GL-2 to VHS deck output problem
 

I have just cut my new showreel on imovie and exported it to my gl-2 with no problems.
The trouble started when I tried to dub the mini-dv tape information to VHS with my S/VHS deck.
Tried all of the combos of plugs and settings the GL-2 manual sets forth
and anything else I could think of with no luck. Hoping I am just missing some tid bit someone out there knows about and not have an incompatibility problem that cannot be solved...?!

What exactly is the nature of your problem? No footage being transferred? Footage looks bad? Etc...

Woohoo! More toys!

figured it out
 

thanks for asking Ken. Basically I was getting no image and then blue screens with vague vague hints of the images on the reel. turns out my remote for the deck was low enough on batteries that when I thought I set it to L1, it did not do it and there is no way of setting this on this deck without the remote. anyway, got it working and it looks great. cheers!

Firmware Update to SuperDrives
 

Apple posted an update to the G4's SuperDrive firmware today. Apparently this provides a solution for using 4x media in the drive (previously a problem), as well a few other fixes.

The update is available through your System Preferences > Software Updates facility under OS-X. But I highly suggest reading about this update first to determine if you need it at:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86130

since the process cannot be undone.

which way to go?
 

I am looking to buy a portable hard drive for video, what is the best? I have had 2 Lacie drives crash on me after moving them in my car a few miles, and one was 2 days old!?!?! I need a RELIABLE portable drive. Any suggestions?

My personal recommendation...
 

...is WeibeTech.

http://www.wiebetech.com/

I use both a 120Gb Super DesktopGB and a 40Gb MicroGB for FCP3 work and can say they've been excellent values and very reliable.

Of course maybe you should first check your car's suspension before investing more in Firewire drives. ;-)

...that is cold....

Thanks for the info

I've got the 800mhz powerbook, is it possible to buy the Superdrive and replace my current DVD/CD-R/RW with it. Or should I wait for a firewire DVD-R/RW?

How to rip DVD into Final Cut Pro?
 

Do you know how we can take video & audio from a DVD and use it in Final Cut Pro? This is not about stealing from Hollywood: Someone made a DVD of a business conference and one of the speakers at that conference wants us to excerpt their speech for use in another production. We can't seem to figure out how to get the DVD content into FCP!
Many thanks for your kind advice.
Scott Shuster
New York
- - - - -

Ask Apple...but I seriously doubt it. Getting the SuperDrive into that chassis was apparently a significant engineering challenge. I'd be very surprised if they offered such an upgrade. Apple has never offered any upgrade to these TiBooks; it doesn't make any financial sense from their end.

For the near future, PowerBook SuperDrives are not available as a replacement part. Give it 6 to 12 months. The actual PowerBooks will start shipping mid Nov. to mid Dec. FireWire DVD drives are available now. Apple supports DVD-R, but not DVD-RW. However, Toast (software) supports DVD-RW burning. It's confusing I know.

Jeff

Can Toast Titanium burn DVD
 

I know toast is not an authoring program. But I was wondering if i got Cleaner 6 for the mac and output mpeg2 files if toast could simply make a DVD with numberd tracks of the files.

If not, does that mean I would need DVD pro. I know idvd can't use mpeg files.

Thanks Ken i needed the update!

Toast will burn DVDs and I'd hazard a guess that most DVD SP users rely on Toast to burn their DVDs. The Apple burner is less reliable in my opinion. Cleaner is not an authoring program. What will you author with?

Jeff

It can be done, are you on OS 9 or OS X? I've got some links to tutorials and software (freeware, shareware) that should do the job. Commercial DVD's use an encryption system known as CSS and that's a different story.

Jeff

just trying to find a way around buying DVD pro. I have idvd on an i-mac. but would like to be able to use the higher quality mpeg from cleaner 6. as for authoring all I want are track numbers or titles, don't care about the background etc. It looks like there is no way around DVD pro however.
robert

I don't see away around it. I've heard of people tricking iDVD into not doing the burn by removing the blank disc during the encoding. But that still won't solve your problem of better quality encoding. I just got Cleaner 6 yesterday and I've done a few short comparissons and it seems 2 to 3 times faster than Cleaner 5. It's a big improvement and I think it's the best software encoder(quality) available. But for what it does (no authoring) it is pricey.

Jeff

Jeff,
Like I said I have the 800mhz, I edit with FCP3 and although I have DVD Studio Pro, for obvious reasons, haven't used it yet. Along with my WD 120GB Firewire drive, which Firewire DVD drive do you think would suit my set up best?

Keep an eye on MCE Technologies http://store.powerbook1.com/ They stock just about everything for PowerBooks. The external drives are all pretty similar in function. Some may come with better software or a slimer case. Que, EZQuest, LaCie are among the more popular. If you're looking to save some money, buy a FireWire DVD enclosure, then a bare internal DVD drive. No software or customer support, but you'll save $100 or more.

Jeff

DV with older macs and FW cards...
 

Hi,

I know FCP supports only Macs with built-in FW, but I'm just wondering if some people have used that program or iMovie with older Macs and FireWire cards with success. I'm just a hobbyist and don't want to spend a fortune. I could get my hands on an old PM 8500 with an upgraded G3 processor. I know there are combination USB/FW cards for older PCI Macs and they're relatively innexpensive. I'm also interested in people having had success in using a CardBus FW card in a Lombard PB as that is my set up (which I can't get to work right now!!). I've heard many people can't get third party FW cards to works in their PBs.

Any info appreciated as I am a complete newbie.

Thanks.

Marc.

I can only find reference to one article in the Apple knowledge base that address this issue. Article 32082 states that the Bronze keyboard (Lombard) will work with FCP. The date of the article is 1/10/00 and I suspect that means you are limited to FCP 1.2.5 The newer FCP versions clearly state that built in FireWire is required. The article http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h...mous|157456632 lists two, third party PC FireWire Cards that will work.

FCP 1.2.5 was pretty stable and had a few known bugs (couldn't scrub the timeline). It will work in 9.2.2 but not OS X.

Jeff

I've got some really great encoding done with BitVice http://www.innobits.se/

No there is no way around authoring with dvdsp unless you want to spend far more money.

Jake.

I'd say the 'best' hardware encoders are done by Sonic. SD-1000 or SD-2000 and software probably BitVice from http://www.innobits.se/

If you're not having a dvd-r replicatced check out this link:

Compatibility Test done by Ralf LaBarge

http://www.dv.com/features/features_item.jhtml?category=Archive&LookupId=/xml/feature/2002/labarge0702

I'd send a dlt tape to rep house without question if you can. Do a search for DLT4000 on ebay and you can pick them up cheap. You wont need more than that for DVD authoring (Two DLTs for dvd-9, one for each layer). If not then an authoring disc.

I would say not to worry about writing authoring discs at first. I would burn a dvd-RW. Test it on your set top player. If it works great. You've got the test disc you can preview all your projects with. If not then pop to the nearest electric store and test it on set top players that are suppose to play dvd-rw till you find one it works with. Pick it up, you've got all your previewing on tv's sorted out and haven't gotta worry about dvd-r coasters too much. The test above will help you with dvd-r check discs to send to clients if needed. Then submit you dlt to the rep fac' and check the check discs you recieve from them inside out before giving them the ok.

HTH

Jake.

Thanks for your reply Jeff -- we have FCP 2.0 in OS9 and FCP 3.0 in OSX so we should be able to do just about anything. Tell me more!

These all involve freeware etc. The tutorial link includes the software and instructions on it's use. If you want to purchase commercial software Heuris is about it http://www.heuris.com/MPEGProducts/ They make a product called Xtractor that will do the job ($150). A new product 0SEx http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?keywords=osex
is freeware that several friends are using with good results.

Easiest is Heuris, cheapest is 0SEx and software linked below.

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html

http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/

http://www.opuscc.com/download/index.shtml

http://www.afterdawn.com/software/al...g_tutorial.cfm

http://www.wormintheapple.gr/macdvd/download.html

Jeff

You're absolutly correct about the Sonic boards. But probably a bit pricey for most people. The last I checked the SD-1000 was around $9,000 (USD). If Apple is going to make one (long rumored since they purchased Spruce) I think we'll see it in the next 6 to 8 months or not at all.

Jeff

Fabulous reply Jeff -- a real award winner. Thank you SO MUCH!
Scott

Yep def out of the majorities budget and I do hope apple make a move with the Spruce thing soon.

Jake.

I updated mine earlier this week. Now I can keep on burning!

Thank you to all who contributed to this thread.
I saw an ad for that WD 120GB w/ 8MB cache hard drive mentioned in this weeks CompUSA newspaper ad (Nov 10th). The price is $219.99 less $20 instant rebate less $50 mail rebate. Please let me know if that is a good deal.

Also, in the same ad they are selling a Firewire only kit for that HD for $49.99 (again after all the discounts and rebates).

I did check the Granite and WiebeTech (zero GB) Firewire/USB kits/boxes and they are both more than $49.99 by a long shot. Are the two, Granite and WiebeTech, that much better than the generics? Granite does have this fancy digital display. And I did find out that these have internal power supplies and cooling fans built in. Does anyone else have thoughts about either the Granite, WiebeTech, or generic Firewire kits (zero GB)?

Thanks,

Gilbert Lew

Hello again, sorry I forgot to add the specification to that generic drive kit that I mentioned in my earlier post.

Manufacturer ADS Technologies
Manu # API-800
The box description is Pyro 1394 Drive kit.

So has anyone hear or have used this? How does it stack up to the Granite or WiebeTech kits?

Thanks again,

Gilbert Lew

Thanks for all the great feedback to my original question. I ended up buying an EZquest 120 drive and so far it works great. It is a 7200/2MB buffer drive and seemed to have performed very well in the test reviews I was able to find. As a one-drive purchase, it was also cheaper than the Granite+drive option, though if I anticipated needing more storage soon, I'd definitely go with the Granite option, since the bare drives are cheaper and swappable. For now, this works fine. The other issue was availability: I'm working to deadline, and the local Apple shop had this drive in stock (LaCie drives were also available, with a bit longer commute, in my area).

Linc Kesler

Gilbert,

Make sure the FireWire enclosure uses the Oxford 911 chip set. If not, or you can't confirm with 100% assurances, pass on it. In the days before the 911 chip set, dropped frames were fairly common on FireWire drives. If it does have the Oxford 911 chips, $50 is a good price. The WD drive varies in price from a high of $180 to a low of $130, after all the rebates. So the current offer of $150 after rebates is a fair price.

Jeff

Gilbert,
The PYRO kit looks fine to me. But understand that you must also buy a drive (such as the WD120) to plug into the enclosure. The combination should be a good one and quite economical if you can really get that WD120 for net $150.

Good luck.

p.s. The PYRO does, indeed, feature the Oxford 911 chip.
http://www.adstech.com/products/PYRO...sp?pid=API-800

Yeah its fantastic that they brought out new machines and dropped the price
right after i bought my new Ti800
Was i pissed you could say that.
I do know for sure that upgrades are not possible for the Ti's at least thats what a few experts tell me.
It is a bit annoying to have lost the value of my new machine overnight and one has to wonder why apple's products are so inflated in price.
I cant even upgrade to the new machine as my new powerbooks' reselling price has crashed who wants an 800 when you can get a 1gig for less than what i payed for the 800.

cheers blake

Back to the capacity issue for a minute, on my afternoon trip to Staples I noticed that they are now carrying double-sided 9 GB DVD-RAMs. They are expensive for the moment, but the bigger question is what drives they work in, both on the read and write end. Is this how commercial disks reach the higher capacity? Thanks in advance for any enlightenment.

Linc Kesler

DVD-RAM is fine for achiving data and backing up but not really for dvd-video.

With dvd-r, yep as mentioned before dvd-9's(single side, dual layer) discs have to be replicated. You'd submit two dlt tapes one for each layer. So this has something to do with how they get more on a disc as they have 7.95GB to play with and not 4.37GB as with dvd-5(single side, single layer). Another factor is the encoder. With some encoders you can get excellent footage at 4.5Mbps and lower, so bandwidth is freed up for audio, alternate-angles etc.

HTH

But commercial dvd's are most def not dvd-RAM. You can also have dvd-10 and 18.

DVD-RAM can only be played in other computers. There are no home DVD-RAM players.

Jeff

Okay-
what about DVD- ROM? That is, burning the information to the disc without formatting as a video DVD. Simply back up the information and deliver it to the replicator.

Jeff Patnaude