Maybe Adobe After Effects? Don't know, but I do know that for video editing Final Cut Pro rocks.

After Effects, Shake, Maya, almost any compositing software will do that.

Possible to dupe a few dvds at a time with externals?
 

Is it possible to daisy chain a couple external FW dvd writers together and use Toast to make a few copies at once? Similar to the stand alone dupers? Using the internal drive as the master and duping to the externals.

Toast Titanium 6 problems
 

I've had Toast Titanium 6 for quite some time and was fairly pleased with its performance. Recently, I burned a video DVD and noticed that the result was very jittery when viewed on television, almost as if stuttering between fields/frames.

I first noticed the problem after updating to 6.0.5 and just trashed Toast, then installed 6.0.3 again and it worked fine. Now, still using 6.0.3, the stuttering is back. I've tried changing field dominance and even deinterlacing in FCP, but keep getting the same results.

I've burned numerous junk DVDs and am hoping for some advice regarding what I'm doing wrong, or how this can be fixed. Basically, I've just been burning Final Cut movies (both self-contained and not) to DVD, letting Toast do the video encoding (standard). I'm pretty sure that the problem lies in Toast's encoding because I've eliminated most other variables.

Any Toast users out there experiencing, or have experienced, this problem? and if so, do you have any advice?

Also, I have Compressor, but haven't ever used it. Would it be possible to encode to MPEG-2 before burning with Toast? and if so, how would I make it playable on DVD players?

Any help will be very appreciated.

Try another encoder (Compressor) and just let Toast do the burn.

creating subtitels
 

I want to subtitel my recent project. Do I use text in FCP or lifetype?. I used LiveType so far but I then have to render twice...pretty timeconsuming..
I tried importing video in Lifetype to subtitel, but there is no audio feature? so I cant put the titels were I want them... Maybe I am doing something wrong?

Better to stick to FCP for subtitles. LiveType is more for flashy, moving titles. Plus it's easier to edit the subtitles in FCP if you have to make changes. There's also the advatage that subtitles can be played back in real time without having to render, depending on your hardware.

Firewire 800 With Beta SP Uncompressed 10 bit
 

I'm primarily used to working with DV but my employer shoots Beta SP only. His new G5 use an AJA IO and Medea Raid. It's only a 250 gig raid and we are constantly using up space and having to weed stuff out.

My understanding is that DV takes up about 13 gig/hr and uncompressed 10 bit about 70 gigs/hr. Is this correct? Also, he thinks he has to spend anothe 5K on a RAID set up. Will FW 800 work for us?

Thanks, Dave

If you plan to stay in the SD realm, you probably don't need to spend 5K on a Raid setup.

Take a look at Medea's new 'G Raid' series, as well as ProMax's raids.

Both of them make 1TB raids for under 2000 that offer data transfer rates fast enough for uncompressed 10bit SD work.

I would stay away from the Lacie 'Big Disk Extreme' by the way,
although it is fast enough also, it lacks a fan or any decent form
of cooling, and so it tends to overheat.

Hope this helps,

-Luis

PS.
Both of the drives I mentioned use FW800, but they also have FW400 ports on them. But, I'm not sure if FW400 would still be
fast enough for uncompressed SD work. You should contact
the manufacturers of the drives and see what they say.

Okay, here's what I understand... use Compressor to encode the file as MPEG-2, drag the file to Toast and burn as a video DVD, and Toast will provide the necessary files to make it playable on a DVD player.

I know this is an extremely simple situation that could be solved with, "Just try it." However, I've already wasted too many DVDs and would like to double check in order to avoid any more duds.

Thanks for the help.

Yes, that should give you better results in my opinion.

You could fake something like it using FCP too using green screen tech, just shoot the people, the background and the car separately and then put them all together at the end, simply dropping out the green background of the crew, putting the car with its green background dropped out under that "layer", and then the static, normal shot of the background acting as the base shot. Maybe I'm over complecating it? But at first glance you could shoot it that way with very little work to set up and very little post work.

Ray, check out barefeats or other speed comparison sites. I wouldn't say that the internal would be more reliable though. The nice thing about external is you end up using it for other things that you wouldn't have thought of necessarily. Like it is a great way to collaborate on a project, simply taking the drive from one location to another...

How to Import Premiere project to FCP 4.5
 

Hello

I've been working on a one hour doc in Premiere and I'm about to hand over a rough-cut to an editor who uses FCP 4.5. What's the best wasy to get the project moved over to a Mac? I have two options on Premiere - EDL and AAF - Which is the way to go? I know all the video files have to be recaptured which is fine. Does FCP import an Adobe batch list? Otherwise I'll have to manually enter the batch lists, right? I'm ok with losing some transitions, color correction, scaling etc. but I want to preserve all the edit points.

Thanks!!!

AAF usually doesn't work well, so EDL will be the long way. Automatic Duck is also an option but it is pricey.

Working between two computers
 

What's the best approach to working between two computers? I'm going to do some rough edits on a dual G4 and then finish my project on a G5 (the computers are in the same location). Should I save my project to an external HD and then move it to the G5 when I'm ready to use it? I want to make sure there aren't any problems with lost clips or the G5 having trouble finding their paths. If there's a better option, then the workflow will be much faster.

I use the FireWire Target mode. Turn of the G4. Plug a FireWire cable into the G4 and G5. restart the G4 and hold down the "T" key during restart. The FireWire symbol will appear on the G4's screen and the drives plugged into the G4 will appear on the G5's desktop. Transfer the media to a drive on the G5. Turn of G4. Unplug cable and restart the G4.

I have worked between my Powerbook G4 laptop and two G4 desktops using an external firewire drive, but my experience is with FCP 3 and not the newer versions.

It all works very well, but there was one "gotcha" that you needed to be very careful of in FCP3. This had to do with specifying a scratch disk. If the computer did not find the disk you had chosen in your preferences (for example, if it was a firewire drive that was unplugged) then FCP would without warning default to putting render files and captured clips inside the documents folder of your "home" on the computer's boot drive. This meant that you needed to always check the scratch disk preference when moving between computers or run the risk of having files end up on an internal drive.

Has this been changed in the newer versions of FCP? I found this to be sort of a nuisance on version 3, but nothing that couldn't be dealt with if you kept it in mind.

Powerbook + PC wireless network solution
 

What I is the best way to network a 12inch Powerbook to my PC desktop so that I can extract files from the PC’s hard drive and share its printer? I would like the Powerbook to be wireless but the PC will be hard wired. Is there a solution to do this economically? I like some of the products I see from Linksys although it dose not say if they will work with the Mac or with the Mac and PC combo. Also I would like to share the same internet connection.

Any Help would be great.

Thanks,
Alex

Alex,
The internet connection will be a breeze. Mac or PC use the standard 802.11b. As for the sharing this guy has a pretty good step by step.


http://joelshoemaker.com/computer/mac/pcfilesharing.html

Hm. Sharing the printer depends completely on the printer. The easiet thing to do would be to buy an Airport Extreme Base Station and hook that into your DSL or Cable modem. It has a ethernet jack for you to plug your PC into and your PowerBook can connect wirelessly if your PowerBook has an Airport Extreme card (802.11g or b). You can plug the printer (if it is compatible) into the USB jack on the base station and then anyone on your network can print to it... at least in theory. I don't know if the PC will detect it or not. You could go to the apple support pages and do a search or post a question about this setup there. According to the site, if you have windows 2000 or XP it should work: http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/

I would guess there are cheaper solutions out there, but I don't know if they would be as easy to set up.

If you just want to share files then take any ethernet cable, connect the two machines, and turn on file sharing on your PC. The mac will detect it when done correctly. I believe Barry's link is accurate for setting this up. It is easier to connect to the PC on your Mac then the other way around. Getting a PC to recognize your Mac's windows file sharing can be tricky. (You don't need to worry about a cross-over ethernet cable, the powerbook's ethernet jack is smart enough to figure everything out)

Viewing Unsqueezed Anamophic During Capture
 

Can I in the capture window of FCP4 on my Powerbook during direct to external harddrive capture? I want to frame my shots properly with my DVX and anamorphic adapter without having to buy a 16x9 monitor. Is there a plug-in solution?

I use FCP 3 and know there isn't a feature for this, don't know about FCP 4 but I kinda doubt it.

I suggest that you take a look at BTV Pro which is an inexpensive shareware application that I find really useful. You can display and/or capture video in this program and the screen size is fully configurable. I shoot anamorphic 16:9 with my PDX-10 and use BTV Pro all the time as a portable monitor that shows full screen underscan video in the correct proportion. On my 15" powerbook I've set the default for full screen at 1280x720.

The program has a lot of other features, many of which I haven't even tried, such as time lapse recording. You can also access a variety of "scopes" to analyze the video stream which can be really handy as well.

Give it a try, you can use it in demo mode for free which gives you full access to the features.

Can FCE do this too?

thanks for the link...i was hoping there was something out there like that. seems like a really easy feature to include in fcp4. i too capture on my pb, and love that i get to shoot exactly what i want and edit immediately.

You could do green screen with FCP for sure but as far as my experiences go with green screen, it isn't as easy as just pointing a camera at a subject on a green background and calling it a day.. there's lights involved, distance, focal points, focus.. not to mention a crapload of equipment u'd have to bring... it's doable, but if i don't think as easy as one would gather. Then again i guess one could always rotoscope that car in lol.. gee that'd be fun :/

Very strange problem with FCP. Help!
 

Hi. The problem is: when I press the "fast-forward" button on my FCP, despite of fast frames, a black screen appears. A very loud noise occurs too.

It´s not captured footage. I´m trying to fast forward from a tape that is "playbacked" from a DV VTR.

The system goes like this:

audio: VTR > AJA capture card > mixer > speakers
video: VTR > AJA capture card > mac G5 with FCP 4

Don´t forget the most important information: I´m trying to fast forward the tape from VTR using the FCP.

Do you think this noise and the black screen was supposed to be happening???

Some VTR's will not play an image in FF. Some VTR's have to have image playback in FF turned on in an internal menu. Is the noise your audio in FF also?

Correct Project Audio Settings
 

I've noticed before in the past if you use audio that didn't match your project settings that sometimes you'd get crackles or whatever. Our current project is shot with 2 vx2100's on 16bit 48kHz, but I'm switching over to a vx1000 which you know is 12bit 32kHz.

Can audio from the vx1000 still work good in a 48kHz project without distortion?

Thanks Jeff. I´ll be more especific: the VCR is a Sony DSR-25. When I try to fast-forward from the FCP, pressing the FF button, a terrible loud noise occurs. The tape begins to roll fast, but no image appears, only a black screen.

I heard someone say that it could be a software problem, and an update would solve the problem. Do you know anything about this update?

If the VTR is connected to a monitor you can see a picture, or a black screen on the monitor? What version FCP, 4.0, 4.1, 4.5?

Flicker Effect in FCP
 

I'm trying to put the finishing touches on a scene we shot in a movie theater in which I digitally inserted the video playing on the theater's screen. I was thinking it would be nice to put a little flicker effect on it to make it look more realistic. Any suggestions? I'm working with FCP and could conceivably go into After Effects if I really have to.

This is just a wild thought I had, but what if you rendered it out of AE at 24fps uncompressed, then inserted it back in what I'm assuming is your 29.97fps project?

The VTR is connected to an AJA card. The AJA is connected through firewire to the G5. It´s FCP 4.0. The black screen I´m talkin´about is the FCP monitor window.

Seems that the FCP is not fast-fowarding the tape properly.

FCP capture problem
 

When I try to capture now. The capture window comes up okay, but no video in it. I get message, allocating disk space.I eventually have to force quit out of FCPHD.
Do I have a setting wrong? Was working fine before Needs some ones advice!


Ron

Read the post at the top of this forum detailing how to trash your preferences. I suspect that will solve your capture issue, if not please post back with more details about your system, software and hardware

We had the same problem a couple of years back. An un-install and re-install solved the problem.

ASF to FCE?
 

I'm still a rookie with my new PV-GS200 and accidentally shot some footage to the memory card (.ASF) when I was trying to take a still - I pressed the wrong button... Turns out it was some pretty good footage and I would like to add it to my project in Final Cut Express. Is there a way?

problem importing eps file
 

I have managed to save from a disk some images with jpg extensions. They easily saved to my hard drive, and then dragged to my FCP 3 browser folder, and then dropped into my edit.
However, one image, with an eps extension, saved to my hard drive, would not drag to my browser. Any ideas?

Thanks for your help. still not capturing.

Let me give you some more back ground info.

-G4, 768Ram, FCPHD, working off 300gig FW hard drive.
When I click capture now black screen, no video, and it says: Allocating disk space and I have to force quit out of FCPHD.
I have removed preference files and re started.
tried a new doc.
I have check my settings, and believe there okay.
I have all so did a capture in iMovie, for a test and that works fine.
Do I need to un install and re install? I hope not!


Ron