Try it. In some cases the separate files create sync problems, in other cases it solves them. It may provide a slight increase in performance.

I haven't heard of any problems with the single processor upgrades. Dual processor upgrades have created some problems (OS related and FCP related) for a few users. I would discuss in detail the planned upgrade with the retailer your purchasing from and see about returns if it doesn't work.

Check out http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/. They have user reports for just about every hardware configuration and upgrade card. People report any issues they have during installation and regular use. You should be able to find what you're looking for there.

Rick

I remember trying to optimize audio from a video clip in sound forge once. I saved the audio at a different rate, which blew any chance of getting it to sync. Back to step one...

MacGurus (http://www.macgurus.com/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi?) has an active upgrade forum you might want to check.

when dumping to my Beta SP deck, it will only record the first frame of each edit. and thats if i use the up arrow in the canvas window. what sup?

Thanks for the advice guys. This is definately an option.
Appreciate it.

--james

Hi Jeff,
I just read your post and I myself wanted to ask something relating to your question. I'll do this at the end of my answer to your question.
The only way I had no problems capturing from the XL-1 is the following:
Capture your video material in MacOS 9.2.2 with FCP 2.0.2. Then you will have no problems. Regardless to all the other tricks people told me this works. It makes no difference if your working on a G3 Powerbook, a G3 iMac, a G4 AGP Graphics or a new G4 2x 1MHz. I tried them all with all variations of FCP and MacOS versions 9.2.x up to 10.2.4.
FCP 3 and 3.0.2 on MacOS X Jaguar does capture but sets the captured material offline and you can't find a file on your hard disk afterwords.
FCP 3 and 3.0.2 in MacOS 9.2.2 does not capture, shows time breaks after two minutes or so. There is no help.
Having captured your video material and saved it as a new project, you can then switch to FCP 3.0.2 in MacOS 9.2.2 or MacOS X Jaguar open and save your project and you're out of trouble. You can now cut your film as usual. Only problem is you have to renew this process, if you have forgotten some video material and must capturenew material. You can't open your project on FCP 9.2.2, because of compatability problems between FCP 2 and 3.
So you have to start a new Project as described before. Afterwords you can import the captured material into your first project by "Import", "Drag and Drop" or "Copy and Paste".
Apple has a real problem with Canon and the XL-1. What I described is a repeatable bug and a heavy one. You can't change completely to MacOS Classic and Jaguar, because the described method does not work in Classic mode. FCP 2.0.2 does not work in the Classic mode. You need Mac OS 9.2.2. The problem appeared with FCP 3, did not change in FCP 3.0.2 regardless which system version you have. There are so many video companies out there using Canon's XL-1 or XL-1s and the Macintosh, I can't understand Apple's attitude.
I myself wanted to know from this american list, if somebody had heard of Apple's reactions to user complaints.
In Germany not so many people work with the XL-1 and the Macintosh and the clerks at Apple Germany did not answer my requests.

Best Regards
Wolf

Yeah, it looks like I'll have to do the tedious frame by frame animation.

Oh well. Thanks for the replies guys!

A final beta version of FCP 4 was recently released and the stage seems to be set for the introduction of FCP 4 and DVDSP 2. Yes, recent rumors have a new version of DVDSP being announced. It is said to offer much tighter integration with FCP 4.

FCP 4 is rumored to include hundreds of real time effects, support for DV50 and FireWire 800, 24 fps editing, and it will run only on OS X. Shake may also play a support role in FCP.

I would expect some exciting news from Apple at NAB.

This is a problem I have wondered about for quite some time. When creating smaller frames within the screen the edges can often appear fine on my monitor but distorted or "bent" on the tv screen preventing me from getting nice square boxes. Can someone enlighten me as to what the source of this problem is?

Hi there,

I recently switched from PC to mac. Does the Mac version of Premiere 6.5 have realtime preview like the PC version. If so where can I enable it. Maybe I'm just blind...... ?

A bump on both would be excellent, IF the features are there. I'm actually very happy with FCP 3 except for a few bugs, but a new version of DVDSP would be most welcome -- especially if it have a better more controllable encoder. Of course, better compositing and text features in FCP would be great.

Thanks for the heads-up. Are you headed to NAB?

Ok please excuse my ignorance on this subject, but I just realized when I open a project in Premiere I open a 720x480 Project, and I just noticed after cutting and pasting a frame into photoshop from the capture window....that the frame is actually 640x480, but when I drop it into the timeline it streches to 720x480? Thought this was strange.

Now my question is why do I find the standard NTSC Frame size as 640x480??? I always thought it was 720x480? It seams that PAL has always been at 720x576. Can somebody clear this up for me?

Thanks
Brian

It's all about the pixel aspect ratio. On a computer monitor it's 1.0, for digital video it's .9

720 x .9 = 648 actually. I imagine Photoshop and FCP are doing this conversion for you when you cut and paste.

=mud?

Has anyone seen how footage shot in frame mode on an XL1 that was softened with a Tiffen black diffusion/fx filter looks after its been run through Magic Bullet?

So If I capture from an analog source at 640x480 it is the same as coming from a digital source at 720x480 because the pixels will get stretched? Also if my analog camera captures 700+ lines of resolution do all those lines just create a better looking image at 640x480 or does anything over 525 lines or so just get discarded?

Thanks,
Brian

1-anything over 525 lines gets lost in the translation
2-the "correct" way to import an image from Photoshop is to create the image with the pallet set to 720x480. Then save the image as 640x480 (introducing some horizontal compression distortion into the saved image)
When the image is imported, if the PAR is set to .909, everything will come out in the right proportion. Reverse the procedure for going from frame to image.

Hello

Had a discussion with a friend the other day about DV compression in edit systems like FCP and Avid Xpress. I though that once your source material is recorded on DV (using the standard DV 1:5 compression), the quality of all copies will remain the same. So it doesn't matter if you make a dub of a tape or edit it in FCP and dump it back to DV tape, whatever goes back to a DV master still has the quality of the original camera tape.
My friend however stated that when you run a copy of a DV-tape (either from an edit system or tape to tape), every copy applies the 1:5 DV-compression. Hence, his pov is that when you're editing DV, it always is best to make your final online in a tape to tape suite, editing directly from the original camera tapes.
I find this hard to believe, because if the 1:5 theory is true, this would mean that second and third generation DV-copies would be of worse quality than those of VHS...which is of course not the case.
The reason for needing to know all this, is that we are doing a DV-based project, editing on several different computers but in the end mastering all that material in a Media 100-suite. I proposed to dump the edits from the different computers to DV sub-masters for finl edit in M100, and at that moment the discusion started...
Looking forward to your comments!
Thanks in advance,
Michiel

DV transfers the data intact through firewire to the computer and back without alteration. You can edit all you want without recompressing the file. However if you apply effects or dissolves or something that actually CHANGES the video image then it must be rendered and recompressed. I have rendered and recompressed DV video any times over just for fun and I didn't notice much, if any, loss.

I have been experimenting rendering small clips from
after affects 5.5 in different formats and different
compression settings, as quicktime movies. Some
settings seem to give me very jerky playback in
quicktime.
for example photo jpeg @ 75% is ok but @
89% it is jerky and @ 100% its ok. Motion jpeg b @100%
is jerky.
Anyone got any ideas ??

It sounds like convergence problems on consumer TV sets. It could also be pincushion or barrel distortion. These should be minimized on professional or broadcast production monitors.

I don't use 6.5 too often and when I do it's on a clients machine. I'll look into it Monday. You might also want to try the Adobe site, they have a Premiere forum.

No, not this year. I have a close colleague going and he's promised to email me any earth shattering developments.

I don't use the Tiffen diffusion filters, but I've heard and seen good things. What effects are you using in MB? You might just want to de interlace and adjust motion and not use the full suite.

The 525 lines is vertical resolution, fixed by the NTSC standard. The 700 lines refers to the horizontal resolution and is the rating of the camera head. But in most cases the signal has to go to tape and that is the limiting factor. Mini DV is rated at about 500 lines of horizontal resolution.

When mini DV was first announced it was claimed 100 generations without loss of quality. I think in practical terms 20 generations is a safe limit. Codecs do vary and QuickTime is one of the better Codecs. Codecs have been discussed here before and links to several sites that compare different Codecs have been posted. Use the search function and you should find many good threads on the issue of Codecs.

I would need to see the clips to give an accurate assessment. However, I generally use more even numbers, 50, 60, 70% etc. not 57, 77, 89%.

Try Sorenson. It's a really nice codec.

I am not sure what any of these things are but I have witnessed this on a number of different TV's over the years. I assume then that I can expect this, to various degrees, on any TV? What about Plasma screens and projection or is the distortion caused by the tube ?

As we move towards digital display devices the distortion effects of analog display devices are minimized or eliminated. LCD and Plasma displays will not exhibit the types of artifacts you are referring to. Newer and more expensive analog TV sets typically do not exhibit distortion either. I use FCP and by 7 year old Sony 32 inch XBR shows very little distortion.

I've found almost all SD video footage run through Magic Bullet comes out looking like mud. (If anyone has counterexamples, do pipe up!)

I'd use Magic Bullet strictly for its color correction and leave its core frame rate features alone. Especially, converting from 30p to 24p is asking for trouble.

Roberts, seems to work really well for pal stuff.

I threw some 50i stuff into it, came out 25p and looking fantabulous, too bad the render times are just plain stupid.

Zac

It seems to me that 50i -> 25p is a trivial conversion, as it's just a matter of an interpolation. There's no reason why it wouldn't look reasonably good, in Magic Bullet or just using a simple C algorithm.

DV-sourced NTSC footage comes out looking horrid when passed through Magic Bullet using the 60i -> 24p method outlined in the quick start tutorial. Which is why I implore, if anyone has footage that they've had more success bulleting, I hope they're able to share it.

Robert, they used magic bullet on the feature "Jackass" and alot of footage looked really really good, so it must work for some people.

Zac

Thanks to both of you. I will try your suggestions

Just wondering what the differences of FCP 3.0 Academic version and the regular version?

The software is exactly the same, no differences of any kind. The difference is in the EULA (end user licensing agreement). You may not do any work for profit with the Academic version, no exceptions. The EULA may be upgrade by contacting the Apple Store and paying the difference in the two versions.

The replacements are shipping and everyone I've talked to (8 to 10 users) that has received one has been 100% satisfied.

The latest version of QT is available as a stand alone installer (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone/) or over the internet via Software Update from you System Preferences.

Any idea if this fixes the audio sync issue with FCP?

At work on windows right now :(

I'll try it tonight. I have not seen any reports one way or the other yet.

Just wondering if someone can tell me the advantage of purchasing a second 17" lcd screen for Final Cut Pro editing.

A second screen is good as you can make your timeline the full width of "screen 1" and have your browser, toolbar and audio levels meter on your "screen2" and still have large viewer and canvas windows open at the same time.

Better for me however would be to have a single 23" monitor, as a long timeline would more beneficial great, less zooming. I only have one monitor on my Mac though and frequently change to different window, arrange settings (standard and customs that i have made)

Ok

I'm still trying to properly capture to FCP 3. When using batch capture i set my in/out points and log the clip. Once i click batch the source material will cue, then show the first frame of my footage and freeze. Shortly after I get an error about dropped frames. I'm running a Dual G4 1.25 Powermac with 768mb ram , capturing on to my primary 80gb disk. I'm filming with a Canon GL2 and capturing my footage to the mac with a Canon ZR40.

Any thoughts on this?

Felix,

If you have any virus protection turned on, disable it. It has been reported, and I have experienced it myself, that virus protection can be a leading cause of dropped frames. I haven't had one problem capturing hours of footage since I did this one simple step.

Good Luck,

Bill

No i uninstalled Norton, but it's still happening.

Have Apple talk and all network connections (including internet) off. Do not use server to set date and time (see Date and Time System Preference) turn off mail or anything that polls the system or a network at specific intervals (check mail every 5 minutes etc.).

Do you have your drive partitoned? That can be a problem. If the OS (OS 10.2.4 etc) Application (FCP 3.x.x) and your media are all going to one large partiton, that can cause problems. Depending on how full the drive is, it can have problems accessing the OS, App and write media all at the same time. Partitoning the drive may help. How full is the drive? Are your FCP preferences set up for capturing from Canon DV? What version of FCP, OS and Quicktime are you using?

I use my Windows PC for After Effects work and it renders while I use my Mac. So obviously I like to transfer the files back and forth via ethernet for this use. I have Jaguar and use the desktop "GO" menu to connect to my PC, which it sees, but when I try to click on it I get the message "Dave has not been installed correctly" and I can never access my PC. I tried a demo version of Dave way back before Jaguar and have deleted everything on the computer with the word "dave" in it, but I still get this message.

Any ideas how I can rid myself of Dave once and for all and use the natural networking abilities of Mac OS X to transfer my video files?

Thanks.

Go to the Dave website (Thursby?) and look for a document on how to uninstall Dave. It is a little tricky from what I remember, so they published a how to. I may have a copy on my desktop system. I'll check for it tomorrow. Let me know if you have any luck finding it.