Joe,
I don't have one... yet.
I'm still trying to decide between a 17" and the 20". It's all about the dollars...

With the 20" you'll HAVE to run under OSX 10.2+. It will not work on a Mac booted with OS9.

If you are ok with that, then go for it.

I've read about the Formac, but have yet to see one for a comparison.

look at Lacie's new LCD 20". They have it for $1,399. And from what I know about them and seen of their products, they are about the best quality out there.

Rob:D

I'm looking to get a good film look out of my footage and i hear adjusting your S curve (gamma) will help...

Is there a way to do this in FCP? Thanks....

I'm running a PowerMac Dual 1.25, 1.5 gig ram OSX 10.2.2 and FCP 3.0.2 and 6.0.2 QT

I've got a JVC HR-S9900U connected with S-Video to my DSR-11 and then firewire to my mac. I can't get fcp to capture the video. I'm guessing my settings are jacked. I have it set to an uncontrollable devise and when I click capture now, I get a window saying 'allocating space' and then teh friggin spinning beachball from hell and I need to force quit fcp. ideas? This has worked before but I guess I didn't remember how it was set up.

Are you just starting this project? If so I would take the time to update your OS (10.2.5), FCP 3 (3.0.4), QuickTime 6 (6.1.1). What drive are you trying to capture to? External FireWire, internal ATA, system drive? How full is the drive? Is the deck in E-to-E so the signal can pass through? Do you have the source set correctly on the deck?

Yes this is a new project.

I'm capturing to my second internal drive (non-system drive) with 100+ gig available.
The Sony is turned on and input select is on s-video. I don't think the Sony has a switch for E-E it should just default that way?

EDIT: I found the EE setting in the menu and that fixed me up. I'll probably update everything anyway, but on dial up it could take some time.

Yah, see if a friend with cable modem won't download the files and burn them to a CD for you. OS 10.2.5 combo update is 82MB. That will take some time.

The Indianapolis FCPUG is in the process of forming, with its first meeting scheduled for April 24, 2003. For more information see their Web site (http://home.insightbb.com/~chinnr1/indy-fcpug.html).

I;m a bit confused by the FCP training. On their website they mention self paced learning. I believe this is similar to A+ or MCSE where you don't have to learn it in the classes, and can take the exam ata certified testing center. The reason I am confused is when I contact Vancouver Film School which was noted on the apple site as a testing center, they had no clue about any exams other than their regular FCP courses. Anyone shed some light here?

This is the self paced learning series (http://www.apple.com/software/pro/training/self_paced.html) that apple has available through Peachpit Press. However, I don't believe it leads to any certification. It's just self paced learning.

The only certification for FCP I'm aware of is classroom training. I know several people (just met them recently in fact) that have completed the basic training and were very happy with the course. The one remark they all made was how costly it seemed ($700).

Whoops, at the bottom of the page I see the reference to a test. This program is so new the testing sites may not be up to speed about it yet. I think the self paced portion has only been available for a month or so.

The latest Dell catalog has a nifty set of twin flat panel monitors on a single stand. They are 15" each but not exceptionally high in resolution (1024 x 768 each).

Has anyone seen an equivalent sort of stand that might hold two Apple Cinema displays side-by-side? Looks like it might be great for FCP editing! Otherwise it might be time to try and design something....

Ok am I reading this wrong or missing a paragraph...?

Buy FCP now, send the form into apple and pay the 49.95 and you receive a copy of FCP 4?!?!?!

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/uptodate.html

FCP 3 is $999 and if you buy FCP 3 you can upgrade to FCP 4 for only $49.95. Total cost is $1,048.95.

I bought FCP 3 many months ago for $999 and it will cost me $399 to upgrade to FCP 4 in June. Total cost is $1,398. But I've been able to use mine for the last 14 months. The cost for doing so? Only $350, pretty cheap, a little less than a dollar a day. I certainly make more with it than a dollar a day.

Does anyone know how to get a loudspeaker effect using Peak DV and/or FCP 3?

This will be someone speaking over a building intercom and we'll hear their voice in different quick shots, such as down an empty carpted hallway, and in an all concrete and metal stairwell. So, the sound will have to range from a "tinny" and "echo-y" sound in the stairwell, to a more flat, but small speaker sound in the hallway. Also, in one big room, I'll need a stadium type of effect.

I'm really not up on using the audio filters much in FCP, and am pretty lost in Peak. So, any help would be greatly appreciated.

A tinny sound would require a limited range. Try using EQ to cut the unwanted ranges, take out all the lows and mid range and slowly add it back in a range at a time.

Echo can be achieved with a delay of X milliseconds, and maybe repeat at a lower level. If yo can't tell I don't do a great deal of this type of sound either.

I don't know about Final Cut Pro, but in Vegas I have been using the Color Curves filter as a sort of all purpose, brightness, contrast, color balance tool.

Typically I grab the handles and pull the straight line into more of a S-shaped HD curve, while monitoring in the preview window.

Does anyone else use the Color Curves as their master footage fixer?

Yes. I also use Vegas 4, and I *always* use the Color Curves. I often adjust it to my liking, which is usually less red then anything. It really helps make the video look much better.

Heres a screenshot of my favorite preset that I made, it works quite well on most daytime/well lit shots. Some people think it's too much or it looks fake or something, but I personally think it makes the footage look quite better...

http://pnavy.com/alexknappenberger/albums/album01/colorcurves.gif


Here's two examples of what it does to the video when applied.

http://pnavy.com/alexknappenberger/albums/album01/beforeafter.jpg

http://pnavy.com/alexknappenberger/albums/album01/beforeafter2.jpg


(Why can't you insert photos into the post? Darn forum!)

Whoa! Somehow I missed getting back to this thread. Sorry about that...and thanks for the info.

I shelved the security camera look problem temporarily for the mountain of other problems I'm working on...but now I'm back to this one and will give all your suggestions a try (if I haven't already).

Brian...I'm using FCP3 and, based on your suggestion, I went in and played with all the color correction filters for the first time (I don't know about you, but I've been bad about finding something that takes care of my needs and not exploring any further...so a lot of what FCP has to offer I'm still unfamiliar with). Playing with the color adjustments I was able to get the bluish hue I wanted. Then, by adding some noise, it had a more "security camera look"...so thanks for your suggestion.

Zac...I've been searching for scan line plug-ins for FCP but haven't found any yet. I'll try you shooting suggestions, though, to see how they turn out.

And Rik...it must be the Texan blood in us that makes us always look for the simpler way to do things. I already tested what you suggested and I really like that look. It's not quite what I'm looking for for this particular project, but it looked so cool I'm going to find some way to use it in the future. Thanks for sending the photo. For this project, I'd like something pretty subtle, so a plug in would give me more control.

I've gotta admit, half of the filters I tested today I'd never tried before...I'm amazed at what FCP can do. And Joe's Filters are fantastic for the price.

Aaargh. Not getting what I want. Does anyone know of a good set of audio plug-ins for FCP? Along the lines of "Joe's Filters"...but for audio?

I know FCP4 can online edit 1080p HD, but can it also online edit 720p HD as well? I didn’t come across this information on Apple’s website, it only mentions 1080p and DVCPRO50 as being new DV formats that it can online edit. Thanks.

My understanding is the software is resolution independent.. Meaning, if you can get the signal in, FCP will handle it. So, you'll need a board to do the capture and a Codec (probably supplied by the board) and then your set. I think I remember reading that CineWave (http://www.miro.com/ProductPage.asp?Product_ID=108&Langue_ID=7) from Pinnacle Systems does 720p. There are probably others.




EDIT - In the down load PDF it say it does 720p

Thanks.

You need SFX Machine RT which comes as a VST and AU. It has a ton of presets, one of which will give you exactly the sound you want here.

http://www.sfxmachine.com/

Requires 10.2...darn. Otherwise, looks interesting, Brian. Thanks! I'd never heard of that.

Time for a few updates.

if you're still running OS 9, you can get the Premiere format for use in Peak DV.

My new monster big internal harddrive still hasn't arrived -- curses! -- and I have to clear up some space fast for a project I need to finish editing by Friday. Using the make offline function seems like the way to do it, but I'm unsure what it does exactly. I realize that it will delete the source media and leave me with the clips, but I thought the footage in the bins was more like a low rez visual reference to the source material, rather than self contained footage (I'm using Final Cut by the way). Doesn't everything have to render when I do the final output? Is there a way to retain just the full resolution clips I'm using and delete all the in-between footage? I don't have time to recover from a critical mistake at this point, and want to be sure before I click the big scary button. Also, does the make offline function apply to subbins? I was thinking I could take all of bins and throw them into one central bin and make the whole project offline at once.

do yall know of any DVD Studio Pro boards like this excellent one?
thanks.

The DVD list that Apple runs is pretty good but I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. An entry level knowledge of DVD SP is needed and a basic understanding of most DVD terms.

It's an active list but it is sometimes a day or two to get answers (especially weekends). You can subscribe to the list here http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/dvdlist. Read the page before signing up so you will know and understand the rules.

n/m

Marco,

I'm sorry I missed your post. Are you still in need of assistance with the Media Manager?

Can anyone give me a quick rundown or a link to some instructions for using the Proc Amp filter in Final Cut?

Any help would be appreciated.

What are you trying to do with the Proc Amp? Can you post a still or clip? It's mostly what you see is what you get. For critical work use a waveform moitor/vectorscope. Try to avoid the extremes. Small amounts are usually adequate. Large, global changes may look good on screen but when rendered and put to tape will have less than optimum results.

Well, my crisis is over. Since I wasn't able to find out the answer to my question, the safest route seemed to be to output the material that I had already cut as a Final Cut Pro Movie and recut the footage I needed into smaller pieces. Still, I would like to have a better understanding of what the media manager does. I have Tom Wolsky's book, which makes it sound like taking everything offline leaves you with just the source footage that you need, but the manual that came with the program makes it sound like I would have to reimport the footage later. If that's true, I can't figure out why using the offline function is even useful.

Which version of FCP are you using?

I recently bought a 200 gig hard drive, but my computer apparently is only able to recognize about two thirds of its capacity. The store I bought it from is willing to take the drive back (there's a reason to buy from a local brick and mortar establishment for ya!), and I'm wondering if I shouldn't instead get two 120 gig drives. Is the limitation on the system as a whole, or just for each drive? I'd be real upset if after I bought both drives I was still limited to a combined 130 gigs. I have a 500 Mhz G4 dual processor by the way. It's quickly becoming apparent that it's impossible to have enough drive space. I need more, more, MORE!

Final Cut Pro 2.

You need a driver for your HD that supports 48-bit addressing or a PCI controller card. This article (http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/action.lasso?-database=faq.fp3&-layout=FaqList&-response=answer.faq.lasso&-recordID=33772&-search) should explain what's needed.

Boy, it's been over a year since I used FCP 2. I know there were some differences between 2 and 3, I remember that much. I have a short explanation of how to use the Media Manager that I emailed to a user and I'll try to find it and post it for you tomorrow. However, the steps and results may be different between FCP 2 and 3. I know that MM was a little buggy in 2 and it improved a great deal in 3 (still not perfect).

The best I can say is get ready to do some upgrades. If you're still on OS 9 and FCP2 it is really going to be time to upgrade when FCP 4 hits the streets in another month.

Thanks, as always.

The limit on sizes is around 138 MB, formatted and until recently there weren't any drives that size or larger. The release of 10.3 at the end of summer will offer direct support. Until then you will either need special drivers written by the drive mfg. or a separate drive controller card. The newer RAID cards are typical of the type of controller card need.

No, what I meant was, what is it used for, like as in, when to use proc amp and when to use broadcast legalizer.

If a sequence looks "too bright", would you use proc amp or legalizer. If you use legalizer and it still looks too bright, would you use a number less than 100, or use proc amp?

How do you use the proc amp, for instance to lower brightness, or change black levels?

The transitions & filters in FCE are nice, but I've just bought & downloaded a new set from CGM:

http://www.cgm-online.com/eiperle/index_dve_e.html

These look pretty good to me, as a way of expanding FCE; I don't need the non-DV capabilities etc of FCP.

Does anybody here have any experiences/opinions about these plugins?

BTW, a page with demos & tutorials for the plugins can be found on the URL above.

Hello Ben,
We have several threads discussing these plug-ins (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=97079&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending).

Thanks Ken!

I am about to get into the world of DV. Also i am planning on trying out a Mac based unit for editing. Can someone recommend a Mac unit, as well as a good amatuer congfiguration. Eventually i would like to get a Canon GL2 in the not so distant future. I was leaning towards the twin G4 units. Any good system requirments for my new system ?

Hello Chris,
See this recent thread (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8797). I think you'll find most answers to your questions in it.

This seems too good to be true, so please correct me if I've made a basic error in some way, but I believe I've found a way to edit JVC_HD1 footage uncompressed in FCP without any quality loss and without any expensive HD hardware, just a lot of regular DV disk space. What I did was as follows:

1) Using a shareware utility for the Mac called mpgtx I decoded the HD1's .m2t (Transport stream) file to a regular .m2v MPeg2 file

2) using another utility called mpeg2decx I decoded the Mpeg2 file to uncompressed 1280*720 HD.

Suprisingly I found that you could load this up into an appropriately configured sequence in FCP and view (or edit) the footage frame by frame, but not play it back due to the huge data size.

3) again using mpeg2decx I made a DV format copy of the HD footage and then edited it in FCP in a DV sequence as normal.

4) after editing I made a copy of my DV sequence, then made it offline

5) I edited the settings of this sequence to be 1280*720 uncompressed, then reconnected my media, but this time to the HD footage, NOT the DV footage. Eh voila! all my cuts and transitions and color corrections are ready to be renderd to my HD footage, which I did.

You can then output the edited HD footage in any format you want. The great thing about this is that the HD footage has only been uncompressed the one time, so there should be no quality loss as you would expect with editing a TS stream file directly. It seems to me you could edit any uncompressed HD footage this way, am I wrong? On a short piece of footage it seemed to work just fine.

My only problem now seems to be how to get the HD uncompressed footage back to an MPEG2 file, without having to spend thousands on an HD MPEG2 software encoder, the Quicktime one only works for DV files, any ideas?

All the best

Paul

It isn't exactly uncompressed since it comes from a compressed
source. If I understand you correctly you used mpgtx to extract
(demux) the VIDEO stream (.m2v) from the program/transport
stream (so no conversion there, right?). Then you exported it
to uncompressed (which format?).

Now all FUTURE modification to the file(s) will be without quality
loss indeed. At one point you will have to compress it again
though. If you doing simple editing that it doesn't look all that
interesting. But if you do a lot of image manipulation in
multiple layers/applications then it definitely might!

I don't know FCP but are you suggesting you can edit HD
footage now which you normally can't? That will probably
be very interesting to a lot of people!

Yes I am suggesting that Rob, and as I said, it seems too good to be true, so I'm looking for someone to spot the big clunker I've made in the workflow and prove me wrong. But I actually did this yesterday on a very short piece of footage, and it seemed to work just fine.
To answer your question I decropressed to Quicktime uncompressed format, just choosing "None" under the Quicktime compression settings, it produced a 350mb or so file from the 10mb Mpeg one, so I assumed it is uncompressed!

Paul