You should check the customs requirements - some countries don't allow you to bring anything other than laptops- and new or used is also an issue- they're protecting their markets. You would probably hate to lose it at entry !

12 inch PB advice needed
 

Hi all,

I need advice on what sort of external hd would suit a PB12 inch

If I want to capture to an external hd...

the only option I can see is to get a USB2 external drive and use the PB's firwire port for the camera...is there any other options?

also - could anyone who's done this/similar setup comment on the performance of this config - including any dropped frames issues etc?



thanks

from 16:9 to 4:3
 

I am preparing a project that will be shot on an Ikegami HL-DV7AW in 16:9. The project will partly be sponsored by a number of NGO's who will want a b-roll afterwards. And since they can't use 16:9, the b-roll has to be 4:3.
Can I scale up 16:9 footage to 4:3 without quality loss?
I know this can be done with 16:9 digibeta material without a problem, does the same apply to 16:9 on DV-Cam? (the Ikegami has native 16:9).
BTW I know we'll have to think about framing etc, we'll be following the BBC guidelines ie shoot 16:9 with 14:9 aspect ratio framing, this makes the conversion to 4:3 less of a hassle (in an aesthetic sense ;-)
thx in advance
Michiel

I personally would downscale the 16:9 to fit the 4:3 ratio. I much prefer the black bars at top and bottom to the loss of image composition.

There are several options, but no guarantees that one is better than the other. You can use a FireWire hub and plug both camera and drive into the hub. Capture to the internal drive via FW and then copy the material to your external FW drive. People seem to have the most success (fewer dropped frames etc.) with the later, but it takes longer. The USB2 drive is another option that is problematic. Several of my students try USB2 drives each term. Some have good luck while others have issues with dropped frames and audio sync. Some students have plugged the camera into the drive and tried capturing with some limited success. Lastly there are PCMCIA FW cards that give you another port.

I understand what you mean (and agree), but unfortunately orgs like World Wildlife Fund, with 25 offices worldwide, don't have much use for 16:9 archive. And the broadcaster will want to air the shows in 16:9. Caught between a rock an a hard place here, as they both will be co-financing this project.
I think the trick is to ask for a few extra shooting days on each location in order to secure properly shot 4:3 b-roll footage...;-)

The other method (besides letterboxing) to convert 16:9 footage
to 4:3 is to do pan and scan where you crop the footage to a 4:3
frame and scan accross the image where needed.

I'm not sure how you would do this in 4:3, but I can't imagine it
would be that hard. It should be easy to do in Vegas on the PC
(what I'm using) and can't imagine FCP not being able to.

I live in Holland as well so in case of trouble (don't own a Mac so
can't help you there, sorry) shoot me an e-mail.

Good luck.

Unfortunately, the 12inch powerbook does not have a PCMCIA slot (that and only having 1 FW port has prevented me from getting it). Depending on your drive, you might be able to just daisy chain from your camera, to the HD, to the laptop, but I would expect dropped frame problems because the data has to get to the computer and then rerouted back to your HD.

In your case, other than saving directly to your internal HD, a USB 2 hard drive is probably the way to go. The only other option I can think of is a Ethernet HD which I've never tried and is much more expensive. If possible 1) get a drive with both USB 2 AND FW ports and 2) test it out to see how it does before buying.

Don't forget to factor in the cost of a monitor if you go the tower route (which is probably the way to go).

Looking for a good online tutorial for FCP
 

Hello,

I've done most my editing with Avid and Vegas, but may get a job using FCP, I know it is similar to Avid, but it has its differences, especially with stuff like effects and titler, is there a good online tutorial site (preferably with video or flash) that can help bring me up to speed? I am by no means a novice editor, so the more advanced the better. Thanks! (whos knows, i may even get a mac for myself)

Here's a good place to start your search, Steven.

nice, but i should have also added the F word (free) ;-)

Ken Stone has some very helpful tutorials on his site.

motion?
 

does anybody know why motion isnt available as a free download like adobe offers AE and such?

JR

Do you need help with your PowerBook or not?

Apple does not provide free demos, company policy.

Just for the sake of future problems in this area... I can second Stephen's solution of reinstalling to 10.3.4. Everything went together without any problems and seems to be working great.

cool thanks, a friend of mine had the Lynda.com DVD for FCP and it's actually quite good.... ....looks as if FCP is quite alot like Avid and Premiere Pro, although I like the layout much better then Avid.

Stereo to mono
 

Grr, can't figure this out. I was recording an interview w/ a wireless mic to the left channel, but nothing to the right. I needed to dump the footage fast so i could take it home, b/c all the decks and cams were checked out for the weekend. I dumped it into imovie, and it captured the stereo pair, but with nothing on the right channel. i popped it open in FCP, and now I can't figure out how to separate the two channels so that I can get rid of the right channel.

Select the tracks in the timeline, then Modify > Link which will separate the audio from the video tracks. Now select the audio tracks and Modify > Stereo Pair. Now you can select the unwanted right channel and hit the delete key to remove it.

Also just a reminder for future users to not panic when they do this and hit 'play'. You need to go to each one of the clips and change the balance from -1 or 1 to 0 for it to go back to stereo.

Another suggestion is when you have clips with only one channel of audio, target just one track in the timeline before you insert the clip. By default 2 tracks are targeted when making a new sequence.

Sudden general error...
 

I'm working for 2 years now with FCP (4 nowadays) without having any major problems. Until today!

While trying to capture I get this strange and annoying GENERAL ERROR, which makes it impossible to capture my new footage.

I'm capturing on an external Firewire 800 250 gig harddisk. Mac is an dual 1,25 G4. Worked and captured on it without any problems for months. Did not adjusted or modificated some settings ; touched nothing.

How bizarre! Quit a problem for me now!

Uncontrollable device, Pal, Pal basic ; tried everything. Help!

Can't install FCP 4.5 HD upgrade
 

I currently have FCP 4 running on a Dual 2 GHz G5 w/2.5 gigs of RAM. I just completed the upgrade from OS 10.2.8 to OS 10.3.2.

I have downloaded the FCP 4.5 HD upgrade and am attempting to install it but I get an error message stating that it can't be installed and that I must make sure that my FCP 4 software is located in the Applications Folder and is called "Final Cut Pro".

I have checked - FCP 4 is located in the applications folder in a folder called "Final Cut Pro 4" I tried to install it 5 times. I even changed the name of the folder to "Final Cut Pro", but continue to get the same error message.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Paul

I'll put a plug for the 38+ Final Cut Pro Quick Tips I have over at my site.

Cheers

Have you tried capturing to your internal hard drive? Have you tried capturing old footage again? This just might help narrow down whether FCP is having problems, if it is FireWire or maybe that particular tape...

What OS, what version of QT, how much free space on FW drive, have you trashed the FCP preferences, have you repaired permissions, what format is the FW drive formatted?

Trash the FCP preferences, repair permissions, update to 10.3.4

Master & Slave
 

Ok here's my situation. I have a G4 and a G5. I know how to make the G4 be the slave by using firewire so I can move files over to the G5. It works by showing the Macintosh hard drive of the G4 on the G5, but I want to know how to get it show the second drive of the G4 on the G5. Please help!

Thanks - will do ASAP

Wouldn't it just be easier to hook the two up via an ethernet cable and use appleshare to do both drives on the G4 at once? At gigabit speeds this should be comparable to FireWire I would think...

Overlayed Photoshop CS logo... HOW-TO?
 

Hi all

I'm trying to add a logo at the bottom of my screen and I'm having trouble. I've created the logo ok in photoshop cs and I've imported it into FCP 4.5 HD.

I have two video tracks. the lower one is my footage and the upper one is my logo. I created the logo as a image with a transparent background. The image I copied to the layer so it has nothing on it only the logo. the rest is transparent.

OK, so it works in that I can play back the video and the logo is sitting on top nicely.

However, I want to fade the logo in and out so I stick a standard fade at each end, this is where I'm confused.

What it's doing at the fade out is the start of the fade makes the underlying video go black and both the logo and the video fade. The logo fades away. the underlying video fades in.

Similar at the fade in at the start of the logo, just reversed.

I'm guessing the alpha channel is not correct. When I save As... in photoshop it doesn't allow me to select that I want an alpha channel so I guess I'm not doing this correctly in photoshop????

Can anybody enlighted me? Please

Thanks
Donie

Apple extends warranty for defective 15" powerbook screens
 

http://www.apple.com/support/powerbook/displayprogram/I have one of these defective screens myself, but keep putting off the repairs since I hate to give up my computer!

Hi Boyd

They don't affect the newer 1.5Ghz machines... yet.

Thanks
Donie

Yes, there are a limited range of serial numbers that are affected on the first batch of aluminum powerbooks. As luck would have it, my Titanium powerbook got "fried" in an accident at work and I had to get an immediate replacement. I went to CompUSA that night and got one of the very first 15" machines they received. This is why I hate being the first kid on the block with the newest toy ;-)

getting video to the internet
 

I need to get a thirty-second video clip, (with only one track of audio) I assembled in FCP 3 (0SX) to my web designer. What is the procedure? I imagine saving it as a Quicktime Movie is the way to go, and if so, what are the correct compression rates, sizing, etc.? One limitation I have is dial-up modem, but I'm thinking I could probably burn it to CD and mail it off. Any thoughts?

Your web designer probably doesn't know how to encode it?

If they do, mail em a mini-DV tape. If they have a PC with a firewire card and a camcorder, they can capture it and use Windows Media Encoder.

You doing it:
If you have a PC, use Windows media encoder. Excellent quality (better than QT) and free. Export a DV AVI from Final Cut and put that onto your PC.

Mac:
If you pay for software you will get better quality. Sorenson pro codecs are what you'd look at.

I assume you want to do things for free.
Export from Final Cut...
codecs:
video: sorenson3
audio: mpeg4 audio
frame rate: probably bump it down to 15fps or less. Motion is usually not that important, but depends on your material.
frame size: bump this down to whatever's appropriate. the dimensions have to be in right aspect ratio, usually 4:3.
quality: use something between 10-40. I never have had good results using "limit bitrate to..." (leave that unchecked).
keyframe: you can leave this alone, doesn't make a major difference.

audio:
mono (listen and check that phase cancellation isn't causing problems).
32khz sampling rate or lower for music. 22.1/24khz for voice should work. That sampling rate can be ok for music too.
bitrate set as low as possible to balance compromise between sound quality (how many artifacts) and compression/size. The lower bitrates are the place to start.

A DV clip captured with AJA IO has better quality?
 

A friend of mine has an AJA IO card working with a G5. He says that a DV tape captured to the G5 through AJA IO has better picture quality because the card "doesn´t compress the clip". I didn´t understand! If I capture directly through the G5 firewire, not using the AJA, the compression is gonna higher than the usual DV compression? What is the benefit of the AJA card?

Did you try keyframing the actual track opacity to fade out and in. I use this method for simple fade ins/outs rather than using the transitions.

hi matt,

i got it to work. i needed a proper alpha channel on the picture rather than just a transparent background.

however, once i got that to work i ran into another problem. When I render the transitions the bitmap during the fade gets blocky??? What the heck is going on??? It's extremely noticeable. The bitmap in the outside the transition area is perfect.

I check that all settings I know about were set for high quality...

Any ideas???

Donie

Hmm not sure but i would just save the logo as a .psd file. I dont flatten my images i usually just import the logo as a saved .psd file with an empty transparent layer into FCP and then delete the empty layer in the FCP timeline. I know it may not be the right way but it always works for me.I dont even mess with the alpha channels but I guess you would have to if you are flattening the image and saving as a bitmap?? There is a nice tutorial over at www.kenstone.net that expalins a logo "bug" this may help.