The best way to keep the Manual for DVD Studio Pro is when you launch DVD SP go to the right of the title bar and draw down and launch DVD Studio Pro help it's a .PDF file from there go the "Edit" and draw down there and save it as a PDF file from there you can use it without being in the application and it's great to take on the road for learning on those long drives to the shoot.

I want to be able to transfer (RIP) 10 minutes from a DVD movie I recently bought to FCP4 so I can manipulate it and edit it as I like. It is not for commercial use but for my own enjoyment. How can I do that? Any help is appreciated. I have FCP4.0.2 & OSX 10.2.6 & DVD Studio Pro 2.0.0

Thanks Jeff. I was afraid of that. Now, could you explain that to my wife? I hope I can at least get an upgrade from Apple. Thanks again.

I have a JVC S-VHS VCR connected to my JVC GRD70 camcorder with an S-video cable and the camcorder's a/v cable (with just the audio connections hooked up to the VCR). The camcorder is connected to my Mac with firewire. Another firewire cable connects my external hard drive.

To capture video in Final Cut Pro, set your external video to uncontrolled, hit play on the VHS deck, and hit Capture Now in FCP.

Well, it seems the speed is not an issue, I can just reduce to 96% and turn frame blending off, but the the problem now is resizing. I thought it was doing it correctly, but FCP4 is just squishing the PAL image into the NTSC frame. I want to correctly resize the PAL 4:3 image into the NTSC 4:3 image, taking into consideration pixel aspect ratio. Anyone know how to do this?

There is a noticable hum in the audio of my project & I was wondering if anyone could explain to me how to remove it; maybe by using one of FCP's filters? I'm stuck.
Thanks
Erik

Erik,

Is it there after you render? I was having the same problem, but it was my amp and a loose connection - one of the plugs not plugged all the way in causing the hum. Check those if you are using an amp. If not, you might be able to adjust levels in the mixer (turn down the bass) to get rid of a little of it....I don't know about the filters????

Use 2-3 FCP hum removers or parametric equalizers.
Set one to 60, the 2nd to 120 and if needed, the third to 180 Hz.
Set the Q as high as possible. Set the gain to as negative as possible.

Honestly, I don't use FCP, nor do I have a Mac. However, I coded
all of the audio signal processing filters for the early release of FCP in 1998/99. Hum removal tools are there in some form, although the parameter names may have changed.

There are several common "hums". One is due to electrical grounding problems (aka ground loop hum) when connecting audio to the camera. Another is camera whir. Others are from ventilation noise. I described how to remove the 60 Hz hum from your audio. Since other hums have unspecified frequencies,
you have to use a spectral analysis tool to identify the prominent frequencies of the hum. Although I don't know of the latest Mac tools for this analysis, CoolEdit Pro and Sound Forge on Windows PCs do the job well. If you can at least export a few seconds of your audio (preferably isolated to make the peak analysis obvious) to a PC, you can use that computer to identify the frequencies in the hum.

Apple has introduced a 20 inch iMac with a 1.25 GHz G4 processor and the velocity engine. The details are on Apple's site here. (http://www.apple.com/imac/)

Does anybody know if the Final Cut Pro sold in the States is different in any way from the one sold in Europe as I'm considering buying it in the US as it is considerably cheaper because of the the Euro's strength. Is there a Pal/ NTSC problem ? Thanks

Jeff,

Do you think this LCD display is the same one used in the the 20" Cinema Display?

I doubt it, the costs don't really add up. I don't think they have the same resolution. I'll look and compare once they start appearing in the stores.

They are the same.

For no reason that I can discern, my G4 has decided to stop outputting firewire data. Or at least Final Cut Pro 4 has. I have tested with multiple devices, and they all capture fine, but data in FCP can not be seen or heard over any firewire connections, no matter what I do. Nothing has changed on my computer since an hour ago when it worked fine and dandy. The only "incident" would be that I turned off a video camera that was hooked up to the firewire port while FCP was on the timeline. I'm pretty sure FCP is more robust than that, so I don't think that would have an effect. I rebooted, repaired permissions and even fed my cat. Nothing seemed to make any difference.

What are some areas I should check? I checked all of the FCP prefs and nothing has changed.

Aww, geez, even the "feed the cat" maneuver failed? Wow, that is serious.

Well it sounds like the Firewire port is still working, eh? That's good.

I know there must be some other clever tricks to try. But, frankly, when I'm faced with such a problem I delete my FCP preferences file.

Ken Stone has a good dance-step page (http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html) on this topic.

Thanks Jeff. According to Apple's site, they are both 1680x1050. That's why I wondered.

For not alot more, I think I'll get one of the dual 1.8GHz G5's instead :)

I had a noticeable hum in my footage in FCP 3 & managed to remove it pretty well using a High Pass filter (setting Frequency to 1200 and Q to 1) but the overall sound of the video is now very "tinny." Can anyone offer suggestions on how to fix this?
Thanks,
Erik

You can try setting the high pass filter lower, or the hum removal plug-in (actually that would probably be more appropriate).

Alternatively you can try adding a simple delay that would cancel out hum very well but it might mess up your audio. see jay rose's articles over at dv.com.

Thanks Jeff.

if you aren't an audio engineer and you are struggling with basic audio filters to remove hum, buy SoundSoap. It's very effective. search google

I'll 2nd Bud's recommendation for Sound Soap. It's a Bias (http://www.bias-inc.com/) product, the same folks who make Peak. Sound Soap is very definitely worth the relatively modest investment, particulary if you are not a dedicated audio geek (as I am not).

I will warn you, however, that SS uses the same principles and techniques for noise removal that you would emply with various filters and equalizers. That said, you can also flatten your sound with SS. It can be a bit hard to monitor because SS is continuosly adjusting and adapting. Sometimes the sound during scrubbing and preview will sound like it's coming from a cardboard tube. My point: don't assume it will be an immediate elixir that will fix you up in 15 minutes. It, too, takes a bit of practice.

Just a few questions with some troubles I'm having.

Ok first one, I was shooting a cathedral in Barcelona and due to the really low light I get a flicker in my footage. Any ideas if any to get this out? I tried the flicker filter, but it seems to be worse with it on.

Secondly, is it possible to take a clip ... say 10 seconds long and automatically cut every .5 seconds into a seperate clip? I do this now with the razor blade and on loger clips it gets tedious.


Thanks in advance.

I can't answer the first question without seeing the footage. But the second question, I would just use the razor blade if it is only 10 seconds. That's only 20 cuts and you only have to go through it once.

Sorry I should have been more clear, the 10 seconds was an example. Last night I did a 30 second clip with about 60 cuts, As I use this technique alot it would be nice to know if there was a shortcut.

I was looking for keyboard shortcuts, pushing keys, and now the canvas has no picture, and the last image I hit "stop" on is frozen. I checked my video output, which was to my camera. So what key or button did I hit, and what can I do to get my picture back?

Thanks,

heath

Has anyone ever done an in-depth comparison of MPEG-2 files compressed with the latest version of BitVice and Apple's Compressor? I used to use BitVice when it was version 1.2.5, and it seems that the quality is about the same, although the BitVice files are much smaller. The BitVice website says that the latest version is even better and faster. Is the difference in quality worth the price: $300 vs. free?

Check your external video settings?

FCP may be trying to send video to your camera instead of your canvas or vice versa.

I forget the shortcut for toggling that setting, but it might be command + shift + F12.

Compressor is fairly well regarded in terms of image quality, speed etc. for a software solution. I've not seen any comparisons to date. Have you tried Compressor and had quality problems? If not, I'd try Compressor, everything I've seen looks very good.

Yeah, try View > External Video > All Frames. The other thing which can affect this is under the Audio/Video Settings in the FCP menu. Click on the External Video tab and look at your setting for "View During Playback", also the "Mirror on desktop during Playback" checkbox.

The only other possibility that comes to mind is to make sure that either "Image" or "Image+Wireframe" is checked under the View menu, but from your description that doesn't sound like the problem.

Thanks.

heath

I've had no issues with Compressor's image quality, I use it to encode 24p material. I used the demo version of Bitvice (which adds a "bug" on the screen making it look like network TV) and there was all sorts of digital artifacting on the edges of the black letterbox bars (my aspect ratio was slightly wider than 16:9, thus requiring more bars). Other than that it seemed to look OK, but I'll stick with Compressor for sure.

Does anyone use a PCI or USB tv tuner with thier macs? What do you think about it? I've been checking them out and see that some will allow for selectable quicktime codecs for TV capture. Does anyone know if you can use the QT mpeg2 codec with any of these devices?

Right now, I'm using Final Cut Express in 10.2.8. I will be upgrading to 10.3 and Final Cut Pro 4 later next year (after all the bugs get worked out and everyone is running smoothly). However, I would like to buy After Effects 6.0. Basically I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience with FCE and AE6. I know FCE doesn't have AE plug-in support, but how easy is it to go back and forth between the programs (most likely by saving as a final cut project file)? Also, have there been any bugs with AE6 running on 10.3?
I just downloaded the trial version of AE6, so I'll definately get some idea of how well these programs work together, but any extra help would be very appreciated.

Automatic Duck might work for importing your whole project into AE. Not just individual clips.

The other way is to manually bounce files around by exporting reference movies from FCE and importing rendered movies back into FCE.

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

Go to: http://www.formac.com/p_bin/?cid=solutions_converters_studiodvtv

Hope this helps.

Hi there. I think there are probably a few of these posts out there already, so I apologize if I am repeating one.

I'd like to get into monitoring and recording multiple camera's for shows that I will be recording. Instead of recording the show individually on the seperate cameras, then syncing it all up in FCP, I'd like to be able to import and record live from multiple cameras, or at least be able to switch between cameras live, then do my editing in FCP.

Any suggestions? I'm up for practically anything. Any hardware and/or software I might need to accomplish something like that.

Thank you,
Josh

You'll need an additional piece of equipment that acts as a Special Effects Generator (wipes, fades etc.), Frame Synchronizer, and Switcher. You'll need to monitor the individual feeds to the board and switch it live, the output going to your NLE to be recorded. It may be more trouble and expense than doing it all in post with FCP. It could save a lot of time though.

HAHA, you sure make it seem like that, however, if it can be done and made easy to do, in the long run, it might be easier to do it live, rather in the post.

Thank you very much

You should be able to convert the footage once it is in the
computer (although the quality might not be too great). The
problem here is getting it into your computer. Another company
might be the way to go indeed.

Any video mixer would do that. In the past I've used a Videonics MX-1 but it isn't that good (lag when you hit buttons being the main concern). There's lots of old analog mixers on eBay if you're ok with taking that risk. There's also DV mixers like the Videonics MX-Pro DV (something like that).

There are some software programs that try to do the same thing as a video mixer. Live Channel Pro for Mac, a few ones for PC like Isadora. I have no idea if these work. Live Channel Pro does work but I'm not sure if it can record at full quality at the same time.

Live editing is a bit faster but more nerveracking and it takes experience to get it right. Editing live events in post is a huge pain.

There's also some expenses on top of the mixer (software) like walkie talkies and cables. Remember to include those costs.

Does anybody have any recommendations for a handbook for FCP 4. I'm a relative novice and have only edited using Imovie so far. Thanks

So nice to meet you Robb! How is the weather in Cork? :o)

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/review_peachpit_lisa_fcp4.html

http://kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_homepage_index.html#tutorial

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_homepage_index.html#fcp_4.0

http://www.lafcpug.org

- don

Thanks. I'll check those sites out. It's wet and windy as usual!!! Robb

And don't forget the number one expense when production gets more complex...additional people. We all like to get paid, and the more hardware the more labor-intensive it becomes (unless of course you have an all-volunteer crew).

1200 Hz is awful high for hum. That's why it sounds "tinny", all the low end is gone.

FCP's hum remover works at more appropriate frequencies...default is 60 Hz which is the natural frequency of hum in the USA, and it will cover harmonics (multiples) of your selected frequency, up to the 5th.

FCP 3's Hum Remover will cover up to the fifth harmonic (which would be 300 Hz). Beyond that frequency you'll have to try notch filtering to isolate the offending frequency if what you have goes beyond true AC hum, such as droning motors, fans, etc.

i own FCP3 and i used an external to take some video to my friends computer who has FCP4....when we loaded it up...we had to convert the files to work for FCP4....now i come home...and the project files wont open on FCP3. is there a way i can convert them back from FCP4 files to FCP3?

I think the player is only doing half the job by feeding the TV a signal it can read but not generating a signal that the PAL deck likes.

Take a look at these guys' website:

www.world-import.com

They have all kinds of converters and multi-system VCRs.

But the research I have done keeps bringing me back to the same thing: the Panasonic AG-W3...it will record or play in PAL, NTSC or even SECAM, and internally convert the signal to the desired format. It will also record tapes in any format (PAL, NTSC, SECAM) from any source. If you can find one of those to borrow, or if you can afford to buy one, that's great.

Or you can do what I still do, bring the tape to a studio up the street and pay them $100 US to make a local-format version of a foreign-sourced tape.