Jeff,

Thanks for taking the time to post this link. The survey was interesting. Let's hope they take the info into consideration for the next version.

There is a good tutorial here http://www.lafcpug.org/tutorials.html#anchor5362344 for scanning, Photoshop and preparing work for AE. Don't worry that some of tutorials are for FCP. The chief designer of Premiere designed FCP, so they are very similar.

Jeff

Thanks for the link Jeff. I am finally throwing away my copy of Premiere and buying a copy of FCP this week, so the tutorials will be a great help.

Audio Filters in FCP 3
 

I've done some dialogue voice overs in a sound room and am trying to match them up with the dialogue recorded on set. The v/os were recorded with the mike closer to the actor, and while both audio tracks sound good, the v/os sound, well, closer. I've got FCP 3.0.2. I've messed around with the EQ 3 way and reverb and echo filters, to limited success. Does anybody know any neat tricks? Also, how do I get an audio track that was recorded in stereo to move to one "side," I mean I've got a centered stereo sound and I want it sound like its coming from off camera. I tried the Spread slider but it just swaps the channels and as the sound was recorded pretty much centered it makes little difference. Any ideas? Thanks

Best Final Cut Pro Instruction?
 

I've been trying to learn Final Cut Pro on my own and have had a measure of success but I'd really like to immerse myself in the best instructional program available. Is there a course taught somewhere that is considered the best?

You might want to check out DV Creators:

http://www.dvcreators.com

They have some self paced CD's that should help you learn the program. You might also want to check into your local community college.

Vince,

Check out this address. This may help you out.

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

Good Luck,

Bill

EQ is your best friend in this scenario. As your subject moves further from the mic, the low frequencies drop off. On your studio tracks, cut your bass and low mid frequencies a little at a time until they match up better with your live dialog. Once the frequency response is closer, you may want to add a small amount of reverb to simulate the acoustics from the shoot.

MIDIMan

The key to encoding is to keep the bitrate as low as possible but keep the pic quality as high as possible. The high end encoders will allow you to do this much better than QTpro. Lower bitrate means higher compatibility, more bandwidth for multiple angles, multiple audio streams etc...

You can only use 3rd party encoders, external writers and DLT drives with dvdsp and not iDVD I believe. Yes the dvdsp encoding will be better using the dvdsp encoder as it's VBR (kinda) and not CBR.

There are afew options for encoding on a mac but many authors switch between pc and mac for various parts of the whole process. QTpro has it's place but I use BitVice http://www.innobits.se/ for mac encoding. Cleaner is a great product but not the best when dealing with mpeg-2. All your options are:

Heuris MPEG Power Professional 2.5 www.heuris.com

Wired MediaPress Pro YUV www.wiredinc.com
Wired MediaPress Pro SDI

Sonic SD-1000 www.sonic.com
Sonic SD-2000

Cleaner www.discreet.com

BitVice www.innobits.se

Others are poping up like http://mediapipe.sourceforge.net/

You can also use a dvd recorder demux and remux. I've got the philips dvdr890 and it seems you can demux and remux with no sync loss issues.

I would have to say that dvdsp with and encoder like BitVice will give you far better quality(and features) than iDVD.

HTH

Jake.

There may also be a difference in the ambiance of the background sound. When on location I always record a minute or two of silence. Then I mix it with the dialog that gets rerecorded. This give it the same background.

Jeff

I just got an email from a friend (Apple Tech.) and he confirms that the Superdrive will fit the 667mHz and 800mHz (most recent models). It will also fit the previous models, 550MHz and 667MHz, but will require a different ribbon cable. earlier models are not compatible.

Rumor and speculation is that Apple will not offer an upgrade program. The Superdrive should be available for retrofit in about 4 to 6 months.

Jeff

Hardware RAID 10 in OS X?
 

Anyone found any RAID controller cards that do RAID 10 and also work under OS X? I've searched high and low and I can't find a thing. Too many dead drives ... I need both protection and speed so RAID 10 it is. Also interested in people's experiences using the RAID 10 cards if they do, in fact, exist.

thanks

-Aaron

The few post house that I know that do both RAID 0 and RAID 1 do it separately. The RAID 0 is hardware configured with Sonnet http://www.sonnettech.com/product/default.html , ACard or one of the other hardware cards. The RAID 1 is done in software (included in OS 10.2.X) and separate drives.

Jeff

Another vote for DV Creators stuff -- it's excellent. You should also check out the FCP Intelligent Assistant. It's very informative.

http://www.lafcpug.org/dvd_tuthodgetts_popup.html

FCP has a lot of great user groups in cities. That might be an option.