i'm not a fan of editing video on an ibook or a powerbook. rendering on my dual 1.25ghz is already a chore. before this machine, i had a quicksilver 867mhz and it was just torture using that machine. also, laptop hard drives are known to be small. unless you've got yourself a firewire drive of some sort, you'll find yourself filling up that internal hdd fast. not to mention all the other apps you'll have installed. those will take up space as well. and keep in mind laptop internal drives can't be upgraded!

basically, if you're looking to buy a machine for editing, i'd recommend looking into a fast desktop. if you're going at it the other way around, (getting a machine for every day use and video editing on the side or as a hobby) then get what you may.

i am using the movie mode feature on my canon xl1s. i believe this will cause my camera to record at 30fps. when using fcp, should i edit the fps settings for sequence, capture and device control to 30fps as well? the defaults are all set at 29.97.

or am i totally off here and the movie mode feature is recording at a fps speed other than 30? thanks.

Leave all the presets at 29.97 fps. That is the specification for NTSC video. The frame rate gets abbreviated to 30 fps (quicker to write I guess) all the time but it is always 29.97.

Just wondering how people captured their videos here? Batch , scene detection , or just capture the whole tape if you have the room?

Hi Joe,
With large disk space so relatively inexpensive these days, I find it much easier to grab whole chunks of a tape and just use scene detection to break it up. It's just so much quicker than cueing and logging every little scene. (Not to mention less wear on my deck.)

I log and capture probably 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time I capture the whole tape (usually less than a half hour of footage).

My iMac just has 2 FW ports and I need to keep one available to plug the camera or an iPod into. I have three FW drives (1 Maxtor and 2 WD). Mostly I use iMovie and iTunes on this computer with some Elements and iPhoto.

My question is whether it is better to run all the drives via a powered hub or to just daisy chain them together. I've not tried the hub but did have some strange behavior when they were all daisy-chained together (I'm pretty sure it was a bad cable).

I usually only turn on one FW drive at a time, only rarely two (to transfer data) and I don't think I've ever had them all running at once.

So, hub or daisy-chain?

If daisy chain then is there a source for good short cables. I don't need a 6' Belkin cable (or even 3') for a daisy chain. None of the local places I've chacked in Boulder, nor the Apple store, carry shorter cables.

In the future I'll be moving to FCP4 if that matters.

Thanks.

FW is more problematic than many people think so the questions are very reasonable but the answer isn't easy because it depends on the drives you have, the cables you have, how well defragged the drives are, etc. It really is a matter of playing with it to find what works for you. That said, you might check

granitedigital for good quality short cables. I'm sure there are other sources.

if you are chaining the drives, put the main media drive first. Keep it defraggged for dv work.

a hub is theoretically better but of course that's one more piece of hardware that might cause a problem. If you chained drives work, great. If they don't, try the hub.

imovie is much more forgiving than FCP. For FCP I'd recommend getting a 120 gig internal and using that drive for your main working drive, and using the media manager to offload work to an external when you are done with a project and want to keep the footage on a hard drive.

fcp4 may be better for FW support...we'll see.

you can run the itunes chained with no problem ( I have three external fw drives with all my itunes on the last drive in the chain)

I've worked both ways and both work fine. Currently, I'm working on small projects, so I use a hub and only hook up the drive that has the project I'm working on. When working on big projects, I daisy-chain, cause I have 4 external drives, but only a 4 port hub (and since one port goes to the computer, that only leaves 3 ports...)

With that said, I've had difficulties capturing to the external drives through either configuration, except to capture direct to the first external drive.

But I have an internal drive, which I can use and then copy the files out to an external drive before editing.

Belkin does make 3' cables. I have seen 1.5' cables, but I can not find a source at the moment...

Joe,
I log and capture the whole tape, unless I've managed to gather a time-code break -- and I work hard to prevent those. I always leave my tapes at the end after a shoot, then when I go to capture, I immediately know where to stop, and I always record a header on each and every tape, so I know that I can start within the first 20 seconds of a tape and miss nothing. Then I can watch my tape during the capture and review online to learn (remember) where everything is.

Of course, if there's a break, then you have to find it and log each part...

Why the whole tape? The camera wear and tear issue for one. Two, I usually need everything I shot anyway. 3, it's easier to search, review, and mark on the computer than on the camera, and 4, disk space is cheap and time is money.

I have three daisy-chained FW drives and don't have problems capturing, editing or playing back on a G4/733. However, I note that I'm using FCP 3 under MacOS 9.2, not OS X. When I used one of the same drives on my PBG4 667 under OS X I experienced dropped frames. However this was a year ago with an older version of OS X. Your mileage may vary...

The older lap tops have FireWire performance issues. The new ones (667 DVI and newer) have a different bus controller if I remember correctly. I daisy chain FW drives of my Ti 800 without dropped frames or other problems in OS X.

I have a 867 QS with the DVR-103 and had updated the firmware to vs. 1.90 when the update was released months ago .When i run software update i get a "Power Mac SuperDrive Update 1.0" as not installed.Is this the same firmware update and why wouldnt it recognize that the version was already installed? Thanks for any info.

It's possible the update didn't install properly. Use the Apple System Profiler to check the version (should be v1.90). If it doesn't show the correct version download the installer and update again. Post back if you need help with any of this.

Jeff the system profiler has version 1.90 listed as the firmware version.Would there be any harm in trying to install the update again? Thanks for all the help.

It won't install twice, firm ware doesn't work like that. Just disable it in the Software update menu. Then it won't bother you any more.

Hey

Im having continuous problems with my playback monitor. Im using mac osx 10.2.6 FCP and digiVoodoo with SDI OUTs, my playback has SDi also... The desktop shows in the monitor fine. In after Effects, it works fine. In FCP, it doesn't work at all, or it turns a solid color, or the image splits in three, leaving two distrorted versions at the top half of the screen and a black rectangle on the bottom. Weird. Any help would be appriciated? Need more info on my settings? Just ask specifics?
Thank you
Michael Estepp

Hello!

New to the forum but very excited...people here seem to really have a good line on information. I am running Final Cut Pro using an Aurora Igniter Card under OSX. I can get and would like to make use of the 22 MBS codec offered by the card but my external 7200 RPM Lacie's can't hack it. What would you recommend to allow me to make this happen. I'd prefer an external, but internal is fine.

Thanks!

You could do an IDE RAID 0 (internal - less noise, more heat), or an external FireWire RAID O (less heat - more noise). The best performance, but the gap is narrowing, is SCSI in a RAID 0 config. The solutions I've outlined are from least expensive to most expensive. An internal IDE RAID 0 with two 200gb drives should be less than $800. A similar SCSI config would be around $3,000 and the FireWire would fall around $2,000.

Tell me a little bit more about your machine and I can make specific product recommendations for you.

If you are connecting the SDI output from the digital Voodoo to the SDI input of the monitor you should be good to go. Is that how the cables are configured? Try swapping cables, check for the latest drivers for your card, and check with digital Voodoo support.

Jeff,

Thanks, that was exactly what I needed. It will have to be the $800 solution, which really isn't that bad.

Take care,

Chris

Western digital has new IDE hd's out that are 10,000 rpm, apparently they are very quiet and super fast.

http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=170451

That is a review of the drive, apparently it has really nice and fast read/write speeds, in the region of 40mb/s, which would be fast enough for your codec.

Anyways,

Good luck hunting for a solutions.

Zac

These drives are not compatible with Apple hardware at this time. Also, they offer little improvement over 7200rpm drives in a sustained read/write test (only 8%). Sustained read/write (not average) of very large files is what is important for video use. The review linked to above, did not perform those exact tests. The most performance bang for the buck will be 200mb drives with a 8mb cache and RAID 0 config.

HAHAHA thats funny.... Digital VooDoo Support... HAHA funny... They are in australia. You have to call during their business hours. Everytime I have called, (9 times over 3 months) their Support Techs have been on vacation. Something tells me they're never coming back. Anyway, Yes, my cables are going from SDI to SDi, I can take pictures of everything and post them if that will help.
Let me know.
Michael Estepp

I see your dilemma. I talked to an acquaintance with a digital vooDoo card for OS X and he has troubles with certain features also. He said he has been persistent with their tech support and they have emailed patches for some of his issues. Unfortunately he had no suggestion for your monitor issue.

I am at a loss for further suggestions. Hopefully another member or guest will voice a suggestion or two.

I do not have a digital vooDoo card, but the last time I saw something like that on an external monitor, I was using FCP1, and I had the Sequence settings wrong. They weren't set for NTSC output... And the monitor looked exactly as you describe, more or less.

Make sure your sequence is configured correctly for the digital vooDoo.

One of my favourite web sites to answer questions like this is BareFeats. They recently posted a test comparing various drive arrangements including a four drive Raid O arrangement with Firewire 800 drives and four seperate channels. Check it out at:

http://www.barefeats.com/fire36.html

Sorry to be posting this here, but I got myself a nice 120gb ata100 drive for my dual g4 1.25. I've read the manual and it says to pull the grey tab on the rear most drive carrier and pull up. I keep pulling the tab but the thing won't move at all. Anyone had any problems like this?

Thanks in advance

(If I understand what you're doing...) Did you first remove the screw that fastens the carrier to the chassis?

HAHAHAHA daaaaaaaaamn..... thanks.... ok this is why things like this should be done during the day :)

Been there. Glad to have helped.

Hello,

I'm printing my project to tape. Will I get better results (higher resolution) going to my DV deck via firewire or via the s-video cable/input? I once saw a web page that had all the compression numbers...but I lost it...any comments always greatly appreciated!

Take care,

Chris

The DV format is a 5:1 compression no matter what you do. The transfer process has no influence on resolution. I'd recommend just using Firewire to get the cleanest digital transfer.

The resolution would in theory be higher with DV than S-Video. Also DV would eliminate several steps (D/A then A/D) that would induce more noise in the signal. So, for best quality keep the signal digital for as long as possible.

For kicks I installed FCP3 on an iBook 600 mhz and it ran fine...full time DV (no offline RT) and it performed well (aside from the slowed render times)......but I can attest to it's working perfectly without issue.....as for render time.....that's a whole 'nother issue.

I also captured to an outside FW drive (120GB) and it worked perfectly- not a single dropped frame!

$999 new- u gotta love it.

Hello all,

I'm trying to get more familiar with the software and 3D animation field, and I was wondering what people's preferences were (if any) of 3D rendering and animation software. I've been reading a lot about it and the main names I keep seeing are Maya, Electric image Universe, and Lightwave. (some people say Cinema 4D as well). Anyone have any experience with any of these??

thank you!!! :)

I'm not bad at 3D modeling, texturing, and animation... But that's only with Metacreations Infini-D. They sold it years ago, not long after they bought it from Specular. Then it kinda died/ faded away.

It's extremely easy to learn and use, very intuitive. Very capable of amazing results, but kinda buggy. It is also nowhere as robust or capable as Max 3D or Bryce, and not even in the same neighborhood as Maya or Lightwave. But then, I could never use Bryces interface, barely capable of using Max, and more or less clueless with Maya and Lightwave. They are out there, and you either get it, or you don't.

I have worked extensively with two packages, Strata 3d Pro http://www.strata.com/products/strata3d.html and Bryce http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel/Products/productInfo&id=1042551234521.

In the case of Strata, well it was one of the first full featured 3d modeling and animation packages to be available on the Mac and seemed like that best choice back in 1995 when I got it (was then called Strata StudioPro). There's such a steep learning curve the 3d that I've been reluctant to make a switch, and I can make it do pretty much what I want. Here are some Strata projects:

http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/perichole/sketch/04.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/capuleti/sketch/04.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/capuleti/sketch/06.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/trovatore/concept/05.pdf

I started with Bryce about 3 years ago and love the way you can easily create skies and landscapes. Often I render these out and use them as backdrops in Strata models. Here are a few recent examples of these "hybrids":

http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/trovatore/concept/08.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/trovatore/concept/02.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/trovatore/concept/07.pdf
http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/trovatore/concept/11.pdf

As far as animation goes, both these programs will do it, but you need to be very patient. Some of the sequences I've been working on can take up 3 hoursto render one second of output. Here are a few examples of those, some were done with each program (sorry they're pretty big files... should probably recompress).

http://tech.operaphilly.com/sets/trovatore/video-1

I was up until 1:30 am last night trying to make my .mov files (I made them in Quicktime Pro from .mpg files) to show it''s audio in A.P 6.5. I get the video portion ok, I can even hear the audio in the project window and in the Source window, not in the timeline.
* I can only hear the audio portion of the .mov file in Premiere 6.5 when I use "Hinted Movie"as an export option in Quicktime Pro. Again that is only audible in the Source window and Project window NOT the timeline. If I export my .mov file in Quicktime Pro as a "movie" no audio is available in AP 6.5.

Again I am having geat troubles getting my .mov files (audio portion) to show up in the timeline. I SEE NO AUDIO WAVES IN THE TIMELINE.

Thanks for any help you may give.

Bill

Maya is used throughout the industry but it is difficult to learn and use. Not intuitive and a steep learning curve. Those who know it well frequently tweak it with plugins and MEL, the embedded language. It's renderer is crap and most people use a different one, though I heard the latest version uses MentalRay.

I have 2.5 but have not had the motivation to learn it completely, like a project of some sort.

What OS are you using Bill and what version of QuickTime?

Thanks for the reply. I found the answer after I posted.

It was interesting, I read at a post in Apple's Quicktime forum that mpeg files are combined together. This poster mentioned you need BBDemux and SoundApp. What BBDumex does is to seperate the audio from the video (m1v and m1a) then you convert the m1a file into Aiff file in SoundApp. Then import the m1a file into Quicktime Pro, then copy it to the Clipboard, then import the m1v file into Quicktime Pro as well. Then you use "Add Scale" from the edit menu to add the sound to the video. I saved it as a Quicktime Movie and imported into Adobe Premiere 6.5 mac. It worked! I was finally able to see the audio wave files in the audio portion of the timeline I was very excited, It was really amazing to me.

It all started with a tutorial book I had bought called "Complete Course" I really liked the book, but I couldn't continue with the lessons because there were so many mpg files that were used in various lessson in the book. I found out from Adobe's web site that you can't import mpg files into Adobe Premiere 6.5 (mac). You need Quicktime Pro. That is, Adobe's web site states that. But I found out after hours and hours of frustrtation you need to seperate the mpg file's audio and video in order to work in A.P. 6.5's timeline.

The author wrote the book on a Windows computer and of course you can import mpg's in Adobe Premiere (Windows). I guess that can be some of the problems you run into when you write a book in Windows.


Quite interesting I thought.

Bill

I was chatting with an Apple reseller the other day and asked him which brand of firewire drives he likes. He told me that he doesn't like them, because they aren't reliable, tending to dump data after a period of time. He prefers (and sells) setups that use IDE drives that are built into housings and connect through to the CPU via firewire. HE claims these are much more reliable, as much as an internal drive.

I was a bit confused. Does anyone (Jeff?) have thoughts on this? It costs more for the setup he described.

To my knowledge all Firewire drives are basically IDE drives in bridge housings. Certainly all 6 FW drives I own are of that ilk.

I have two IDE drives that are in enclosures that are then daisy chained using Firewire Oxbridge connections. You can capture to them okay just as long as you're not doing anything else across the same chain at the same time. Usually that is the reason why there are dropped frames in my experience. I would rather capture to an internal IDE drive as it is faster. If I'm rendering out to the external Firewire drives that's fine as well.

The reason why I will stick with the enclosures is that you can swap drives out of them in some models or just shut them down and unscrew the casing to switch drives out in my case. The really expensive ones are hot swappable. If you're not doing anything like that then just get the ones which don't need them.

I have 101 minutes of footage in three seperate chunks that I am trying to burn to DVD using iDVD. iDVD will give me a warning stating that "Your movie is over 90 Minutes long and you can't burn until it is unde 90 minutes". I can't trim it down because none of the footage can be sacrificed, and I don't have time to learn how to use DVD Studio Pro. My question would be; is there a way around this in iDVD? I have standard 4.7GB discs that say 120min. on the box. I run OSX and made all of the clips Final Cut Pro Movies and dragges them directly into iDVD. If not I guess it will go on 2 discs. Has Apple fixed this with iDVD/iMovie upgrades I have heard about?

Thanks

While exploring menus one day I clicked the "Edit render Quality" button in the Timeline. Naturally, everything eventually gets rendered at the Hi Res setting. But I noticed that the default setting did not have the box labeled " High Quality Playback" checked. I checked this box and it seems to have done nothing. I assumed it would want me to render my Timeline again with this new setting. I usually play directly from the Timeline to tape (Print to Tape often fails me) and I want it to look its best. Does anyone use this setting? Does it make a difference in quality?

Where is the best place to get After FX plugins for FCP 3? Are there any that you would consider essential? On a side note; can you use I-Movie's effects/transitions in FCP without importing your footage into I-Movie?

iDVD will only allow the 90 minutes.even in the latest release its still the same 90 min limit.

My follow-up would be: Does DVD Studio Pro allow you to burn over 90 minutes?