i'm glad to hear that there's no problems. of course those new dual 1.42's are looking pretty sweet... =)

Anything that would make that job easier is worth it. I've only taken one genuine swing at it with DVD Studio Pro. Painful. Tedious. A job one is sentenced to by a court rather than elects to undertake.

Do they only make it for OSX? No free demos for me and my PC?

Has anyone had any experience with Maxtor 120GIG firewire external drives with 911 princeton chipset casings for an Express DV setup?

or any fierewre drives used for digital video.

How do they respond? Do they work well if a hub is used to connect multiple drives?

The only thing that I know is that some people on the board
use firewire drives (or normal harddisk in a firewire case) without
any problems. I do not have the answer to your other questions...

Firewire drives on are virtually essential for video work, and do very well. I have several, most from WiebeTech (www.WiebeTech.com) but also an 80 Gb Maxtor. Look for 5400rpm minimum rotational speeds, wih 7200rpm being preferred, and the best onboard cache you can get. I also look for bus-powered drives which take all of their power from the Firewire bus.

I use several firewire drives, including a 7200 RPM Maxtor 80 GB. It works fine under MacOS 9 with Final Cut Pro. I had some problems awhile back using a 120 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM drive, but only when running Final Cut Pro under MacOS X. It worked fine under MacOS 9. I don't have problems when daisy chaining several of them together but haven't tried using a hub.

Sorry, no experience with these on a PC. with the software you mention.

I was wondering if any one else has experienced this situation. I firewire a tape into iMovie2, creating the clips, save the project and quit the program( by the way, at this point all clips look perfect).
If I open iMovie2 and look at the clips about 10 % look like a tv screen that's blurred, snow , fuzz etc.
When I click the clip, on the shelf, it looks perfect when I play the clip from the shelf, it looks perfect.
Now eventhough it has this fuzzy look when sitting there, I never see the fuzz otherwise.

Any suggestions????

I have anXL-1, G-4 450DP , 512 ram, 210 gigs

Bruce

One of our editing suites is a G4 450DP with 1Gh RAM and (still) running on OS9. We want to upgrade to FCP3. Can anyone give us any advice on whether this will result in a stable system, will FCP3 run smooth, should we install OSX to use FCP3 (especially since we're considering buying a RTMAC, which still doesnt run on OSX)?
What would be the best configuration to consider???

I think that FCP3 will run fine on your G4 450DP, although certainly not at zippy as it would on later systems. I believe that my colleague, Jeff Donald, remarked that he uses that G4 450DP with no trouble.

Forget the RTMac. Speaking as someone who has an RTMac in a box, I say save your money. For all practical purposes it seems to be an abandoned product. Matrox has promised OS-X compatibility for a year and a half. Nothing. Subsequent versions of FCP promise to expand real-time processing anyway.

Re: moving to OS-X, I highly recommend it. Although FCP3 will operate smoothly on either OS-9 or OS-X, the latter is the more stable platform and, to be sure, the sole Mac platform prospectively. It's rumored the FCP4 will likely only run on OS-X so you might as well make the investment in time now.

Welcome, again, to the DVInfo Community Raymond!

I currently run FCP3.0.4 on a Dual500 under OSX 10.2.3 and since our systems are similar (I even have a gig of RAM) I can vouch for it being reletively painless. It is also much more stable and snappy than FCP2 or 3 on OS9.
I also agree to save your money on the Matrox card, my office had 3 of them and they were useless after the upgrade to 3. If you need the analog input buy a media converter.

I do use a Dual 450 as my personal editing system. It is extremely stable on FCP 3.0.4 and Quicktime 6.1. The RTMAC is a waste. Beta versions of the drivers for OS X were to have been shown at DV Expo NYC in January. Anyone know if they were shown? I have upgraded the video card in the AGP slot and maxed out the Ram at 2 gigs. I would also upgrade the stock hard drive to 120 gig 7200 rpm. There are several options for upgrading the processors if you want.

You really need to reflect on the types of work you need to do with this new system. When FCP 4 is introduced, this system will not be able to take advantage of all the features FCP has to offer. Apple will probably introduce new IBM processors this fall. G4's will become G5's, or whatever, and the dual 450 will be over 3 years old at that point. It will be a workable system until then.

Me? Well I'm waiting for the new processors, then it'll be time to replace this system.

were do they look fuzzy at? In the viewer window?

Hi Bob,
They appear in the shelf, timeline and clip viewer.I t appears in frame 1 or 2 of the clip and if it is removed, may or may not show up in that clip or even a new one. The odd part of it is that if you click on the clip (fuzzy) and hit the play arrow, it plays cearly from frame one till the end of the clip.
it doesn't damage the clip at all. If you click on the timeline tab with let's say 3 fuzzy clips, they all play perfectly.

Any help would be appreciated .

Thanks

i'm using FCP 3 on 10.2.3 on a single G4/500 and its quite stable and seems fast enough most of the time. those new 1.42 dualies are looking pretty nice tho. i just need to convince the accountant ( aka mrs pink ) that i need one...

720X480 is standard for ntsc DV. 720X486 is standard for NTSC.
720X540 is NTSC square pixel.
confusing huh?

grin

NTSC = Never The Same Color!!

:)

I am using a Maxtor Firewire Drive (7200RPM, 120Gig) and its being filled up. No problems.

PC is a 1.7GHz, Pentium 4, 512MB RDRAM, Two 80Gig Drives.

My NLE is Avid Xpress DV 3.5 and all is well.

I am thinking about another one in the near future.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

Derrick

That's the pixels..., then there's the resolution! That's another can of worms.

Thanks to all of you!! This is very usefull information...

Jeff, what options for upgrading the processors do you mean? <br>We wanted to use the RTMAC for the second monitor, what other options are there for using a second monitor??

The PowerLogix (http://www.powerlogix.com/products2/pfdualg4100/index.html) is the only dual upgrade for dual 450's at this time. The only limitation to upgrade cards is that you shouldn't upgrade OS's or other critical software until the upgrade manufacture certifies them for use with the board. Upgrades can have problems with new versions of OS's.

If the video card is upgraded to the nVidia GForce 440MX (http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=geforce4mx) or the ATI Radeon 9000 Pro (http://mirror.ati.com/products/mac/radeon9000prome/index.html) you will be able to drive two monitors. The cost of the cards are both well under $200.

I'm really not sure on that. I haven't seen anything like that on mine. But go to Apple.com and then, support. Then, join discussion. You will find a large discussion on iMovie. I'm sure someone there will know what the problem is.

Hi,

First, I must say, this site is great resource! Now, the problem...

I burned a DVD (using the latest iDVD on a dual 1Ghz G4) of some footage that had a lot of fade-ins and fade-outs (from black). I see a lot of pixelation just before the picture fades completely out, but it only happens with very slow (5 seconds or more) fade-outs. From what I can gather, this could be because of Quicktime compressing the file (not sure how to export an uncompressed - see below), or, it could be because of MPEG-2 encoding, which doesn't handle slow fades very well.


1. How do you create an uncompressed Quicktime file? The manual talks about it, but there are no options in any of FCP's "Export -> Quicktime" menus or sub-menus. The only option I see is within the Quicktime compression settings, where one of the compressors is called "None" - is this it?

2. When does a DV file become encoded as MPEG-2? When I export a Quicktime file from FCP, I end up with a .mov file. Is this an .mov file that has been encoded into the MPEG-2 format, or is MPEG-2 something different, with its own file extension? Can you encode a DV file into the MPEG-2 format and end up with a file that has a different extension, like an .avi?

3. It sounds like iDVD, FCP, and DVD Studio Pro all use the Quicktime 6.0 to encode into the MPEG-2 format. (I'm not sure if this is correct.) I understand that Discreet Cleaner also encodes into the MPEG-2 format. Will it do a much better job encoding than Quicktime 6.0, or are all encoders the same? Will this create a smoother fade?

4. How does FCP synch with Discreet Cleaner? Does Cleaner show up as an option in FCP's "Export->Quicktime" menus? If not, do you have to export an uncompressed .mov then open it with Cleaner and clean that file?

5. After Cleaner encodes to MPEG-2, it has to output some sort of file. What files does it output? Another .mov file or something else?

6. Lastly, I understand that the actual process of buring the DVD results in image degradation. Does Roxio Toast do a better job than iDVD in this department?


Thanks!

JP

Since I'm not on the Mac platform I do not have experience with
your products. But normally it goes as follows:

1. you EDIT your footage. This is usually in .AVI or .MOV (QuickTime) format
2. you ENCODE your footage to MPEG2. This is usually done in another
application and creates .M2V/.MPG/.VOB files (normally on a PC)
3. you AUTHOR a DVD which assembles all the bits and pieces and
either creates a directory/folder structure with .IFO/.BUP.VOB files
in it or makes a disc image (.IMG mostly)
4. you BURN the DVD. Quality should not degrade here

There are two steps to loose quality FAST. That is between steps
1 and 2 first and then with step 2. You must make sure that you
get your footage to your MPEG2 encoder with the highest quality
possible (AT LEAST DV in QuickTime, uncompressed even better).

The MPEG encoder (step 2) will be the most important factor in
how your file will look. If you have a bad quality encoders (yes,
these do exist) no matter what you will do, it will never look good.
If you have a good encoder you can still get bad looking video if
you set it up wrong. There can be alot of settings for a good mpeg
encoder.

As for your platform specific questions I hope someone in the know
will chime in and light your path!

Good luck.

Has anyone confirmed that this feature is now not working in fcp 3.04
if so what are all of XL1S users going to do?
I never had a problem in fcp 3.02

just did some captures of video and audio. The audio levels looked normal when I was capturing but when I play back in timeline or preview the levels are really low. In fact I can't hear anything. I can see some readings from VUs but not much. Not like when I was capturing. The levels in the timeline look fine.

Can someone help me here....

P.S I used a Sony DSR-45 deck to capture with. One other thing I tried a capture from my XL-1s also.

Update: I turned off the DSR and rebooted and now I have sound. But the sound is really low and and bad quality that I recently captured. Other past projects play fine.

Tony,
I think we'll need a bit more info, such as:
What app are you using? FCP3? Avid? Premiere?
What Mac are you using?
Have you checked your app's audio capture settings?
What's different since your last successful capture?

I just checked the most recent project I did with FCP 3.0.4 -- all XL-1 recorded clips over 5 minutes showed a decimal figure (e.g., 48.0083) in the Browser. It appears to be working.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ken Tanaka : Tony,
I think we'll need a bit more info, such as:
What app are you using? FCP3? Avid? Premiere?
What Mac are you using?
Have you checked your app's audio capture settings?
What's different since your last successful capture?
-->>>

using FCP3: 3.0.4

Audio capture setting: Where? FCP menu audio/video settings? Summery/capture preset:DV NTSC 48khz

Can't remember making any changes. One time before it did the same thing. That time itwas a digi 8 sony cam so I thought maybe they didn't have the sound down pat. This recent problem I shot the footage with a Panasonic (new 24p cam) and a XL-1s. I know the audio is good with both of these cameras. As I said when I was capturing I could see the levels in FCP and they were good, but when I played it back in the timeline, and preview window it was really low and muffled.

Hi,

I have a beige G3 upgraded with a 550 Mhz G4 zif + a Belkin Firewire PCI card + Radeon Mac Edition..
I have had no problem capturing DV with my GL2 and FCP 1.0 through 2.0 work fine, with a minor hickup.

I've had Blocky DV playback problems in the preview window with my G4 upgraded Beige G3 under OS 9.2.2
http://homepage.mac.com/cool/PhotoAlbum5.html

Credit to.... " Josh L."
sound manager from QuickTime 5 is part of the problem.

Unfortunately Final Cut 2 & 3 require the sound manager of QT 5 to run and that sound manager is the one that causes splotchy DV playback.

What can be done to fix this...
use ResEdit to replace the "nift" resources of QT5's SoundManager with the "nift" resources from QT 4.1.2.
This makes for clean DV playback and the use of FCP 2 & 3.

This doesn't fix everything but goes a long way to improve program behavior.

What it does not fix is the audio crackle and hiss in playback under OS 9, but you can mixdown audio to take care of that.

Look here for some great inf on Final Cut Pro with Pre-G3 & Beige G3 Upgraded Macs...
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/final_cut_pro_on_old_macs.html

If you are getting type 12 errors running FCP 2 on a Pre G3 mac, go here and download "FCP2Init"

http://homepage.mac.com/dvd_sp_helper/Download/Download.html
Credit for FCP2Init to John Brisbin

Also look here for great information
http://www.os9forever.com/Pro.html

It's not working with my FCP 3.0.4... everything is at 48.000 and its still drifting! help!

VIC: apart from the 'sync adjust movies over' button, what other settings are there?

Adrian

Hi,

I have a beige G3 upgraded with a 550 Mhz G4 zif + a Belkin Firewire PCI card + Radeon Mac Edition..
I have had no problem capturing DV with my GL2 and FCP 1.0 through 2.0 work fine, with a minor hickup.

I've had Blocky DV playback problems in the preview window with my G4 upgraded Beige G3 under OS 9.2.2

Credit to.... " Josh L."
sound manager from QuickTime 5 is part of the problem.

Unfortunately Final Cut 2 & 3 require the sound manager of QT 5 to run and that sound manager is the one that causes splotchy DV playback.

What can be done to fix this...
use ResEdit to replace the "nift" resources of QT5's SoundManager with the "nift" resources from QT 4.1.2.
This makes for clean DV playback and the use of FCP 2 & 3.

This doesn't fix everything but goes a long way to improve program behavior.

What it does not fix is the audio crackle and hiss in playback under OS 9, but you can mixdown audio to take care of that.

Look here for some great inf on Final Cut Pro with Pre-G3 & Beige G3 Upgraded Macs...
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback...n_old_macs.html

If you are getting type 12 errors running FCP 2 on a Pre G3 mac, go here and download "FCP2Init"

http://homepage.mac.com/dvd_sp_help...d/Download.html
Credit for FCP2Init to John Brisbin

Also look here for great information
http://www.os9forever.com/Pro.html

works for me..... :-)

Any word on FCP 4?

Hey guys,

I've read various tips for making "film-like" video using 2 video tracks directly on top of each other and then applying the "de-interlace" filter varying the fields and opacity and then rendering out.....problem is this:

I created a new blank sequence and imported a previously created sequence dropped right into the new blank timeline- when i double-click this new sequence to apply the "deinterlace" filter- it jumps back to the tab where the source sequence was located- so how can you apply 2 seperate filters (deinterlace) to each video track when it jumps back to the source of the sequence? I can't seem to apply the "deinterlacing" with variances to field and opacity because it jumps back to the source sequence...what am i doing wrong?
What are the proper steps to do what I am attempting to do?

Thanks everyone- you guys are fantastic.

Steve,
I've only tried this maneuver once and only with a short clip, so I'm not an expert on it. (It didn't really look that good, at least on my clip.)

But I think you may have to work within a primary sequence and not a nested sequence. That is, put a clip onto V1, apply d.i. to, say, the upper field. Then drop the same clip directly onto V2 and apply the d.i. to it's opposite field. Nested sequences are referentially linked. Perhaps make a scratch copy of your original sequence for the experiment.

Hi Steve,

Good news, there is a very simple fix/missing step: option-double click the nested sequence within the timeline to open it in the viewer as a clip (and to modify filter properties.)

HTH,
Clayton

Steve
you should look into the Joes filters plugin set for FCP. it has a field blending filter which will give u the same effect but only one video track is needed no need to stack 2 tracks and deinterlace each one plus its a faster render as well and i pesonally think it looks better . Why not just shoot in frame mode on the canons and save rendering time????

That should do it -- I'll take a look when I get back to the editing lab.

Probably a silly question, but I'm presuming that you had SAM turned-on for capture? It doesn't work after the fact.

Not on that, but OS-10.2.4 is out. Now, who is going to be the first one to screw-up their current project? (Ken...?)

yep, I always leave it on... I've even changed the default to 'sync adjust for movies over 4 mins'... doesn't seem to have any effect though... very weird indeed.

i updated! but i haven't loaded my current project. if i have problems, i will report back. too wrapped up in the new survivor season at the moment! :D

I've only heard a few rumors (integrated 24p, more emphasis on RT) but nothing really authoritative. Jeff D. has probably heard a few tidbits. I expect it will be introduced at NAB or perhaps a bit earlier. Apple is an amazingly, and admirably, tight-lipped operation.

FCP 4 was originally due in late December or January. The release has been pushed back until NAB or maybe the week before. The big rumor is Real Time Effects. By real time, I mean, effects will play from the timeline with no rendering. This will probably not work with many older machines. In fact, it may require Dual Processor 1gigs or better. But still just rumors. Enhancements for 24p(a) are a given. FCP should be able to use AE plug-ins again.

I've installed 10.2.4 and have run several old FCP 3.0.4 projects and all seems well. probably too early to say for sure. I quickly visited Apples FCP discussions and no one was complaining.

I've noticed an overall speed increase in my system (but I'm running an older machine, Dual 450). It has improved some printing problems I had. I'm going to try some different captures with my XL1 this weekend and see if there are any problems. I mention this because the FireWire drivers in Jaguar have not been as robust as prior versions of OS X or OS 9.x.x FireWire improvements are specifically mentioned in this update.

Hello all,

Does anyone know where the stock motion
menu graphics and audio clips reside on the
hard drive in iDVD 2? The audio clips are WAY
too loud, and I was thinking of importing the file
into FCP, adjusting to the audio levels of my
project and then dropping the file back into the
DVD project.

I would compose and record my own menu
music, but since I moved, I haven't gotten the
studio set up yet.

I'm using 10.2 and FCP 3.0.4.

Thanks in advance,

Bill

- Right/Control Click on iDVD and select Show Package Contents
- Open Contents folder then Resources
- Right/Control Click on a theme file (.theme file) and select Show Package Contents
- Open Contents folder then Resources
- Aiff file inside

Simon,

Thanks!! That's exactly what I was looking for.

Bill

I'm sure this question has been dealt with before, but I didn't turn up an answer in a quick search. I've exported a single frame, as per the FCP3 manual instructions, but the result, rendered as 720 x480, looks a bit squashed. Am I right in thinking that the 4:3 aspect ratio of the original would be duplicated by 720 x 540, and is that the reason for the squashed look? If so, why is the export done this way, and is there anything I can do to correct it? If I import the still into iDVD, for instance, it comes in letterboxed, having been now reset into a 4:3 frame. Of course, there's always the possibility I'm just doing it all wrong . . .

Thanks for any help,
Linc Kesler

How you treat your FCP still file depends on what your final destination is and what you need to do to the file (adjust brightness, contrast, sharpness etc.) and what software you're using. The problem comes from some programs or formats using rectangular pixels vs. other using square pixels. Do you have Photoshop? If not get it. It is the standard for image manipulation and all tutorials are based on using Photoshop.

You basically need to resize the image (remember, Photoshop and computers use square pixels) to eliminate the stretched look. The image needs to be changed to 720 pixels wide by 534 pixels high, resolution 72 dpi. The basic multiplier works out to be around 1.11 (480 x 1.11) or .9 for the reverse (534 x .9). Photoshop allows you to resize it exactly the way you want (Image>Image size>change dimensions). You will need to uncheck Constrain Proportions then set to show pixels. Input your adjustments and make sure the dpi is 72.

Some more information etc. can be found in this thread (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5236) and this one (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4764).