iDVD 2 requires and internal burner. External FireWire etc will not be recognized. I think installation is a breeze, but if you've never opened a computer case before this might not be an ideal first project. The Apple site says any G4 will work with iDVD 2.

Jeff

Jeff, thanks for posting.

Sounds like the Pioneer 104 is a go. I've added ram, pci cards. Plus I have a G4 Tower, so I guess it would be simple. I just am at a loss on how to install a dvd burner, is there any instructions online that I can read. But again it sounds like I can use a G4 and the Pioneer 104 internal burner. At least I think I can get it as an internal burner.

It even sounds like it is the cheapest way to go if one is planning on buying a burner new at $250.00 :)

There seems to be an area for a burner below the dvd rom in the tower.

What do you mean "external firewire would not be regognized"? Do you mean that if I have an external "firewire" hardrive (which I do) it wouldn't recognize it?

Thanks again for posting!

tiletile

iDVD won't support external firewire DVD-R drives, but it will support the Pioneer 103 and 104 drives, even if they aren't original Apple-firmware drives. There's an install guide to CDROM form-factor devices here:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3-ZONE/hival52x/install.html

They also have a driive compatibility database which you can search for reports on specific drives (you'd want DVD-R drives):

http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/drivedb/search.drivedb.lasso

Any computer shop that does mac support should be able to put the drive in, it's no biggie.

I made my own in Photoshop and used a clock wipe effect to do the transitions. I saved it and use it all the time. Actually, it's incorporated with bars, tone and black at the head of the tape.

Jeff

hey Jeff,
Can anyone get his hands on your countdown ? I sure could use it :)

Hey Jeff,

Thanks for the input. Adrian called me right after posting and informed me that Premiere includes the countdown as one of its plug-ins. You just drop it in the timeline. Interesting that FCP doesn't have that option, too.

I forgot to respond and say my query was solved (almost immediately!).

Thanks.

FCP has a generic countdown built in. I don't remember where it is. It might be part of the print to tape option.

PD150,

I'll try to find my count down clip. If I find it I'll post it on my iDisk. The count down I use now has my company logo as a background.

Jeff

Ooooooooh FCP has a generic countdown built in it! Goo dto know. And thanks for posting your countdown in advance Jeff:) Let us know where and when by posting a reply on here. Thanks :)

Here's a short DV film 5:05;15, that 3 buds and I did.
We scripted in 2hrs, did location scouting, blocking and shooting in 8hrs and I've got about 6hrs of editing in Final Cut Pro.
We used 3 cameras (VX2000) so we could shoot coverage at the same time and have the 3rd camera document "The making of".
We still need to add some narration and titles, but you should get the basic idea.

This short film shows the VX2000 in a variety of lighting conditions, and with different shutter speeds. Most of it's shot on a tripod, but there's some handheld work as well.
I think it shows the versatility of the VX2000 quite well.


http://homepage.mac.com/midwestmotorsport/iMovieTheater2.html

it's about 20mb, so it may take some time to download.

Let me know what you think.

- Chip

Hey all,

I would love to avoid using totally uncompressed video and wonder if anyone has some advice to what lossless codec is good to use. Pref one without the need for dedicated HW. frameaccurate 25fps playback is not an requirement, i just need it to do final fixes and save some space.

/Henrik

The SMPTE countdown in FCP is under the print to tape option. Print to tape also has options for a slate, bars and tone, black trailer etc.

Jeff

There are lossless codecs, but how will you play it back? The animation codec is one of the best. File sizes are very large in comparison to DV, so you won't be saving any space.

Jeff

Playback is not an issue. The workflow i have now is as follows:

* Edit in OfflineRT or DV (fast, and good playback).
* Recapture everything into a lossless environment, do final render from fcp. This means that i will have minimum loss from the source DV material.
* Bring it through AFX for any compositing or added effects and render out the "master" as lossless again. If im mastering to DVCAM then i can output the final DV here. Otherwise i...
* Take the lossless to a mastering environment and output to DigiBeta.

This way i have minimal loss of quality all through the process, something that is important if you do a lot of tweaking of the DV material. (Evident in my last project where i did some very harsh flashfades to white. =).

It is a little cumbersome but its basically the only way i can do maximum quality without investing in a more expensive system.

My main drawback here however is that the uncompressed format i use now is very very disk consuming. So a lossless compression would be ideal for me.

I'll give the Animation codec a shot.
/Henrik

I've seen in a lot of music videos how there is a sort of camera shake or jitter effect where everything seems to be shaking. I've seen this in rock videos where when someone jumps and hits the ground, everything shakes. Is this done in production or post? If in post, in FCP or after effects, is this effect possible, and how would you do it?

I downloaded some free Eureka plugins for FCP, check out this webpage and I think the "Jiggler" filter is the one you are looking for.

http://www.digitalfilmtree.com/Eureka.html

I went to http://www.kenstone.net and looked around and found this link. I got the plugins from another site a long time ago, I think the dvcreators.com site

I am looking to buy my first Mac very soon. I am going to use it primarily to edit digital video.

Here is what I am looking at:

Dual 1.25GHz PowerPC G4
- 256K L2 cache & 2MB L3 cache/processor
- 167MHz System Bus
- 512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
- 120GB Ultra ATA drive
- SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
- ATI Radeon 9000 Pro
- 56K internal modem

Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 74 (17" CRT) - Black

My questions are:
- Is 512 MB RAM enough or should I add some more RAM?
- I know that you are using a lot of hard disk space when editing digital video, should I add one more hard disk?

Can a 'green' Mac novice install RAM and a Hard disk himself or should I get it pre-installed??

I really want a studio display, but I don't have the money for it right now, so I guess I will have to wait.

Thanks for your feed-back!
Thomas

Get a gig of RAM. It's worth it. Actually, get the base RAM and order extra RAM from http://www.crucial.com
RAM is literally the easiest thing on a computer to install. You turn it off, open up the chassis, stick the RAM in the RAM slot, close the chassis, and turn the computer on. Voila!

I think you ought to have enough HD space to hold you down for a while w/ 120 gigs. How often do you plan on importing footage? You get 4 minutes for every gig. You will use about 20 gigs on OS, applications, and some files. If you do a lot of graphics or audio work, that eats up space. Try and calculate about how much space you will have left dedicated to DV, then figure out whether that will be enough for a long period of time.

Have fun, that is one *hot* computer yr gettin' there.

I agree on the ram...check out ramseeker.com for daily pricing...ram is sold like a commodity on the net, and the price changes daily...apple's prices are about 4x what you'll find from a variety of dealers here. A gig will be plenty for FCP ( it doesn't see big changes after that....although photoshop will).

I'd recommend getting the extra drive now, as apple's price is decent on it, and there occasionally can be problems when adding them later. I think FCP would prefer you store your media on a drive other than the startup disk, and typically things like dvd encoding will work better and faster if your files are on another disk.

If you need to save some cash, step down to the dual 1gig and get the 17inch studio display...the price difference is huge for only a modest performance bump and the difference will just about pay for the monitor.

I believe you get 5 mins of DV per gig.

Barry

Hi again guys,

I've recently shot my short film and I'm in the process of editing it at the moment. However, I've come across a problem which I hope you guys can help me make some sense of... I've shot my footage in 12bit audio (4 channels) channel 1,2- built in mic, channel 3- via MA100 with my AT815b. I'm editing with FCP3, what I do is I capture the video and channels 1,2 in one pass, and channel 3 in another capture pass. I manually line up (using the timecode as reference) V1,A1,A2 and A3 on the timeline and nest it as a sequence.

This seems to be working so far but for a couple of my tapes, the 3rd channel of audio doesn't seem to sync with the video and A1,A2! I mean this is extra weird because the sync seems to 'drift'. At an earlier portion of the footage, A3 (via MA100, shotgun mic) seems to be a few frames 'early' and later on, it seems to be a few frames late! Which means that I can't just shift the whole track back or forth a few frames to line it up.

Now, what I'm wondering is if this is typical... I mean, is this a product of DV (with its non- locked audio, as opposed to DVCAM) or did something go wrong somewhere?

Also, is there anyway of fixing this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

Adrian

If you want to install your own drives then here's an article that's explains how.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=31292

Eventually you will out grow the drive you have and will have to add more. 120 gigs sounds like a lot but hopefully after a while you'll be filling up the drive with all the video you are shooting.

For more info on your mac, also check out

www.kenstone.net

I recently purchased my first Mac. I bought one of the original dual 1gHz machines when the new DDR models came out. Took advantage of the price drop.

Mine came with 512megs of RAM and I purchased another 512 from a third party and installation was a breeze. I did not purchase an Apple display, would love to get one, but didn't have the cash at the time. I'm hoping they'll soon announce a new line-up of displays. I've read rumors about an all wide screen line-up.

I still don't have Final Cut Pro yet. Also trying to save up some money for that big purchase.

Good luck with your new machine (whichever model you end up with.) You'll love it.

Ok, has anyone else seen this type of deal and what do you think of it?

I've found a company that sells FCP for $549.

It basically sells you and OEM version of FCP 1.2.5 with a serial number and the upgrade version of FCP 3.0.

Any thoughts on whether or not this is a good deal or should this type of thing be avoided?

i probably wouldnt buy that.
i found a Sealed full retail FCP 2 on ebay for around $300 then hooked up with the FCP 3 upgrade and everything is well.

Hi all:
Got my new Mac a fortnight ago, and I'm still drooling over it!
The 1.25 came out just a week before I finally took the plunge, and the 1 Gig dual prices came down sharply, so I took full advantage of that: It helped me get the 17" studio display without exceeding my budget. (Barry's absolutely right: It's a good tradeoff...and, boy, is that studio display a dream.)
Thomas, my config is:
-Dual 1 GHZ
- 17"" studio display + 17"" CRT Samsung 763 DFX flatron
- 256K L2 cache & 2MB L3 cache/processor
- 167MHz System Bus
- 1 GB PC2700 DDR SDRAM (This makes a difference - trust me)
- 1 x 80 + 1 x 40 Ultra ATA drive IBM 7200 RPM drives
(The OS 10.2 + applications + FCP are on the 40 GB disk, leaving me with quite a bit of free space; and the FCP media etc are on the 80 GB drive...this keeps the system from dropping frames and messing up on renders)
- SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
- ATI Radeon 9000 Pro graphics
- 56K internal modem

The new DDR SDRAM based machines are noticeably faster: I believe mine was the first one installed in India - pure coincidence - and the local Mac reseller was touchy-feelying his way around the system. I haven't run any benchmarks or anything, but I did carry out a comparison render on the older SDRAM and the new DDR RAM systems, and I can SEE the difference.

Please be warned: I think there are some issues with the new DDR RAM based machines. I don't think all third-party RAM takes on the systems. The reseller offered me a lower cost third party RAM - Alpha and SIMMtronics both - and the system wouldn't recognize it. Only Kingston RAM finally took.

Best,
Ram

As of this posting, 54 members of the great DVi Community have read this e-mail, there have been nearly 1,000 hits to the website, and nobody wants to post a review.

All constructive criticism is appreciated.

- Chip

Under FCP>preferences, is the box Sync adjust moves over____minutes checked? The box should be checked. You can use the analize clip to get information about the audio and check if it was captured properly. You might want to try deleting the media and recapturing it as a last resort.

Jeff

I think most of this is done during shooting. Why? Because if you
do it in post you are loosing resolution (because you need to shake
and titlt the image and then you have spots that aren't covered.
So you need to blow the picture up first -> loosing resolution).

I've seen numerous behind the scenes and especially on star trek
stuff I've seen that they just rock the camera on its tripod or
steadicam. Much more real etc. Try expirementing with it!

I'm one of those who is guilty about reading this, download it
and not writing back.... Sorry bout that. The reasons is pretty
simple though. I have only watched portions of it due to my
lack of time at this moment (it weighs in over 5 minutes). And
I don't want to give my opinion without having seen it all. I'll
try to watch it tonight somewhere and let you know.

Really appreciated that you share it with us though! I hope more
people will chime in with their thoughts on it! Anyway, good that
you finished a short! Good luck.

The 'sync movies over ___ mins' box is checked and set to 5 mins

I've run 'analyse file' from the menu and both the files (V1,A1,A2) and V3 seem to be similar (timecode, duration etc)... here it is anyway...

For V1,A1,A2....

Filename: KF Adeline Lift 2 VIDEO
Duration: 00:43:58:16
Average Data Rate: 3703k/sec
Audio Shape: Ch 1

Video Track 1 (8.8 GB)
Duration: 00:43:58:16
Frame Size: 720 x 576
Color Depth: 24-bit Color
Codec: DV - PAL at Most Quality
Frame Rate: 25.00 fps
Average Data Rate: 3515k/sec (141k/frame)

Audio Track 1 (Stereo, 483.3 MB)
Duration: 00:43:58:16
Average Data Rate: 188k/sec
Format: 16-bit, Stereo
Sampling Rate: 48.000 khz

Timecode Track 1
Timecode: 00:00:06:10
Reel: Talking with Fishes 2


For A3...
Filename: KF Adeline Lift 2 AUDIO
Duration: 00:43:58:16
Average Data Rate: 188k/sec
Audio Shape: Ch 1

Audio Track 1 (Stereo, 483.3 MB)
Duration: 00:43:58:16
Average Data Rate: 188k/sec
Format: 16-bit, Stereo
Sampling Rate: 48.000 khz

Timecode Track 1
Timecode: 00:00:06:10
Reel: Talking with Fishes 2

Could the problem be because I shot the footage at 12bit and FCP is capturing at 16bit?

I don't know what else to do!

I've even recaptured both the clips again but the problem still remains...

Please help!

Adrian

Yep, audio sampling rate and format should match between the media and sequence presets. I believe you will need to create a new sequence with matching presets.

Jeff

Problem is that FCP doesn't seem to offer a 12bit audio capture... its either 8bit or 16bit.

So, should I set it to

8bit, 32kHz?

or 16bit, 32kHz?

or 8 bit, 48kHz?

or 16bit, 48kHz (my original setting)

Thanks!

Adrian

I think Quicktime has 12 bit options. Import and then change the the bit rate and export the clip. Then drop on the timeline. there may be an easier way but that will get it done.

Jeff

Alright, I took a look at the video but because I was sitting in class I had to watch it without sound. Here are my opinions:

Good:

Nice framing on most of the shots.

Generally smooth and pleasing camera movements.

You have obviously shot video before. I see many of the same shots we use for wedding videos in this piece. The strength of this piece rests with the camera placement and movement in my opinion.

. . . of course, it may have excellent sound. I wouldn't know. :P

Needs work:

Lighting! Often the lighting switches from bright to dim, making the cuts seem awkward and disjointed. In some of the early shots people are brightly lit perpendicular to the camera but dim elsewhere (It looks like you used ONLY a camera mounted light on some of the indoor shots).

Stylistically I think you over-used quick-cuts on scenes with continous motion. By this I mean when we see the car backing out of the driveway you make a quick cut to it peeling away down the street (efectively shortening the length of the shot). You do this several times throughout the video and visually it wasn't working for me.

The shot of the two people kissing from below (shooting upward) didn't fit with the rest of the scene (opinion).

Overall I'm impressed with the amount of work you put into this short piece. I'd be interested in hearing how many days (weeks?) it took you to complete this. Good job!

-Dan Ballmer

I just checked and Quicktime has the same options as FCP (FCP is powered by quicktime anyway), which is 8bit and 16bit. Any ideas? I'm sure you guys out there capture 4 channel audio once in a while, how would you go about this?

this thing is really giving me a headache...

Adrian

When you export the file do it as 16 bit. Make all your audio match. You may be able to just render in FCP. It may convert it to 16bit in the render.

Jeff

Dan,

thanks so much for your review.
I think (hope) that you'll find that the pacing of the cuts works with the music. Please let me know when you've heard it with the music. I agree with the inconsistency of lighting, it was really tough getting the cameras to match because I was shooting at fairly extreme shutter speeds. One camera was at 1/30th and the other at 1/2000th (it was an experiment).

The couple are friends that are getting married. The video is basically to get people excited about the wedding, and then to show at their reception. So the sickening "kissing" shots were needed to establish their romance (and get 'oohs and ahs' out of friends and family).

Details:
A crew of 4, (3 camerapersons and a director/assistant).
Sony Cameras, Bogen Tripods and MonoPods.
We scripted in 2hrs on a Monday, shot for 8hrs (including scouting, blocking and rehersal) on a Wednesday, and edited for 6hrs on Thursday with an Apple 733mhz G4 with 512mb of Ram, running Final Cut Pro 3.0.

If we had more time, I'd do more color correction, narration, and cool titles. But we wanted to get this done with as little effort as possible.

Thanks again for the input, it really helps.

- Chip

How do I extract just sound from a video which I captured on FCP to the timeline?

One simple way is to drag the clip into the timeline, then turn off the linked selection under the sequence menu. Delete the video portion of the clip, and then turn the linked selection back on. Knowing FCP there are probably 3 or 4 other ways to do this.

Barry

"GreenRubberPlant",
Aside from the FCP manuals (which are pretty thorough) there are several 3rd party instructional books on FCP available which could enhance your understanding, and enjoyment, of FCP. Take a look at our "Read About It" forum on this board.

The easiest way I have found is to go to "Export" under he FILE menu and export as "Quicktime". After you do that you will get a menu with more choices. Choose "Save Movie as AIFF". From there you can choose stereo or a mono mixdown and the such. Pretty easy. I do it all the time when readying 6 track mixes which will be turned into Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks by DVD Studio Pro.

EDIT: Ooops I just re-read your question... it appears I mis-understood. Here is a simple way to do what you like. Lock the video tracks on the timeline and drag the movie to the audio timeline. Sometimes FCP will automaticaly create a new track for the video, sometimes not. If it does, lock the audio tracks you just placed and delete the video tracks like mentioned above.

I also just grabbed one of the 1 gig dual machines. Luckily I have a friend at Apple in Cupertino who got me in on the "friends and family" deal that they offer. I can't believe how cool it is. I'm a receint convert and I still haven't fully made the switch (I'm on my PC now...)
I have yet to add more RAM. I will, trust me. I just need to recover from the price of the machine. I did however add 2 Hard Drives. The machine came with 80 stock. I had a IBM Deskstar 120 GHz and a IBM Deskstar 40 Ghz. Both run at 7200 rpm's. This is what you want. 5400 rpm's is ok, 7200 is better, 10,000 is best. I went with the 7200 and have been super happy. I keep all my OS stuff on the 80, all my music on the 40 and all my video on the 120. One thing to remember, Hard drives are not platform specific. They don't care what type of machine they're in. Just make sure it's an ATA100 drive and IBM, Seagate, whatever will snap right in. There are instructions in the apple manual that fully explain how to hook them up. Apple has made it pretty easy for the DIYer. You want the drive that came in the machine to be the "Master" and the additional drives to be the "Slaves" The guys at the computer store should be able to tell you how to configure the drive to be a slave drive.
As far as RAM goes, a monkey could do it. There is nothing easier, so don't be intimidated. Don't forget to buy a "FireWire" when you buy the computer. It doesn't come with one. Otherwise, you'll have a machine and a camera and no way to hook them together.
Man, I got to tell you, I love this new Mac and OSX is a beautiful thing!

BTW, I was at the apple store and they told me that on the apple, it compresses the video in a way that will enable it to store 12 minutes of miniDV video on 1 gig. I have found this to be the case. Just so you know.

Also, the apple stores out here in the SF Bay area offer free iMovie and FCP III classes. You might look into that.

Have fun
-Kyle

Spec sounds fine except for the monitor. Spend the extra cash and get yourself at least a 19".
My old Apple 20" ColorSync died a few months back which I replaced reluctantly with a 19" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 920. (a previous model which is replaced by the current, better looking range I believe.)

I run the monitor at the same resolution (1280x1024) as I did on my old one so the changes wasn't so dramatic. But I do highly recommend the largest size you can afford. So from experience I would say a 19" is the bare minimum for editing.

Im doing a BTTF spoof, and I have After Effects 5.5. Im very inexperienced with After Effects, and thus, am asking if anyone has any suggestions how to make the car spark and shoot lightning. Will AE do this, or is another program better? Im running FCP 2 on a G4 as well, if this helps. Any help is appreciated...

Yes, After Effects can accomplish this for you in any of several ways. Offhand, I would first look for a stock clip of sparks (such as from a grinding wheel) shot against a black background that you can convert to an alpha channel for compositing. Compositing the sparks clip over your main clip in AE would basically accomplish your goal.

Ok, I'll look around for some stock footage. Thanks.

Hello to all,

Can anyone here give a brief explanation on how to make titles that haveclips inside them or something of the sort. I believe I saw an article in a magazine on how to do this but I cannot remember where I saw it.

Any knowledge would be usefull.

Ok, I'm looking to purchase a second hard drive for my Mac. I'll probably end up buying an 80 gig drive....can't quite afford a 120 right now.

Are certain brands better than others? I'm looking at IBM, Seagate, Western Digital and Maxtor. They all seem to have somewhat comparable prices.

I'd love to hear both the good and bad about anyone's experiences with any of these brands.

Thanks.

I have used Maxtor drives for years and never had one fail. There is a bundle available in some stores that gets you a Ata133 pci interface card free with an 80 gig harddrive.

Someone posted a note about manufacturing flaws on IBM hardrives a few weeks ago on DVINFO but i cant remember who it was.

These days, hard drive problems tend to occur according to a specific model rather than by a brand. As Marc alluded earlier, the IBM DeskStar 75Gb turned up a high failure rate approximately a year ago. (I have one in an older Mac and have had no trouble with it.) I think that IBM has since pulled that particular model and replaced it with an 80Gb model.

In general you'll be just fine with nearly any name brand such as IBM, Maxtor, Western Digital, et.al. Look for a spin rate of 7200 rpm which is ideal for digital video.

Yes, Bill Markel posed the same question earlier this year and Rik Sanchez provided a very good solution in the following thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1875&highlight=title