<<<-- Originally posted by Josh Martin : Hey there people,
Just wondering if there is something special you have to do to edit HD footage from this camera in final cut pro 3. Also, since this camera has only one chip, has anyone noticed that the color isn't as good on the AG-DVX100? Please advise. Thanks -->>>

I can't help you on the Final Cut 3 issue. And with this camera, I would recommend converting the MPEG2 stream to an uncompressed video file (needs lots of disk space) or some compressed form with frame based compression, regardless of which platform or NLE you use. The uncompressed format comes highly recommended (if your system and editing software can cope with it) due to the amount of noise that's already present as this can help in running operations to smooth out the noise and the video won't further degrade through editing.

As for the single-chip design of the JVC HD camera, the color reproduction is rather good. Colors are accurate and rich, but highlights blow out very easily compared to 3-chip models and it doesn't have the shadow detail capabilities of the 3-chip cameras. The AG-DVX100 is an amazing camera, it's really a cut above the other 3-chip cameras out there in the less than $10K range. It blows the JVC HD1/HD10U out of the water. I demoed a HD1 for 2 days and it was essentailly a run of the mill consumer camera, but with HD capability. I also demoed a DVX100 right after and I purchased the DVX100 after comparing the two. So far, I'm getting better results up-rezing the progressive video out of the DVX100 to 720p than I got out of the 720p native capability of the JVC! The JVC's real advantage is the 16:9 native CCD and the ability to do 480p60. However, the [over]compression noise, lower color range and DSP that chokes on pans and busy scenes or fast light changes, not to mention the lack of true manual control relegates the JVC camera to a substandard unit.

I still commend JVC for being the first to release the first entry into what is sure to become a niche market for affordable HD camcorders. I still want an HD capable camera, but I'll wait for Canon, Sony and Panasonic before I buy. With my XL1s and new DVX100, I'm happy as can be (for now).

<<<-- Originally posted by Jeff Kilgroe : <<<-- Originally posted by Josh Martin : I can't help you on the Final Cut 3 issue. -->>>

Yes you can edit with FCP 3 -- and even better with FCP 4.

I've developed a procedure and so has Paul. More to come later when i can say more.

Hello,
I'm beginning to import video shot in Frame mode from my GL-2 using FCP connected via a firewire cable. Looking through the FCP manual, it states "For DV captured via FireWire; always set field dominance to Lower (Even.) For non-interlaced video set the field dominance to None." In my understanding, Video shot in Frame mode is both DV and non-interlaced, so I'm not sure how to set the field dominance. Thanks for any help.
Chris

(I'm cross-posting this on the GL-2 thread too.)

The Canon frame mode is in fact interlaced and not a true progressive image. When you import you should import lower field first.

Thanks for the reply Vince, though I wish I'd had it in January. That project is long gone but the advice is still good. Still working on getting great audio. Good mics have sure made a big difference. Thanks again, Chris

i am just wondering if anyone has any idea of when they will switch the imac, emac, and powerbooks to G5 processors. will they then move the ibook to a g4?

Sorry Chris. I just joined the group a couple of weeks ago.

Actually, I was the fellow that wrote the audio plugins (reverb, EQ, etc.) for Final Cut Pro. It was a challenging project due to the design of their timeline code, so I'm just happy the stuff worked.

I'm hoping people are making use of the Hum Remover. It really
simplifies the removal of all sorts of hums with harmonics.

Okay I'm sure someone out there has a great, easy and quick answer for this one. (G)

I just picked up a slightly used Sony PVM-1380, 13" video monitor.


I've got a Radeon 8500 AGP card in my G4 from which I'm coming out from the s-video port. (right now I have it adapting from S-Vid to rca to BNC till the s-vid to BNC cable comes)


I hooked the monitor up to my XL1S and fed it the true color bars from it. I followed the calibration instructions I found on the web and I was pretty pleased with the results.

I played some video from the camera and was also pleased with the results.

Then I hooked it up to my Mac and fired up FCP. Set it to use the monitor as the play back... and the video looked like crap.

The good news about this is that I hooked the camera back up to the monitor and used the picture to calibrate my NEC 21" computer monitor to show the video in FCP VERY closely to the real video. Quite happy about that.

Again though: the video coming over from the computer is off. Too deep, not deep enough. Color off... all sorts of issues.

Any suggestions, ideas, opinions?

As I said, I'm really pleased with the picture coming from the camera and it will make a great set monitor... but I'd also like to get some editing use out of it.

TIA

---------------------------------
Edited to add
----

I plugged the monitor into the camera while I 'print to tape' ed and I see the picture is where it should be on the monitor coming from FCP... to the camera... to the monitor. (shrug)

Not familiar with the Radeon 8500, but I have a Radeon 7000. It comes with a control panel "Mac2TV" which gives you quite a bit of control over the s-video port. You should be able to adjust your monitor using these controls. However I don't understand why you're having the problem in the first place... Have you set FCP to playback at the highest quality?

Caveat: I'm running FCP 3 under MacOS 9.2

OS X. Don't think the ATI tools like that exsist for it.

The video that is going into my camera across the firewire and from there into my monitor is right on the money... There's got to be some settings for the card I guess. I"ll see if I can look around for it.

Hey Vince,
Great to know that your on the list. Looking forward to getting FCP4 tomorrow. Did you do any work on it?

Who (here) can really know until it happens?

The G5 is big and requires a large volume to provide for cooling devices, fins and fans and such. Until this package can be made smaller, you won't see them in smaller Macs. AND the cost is also a bit high for cheaper boxes. Maybe if Apple used solid state cooling devices, they could stick a G5 in a smaller box, but that might imply a different power source than batteries.

The G4 is available NOW in a small iBook sized laptop.
The G3 iBook fits its niche nicely. I would expect them to disappear sometime soon, and maybe the price will drop on the G4 PowerBook.

Nope. I just worked on FCP in 1998-99.

Hey Fellas,

Just got my G4 about three months ago and just picked up a Western Digital 160 gig HD, 7200 RPM with 8 meg cache.

After some fiddling, I found the release latch on the drive bay that holds the original 80 gig HD.

I've tried setting the jumpers on this new HD at "Slave" and at "Cable Select" and plugging it into the additional 40-pin, female cable that the original HD uses to plug into the mobo.

When I boot up, no error messages but no second hard drive on the desktop. I hit info on the HD icon just to see if maybe it subsumed the 160 gigs to make it a 240 gig drive but it did not.

What should I do? I could try the other 3.5" bay, which actually has two bays and plugging into that connector. Or I could try the controller that came with the HD but I can't even find a spot to plug it in on the mobo - all the avail slots are much longer PCI slots than this one needs.

You can chat me on AIM at DaGrouch99 if you want to walk me through it - (I'll be chatting on my PC while working on Mac).


Thanks,

Joshua

Joshua,
It sounds like you've not yet formatted the drive for Mac OS. See this thread (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11290).

<<<-- Originally posted by Ken Tanaka : Joshua,
It sounds like you've not yet formatted the drive for Mac OS. See this thread (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11290). -->>>

Ken, you rock man. I wish that somewhere on that WD installation sheet they'd have given me some indication of looking in the Disk Utility for the HD. Oh well.

Moving all my current media off the original HD as we speak and will proceed on to next project.

Thanks a million,


Joshua

you may want to reconsider...read charlie white's review at:
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/Htm/DVEditHomeSet1.htm

Thanks Dean,

I know that I hit the spacebar too hard with my thumb and that my arm rests are too hard.

Anyone else have RSI experience? I'm just trying to wade through all the mis-information.

thanks,
Aaron

One of the things to try is learning to use the mouse in both hands. That way you can switch off. It seems difficult at first, but it's not nearly as tough as learning to write with both hands! Having a cordless mouse makes this easier. In your case, you have a trackball--try using that with your "other" hand. (Is a non-dominant hand a submissive hand?)

In yoga class we do a stretch that works wonders for computer users. Get on your hands and knees with your fingers spread wide apart and your thumbs stretched out pointing towards each other. Then gently rock your body frame back and forth, pressing into the front of your palm--the idea is to stretch your hand backwards, reducing the angle your hand makes with your forearm to 90° or less. Easy does it! Flexibility will come with time, and you'll find RSI symptoms reduced as well.

The exercise may be enhanced by reversing your hands so that your fingers point backward toward your knees, then sitting back on your legs. Like all yoga, improvement comes with repetition, not strain.

This link contains more exercises you may or may not find to be useful. (http://www.mydailyyoga.com/yoga/rsi.html)

I use a PC at home and work (and a Mac occasionally at home). My biggest concern is a tingling in my elbow...the same arm that I use to muse with. I figure that I'm putting pressure on it as it rests on the desk. Elbow mats, if anything, seem to make it worse.

But it may also be exacerbated by the fact that I sometimes carry a heavy briefcase.

I don't own a DVX100 but have seen it blown up to 35mm and projected on a 40" screen, where it totally fell apart and displayed such awful DV pixelation, ghosting and other motion atiifacts that I would NEVER choose to use it for anything other than small screen work. The JVC has many times more picture resolution than the DVX100, and though I haven't seen it on a large screen yet, my feeling is that it will hold up much much better due to the HD resolution. The color on it is also excellent and I haven' t seen a problem with shadow detail, just with highlights blowing out, which can be controlled wth ND filters. the camera controls are pretty consumerish though.

It will be at least a year before G5's can be made that consume less power and have less of a heat issue. I would expect G5's in Powerbooks by the middle to end of 2004.

New G3's (IBM product) are coming that will be used in iBooks for another generation or two. Motorola has just released a new G4 that will power the iMacs, eMacs and Powerbooks for the coming year. The new G4's use less energy and run color, but have only a slight speed bump.

I am using FCP 3.0.4 on an Imac 800 mhz. When I try to capture to a partition that still has about 3 gigs left I keep getting the same thing. as soon as it starts capturing the image stalls in the capture window and I get the beach ball. When I force quit and check the capture folder there is a clip that is nearly 3 gigs. It seems to use the remnants of the drive for one (unusable) clip.

I had this problem a few months ago when I was trying to capture to an external firewire drive-then I read something about the imac using the same Firewire port for both input/outputs so I stopped trying that and only capure to my internal drive. Now this...Any theories about this? It's driving me crazy!

How do i lay a .PSD file over top of a looping video clip to create a menu in DVD studio pro 1.5.2.? Or is this not possible? Thanks for any info.

I know this has been covered and is in Apple's DVD list. I have a link to it here about a month or so ago (sorry I'm late for an appointment and don't have time to look). You also need a blank layer and the layers need to be flattened first.

Try log and capture, rather than batch capture. If that doesn't do it, you are trying to capture a clip longer than the space you have or perhaps an error on your drive (directory error etc.). Three gigs is only about 15 minutes of space. Use Disk Warrior on the questionable drive if you suspect a drive error.

Filling up a drive more than 80% is also not recommended. Dropped frames can occur and system errors can also occur.

Xl1 (not s)
Lacie D2 FireWire hard drive

Anybody with the same set-up as me?

If so can you capture to the drive with the camera connected to the hard drive which in turn is connected to your Mac? If so please can you let me know. And specifically what size hard drive you have and what Mac. Mine is the 200GB version drive and a TiBook 1GHz/SD.

This is following on from my earlier post here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11326

I still can't capture when it's connected in this way on either on my TiBook or B&W G3, in either FCP 3 or iMovie.

Tested the drives speed using the included Lacie software and that seems to be fine, but according to Lacie it could be my XL1. According to them some cameras saturate the FireWire bus, or something like that, which will not allow me to successfully capture in this way.

Went over to a friends the other day to see his set up and he could capture with his XM2 (GL2), 150GB Lacie D2 FW HD connected in a similar fashion to his CTR iMac.

When I get a chance I'll take my kit over to do some testing with his cam and drive, but until then could anyone with the same set-up as me please let me know how successful your captures have been. I'd be most grateful.

Thanks. I was using log and capture so maybe do to that partition be nearly full or maybe due to some other disk error...

I read your other post and links. I, too have tracked down dropped frame and stutter issues to bad FireWire cables. I would try a different cable before anything else. You may save yourself a lot of frustration. I would also wipe your media drive and partition it, rather than having one large partition. Put nothing but media on the one partition. Mixing media with other files is asking for trouble.

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for replying. I picked up a new 4-6 pin cable to connect my XL1 to the FW hard drive, which didn't solve the problem. Perhaps the FW cable from the hard drive to the Mac could be at fault? I'll check that out next, as well as your other suggestions.

What gets me is that all these years I've been using a Mac as well as capturing video through FW I was always the one who never had any problems. Now that I've advised some friends on what to get I have the problems and they're fine!

If you disk is heavily fragmented it becomes worse as it gets more crowded. You might use the Diskwarrior defragmenting tool, or the Norton defragging tool, or you can back it up, wipe it out and restore it to defrag it.
before doing that be sure to run disk first aide and DiskWarrior to make sure the problem isn't directory related.
If it is on the same hard drive that FCP is on (you are capturing to the same drive but just a different partition) then that could be the problem. Creating a different partition is not the same as capturing to a different hard drive. It may "look" like a different hard drive but it isn't and the head still has to travel back and forth. The idea is to capture to a different hard drive than your FCP/OSX (or9) hard drive...not just a different partition.

What I usually do is edit the video so that it does what I want (let's say it is 1 minute long before it loops). Then in Photoshop I create the text for the menu with a blank layer at 720x480. I then import the PSD into Final Cut Pro and lay it on top of the minute long video and render. Export the video as an .m2v file. Take it into DVD Studio Pro and create a new menu and select that video file. Make sure the "Simple overlay" is on and choose some colors. Then create your buttons in DVD-SP.

This will result in the fastest menu you can do. If you keep the PSD file native in DVD-SP with many different layers, it will respond VERY slowly when in a real DVD player. Yes, it can look nicer, but I don't like the cursor moving down a second or two AFTER I press it.

We have an 73 minutes worth of footage to print out on tape.
The thing is , with Firewire DV, it seems there is a dropped frame and the audio and video are out of sync. We go around to use the Cinewave to rerecord on to Digi beta. Is anyone familiar with this problem with long footage? Can someone tell me if there is a good help page for this.
Thanks in Advance.
Takeshi

Thanks Curtis I never thought about doing it that way. I will give it a shot.

Takeshi,

There could be a lot of reasons for that...would you mind posting your computer/software specs? That'll help us to have a better idea of what the problem is.

I'm on the verge of buying the DVX-100, but at this time I don't have enough funds to buy the camera and a new computer to edit with Final Cut Pro 4.

See I own an ibook 500 G3 with FCP 3. So FCP 4 requires me to buy a whole new computer as well as the upgrade. Even with an Emac that is still a large sum at this point.

Anyone, if I can afford to upgrade my computer, will using the DVX-100 be a pain in the ass for editing?

I see no advantage to edit in 24 fps mode, so I assume I can still editi in 29.97, but do I have to do anything.

My understand was the footage recorded on to the Mini-Dv tape is 29.97, but the 24 info is also stored on there, so you can get the footage to be in 24 if you so desired.

So if I wanted to shoot on 24p, but edit in 29.97 using Final Cut Pro 3, should I have no problems?

I jsut want the film look that 24 gives you, but since I don't plan on going to film I see no need to edit in 24fps.

thanks for any education you can give me.

Thank you.

I have a notice stuck near the top of the DVX100 Forum with some links that should help. If you have additional questions post back here and I'll try to help.

I didn't see any notice about Final Cut Pro 3... I saw one about 4 that linkes to the Apple website.

Basically I just want to know if I buy this camera, and shoot in one of their 24 modes, can I edit the footage using FCP 3?

What are the steps?

Can I pop the tape I recorded on the DVX-100 into my Sony deck and import the footage like I always have before.

John,
ahh, you're in Tokyo too?

here it is.
one G4 1G dual OSX with Cinewave Final cut pro 3.0
37GB OS HD, over a tera of raid HD, 120GB Firewire HD,
one G4 OSX with Final cut pro 3.0
20GB OS HD, 115GB for video storage.
We do split the sequence into different pieces, but there seems to be jumps on the audio when printing to tape. Seems to happen to both machines. This did not happen to other projects, just this long one. This is strange.
Takeshi

Takeshi,

Yes...I'm in Hakozakicho. I'll send you my phone number by e-mail... we should talk sometime.

Now, about your problem. First, the dropped frames...it's possible to get a dropped frames warning when there haven't actually been any dropped frames. This happens sometimes when other processes are running on the computer, such as your e-mail being checked automatically, etc. You'll see that the "dropped frames error" box has popped up. But if you click to "continue" and then later check, sometimes you'll find that there's no dropped frames at all...the footage looks fine. So, my first recommendation is to continue rendering to the end and then check to see if there actually is a problem. Have you done that? Let us know. If so, we'll try to come up with another option.

About the audio being out of sync...have you selected the "Sync Audio" option in your FCP preferences? If that is selected, that'll help your audio stay matched to your video. Have you done that? If not...give it a try and let us know if that works. If it doesn't work, I do something very "low tech" that seems to work. I'll just cut the video and audio at certain intervals...unnoticeable in the final product.

If none of the above helps, we'll get some of the FCP wizards involved. It's nighttime in the U.S., so as soon as morning hits maybe we can get Jeff Donald or Ken Tanaka to chime in with their ideas.

I've got a gig cutting together this project for a client... he's got a nice set-up with a high end G4 and he dished out the dollars for Magic Bullet as well.


here's the deal: I need to work on every single shot of the project. I need to color correct all of it and need to do an assortment of other things before I get to the Magic Bullet Look Suite.


I was asking around on some MB boards about some issues and was told it was best to CC in AE since I would be able to see how it effects the shot after applying MB and that makes sense to me.

The issue is that I've been told that my methodology for getting clips into and back out of AE isn't right.

(I'm pretty much doing exactly what this article says:
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/porting_between_fcp_ae.html
)

Now this article is a couple of years old and I know there has to be some people that are doing this on a regular basis and can give me the straight sh*t on this subject and I trust the people here more then many other boards I read.

Sooooo, if you output to AE and then back into FCP tell me what settings and workflow you use.

Thanks in advance!

OH, and he won't spend the money to get Automatic Duck so don't bother suggesting it.

Greetings,

Has anyone out there used FCP4's new "create new clip at timecode break" feature.
It's an interesting addition and could be very helpful for those unexplained timecode breaks that pop up here and there.We will be testing this feature next week as we recently shot a project in 24P advanced on the DVX100 and some of the tapes are full of breaks between start/stops. They didn't occur when reviewing the footage or powering off, but just during a normal start/stop.
I'd be curious if anyone else is having this problem and has any ideas on what may be casuing it.

Cheers,

Paul

I have been exporting the footage out of FCP (& no audio) as a Anim quality Quicktime movie> In AE add the timeline to the render queue and then render (when you feel like a coffee) in AE lossless (as i often have some transparent parts in the footage) then import that back into a FCP bin.
Apparently you can also export as a FCP reference movie to save HDD space. Is this what you were asking?

has anyone used the plugin to convert AE into FCP. Sounds handy but a bit expensive.
Takeshi

If you look at the article I reference they say to export as FCP movie... this way AE only works from the original captured files.


Exporting back they suggestyou use the MAKE MOVIE export with a variation on the LOSSLESS preset resetting the format to DV and LOWER FIRST.


This, I believe, is when you don't have layers like you are talking about.


I've read the reviews of Automatic Duck and it seems pretty cool, it does something like recreating your timeline in an AE composition. But I've never used it and at 300+ US$, doubt I will for a long time unless a client buys it and lets me play with it.

Thanks-I'll hit my Disk with Norton and see how it goes. I managed to get results by making some room on the drive but now I am getting crashes as soon as I try to render or even when I open up a projetct sometimes. It's all very strange!

I'll admit it. I've only been using a Mac since December and really have no idea about how it works.

It's a power mac. 2 120gig drives. I had both on my desktop. I clicked on my video drive to do a get info thing to see if I had enough room to capture some stuff a friend wanted me to work on. I've got a few projects going and wasn't sure if there was enough space left. I accidentally hit eject instead. Now it's gone and I have no idea how to get it back. I didn't delete the drive right? How do I acces the files that are on there. Please help...anyone? I'm running 10.2.2

Just restart you computer and it will remount all your drives that are attached.

It sounds like you're still over 80% capacity on your drive. Optimum performance is obtained by capturing to a separate physical drive (not a partition of the main drive). It is not uncommon to have crashes or freezes, etc when capturing to the system drive.

I have a NTSC project in FCP and I need to burn it on PAL for DVD... Ok, so I understand I can do this from FCP into quicktime, then to iDVD... what settings should I use on my quicktime. 25fps, right? what about the audio? 48? Then do I just drag it to iDVD and go from there?
Thanks guys and gals, you rock!
-Kyle