and recorded the audio should be there! If not you may have a problem with your camera.

Please double check all your connections and the preferences when you set up for your transfer. Something may be unchecked so to speak. But to answer your question.... YES you should be getting audio during your firewire transfer back to your camera.

Exporting Flash in AE
 

Anyone know the best way to export an AE Project to the smallest possible Flash file? I have a 12 second intro I would like to put on our website, but the smallest flash file I can make without too much quality loss is 8megs. I would love it to be close to 1 meg if at all possible!

Funky DVD playback
 

Just burned the first DVD on my G5 (burned fast, no real problems). It plays back fine on a normal DVD player but it plays back really funky on my laptop (Dell, Win 2k). It seems to be running in fast motion with fast, poppy audio.

Other than getting a new DVD player for my laptop is this some setting I can change in burning my DVD? I currently use best quality.

The other option would be a different disk. This one was burned on a Verbatim (printable). I could try and Apple disk and see if it makes a difference.

I'm going to be using this for teaching so getting it to play on a laptop if fairly important.

Thanks.

Does your laptop play DVD-R's? Depending on the age of the computer it can be an issue. Is the software DVD player the most up to date, latest version? Can you try the disk on other windows machines to see if it is specific to your laptop or not?

I suspect it may be the age of this laptop. Right now I don't have access to another to test it out in.

Out of sync video
 

How strange! This morning, the video for a doc I'm working on is now out of sync. And increasingly so as it progresses.

HOWEVER, the QT file is in perfect sync; and I know that I"ve looked at these clips before and they were in sync.

What's the problem? How can I solve it?

Thanks,
elmer lang

Can someone tell me what graphics card I need on the Mac?
 

Hi,

I'm getting a mac G5 for editing HD 1080p, very possibly uncompressed video. Sooner or later I'll be doing special effects work. I'll also be working with a HD monitor 23" or 30" from apple. Do I need something as big and bad as a Radeon 9800 XT? What's necessary for this type of work? Am I okay with the built-in 64 bit card?

Thanks!

Nobody can say what type of video card may be needed for a (yet to be announced) 30" Cinema Display.

These are the requirements for the 23":

System requirements


The Apple Cinema HD Display requires Mac OS X v10.1.3 or Mac OS 9.2.2 or later, and one of the following systems:

—
Power Mac G5 with NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra or ATI Radeon 9600 Pro graphics card

—
Power Mac G4 with NVIDIA GeForce2 MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 MX, or GeForce4 Ti graphics card; or with an ATI Radeon 7500, 9000 Pro, or 9700 Pro graphics card

—
PowerBook G4 with a DVI port and an Apple DVI to ADC Adapter

A second display can be used with a Power Mac G4 computer via the DVI port on the NVIDIA GeForce4 MX, GeForce4 Titanium, ATI Radeon 7500, Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card and the Apple DVI to ADC Adapter.

Thanks Jeff!!!!!!!

What is the size of the frame for Flash and what kind of video are you outputting (lots of movement, animation, etc)? Does this project have an audio track? What settings are you using now for export and what size are you getting?

If I know that I might be able to help you shrink it down.

--pete

Go for the most bad assed card you ca get - it will run Motion a lot better, and also give you a bit more real time in FCP (which uses openGl accelleration for a little bit of it's work).

Graeme

This flash size is 600 x 300 and there is not a lot of movement with images. Just some clouds rolling over top of a church. Majority of movement comes from the text...flying in from different angles to spell out Calvary Christian church. It does not contain audio.

The only option in AE6 I had to export a flash animation was a quality setting between 1 and 10, and I chose "1" which gave me a file size of 8mg.

Also, the project is 10 seconds long. Hope this info is sufficient...I should probably just learn to use Flash, exporting in AE just seems to be so much more simple! Plus, I know how to use AE.

-EPP

Mac to Camera to Monitor Question
 

I know I'm being daft, but I can't seem to figure out how to get FCP timeline display to show on my 8" Sony external monitor.
I've got firewire out of my Dual 450 G4 to my old Sony TRV-8 camera, then S-Video from the camera to my Sony 8" PVM 8045Q monitor - Yet it's just a blue screen. (Blue screen in my camera too)
When I "Print to Tape" from FCP it does show in the monitor (and camera too). However, I want to be able to view the clips in the monitor while I'm editing, not just while printing to tape.
I know I'm missing an obvious, glaring set-up step, so if somone can point that out, I'd be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Tripp

Tripp,

Go to View-->Video and select Firewire.