Sports Transitions for FCP
 

I have a wedding that I'm shooting for a pro baseball player and I'm also making their growing up/together montage. Do you guys know where I can find some baseball player transitions for fcp?

Basically it would be the silhouette of a baseball player throwing a ball or swinging a bat which would transition into the next picture. I don't normally use cheesy transitions, but this is what they have requested.

I think I have seen these before, but I'm not sure if they have them for fcp. Thanks!

Speaking of cheesy... it sounds like you want those old Toast effects.

remove app and search for all .prefs (search for final cut in finder) and remove them relating to Final Cut. Reinstall software in default folder and follow *directions*.

In the mac world just always install in default folder that installer suggests. Almost ALWAYS Application folder. Dont try to move ANYTHING. ITS MADE that way so updates always know what to update. No such bull crap as a registry like in M$.

Enjoy FCPHD. Its a winner! Another trick when using a Mac is just to use it. Dont try to "tweak" it or customize anything. Just use the dam machine. ;-)

Joe

thanks, guys

My footage burned on -R DVD won't play on other players?
 

Is it because those players are older models and can't play them? Should I get an external DVD burner that burns both -R and +R for my Powerbook G4(1.25gHz) just to cover clients owning older DVD players?

I'm confused on whether +R has better compatibility or -R is better. Anyone have this issue before? Should I get the +/-R burner?

The last compatibility list I saw still had the -R format with greater compatibility than +R DVD's. There can be many causes for DVD's not playing, such as media brand, burner it's burned on, burn speed, age and brand of player, software used to emulate hardware player on computers and much more. I've had the best luck burning with Maxell and most of the compatibility studies rank it at or near the top of such lists. Some older players, Toshiba in particular, I've had the most troubles with.

Rotoscoping in Final Cut Pro HD?
 

I've been reading up on lightsaber effects and from my search on the forums, usually only Adobe After Effects is being used for such an effect...

Personally, I believe it is just crappy programming that makes this the way to go (leave defaults, don't install in another directory). But then, it also has to do with how the file system changed from OS 9 to OS 10. A lot of programs hard code that the path should be /Applications/Application Name which is pretty silly, but the way it is. OS 10 in general is more restrictive in terms of where you can put files. It is really easy to create folders with the wrong permissions, so be careful and you might want to put most of your editing files on a separate drive, OS 10 has much more flexibility for non-boot drives.

Thanks, this was the fix.


Ron

FCP_iDVD question
 

I have a finished project in FCP 4. If I make a reference file when I export and dump reference file into iDVD. Will this work okay?


Ron

I've never tried it with iDVD, so you might want to try a short test file. But i don't think that will work. You need to import the media in to iDVD so it can be encoded in to MPEG2.

Thanks Jeff,


I am new to the DVD prep/burning. In FCP how do I save project (what format in export do I use) so everything is as is, in FCP. I am probably not explaining this right. But how does iDVD know the arrangement of project , with out the FCP doc.

Ron

Hi Ron:

You can take your finished project from FILE, EXPORT to "Quicktime Movie" and use that file in iDVD. Do not use "Quicktime Conversion" because you will not get the same results.

I made a iDVD DVD with 3 edited sequences (3 different FCP projects) - 1 for the actual video which was the DVD presentation, 1 specified video that plays on the DVD when inserted to the player and finally one as an opening sequence montage which is played on the menu page. Each sequence was exported out of Final Cut Pro using Quicktime Movie and then simply inserted (by dragging it) into the iDVD theme of my choice. By using export to quicktime movie, iDVD knew exactly what the format was and all I did was place the right sequence in the right folder and iDVD did the rest.

I hope this has answered your questions. Just be sure to render everything then save your project. If you wish to copy it to a videotape, you should PRINT TO VIDEO.... the menu will walk you through everything.

Good luck!

Thanks for your help Rick

Ron

No problem Ron... Let us know how this works out for you.

RAID set up with USB 2.0?
 

Please forgive me I am still learning about my mac. My question is: Are there any benefits to setting up a RAID system when using my internal HD and an external USB 2.0(Western Digital 7200 80 gig). I use Premiere 6.5 on my internal. If there are no benefits should I run my scratch disk options to the internal or external HD. I dont use a lot of special effects. I do want to optimize my rendering times. Big surprise huh. Any input is greatly appreciated.

What computer? What OS? How much ram? How many drives and what type?

Thanks guys. Got it working. Everything cool.

Depending on the type of RAID I'd be leary of including my applications drive as part of the array (versus using two drives for projects). It also might be worth poking around on the internet to see if USB 2 is a good choice for this. While USB 2 and firewire have similar speeds in theory they are optimized for different types of data streams. My direct experience with the two is that USB 2 is slower than firewire for file copies on my Mac G5.

Can you even do a RAID between a USB 2.0 drive and an internal drive? The speed of USB 2.0 will be much slower than your internal drive so RAID would actually be slower than just using your internal drive. This is a Mac site but it has some speeds:
http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html

See the note about Windows speeds being better. But still, the speed would be slower than most internal drives.

I have an Imac superdrive G4 1.25 with 768 on the ram and I am running Panther. I did some checking on Mac help and they said you could raid your internal if it was OS Extended HFS format. I couldnt set it up as a raid set unless I ran disk utility from the boot disk of osx. I thought that USB might be slower. Im just looking for a little more speed and faster rendering with Premier 6.5. I guess I will just capture to the USB, and run my previews and projects form the Application on the internal hard drive. Thanks for the replies.

Increasing your ram may help speed rendering time but in many cases it will be a function of your processor, not your hard disk.

check out digital juice jumpback, they have a sports package that might help. $249 per box, not to bad on the price.

I use some of their jumback wedding stuff. I will probably have to use that for some of the backgrounds since I can't find any transitions. Thanks!

Log and capture
 

Whenever I capture a large clip, more than 8 minutes, when I play it back in the viewer I get loud beeping sounds. The same kind of beeps you get when you need to render something. I don't know why this happens and have no reference to look up what the problem is. It's driving me crazy. Does anyone know why this is happening? Please help.

Quick Storage Question
 

Hello, right now i'm torn between a 2nd Serial ATA drive or external firewire800. I'm leaning more towards the firewire800 due to portability, but my main concern is that does it move data quick enough where I can edit dv projects off that drive without moving them over to my primary Serial ATA drive?

Word going around is that an external 7200RPM Firewire 800 drive will give you equivalent to an internal ATA/133. This site has some stats:
http://barefeats.com/fire37b.html

Firewire 800 was getting sustained read/writes of 54/50 megabytes per second. Manufacturer mattered very little.

Was your clip captured in 12 bit audio? That might be the cause. Check the clip's audio profile (bits, hz) and see if it matches your setup.

No. 16 bit
 

It is in 16 bit. For some reason when I capture long clips, it beeps loudly, like it needs to be rendered.

Is there a red bar in the timeline? Render you audio.

Steve,
A FireWire800 drive would be more than fast enough to handle DV editing.
I use a FireWire 400 drive and haven't had any problems.

Yes, the beeping is definitely telling you that audio needs to be rendered, but I can't see how that is related to the length of the clip. I captured a full hour several times and never ran into that.

The only thing I can think of is the capture settings are set for something other than two channels of 48k hz, 16 bit sound and this is causing a problem.

Of course you can always throw away your preferences and see if it persists.

Mike.

It may have to do what amount of ram and other system parameters.

Thanks for all the quick replies guys! I'll definitely be picking up a Lacie drive this week.

New sancubes shared fw800 arrays...
 

http://www.sancube.com/sc800specs.htm

pretty sweet... I have 2 of the older ones fs... but these new ones work in OSX.

I too am looking to get either an internal SATA drive 250GB or a Lacie external 250GB drive.
I'm leaning towards the SATA internal, cuz i would not need to share a drive between computers or need the drive to be mobile.
The SATA is faster and more reliable?

Mac and 24p
 

What do you use to edit 24p on your macs? What are the options of editing software for macs?

Thanks.

FCP HD and the included Cinema Tools. That's all you'll need.

Final Cut Pro works great for 24p editing.

Graeme

Newb question : what software can do this?
 

http://uk.download.yahoo.com/ne/fu/a...s/formula1.wmv

I'm sort of a car enthusiast and I thought this clip was pretty funny! Does anyone know of a software that can do this? I'm new at this video editing thing. Thanks.


"My lug nuts have more torque than your Civic". *winks*