Which editing software are you working with?

oh sorry, it is FCP 3.0

iDVD Problems
 

When I first got my new G4 a few months back I burned a couple of DVD-R discs using iDVD. They worked flawlessly and looked great.

I've just burned three this week and the menus don't work properly and there is digital breakup all throughout the video. Some of the videos are even missing big chunks.

I previewed the whole thing before burning. The videos on the disc are all short. One is 4 min and the other two are about 2 min each.

I'm guessing I maybe got stuck with a bad batch of discs? I purchased a five pack of Apple's DVD-R discs . . . which I didn't have a problem with in the past.

Or, and I'm hoping that it's not this, could there be a problem with my superdrive? These are the first discs I've burned since performing the recent firmware upgrade on the Pioneer drive.

I have a memorex disc that I'm going to burn to see if there is any difference from the Apple discs . . . I'll keep you all posted!

It could be several things at this point. Please post back full details on your software versions (FCP/QuickTimes/OS X). If your on a network turn off AppleTalk. Do an Audio Mixdown. Which drive is the Media on (117GB free or 21GB free)? What method are you using to go to tape? Print to Tape or Edit to Tape?

Jeff

I'm not clear if your having problems with the Apple media or the Memorex media? Have you tried the problem disks on a different DVD player?

Jeff

It is the Apple media that I had the problems with. Although in the past Apple discs worked fine, the first three that I've burned from this five pack that I bought have had problems. I have one new Memorex disc that I have not yet burned. I plan on burning that disc to see if the Memorex disc plays back ok.

I have not yet tried the discs on a different DVD player. But, the discs that I've burned in the past have played back fine with my player. I do plan on trying that as soon as I'm able to get to another player.

Is it dropping frames at the same spot every time? That happened to me once. At the same point on the video (a 4 min. music video) it would drop a frame and it would stop. I ended up rerendering that particular clip, I think I had enlarged it by 2%. Once I rerendered it it played back fine.

If you still can't get it figured out and need a quick copy on tape, turn off the dropped frame warning in your preferences, if it drops a frame, you might see a slight glitch but you can go back and find the cause later.

Let us know if you find out what caused it. Good luck.

While it might not be the root of your problem, you should also get the FCP upgrades from Apple. They cured several problems. I'd avoid Jaguar for the time being, however.

Monitor question
 

Hi all,
for money reason I cant buy an apple monitor.I can work with two 17 or 19 crt monitor.So what is your advice (Iiyama,Lacie etc.) to use with FCP,DVDSP,Photoshop?
Thanks,Maurizio.

Most people who are using their Macs for professional work use either Apple screens, LaCie (for art, graphics, photography,printing) or Mits/NEC (for video work). But certainly there is cross over users. The Nec/NEC us Trinitron technology and Sony phosphors so it may display video a little better than LaCie. Look at both and trust you eye. After all it will be displaying your work.

Jeff

Help, sec. audiotrack disapears...
 

I'm already dead, killed by FCP, but if somebody would help me, maybe I could resurge and drink somewhere a glass of wine in peace...

PROBLEM:
In the timeline I put a Videoclip together with 2 different Audioclips (AIFF), ask for "Stereo Pair", and "Link" them all together. So I do have now a "Combined-clip". For testing I play it in the Canvas- perfect, I test it also on the Viewer with a doubble-click and play it- perfect.

Then to create a safety copy I drug the "Combined-clip" into the Browser.
- Look at the info in the Browser-all seems perfect
- Doubble-Click on the "Combined-Clip" in the Browser and play it- Perfect, both track are there
- NOW I drug the "Combined-Clip" to the Timeline again, and LOOK WHAT HAPPENED: THE SECOND AUDIO-TRACK DISSAPEARED

I just can't find a way to get this second track into the Timeline. By the way, ALL settings are perfect (48k and 16 bit). The only strange thing is that controlling the clip with "Item proprieties" I get 16 bit, Mono as answer, BUT on the other hand in the Browser it says that it is a Stereo clip, and also looking it in the Viewer SHOWS me and PLAYS me the 2 audiotracks. So what is happening, and how can I resolve this?

HISTORY
- 30.000 feet of 35mm film telecined on PAL 25 FPS (only video)
- By use of the Flexfile I created a Batchfile with Cinematools
- Captured everything into FCP 3.02
- Linked the clips to the DB of Cinematools
- Conformed the clips to 24 FPS
- Divided (in FCP) the clips into subclips
- Converted the audio files from BWF (48k, 24bit) into AIFF (48k, 16bit) with BarbaBatch 3.1. (The recording was made with a DEVA HD recorder)
- Import and test the files: they play perfectly

CONFIGURATION
- System X.2.1
- CPU 867 Mhz
- FCP 3.02

Any helpful idea?????
Thanks
Istvan

Have you tried nesting the sequence? Use FCP help and search "nest". Is the audio track missing or you just can't hear it? Check your audio controls (pan , fade) see if they aren't set wrong.

Jeff

Thank you Jeff.

Hello Jeff,
no, the 2. track is just not there anymore once I put the clip back into the Timeline.

It is so strange because before bringing the clip to the Timeline I can still see and hear it in the Viewer. But once in the Timeline it disapears totaly, indeed double-clicking later on the clip in the Timeline, at that time it will show in the Viewere ONLY Ch1 in the audio section.

I cannot see why and where nesting the sequenzes could help me? Wouldn't this only increment the already complex referenced datastructure?
Thanks for helping
Istvan

Nesting is what you want. If it doesn't work delete it. But nesting should solve your problem.

Jeff

Thank you
 

Thanks for the info. I think I will look into renting one for a few days.

OK, I see now what you mean. Basically I should simply create many additional sequenzes and use them like "containers" for the syncronized clips, right? It could be a workaround, boring for 7 hour footage, but an idea, thanks.

I hope only that my problem doesn't come from the fact that I used a lot the subclip function, because if this feature is unstable, then it will blow me the whole work exactly the last day of editing, I bet.
Thanks
Istvan

Rumors on FCP 4
 

If you like rumors (and who doesn't?) Think Secret has reported on FCP 4 http://www.thinksecret.com/news/finalcutpro4.html Now, no one on this site or any other really knows for sure what FCP 4 will contain. If they do know, they have signed a nondisclosure agreement with Apple and aren't saying. Apple has been known to prosecute individuals that have leaked information. But it does make for fun reading and speculation.

Jeff

Figures
 

I just about have all the bumps worked out in FCP 3.0, and things are working pretty smothly. I guess I'm due for more trauma :-)

Jeff: You're right; software product rumors are fun. Mark: I feel the same way. FCP finally runs appliance-smooth. Must be about time for carnage.

I'd be surprised if Apple integrated 24p into the main product for the following reasons. (a) They're currently making more money selling it separately, and (b) there are too few variable frame rate video cameras in peoples' hands right now.

I think that the big bump with FCP4 will be "real-time" and background effects processing (similar to iMovie's).

FCP 4.0 & Logic Audio
 

Maybe just maybe they'll integrate some of the Logic Audio tools into it ala Avid / Digidesign. It sure would be nice to record voice over and or dialog into FCP without having to use Peak. If you have ever used Logic or ProTools you know how great this would be!
M.

Marc,

FCP3 already has a voice-over tool. It's pretty good, too. Hey, if you didn't already know this you just got a free upgrade, eh! <g>

I'm hoping for some REAL, real time effects (background processing would be nice also). I could see Apple developing two versions of FCP. They might develop a PRO version like Avid. The PRO version might have Logic support, 24p and DV50. The standard version continues to develop as a less professional, feature packed version. Apple could get another $300 to $500 for the PRO version.

Jeff

I noticed it said there would be support for Firewire 2.0. Is there a faster version of firewire coming, or is this something entirely different?

Yes, it is FireWire upping the ante over USB2. FireWire is 400mb/s, USB2 is 480mb/s and FireWire 2 is 800mb/s. It is backwards compatible, but my understanding (I might not be remembering this right) is that having a slower device on the chain will slow all the devices on the chain. Apple may have overcome that hurdle, I don't know. The speed increase will be necessary as data increases (DV50, HD etc.).

Jeff

Upgrade questions
 

im running 10.1.5 presently but want to go 10.2. does the 10.2 clean install, install OS9 also? reason being my FCP3 is an upgrade version from 2 . am i to assume QT6 which is included in 10.2 is not the pro version and that i would need to buy the pro option to work with FCP3? if is is the case would i need to install QT6 pro before installing FCP3.
is iDVD2 included on the jaguar disc?
thanks for any info
matt

How do you have your Hard Drive partitioned now? Where are your apps and System (for OS 10.1.5) ? What version of FCP are you running? QT 6 pro is needed and not included. The pro key is purchased from Apple for $29.95. I don't believe the order of installing QT6 is important. iDVD is not included with Jaguar to the best of my recollection.

Jeff

jeff
my hard drive is partitioned from the factory with os9 & X being seperate as far as i know. i have never changed the partition or anything on the G4 it came with 9 & 10 installed (867 QS ).
my version of FCP3 is 3.0.2

No need to worry. Read this article from MacWorld http://www.macworld.com/2002/10/features/install.html . Do the archive and install option on the Jaguar Disk. It worked great for me and then you don't need to reinstall all your software. Once your sure everything is working fine (in a couple of days) throw the archived system files away. Once Jaguar is installed update to 10.2.2 http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120164 This is the combo update that goes from 10.2 to 10.2.2

Buy the QT6 Pro key and register the key. Run FCP and you should be good to go. A word of caution. If you are in the middle of a project, wait until finished to update. Why risk you work just to update? Good luck.

Jeff

MacWorld article on browsers http://www.macworld.com/2002/12/feat...ers/index.html Note Chimera is now at 0.6

Jeff

thanks jeff for the help and the links! its greatly appreciated!
matt

OK, this brings up a somewhat similar issue. When I first installed FCP3 I was able to apply dissolves, etc. in "real time" mode, which is the main reason I spent the money on the upgrade from FCP2. Now, however, I get the red bar on the timeline when I apply any effect (it used to be green, indicating real-time, no rendering preview), and have to render before I can see the results. What happened here?

Mike,
This has actually happened to me, too, on my G4-1GHz dp desktop. Quite a while ago, in fact. It's not been annoying enough for me to research deeply since I use few effects that would ever render RT anyway. But it is a puzzle. I'll dig further and let's see what we can come up with.

Also, I've a new PowerBook 1G on its way so I'll be keen on paying attention to how FCP installs there with regard to RT effects.

The most common cause and the easiest to remedy is capture settings and time line settings not matching. The audio should be 48kHz if your using Canon and make sure NTSC DV is used for video. The other cures are not pleasant.

Jeff

<<But for any movement or other effects AE is the way to go. It just does a much nicer, smoother job.>>

Ken, I've never seen AE operate first hand...is it possible (and fairly simple) to animate title text to do things like fade in and fade out PLUS fade in and out of focus PLUS ripple/wave like smoke...in other words, to get a "ghostly" text appearance? Or is that something that will require additional software and/or plug-ins?

John,
Yes, you can accomplish all of that with the standard suite of plug-ins and filters in AE. (I used the ripple effect recently to create the illusion of text under water; it worked extremely well.) If you're interested in taking it for a spin, I think Adobe offers a free trial download of the standard edition of AE.

In all fairness, FCP is no lightweight when it comes to compositing and effects. It's free Boris Graffitti-like filters rival and/or surpass AE's standard package in terms of text processing. But AE is still the king of the hill for special effects.

Jeff,

Just finished loading it. Holy cow this thing is fast. I can live without the features of Explorer. Thanks for mentioning this nifty app.

QUESTION: How do you load the nitro boster pack? I am not a Mac person, so these things are all very new to me.

Jeff,

I figured it out! One other question, do I have to run the script each time I start my Mac?

The script stays loaded until you change a preference. If the preference file is rewritten you need to run the script again. If there are others who have not figured out Terminal use this http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17113 This may actually be a permanent patch for Chimera. I haven't checked into that yet.

Jeff

Jeff,
Yep, using DV NTSC 48KHz and DV NTSC 48KHz Superwhite (the other choices wouldn't even seem like they'd work--like PAL or RT Offline, which I haven't tried).

Ken,
do you mean that you don't use many effects--or the ones you use are so high-end or unusual that they have to be rendered?