Did you use the Calligraphy 3-D plug-in? It is vector-based and gives better results than the normal FCP text. Also, make sure you provide a slight edge blur. Smaller fonts are more prone to this. Maybe a different font?

John,
You won't like this answer but AfterEffects "rules" when it comes to all text treatments. FCP's free BorisFX plug-in ("3D Text") works well for static text. But for any movement or other effects AE is the way to go. It just does a much nicer, smoother job.

Vic and Ken,

I knew I must have been overlooking something...I just used the standard text generator. Didn't know about Calligraphy 3-D or BorisFX to be honest.

Ken...you're right. "After Effects" looks like it's a must-have. I was hoping that I could get by with FCP awhile longer. Man! There goes another big wad of cash and a few weeks of intensive study. Never ends, does it?

John--

Another (considerably less) alternative is to try out the CHV text plug-in. It is also vector-based, and allows you to mix fonts, margins, gutters, etc. all within the same fx. There's a good review over at :

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

I got the text plug-in and like it a lot.

Yeah, after I hit the lottery, I gonna have to get AE, as well....

John,

Since AE was brought up you might want to take a look here http://www.creativecow.net/articles/galvano_steven/magic_bullet/index.html This also works into your 16:9 or 4:3 post. I don't usually like to link to COW and 2-pop, but this article is so well done.

Jeff

If you go to this website and read all the way down, it claims that FCP will read the files:

http://www.abcdv.com/article/articleview/5/1/48/

How does the unit work with Canon's Lanc? Any ideas for mounting it on an XL1, taking extra battery into consideration?

I would want to see it work on a Mac before I purchased one. If you read further down the article they couldn't get it to work by drop and drag. They had to capture off of it. I would also want to see a comparison of the codec used by Sony. It may not be as good as the Quicktime codec.

Jeff

I've been a big fan of Cleaner 5 for a while, using it to multiplex all my DVD's. Thank the stars I don't do too many long programs. Cleaner 5 was just so sloooooow. Well, good news, Cleaner 6 is out and very stable on OS10.2.2 I'm very pleased with it's performance on the 6 DVD's I've done for clients in the past month (except for an occasional crash on 10.2.1). My times have been averaging 2 to 3 times faster than Cleaner 5. A complete review is at Creative Mac http://www.creativemac.com/2002/11_nov/reviews/cleaner6021112.htm Their testing is similar to my results. Discreet has a great offer available until the end of the year. Cleaner 6 and Combustion 2 can be purchased for $1,497. A year ago that combination would have been $6,000 and not been near as fast.

Jeff

Jeff,

On Friday my upgrade came. I have not had a chance to work with it, but glad to hear that the speed has been improved.

I would have given up on it if the speed improvement was not on the magnitude it is. I don't really do enough to justify a hardware accelerator. But Cleaner 5 was a torture to use. If you haven't upgraded to 10.2.2 you may have a program crash now and then.

Jeff

Talk about giving up, I waited over a month and a to get my upgrade. Thanks for the tip on the OS upgrade. Next week I will be digging into the new version. Looking forward to the speed upgrade.

Cleaner 6 is, indeed, a big step forward in performance. It seems to use the Unix (OS-X) environment and dual processors much better than 5. My only wish is that Discreet offered a multi-system render farm faciity similar to what Adobe's AfterEffects features. I'd bet that quite a few folks have at least two systems (ex: a PowerBook and a G4 desktop) and could take advantage of such a feature for long compressions.

I have had trouble with cleaner 6 crashing when trying to transcode mpeg2 material to DV. The processing starts, shudders, and then the application just quits. I am going to upgrade the system to 10.2.2 to see what happens, but anyone have this problem?

Yes, sudden quits and spinning beach ball are what I've experienced (and others based on what I've read on other boards). OS 10.2.2 made a big difference for me. I know it has also helped Dual Processor (last to series of G4's) owners with FCP 3 issues. Good luck.

Jeff

I've been using chimera http://www.mozilla.org/projects/chimera/#Download for much of my internet browsing. It was recently rated the fastest browser (MacWorld?) for Mac. It is not as full featured as Internet Explorer but it does the job nicely. Today a small script was posted on VersionTracker http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/ called ChimeraBooster 1.0 It is a small script to speed up Chimera.

WOW! Chimera is now blazingly fast. It uses HTTP pipelining. Read the comments at VersionTracker and if you have install question, I'll help.

Jeff

Hi. I have approx. 7 DV tapes worth of footage that I would like to transfer to my iMac (the new version). How do I transfer it without a camera? I had to sell my Canon XL1s due to financial reasons a few months ago. I do hope there is a cheap solution to this problem. Thank you in advance for any info. you can provide.

An inexpensive MiniDV cam, perhaps used, is probably the cheapest way to go unless you can find someone to borrow one from.

You might want to look into renting a camera or deck. This would be a very inexpensive alternative.

Of course you're not going to want to leave the video on the mac once you get it transfered. (You wouldn't have enough hard drive space for 7 tapes anyway). You're going to want to edit it and send it back to tape, or to DVD, etc.

I am trying to put my movie back on DV (and eventually on VHS.)
Occasionally, the playback stops and it gives me an error message:"One or more frames were dropped during playback." It gives several possible solutions for it:
1- lower you rcompression rate (what is that? how do I do it ?)
2- close open sequences (Which I did, they are all closed)
3-lower preference for real-time audio tracks (done. It's set on low)
4 increase speed of your system/or disk drives/ ( I have OSX, dp1000mh, 3 120 GB drives: 2 of them still have 21 gb free space and one still has 117gb free) any solutions? it is so frustrating to view it uninterrupted and want to transfer it by tonight so i can show it to my mentor and some trusted friends without interruption.

Which editing software are you working with?

oh sorry, it is FCP 3.0

When I first got my new G4 a few months back I burned a couple of DVD-R discs using iDVD. They worked flawlessly and looked great.

I've just burned three this week and the menus don't work properly and there is digital breakup all throughout the video. Some of the videos are even missing big chunks.

I previewed the whole thing before burning. The videos on the disc are all short. One is 4 min and the other two are about 2 min each.

I'm guessing I maybe got stuck with a bad batch of discs? I purchased a five pack of Apple's DVD-R discs . . . which I didn't have a problem with in the past.

Or, and I'm hoping that it's not this, could there be a problem with my superdrive? These are the first discs I've burned since performing the recent firmware upgrade on the Pioneer drive.

I have a memorex disc that I'm going to burn to see if there is any difference from the Apple discs . . . I'll keep you all posted!

It could be several things at this point. Please post back full details on your software versions (FCP/QuickTimes/OS X). If your on a network turn off AppleTalk. Do an Audio Mixdown. Which drive is the Media on (117GB free or 21GB free)? What method are you using to go to tape? Print to Tape or Edit to Tape?

Jeff

I'm not clear if your having problems with the Apple media or the Memorex media? Have you tried the problem disks on a different DVD player?

Jeff

It is the Apple media that I had the problems with. Although in the past Apple discs worked fine, the first three that I've burned from this five pack that I bought have had problems. I have one new Memorex disc that I have not yet burned. I plan on burning that disc to see if the Memorex disc plays back ok.

I have not yet tried the discs on a different DVD player. But, the discs that I've burned in the past have played back fine with my player. I do plan on trying that as soon as I'm able to get to another player.

Is it dropping frames at the same spot every time? That happened to me once. At the same point on the video (a 4 min. music video) it would drop a frame and it would stop. I ended up rerendering that particular clip, I think I had enlarged it by 2%. Once I rerendered it it played back fine.

If you still can't get it figured out and need a quick copy on tape, turn off the dropped frame warning in your preferences, if it drops a frame, you might see a slight glitch but you can go back and find the cause later.

Let us know if you find out what caused it. Good luck.

While it might not be the root of your problem, you should also get the FCP upgrades from Apple. They cured several problems. I'd avoid Jaguar for the time being, however.

Hi all,
for money reason I cant buy an apple monitor.I can work with two 17 or 19 crt monitor.So what is your advice (Iiyama,Lacie etc.) to use with FCP,DVDSP,Photoshop?
Thanks,Maurizio.

Most people who are using their Macs for professional work use either Apple screens, LaCie (for art, graphics, photography,printing) or Mits/NEC (for video work). But certainly there is cross over users. The Nec/NEC us Trinitron technology and Sony phosphors so it may display video a little better than LaCie. Look at both and trust you eye. After all it will be displaying your work.

Jeff

I'm already dead, killed by FCP, but if somebody would help me, maybe I could resurge and drink somewhere a glass of wine in peace...

PROBLEM:
In the timeline I put a Videoclip together with 2 different Audioclips (AIFF), ask for "Stereo Pair", and "Link" them all together. So I do have now a "Combined-clip". For testing I play it in the Canvas- perfect, I test it also on the Viewer with a doubble-click and play it- perfect.

Then to create a safety copy I drug the "Combined-clip" into the Browser.
- Look at the info in the Browser-all seems perfect
- Doubble-Click on the "Combined-Clip" in the Browser and play it- Perfect, both track are there
- NOW I drug the "Combined-Clip" to the Timeline again, and LOOK WHAT HAPPENED: THE SECOND AUDIO-TRACK DISSAPEARED

I just can't find a way to get this second track into the Timeline. By the way, ALL settings are perfect (48k and 16 bit). The only strange thing is that controlling the clip with "Item proprieties" I get 16 bit, Mono as answer, BUT on the other hand in the Browser it says that it is a Stereo clip, and also looking it in the Viewer SHOWS me and PLAYS me the 2 audiotracks. So what is happening, and how can I resolve this?

HISTORY
- 30.000 feet of 35mm film telecined on PAL 25 FPS (only video)
- By use of the Flexfile I created a Batchfile with Cinematools
- Captured everything into FCP 3.02
- Linked the clips to the DB of Cinematools
- Conformed the clips to 24 FPS
- Divided (in FCP) the clips into subclips
- Converted the audio files from BWF (48k, 24bit) into AIFF (48k, 16bit) with BarbaBatch 3.1. (The recording was made with a DEVA HD recorder)
- Import and test the files: they play perfectly

CONFIGURATION
- System X.2.1
- CPU 867 Mhz
- FCP 3.02

Any helpful idea?????
Thanks
Istvan

Have you tried nesting the sequence? Use FCP help and search "nest". Is the audio track missing or you just can't hear it? Check your audio controls (pan , fade) see if they aren't set wrong.

Jeff

Thank you Jeff.

Hello Jeff,
no, the 2. track is just not there anymore once I put the clip back into the Timeline.

It is so strange because before bringing the clip to the Timeline I can still see and hear it in the Viewer. But once in the Timeline it disapears totaly, indeed double-clicking later on the clip in the Timeline, at that time it will show in the Viewere ONLY Ch1 in the audio section.

I cannot see why and where nesting the sequenzes could help me? Wouldn't this only increment the already complex referenced datastructure?
Thanks for helping
Istvan

Nesting is what you want. If it doesn't work delete it. But nesting should solve your problem.

Jeff

Thanks for the info. I think I will look into renting one for a few days.

OK, I see now what you mean. Basically I should simply create many additional sequenzes and use them like "containers" for the syncronized clips, right? It could be a workaround, boring for 7 hour footage, but an idea, thanks.

I hope only that my problem doesn't come from the fact that I used a lot the subclip function, because if this feature is unstable, then it will blow me the whole work exactly the last day of editing, I bet.
Thanks
Istvan

If you like rumors (and who doesn't?) Think Secret has reported on FCP 4 http://www.thinksecret.com/news/finalcutpro4.html Now, no one on this site or any other really knows for sure what FCP 4 will contain. If they do know, they have signed a nondisclosure agreement with Apple and aren't saying. Apple has been known to prosecute individuals that have leaked information. But it does make for fun reading and speculation.

Jeff

I just about have all the bumps worked out in FCP 3.0, and things are working pretty smothly. I guess I'm due for more trauma :-)

Jeff: You're right; software product rumors are fun. Mark: I feel the same way. FCP finally runs appliance-smooth. Must be about time for carnage.

I'd be surprised if Apple integrated 24p into the main product for the following reasons. (a) They're currently making more money selling it separately, and (b) there are too few variable frame rate video cameras in peoples' hands right now.

I think that the big bump with FCP4 will be "real-time" and background effects processing (similar to iMovie's).

Maybe just maybe they'll integrate some of the Logic Audio tools into it ala Avid / Digidesign. It sure would be nice to record voice over and or dialog into FCP without having to use Peak. If you have ever used Logic or ProTools you know how great this would be!
M.

Marc,

FCP3 already has a voice-over tool. It's pretty good, too. Hey, if you didn't already know this you just got a free upgrade, eh! <g>

I'm hoping for some REAL, real time effects (background processing would be nice also). I could see Apple developing two versions of FCP. They might develop a PRO version like Avid. The PRO version might have Logic support, 24p and DV50. The standard version continues to develop as a less professional, feature packed version. Apple could get another $300 to $500 for the PRO version.

Jeff

I noticed it said there would be support for Firewire 2.0. Is there a faster version of firewire coming, or is this something entirely different?

Yes, it is FireWire upping the ante over USB2. FireWire is 400mb/s, USB2 is 480mb/s and FireWire 2 is 800mb/s. It is backwards compatible, but my understanding (I might not be remembering this right) is that having a slower device on the chain will slow all the devices on the chain. Apple may have overcome that hurdle, I don't know. The speed increase will be necessary as data increases (DV50, HD etc.).

Jeff

im running 10.1.5 presently but want to go 10.2. does the 10.2 clean install, install OS9 also? reason being my FCP3 is an upgrade version from 2 . am i to assume QT6 which is included in 10.2 is not the pro version and that i would need to buy the pro option to work with FCP3? if is is the case would i need to install QT6 pro before installing FCP3.
is iDVD2 included on the jaguar disc?
thanks for any info
matt

How do you have your Hard Drive partitioned now? Where are your apps and System (for OS 10.1.5) ? What version of FCP are you running? QT 6 pro is needed and not included. The pro key is purchased from Apple for $29.95. I don't believe the order of installing QT6 is important. iDVD is not included with Jaguar to the best of my recollection.

Jeff

jeff
my hard drive is partitioned from the factory with os9 & X being seperate as far as i know. i have never changed the partition or anything on the G4 it came with 9 & 10 installed (867 QS ).
my version of FCP3 is 3.0.2

No need to worry. Read this article from MacWorld http://www.macworld.com/2002/10/features/install.html . Do the archive and install option on the Jaguar Disk. It worked great for me and then you don't need to reinstall all your software. Once your sure everything is working fine (in a couple of days) throw the archived system files away. Once Jaguar is installed update to 10.2.2 http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120164 This is the combo update that goes from 10.2 to 10.2.2

Buy the QT6 Pro key and register the key. Run FCP and you should be good to go. A word of caution. If you are in the middle of a project, wait until finished to update. Why risk you work just to update? Good luck.

Jeff

MacWorld article on browsers http://www.macworld.com/2002/12/features/browsers/index.html Note Chimera is now at 0.6

Jeff