There are Post Production companies that will do authoring. But I wouldn't expect the replicator to build the master from my data. Even if they do authoring as a service, your still going to be charged for it. I burn data DVD as backups for my FCP projects and store media clips, graphics, audio etc.

Jeff

No Effects in FCP3
 

Hello,

I just installed FCP3 (my own) on a new twin p G4 (my schools) and can't use any effects, audio or video. There is no effects tab in the browser (like the manual says there should be) and in the pull down menu from the top of the screen I can see all the categories but the individual effects are grayed out and un-selectable. One time though the video filters (and the video filters only) were not grayed out, and I used a matte, but while it was rendering FCP shut down. (I think it crashed because the auto save clicked on-- making this an unrelated question-- can anyone support that hypothesis?) When I restarted FCP, all effects were once again grayed out. The only idea I have is that I'm not sure if I successfully registered and unlocked the new QuickTime that came with FCP. The G4 I'm working on has never been connected to the internet so I sent the registration in the mail. Is unlocking dependant on online registration? And would this cause the effects anomaly? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

vince

It could be a number of things. What version of FCP, Quicktime, OS etc. are you running. My best guess at this point is you've not upgrade FCP or QT to the required version. It could be a preferences issue (trash FCP preferences) or you may need to reinstall FCP. Give me more info and I'll sort it out.

Jeff

DV files from PC to Mac?
 

Is there a simple way to transfer DV files from a Windows machine to a Mac? Or the other dierection?

What version of each platform are you using?

Jeff,

First of all thanks for your help. I'm running OSX version 10.2.1, FCP 3.0.2 (EDU) and QuickTime 6.0.1. Actually today things started working- I think. I noticed that the video filters are available when I have a sequence open, but still no tab in the browser, and I still couldn't get transitions. So I command clicked an edit and chose the defalt edit which was a fade and it worked, so then I looked back up on the pull down and they were all available. Strange. As of right now all seems to be well, but if you know of some reason for this, or of some way of preventing it in the future, maybe I'd sleep better at nights. And any advice on preferences would be great.

Thanks

vince

I would try upgrading Quicktime to 6.0.2 and OS X to 10.2.2 This is very stable for me and on most of the other boards this combination is solving a lot of issues for FCP users.

However, I doubt that will cure the unusual flakiness your having. Start by trashing FCP preferences (write down all your preferences and settings because this will wipe all your preset out). You can find them here Users>user short name>Library>Preferences>Final Cut Pro User Data>Final Cut Pro 3 Preferences. Restart after trashing the preferences and fill in your preferences again. Open a project and see if you've got effects etc. If not, a reinstall of FCP and Quicktime will be in order.

FCP has a mode called Cutting Station that does not have effects. Your not in Cutting Mode are you? If that's the case just switch modes.

Jeff

Windows 2000 on the PC and OSX on the Mac.

Jeff,
You should upgrade to Windows 2000...it's much better than 200! (Sorry, couldn't resist <g>.)

Although I have both Win 2000 and OSX systems I've never performed this maneuver. But here's how I'd tackle it, FWIW.

The sheer size of most dv files makes low-cap media impractical for such transfers. Off-hand, a Firewire hard drive is the method that comes to mind. You'll need to first make sure that your PC can accept a Firewire drive connection either through a built-in adapter or a 3rd party adapter.

I'd start with the dv files on the Mac-formatted Firewire drive. You'll need a product such as Mediafour's Mac Drive 5 installed on your PC to be able to read the Mac disk. (http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/) The rest should be relatively straight-forward.

Good luck!

FTP.

Jake.

Thanks, Ken, I will do the upgrade to 2000 immediately! That software looks like exactly what I need, soI will give it a try. Not a bad price, either.

Are these two machines in two different locations?

As Jake suggested briefly, if they are not geographically seperated, it would seem like ethernet would be a lot simpler way to go about this, especially if you have to do it frequently.

Assuming you have no lan at all now:

You can get 10/100 card for the PC for $20 and an RJ45 crossover cable for 5 bucks or less. Plug 'em in and you are done.

OSX has decent built in SMB compatibilty through samba, which means you can browse shares on your windows box as if from another windows machine.

With 100Mbit ethernet you should expect an absolute minimum throughput of around 8MBytes/sec, up to a theoretical maximum of 12.5MB/sec.

lyd

Dsr-du1
 

Can someone know if this portable Sony hd recorder is compatible with FCP?
Thanks.Maurizio.

It is not currently listed as a supported device http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/qualification.html It may be certified in the future or with a future version of FCP. It may also work fine and Apple hasn't had the opportunity to certify the unit.

Jeff

DSRDU1 http://bssc.sel.sony.com/Professiona...lInfo?id=67058

White Text on Black BG Too Hot
 

I just finished my first short film and used FCP 3 for editing and creating the titles. On the computer, the titles appeared sharp and fine. But when I printed to tape and then watched it on a TV monitor, the white text was way too bright and the edges were rough. Also, I don't know if this is related to the brightness, but after the text faded in fully to it's brightest (too bright) point, the text suddenly became a bit distorted (looked italicized).

Any ideas what I need to do to prevent the distortion? And why is it that my text isn't nice and smooth on a TV monitor?

FCP preferred audio dynamic range
 

I just finished my first short film which I intended mainly for web viewing. But I also printed to tape and played it on a TV monitor...and I noticed there were definitely some audio problems. I obviously made the dynamic range to wide.

I tried to keep things between -18 and -12 but some things, like an explosion sound for instance, needed to be noticeably louder, so I set those at about -2 or -3 (but always below 0). On a TV monitor, the explosion sounds pop and crackle a bit...so they're too high, I guess. Also, some low, bass sounds disappear altogether.

Any suggestions on this? To make playback better on a TV, what would be the preferred output for short, loud segments like gunshots and explosions? And how about dialogue? And background music?

John remember that the average TV is only capable of a frequency responce range of between about 100hz to about 10khz. Pretty limited in all but Rob's home theatre. You might try compressing the explosions and reducing the high end eq. This should stop the high end distortion but still allow you to keep the higher level.

Unfortunately, this is an inherant problem with DV. The rough edges you are seeing is alaizing(can't remember how to spell that one, it's too late at night). Did you do the titling in FCP, or Photoshop?

er...what?

Sorry, Adrian...I'm an absolute beginner when it comes to manipulating audio. Really, I was just wondering what settings others use (especially FCP people who set the volume levels for each clip based on a 0 to -60 range) for peaks and lows (peaks meaning explosions and gunshots). If you take them down too far, they sound like cap guns and bursting balloons.

I did it in FCP. I've done it in Photoshop before and it does look better. But there has to be a way to make FCP text look better.

Did you use the Calligraphy 3-D plug-in? It is vector-based and gives better results than the normal FCP text. Also, make sure you provide a slight edge blur. Smaller fonts are more prone to this. Maybe a different font?

John,
You won't like this answer but AfterEffects "rules" when it comes to all text treatments. FCP's free BorisFX plug-in ("3D Text") works well for static text. But for any movement or other effects AE is the way to go. It just does a much nicer, smoother job.

Vic and Ken,

I knew I must have been overlooking something...I just used the standard text generator. Didn't know about Calligraphy 3-D or BorisFX to be honest.

Ken...you're right. "After Effects" looks like it's a must-have. I was hoping that I could get by with FCP awhile longer. Man! There goes another big wad of cash and a few weeks of intensive study. Never ends, does it?

John--

Another (considerably less) alternative is to try out the CHV text plug-in. It is also vector-based, and allows you to mix fonts, margins, gutters, etc. all within the same fx. There's a good review over at :

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/review_chv_text.html

I got the text plug-in and like it a lot.

Yeah, after I hit the lottery, I gonna have to get AE, as well....

John,

Since AE was brought up you might want to take a look here http://www.creativecow.net/articles/...let/index.html This also works into your 16:9 or 4:3 post. I don't usually like to link to COW and 2-pop, but this article is so well done.

Jeff

If you go to this website and read all the way down, it claims that FCP will read the files:

http://www.abcdv.com/article/articleview/5/1/48/

How does the unit work with Canon's Lanc? Any ideas for mounting it on an XL1, taking extra battery into consideration?

I would want to see it work on a Mac before I purchased one. If you read further down the article they couldn't get it to work by drop and drag. They had to capture off of it. I would also want to see a comparison of the codec used by Sony. It may not be as good as the Quicktime codec.

Jeff

Discreet Cleaner 6 review
 

I've been a big fan of Cleaner 5 for a while, using it to multiplex all my DVD's. Thank the stars I don't do too many long programs. Cleaner 5 was just so sloooooow. Well, good news, Cleaner 6 is out and very stable on OS10.2.2 I'm very pleased with it's performance on the 6 DVD's I've done for clients in the past month (except for an occasional crash on 10.2.1). My times have been averaging 2 to 3 times faster than Cleaner 5. A complete review is at Creative Mac http://www.creativemac.com/2002/11_n...ner6021112.htm Their testing is similar to my results. Discreet has a great offer available until the end of the year. Cleaner 6 and Combustion 2 can be purchased for $1,497. A year ago that combination would have been $6,000 and not been near as fast.

Jeff

Jeff,

On Friday my upgrade came. I have not had a chance to work with it, but glad to hear that the speed has been improved.

I would have given up on it if the speed improvement was not on the magnitude it is. I don't really do enough to justify a hardware accelerator. But Cleaner 5 was a torture to use. If you haven't upgraded to 10.2.2 you may have a program crash now and then.

Jeff

Talk about giving up, I waited over a month and a to get my upgrade. Thanks for the tip on the OS upgrade. Next week I will be digging into the new version. Looking forward to the speed upgrade.

Wish List for Discreet
 

Cleaner 6 is, indeed, a big step forward in performance. It seems to use the Unix (OS-X) environment and dual processors much better than 5. My only wish is that Discreet offered a multi-system render farm faciity similar to what Adobe's AfterEffects features. I'd bet that quite a few folks have at least two systems (ex: a PowerBook and a G4 desktop) and could take advantage of such a feature for long compressions.

I have had trouble with cleaner 6 crashing when trying to transcode mpeg2 material to DV. The processing starts, shudders, and then the application just quits. I am going to upgrade the system to 10.2.2 to see what happens, but anyone have this problem?

Yes, sudden quits and spinning beach ball are what I've experienced (and others based on what I've read on other boards). OS 10.2.2 made a big difference for me. I know it has also helped Dual Processor (last to series of G4's) owners with FCP 3 issues. Good luck.

Jeff

Fastest Internet Browser?
 

I've been using chimera http://www.mozilla.org/projects/chimera/#Download for much of my internet browsing. It was recently rated the fastest browser (MacWorld?) for Mac. It is not as full featured as Internet Explorer but it does the job nicely. Today a small script was posted on VersionTracker http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/ called ChimeraBooster 1.0 It is a small script to speed up Chimera.

WOW! Chimera is now blazingly fast. It uses HTTP pipelining. Read the comments at VersionTracker and if you have install question, I'll help.

Jeff

Have DV Tapes, New iMac, No Camera - How do I transfer tape to Mac?
 

Hi. I have approx. 7 DV tapes worth of footage that I would like to transfer to my iMac (the new version). How do I transfer it without a camera? I had to sell my Canon XL1s due to financial reasons a few months ago. I do hope there is a cheap solution to this problem. Thank you in advance for any info. you can provide.

An inexpensive MiniDV cam, perhaps used, is probably the cheapest way to go unless you can find someone to borrow one from.

You might want to look into renting a camera or deck. This would be a very inexpensive alternative.

Of course you're not going to want to leave the video on the mac once you get it transfered. (You wouldn't have enough hard drive space for 7 tapes anyway). You're going to want to edit it and send it back to tape, or to DVD, etc.

dropped frame during playback
 

I am trying to put my movie back on DV (and eventually on VHS.)
Occasionally, the playback stops and it gives me an error message:"One or more frames were dropped during playback." It gives several possible solutions for it:
1- lower you rcompression rate (what is that? how do I do it ?)
2- close open sequences (Which I did, they are all closed)
3-lower preference for real-time audio tracks (done. It's set on low)
4 increase speed of your system/or disk drives/ ( I have OSX, dp1000mh, 3 120 GB drives: 2 of them still have 21 gb free space and one still has 117gb free) any solutions? it is so frustrating to view it uninterrupted and want to transfer it by tonight so i can show it to my mentor and some trusted friends without interruption.