thank you,

I was also told to do this:

audio/video settings should be at:

sequence setting to 23.98
Capture settings to 23.98 (2:3:3:2 advance pulldown removal)
Device control to Firewire NTSC NDF

If you can upgrade to FCP HD do so. It's free and will really help.


now not sure what to do

Could this be as simple as you are viewing the recaptured footage with the QuickTime player and High Quality is not turned on? In QuickTime Pro, open the DV file and select Movie->Get Movie Properties. Select Video track from the left drop down and Quality from the right drop down. Change the quality to "High Quality Enabled".

Set up to make Beta SP tape for TV show
 

Hello,
I have landed a gig where I need to edit a show for a TV show. They need the final show on a Beta SP NTSC tape.

The footage is a mix of Beta SP NTSC and MiniDV NTSC.

I was thinking about renting a Sony PVW-2800 and ad this to my current editing suite: Apple G4 w/FCP 4.5, Sony DSR-11 DVCAM deck and Sony PWM 1342Q video monitor.

I was then going to capture all footage into FCP, edit and then make a master tape on the Sony PVW-2800.

Since I have never done this before, I was wondering if this set up will do? I am also very intersted in any comments.

Thomas

Either you need to purchase a capture card, FW800 card, G-raid or Lacie BigDisk Extreme in order to capture the betacam at 8-bit resolution, or you are going to have to transfer all of the beta footage to DV and capture and edit DV/NTSC. For the beta-DV transfer, and vise versa, I'd suggest getting a black burst box as well.

After you finish editing you'll need to color correct and make sure your fall within broadcast safe colors, brightness and blacks. When you output your show, you'll then need to dub BACK to betacam.

Since it sounds like you are somewhat of a novice in this area, i'd suggest getting the Beta's transferred to DVCAM (with matching TC) at a dub house, and when you are done editing and output your final, have them dub it from DV to Beta.

Yup - best advice is use a dub house to make DVCAM copies of the beta tapes for you. Edit as DV throughout, and give the DV master tape back to the dub house to get them to do a DV to SP dub for you. Even if you hired an SP deck, you'd have to deal with the NTSC setup issue on dubbing from SP to DV as the DSR-11 doesn't have a switch to take care of this for you. Also, check your levels on the DV tapes after getting them dubbed from SP to DV as there are still some idiots in dub houses who don't know, (or don't care) how to set their black levels correctly. This is not the place to name names, but after just getting some SP to DVCAM dubs done properly in Toronto, along with some Quad to DV dubs, I was dissapointed after getting an SP to DV dub done locally in Ottawa to see that the black levels were really, really wrong. I'll be getting the guy in the office who ordered this dub done for his project to get his money back on that!

Graeme

DVD SP Encoding Question
 

Hey all folks.. man it's been a while since i last posted.. at least 2 weeks :)

well i got a fairly simple couple questions i spose.. and i've searched to no avail.. basically, whenever i do a proj in FCP and then compress it using Compressor, which exports it as a mpg2 .. which is all well and good.. i open up the proj in DVD SP 2, at which point when i'm done, i press the button 'Build/format' and DVD SP begins to encode it.. now my question is, since i bring it in as an assett that's already mpg2 encoded, is there any way i can bypass this setting as it seems that DVDSP2 is re-encoding/compressing the footage? or am i totally off base here...

2) When i do Scene selections on the dvd, when the scene ends i want it to go back to the 2nd menu or scene selection menu as it stands.. i know how to do this by adjusting the chapter markers in the main track.. however, when i DO do this and i play the film on the regular menu, for some reason at every chapter marker it goes back to the scene selection menu.. is there anyway possible i can ensure that in the scene selection part it goes back, but in the regular part footage it continues to play without being cut off?

Any help to these questions would be MUCh appreciated folks, thanks in advance! :)

Titles in After Effects. Why me dumb?
 

I know this must have come up numerous times before, but I couldn't find it. I am referring to those darn pesky titles. I understand that if I had a NTSC monitor, life might be easier, but that isn't happening anytime soon. Anyhoo, on to the point:

Do titles in AE have to be imported from Photoshop at 72dpi, or can they be kept larger, as in 300. Not to wax obvious, but I like bringing them in larger so I can size them down as the need arises. If you bring them in at 72 and then you need to size them up, they look like poop. That's right, actual poop.

BUT, when I do this (bring them in large) and then size them down, they look something horrid on my computer monitor. I'd hate to have to transfer my footage to dvd everytime to go check on my TV. Any information on this matter will be joyfully absorbed by my sponge-like brain.

Thank you.

Why don't you hook up your TV to your Mac/Final Cut? If you're starting, you should *really* do this so you know to avoid things like overscan, chroma crawl, interlace flicker, etc. A TV will be close to what your video will look like on a TV, what you see on your computer monitor is far from accurate.

All decks can convert from DV--> analog on the fly. In Final Cut, go into the A/V settings and tell Final Cut to send video out through firewire.

Most camcorders can function in place of a deck, but not all have analog-digital passthrough. You need to set the camera to convert in the right direction (many can do both ways).

2- If it looks bad on TV then you have a problem. Check on a TV first.

Here's what I do:

-- Set up FCP for NTSC DV.
-- Capture all DV via Firewire.
-- Capture all Betacam via a Decklink SP card through component connectors. As it captures it encodes it as DV.
-- Setup with the Decklink is set to zero.
-- Setup of the final signal is adjusted with the aid of an external waveform monitor.
-- Output final mastter via the Decklink SP card through the component connectors.

Resulting quality is very high, as good as the source material.

Dean Sensui
Base Two Productions.

hmm anyone here have an inkling to what i'm saying or am i not making very much sense? i do that sometimes :|

FCP settings for XL2 16:9
 

What would be the proper FCP HD import and sequence settings for 16:9 footage shot on an XL2? Something I am doing does not seem quite right.

Final Cut Pro HD install error
 

A friend of mine recently got a new job and inherited a FCP editing station (dual 1 GHz G4, 80 & 120 GB drives, 1 GB RAM). The previous user was VERY disorganized and the computer is an absolute mess. Unfortunately, some of the data on both drives is required for future projects, and we have been working on making something useful out of it.

Both drives (80 GB system drive, 120 GB video capture drive) were filled to the max, rendering the computer unusable. In order to preserve the old info and free up space for new projects, we used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the system and video disks to a new external 250GB drive, then erased both internal drives and reinstalled OSX Panther. So far everything is good to go and the external drive is bootable.

After getting Panther installed and updated, it was time to install FCP HD (all programs are 100% legal). When he got the computer a couple months ago, it was still running FCP3 so he purchased the full upgrade to HD. The upgrade works fine on the original drive (now the external) but the new FCP installation will not open, showing an error message when trying to start the program. The strange part is that LiveType and the others work fine.

When installing the new FCP, we just used the upgrade disks without having the old FCP3 installed on that drive. Is FCP3 required to install the upgrade even though we entered both the serial numbers (3 & 4) when prompted? Could this be a security function?

Fortunately, he doesn't have any big projects coming up this week and can utilize the bootable external drive for the time being. Unfortunately, we're at a standstill. If anyone has suggestions at solving this, they would be very appreciated.

You say you did a clean install and then updated the OS X software?

If you updated the software to OS 10.3.5, then you are going to have problems. Do a clean install of OS X 10.3.2 (minumum) THEN install FCPHD, then do an update to 10.3.4.

I went through this same problem a few weeks ago. There is something about memory bindings with 10.3.5 that conflict with FCPHD memory bindings.

Hope that helps

Cheers

travelling with a g4.
 

hey,

i'm about to move to spain and i was wondering how i could travel with my computer. anyone got any tips to do it safely?

peace

I'm assuming you mean that you just want to take your G4 tower with you on the plane? I'm also assuming you mean a tower, not a G4 laptop.

Is this right? Or do you just want to know the easiest way to ship it?

I never even thought to try that. Thanks bunches.

yeah i wanna take the g4 tower in the plane. shipping a computer twice might cost me like 300 euros so i can 4get that. any tips? people say putting in a box with foam will do it but the company i'm flying with(iberia) doesn't have a glorious reputation on the way they treat the luggage...

Thanks Stephen,
I had a feeling 10.3.5 might be the problem, but was still concerned about what was going on. After browsing through the Apple Support discussions, it seems that this is a fairly common problem, although I didn't read any real solutions. I'm going to take your advice and see how that goes.

Thanks again.

There was something posted in the Knowledge base the other day that might solve the problem, but it requires you go into the unix app and type a few lines of commands. Not sure I am willing to do that. Would rather wait for a fix in 10.3.6.

If you are daring enough, you might try it, but if you do it wrong, you'll have to rebuild your computer from scratch again anyway.

Since you are just now beginning to use this new system, might as well reinstall 10.3.2, repair permissions, install QuickTime, then update it to 6.5, then FCPHD, LiveType, SoundTrack, etc. Then do the update for FCPHD (includes update to livetype and cinematools), then do the other system updates to 10.3.4.

If you need to find 10.3.2 - 10.3.4, do a quick search on the apple site. You can still download them.

Cheers

Me am do dumb things to sometimes.

One thing that MIGHT help is to make sure that the Photoshop layer with your text is set to best quality in the Timeline. That would be the little slash mark.

Scaling down "generally" doesn't much with the quality of the text, unless of course you are using really thin text like a seriff font.

An alternative would be to use Illustrator to create your text. That way you can scale them to anysize in After Effects since you are dealing with Vector information.

Out of curiousity, what size is your original Pshop file (720x480ish)? You might want to use a larger canvas size to create your title and then scale down. in this case DPI has nothing or should have nothing to do with scaling down. Only when scaling up - or so my experience has shown.

Hope that helps

cheers

Where to find restore CDs?
 

I am about to purchase a used iMac G3 to use it as my editing back-up. I have found a few good deals out there but none of these computers come with the original restore CDs. Does anyone know if there is place where I can purchase the restore CDs for, say, the iMac 600MHz Graphite? Do you think that the restore CDs that came with my eMac will work with the iMac, if needed?

Thank you.

I've considered playing around in the unix command line for other problems/fixes/adjustments, but always decided against it out of fear of screwing something up. I guess its really not such a big deal when, like you said, it can just be reloaded, but I'll still pass for now.

I'd planned on heading up to his office and getting everything lined out today, but can't seem to get ahold of him yet. Once everything is said and done, I'll post the results and how they were achieved.

Newbie Q: FCP HD or Lumiere plug-in
 

Good Morning.

I own FCP Pro and am just now learning to shoot HD with my JVC 10u.

Should I puchase the FCP HD s/w or the Lumiere plug in?

Thanks for any advice.
Tom

firewire output crashes fcphd
 

I have a dual processor G5.

When I view 'all frames' from the timeline out to my external Sony deck FCP crashes. If I view the same timeline footage on the desktop (without using an external firewire connected deck) FCP does not crash.

I did a test with iMovie and the timeline won't play through to the deck either.

So I think I have some firewire issue. (I've tried both the front and rear firewire ports, by the way...and other firewire devices like hard drives work fine via the ports.)

Thanks in advance for any advice about this.

Steve

Lumiere HD needs FCP
 

Without the FCP HD software the Lumiere HD app is pretty useless on a Mac. You want to get both, and FYI they just released a new updated version today. It's a good time to buy it...

Murph

Really?
 

Murph,
Lumiere HD website states that only FCP Pro is required (4.0)
for the plug-in to work.

I'm sure I'm missing something but have to make sure before I spend
so much money.

Thax again.
Tom

You mentioned the HD version, so that's what I thought you wanted to know about. If they say 4.0 then of course that's accurate.

Murph

Thanks Tons
 

Thanks Murph.

So I am assuming that simply upgrading the the FCP HD ver from
my current FCP Pro is just not enough, correct?
Then I have to ask, what is the advantage of the HD ver over the
Pro ver is any?

Thanks again

Find out if they have a special rate for storing "fragile" cargo on their planes. Not sure if this particular airline does it, but many do. You have to pick up your "luggage" at a special terminal.

If not, I would wrap the box in another box with more popcorn to prevent punctures from getting to your computer and to absorb more shock. But overall, it should be fine unless they really abuse it. Can you insure it?

What OS are you using and what hardware, ram etc?

G5
dual 2GHz processor
2.5 GB DDR SDRAM

os 10.3.5

It should be exactly the same as standard DV, but just check the anamorphic 16:9 checkbox.

FCP: Exporting for pc playback?
 

Hi all

Wa trying to export a video clip today for playback on a pc. I found it almost impossible to get decent quality using a codec that windows would playback natively.

I used compressor but found that any of the codecs and compression schemes i used would not playback on pc (windows 2000) without attempting to download a codec (which failed)

I then used FCP itself using Export | Using Quicktime compression which was better but I'm still not sure which codec I should use to get max quality at a reduced resolution, say 320x200 at a small size.

Ideally I'd like to not have to download a codec on the pc as the people I give it to may not be connected to the net when viewing.

If anybody has good settings for a codec to use I'd be intrested in trying it out.
Many thanks
Donie

Quicktime:

sorenson3 for video. The codecs you pay for give much better quality.

audio:
mpeg4 is excellent, but requires QT6 instead of 5.
qdesign gives compression, but sounds bad.
IMA 4:1 is lossless in nearly all cases, but doesn't give much compression.

If you have space to burn, MPEG1 will give very good compatibility. Make a autorun.ini so it autoplays on PCs. Roxio Toast can do this I believe, or you could just create the file. check videohelp.com

If you have a PC, export a DV AVI to it (or print to tape and capture on PC). Use Windows Media Encoder (free). Excellent quality if you use the newer codecs, but those require a codec download.

i don't know if i can insure it... but most of people say the box thing should do so i think you're right i might go for that and ask the company aabout this fragile item thing. thanks

New Imac 1.6 vs Refub G5 1.6
 

I'm in the market for a new machine. My budget is tight so I'm leaning towards the refurb G5 but now i'm wondering if i shouldn't go the Imac route.

I'm striclty DV Cam/mini DV right now and I'll be using FCE but would probably upgrade to FCP sometime in the future.

How does the Imac compare to the regular G5 when running FCE, FCP, DVD Studio Pro?

Thanks for the comments.

Go for the G5.
The iMac is good, but when you get into FCP, you want to be able to use firewire 800 drives. I don't believe you can put a card that will do this into an iMac. Also, if you want multi monitor functionality which makes your editing workspace twice as large, the iMac won't allow this either. Do yourself a favour, when it comes to crunching picture/video files, get the biggest, baddest machine you can afford.

Question Re: DV Compositing in FCP HD
 

With the 4:1:1 color space in DV, my composites have not exactly been perfect. I have read about some devices that supposedly upconvert or soften the DV image into a 4:2:2 colorspace but for this I would require and SDI capture card. Supposedly, Vegas and Avid have a codecs or filters that can help in this regard. Is there a filter or codec for FCP that can help make my comps cleaner?

Dual processors is a big boost to productivity. Get the PowerMac if your budget can stand it. Refurbs offer a very good value and carry a full warranty. Apple Care is also available if your interested in a longer warranty.

The tower will give you...
dual monitor video card (I think- might want to research this)
space for internal store. Internal drives are cheaper, faster, and more problem-free (a number of FCP users report dropped frames when capturing to firewire drives). Internal drives aren't that portable.