Thanks Jeff and Ken for the help!

Ken, you raised something that I am didn't do, that is when I scale my image, I've been using 320 x 240, or 160 x 120. I havn't utilized that "720 x 534" photoshop size.

I know that unless I did the 320 x 480, my photoshop files would come out stretched beyond belief. But it sounds like I should be using maybe a larger file and at different proportions?

Ken, you mention that I should "flatten" my files. But I have been making a lot of layers in photoshop. When I flatten, that brings me down to only that flattened file, I loose all my other layers. Those layers would be improtant for me to bring into Premiere, especially if I want to make an animated logo. Wouldn't that be true?

Jeff,

Thanks for that tutorial tip! I'll check it out.


Bill

Bill,

This is on top of what Ken said. To solve your layer problem, choose File>Save As and then from the drop down choose to save the file as a TIFF. Doing this will automatically flatten your layers and save your image with a lossless compression. These work very well in Premiere and is the way I save PS graphics for use in Premiere. Then save your original .PSD file as is without flattening your layers.

Ken, I haven't received anything in the mailbox yet? Have you?

Yes, I received notice the day before I posted the announcement. They're apparently implementing a new registration system so perhaps things have become clogged. You might want to contact them directly.

Bill,
As Adrian noted, you basically save a flattened copy of the PS file, saving the original. Like Jeff, I've not worked in Premiere for a while and cannot guide you in using PS layers in Premiere. Check with your manual and just experiment. (When I need to build a graphics animation I nearly always use After Effects or, occasionally, Macromedia's Flash which I then export to AE for finishing.)

To: Adrian

You mention to save in Tiff, then save a photoshop file. Why do I need both? When I import into Premiere, I would jus use one or the other right?

That won't help me constantly having to pick each layer in Premiere. What a hassle! There has got to be an easier way to drop in layers in Premiere 5.1 (mac). I mean I can't see the numbers in the project pallet. But I numbered the layers in Photoshop. But again, I am only allowed to drop in one file at a time. Even if I pick "multiple" or "folder". I keep having to go back into the dialog box in premiere and pick only ONE:( It gets to be a drag dropping only one file at a time, if you know what I mean.
Thanks

I'm presently using a Power Book G3. It has 2 firewire ports and I use them both: 1 for an external hard drive and 1 for firewire out to a deck (Sony DHR 1000) and monitor.

The TiG4 has a single firewireport. Will it create any problems to daisy chain the configuration mentioned above. I've tried the daisy chain with the G3 set-up and it seems to work. I'm a bit concerned that all this data going back and forth along a single daisy chain will ultimately create problems.

<<<-- Originally posted by Dick Walton : I'm presently using a Power Book G3. It has 2 firewire ports and I use them both: 1 for an external hard drive and 1 for firewire out to a deck (Sony DHR 1000) and monitor.

The TiG4 has a single firewireport. Will it create any problems to daisy chain the configuration mentioned above. I've tried the daisy chain with the G3 set-up and it seems to work. I'm a bit concerned that all this data going back and forth along a single daisy chain will ultimately create problems. -->>>

Well, according to Ken's earlier post this should not be a problem. One thing to bear in mind is that even though you have 2 FW ports on your G3 PowerBook they are not independent, i.e. one FW controller chip is used for both ports. This indecently is the same for the towers as well.

There's enough bandwidth in FW to handle DV and I figure there's more than enough in the TiBooks motherboard for this set up.

I also hope I will retain device control of my XL1 when daisy chained up through a FW hard drive.

Simon:

Thanks for the encouragement! I don't know whether your use of the word "indecently" was a slip. a pun, or what but it was most appropriate!! It's interesting to know that Apple "hides" a single bus behind two ports . . . well just so it works!!

<<<-- Originally posted by Dick Walton : Simon:

Thanks for the encouragement! I don't know whether your use of the word "indecently" was a slip. a pun, or what but it was most appropriate!! It's interesting to know that Apple "hides" a single bus behind two ports . . . well just so it works!! -->>>

:-) It was a slip. One finger typing whilst eating a bag of crisps at the same time.

Could anyone comment on the suitability of other Mac platforms? The iMac comes with a superdrive and Firewire, and now an optional 17" flat panel screen, but it is a single processor and less expandable (like the Power Book).

The reason I ask is that I am changing institutions and need to assemble a new editing setup out of a new budget. It seems to me that the G4 options are about double the cost of the equivalent PC hardware (and I am in other respects a long-time PC user), but so far I have been using lab equipment (G4 / FCP / DVD-SP) and may eventually be working with students using Mac labs. But budgets are budgets . . . I've inquired over at the PC forum about options on the PC side, but I'd appreciate any thoughts over here too.

My work is documentary, with lots of 1 hr interviews for archiving, and editing into presentations for academic use. Output is back to DV tape, DVD for archiving and presentation, and eventually some streaming video.

Thanks for any help,
Linc Kesler

Linc,
An 800MHz iMac with the 17 inch monitor and even a modestly sized external Firewire drive would host Final Cut Pro 3 just fine for a school environment.

Hi All,

I am frustrated beyond belief and am seeking any help. I am slapping together a five minute film for a friend and am using an older version of Premiere 5.1c, on a G3 iMac, 40 gigs and video captured from my XL1. Also imported a bunch of QT movies that I created in After Effects from picture scans, simple zooms and pans etc. from archive photos. These were rendered in AE without compression, greyscale and saved as Quicktime movies which I imported into Premiere.

I brought the captured video into the timelime, as well as the QT videos exported from AE without compression. Also mastered an audio track in ProTools and brought that into Premiere. The problem I am having is that when I export to tape or print to tape the only video coming acrross is the captured video and the audio. None of the B&W QT clips that I rendered in AE are working.

Is this a data rate problem? Should I go back and re-render all these AE movies with compression so the data rates come down. Or is it something really obvious that I am missing? I have read in a bunch of previous threads that people have had problems exporting from Premiere to their XL1.

When I do get this video off my machine I am burning the Premiere program and running out to buy myself a nice copy of FCP. Alas too little too late for this poroblem.

Much gratitude and thanks for any tips from everyine.

Ken:

Can you compare the 2 Apple programs with regards to quality and quantity of output. Is there any inherent reason why iDVD might not match DVD SP in final quality (resolution of video) of authored media. And is project size limited in any way when using iDVD?

Thanks!!

Dick,
You should be able to find quite a bit of info on this subject using the Search function (at top of page). I recently responded to a nearly identical question at
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5190

In a nutshell, DVD Studio Pro is to iDVD as Final Cut Pro is to iMovie. Apple's "i" programs are designed to shield users from complexities that most people don't need to master for home/family projects. The differences between the two is not so much a matter of quality as it is capabilities.

Apple's site should be able to answer most of your questions.

http://www.apple.com/dvdstudiopro/
http://www.apple.com/idvd/

p.s. I split this thread since it's off-topic from its original PowerBook G4 thread.

Hello fellas,

will using faster drives (IDE 7200 rpm etc) with faster seek times significantly reduce- if at all- the time it takes to render DV material after effects have been chosen?

What's a better purchasing factor- seek time or rotational speed? Will a 5400 rpm drive with a shorter seek time be better than a 7200 rpm drive with a slightly slower seek time?

Since we're on the subject of optimal FCP performance.....is it better to have the FCP app on the OS X drive, the capture drive as a seperate drive and the render drive another drive? Will the need for the Mac to work/communicate with 3 different drives negate any speed it may seem to get? I have audio content on a seprate drive (yeah an A-card will do that to u) and my render times don't seem fast enough (933 w/ 1.5GB ram- CL2 class Ram at that!)....I rarely get the green bar- it seems any changes at all, and I get the red bar of render bordom on top!

Also it seems my A-card is a 66 or 100 mhz bus- could this affect the render times drastically?

Ken:

Thanks for referring me to your earlier post. That along with the info on Apple's website has answered many of my questions.

One other question. Are all MPEG2 encoders equal? More narrowly are the MPEG2 encoders in iDVD and DVD SP the same? Ultimately I'm wondering how differing compression algorithms might affect quality of output, specifically video images.

I appreciate your patience and expertise . . . both are enormously helpful to us "new boots."

If the school has Mac Labs for students, they may also have special Educational Pricing. The school may have licenses for additional FCP seats also (free FCP). Another consideration is the use of student interns and their familarity with the Mac systems and software.

My wife use a 15" iMac 800 for her FCP projects and it handles the tasks well. A larger screen, as Ken recommends, would be very beneficial. If you'll have a need to do very complex editing projects (multiple source tapes etc.) I would recommend a dual screen G4. The dual screen is a big boost to my productivity.

Jeff

In brief, data rate is the key parameter for MPEG2 encoding. The higher the rate the lower the compression. iDVD performs its own compression with one rate for total disc content less than 60 min and a lower rate for 60-90 min. With DVD-SP you are responsible for performing your own encode with Cleaner of some other product.

I'm not a Premiere expert by any stretch of the imagination. So, here goes. What travels across FireWire is DV, not uncrompressed Animation or what ever codec you used in AE to make the Quicktimes. Rerender the AE using the DV codec. Do a sample render first. The pixel shape of the scans may need to be redone also. The picture might look squished when you can finally see it in Premiere. If so, post back and I'll get you straightened out on the pixel shape and sizes.

Jeff

To really, speed things up would take three drives. The system would involve 1 drive for your OS, applications, and caches. The other 2 would be configured in a RAID 0 array. These would need a controller card and 2 identical drives (same MFG and size).

Divide the internal System drive into 3 partitions. One for OS X, one for OS 9 and a small one for caches. If you need OS 9 for any serious work, you might want a fourth partition. OS X likes the applications and system files on the same partition. The size will depend on the number of apps you have and the size of your drive. If you don't use OS 9.xx much it can be very small. But, you need OS 9 to install FCP (FCP4 will not require OS 9 for an install). A moderate size cache partition can be set up for FCP.

For optimum results no media should be stored on the internal system drive. Not even on a separate partition. Place all media on the RAID 0 array.

If you don't go the raid route, use an internal IDE drive for best results. Check with Apple (maybe a genius at the new Soho store) which internal buss the drive should be on. I know attaching it to the DVD/CD drive will slow it down. I'm just not familiar with the internal configuration of the newer machines.

The cost of the RAID is pretty cheap. You could get 2 internal 120gb drives for around $300. The raid card will run $150 or so. Speeds are near 100MB. FireWire is much slower. Don't confuse bits and bytes.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Of course! A friend had given me this hint shortly after I posted. So yes after re-rendering the shorts in AE with a DV NTSC compression the videos came across. Unfortunately the quality was less than I had hoped for. I had accounted for the square/non-square pixels with the stills and transfering them so that was OK. Thanks for your help.

Is anyone here using the Matrox RTMAc, and if you are is it worth the $ and is it stable?

Jeff,

you seem to know awhole lot more than I do about system setup.....I've made some chages to my Mac and like to run them by you- here goes:

Mac G4/933 Mhz 1.5GB ram
OEM Internal 60GB HD in 2 Partitions
(1 part: Mac OS X w/FCP3 - 2 part: Mac OS 9.2.2)

I've also added a 2nd Maxtor 30GB ATA HD on the same stripe
In addition I have another 30GB HD attached via an A-card (Tempo- I think it's a 100mhz card- not sure)

My question is: As of yesterday night- i've reformatted the extra drives and put the 2 30GB drives as a single raid (striped not mirrored) using Mac OS X Disk Utility- It now mounts as a single 60 GB drive

Is this better than leaving them as seprate HD's of which I could set one as a render drive and another as a media/capture drive? I'm not sure of the performance benfits of using them as a striped raid- perhaps you can elaborate? (using the Mac OS X Disk Utility)
My thinking was that if I left one of the 30gigs that was striped with the OEM drive (133mhz bus) as a sepearte "render" drive, it would run at it's theoretical maximum- would this be right?
I would have then designated the other 30GB as a capture drive.......

...so what do you think would be best- leave them as a striped raid (no card- just via Mac's OS X Drive Utility) or seperate them?

Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond, much appreciated.


In Search Of Faster DV Rendering- Steve Nunez

Jeff,
I have one sitting peacefully in its box. This has not been a usable product for FCP since the introduction of OS-X. Matrox has promised to update its drivers...for 18 months. Don't waste $1000 on this product or, in my opinion, any other Matrox product.

Can you tell that this is a sore spot on my butt? <g>

The latest version of FCP is available for download here http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/download/ A free Joe's Filter is available for just filling out the questionaire.

Jeff

Thanks, Ken. I had looked at the Matrox user forums and it sounded iffy there, but I trust the info that I get from you and others here more than a user forum, so I wanted to get a response from here before I made a decision, especially since I'm a Mac novice!

Looks like us OS9 users are left out in the cold again. System requirements are OS X v10.2.1 and Quicktime 6.0.2.

It's just a sign of the times. FCP 4 is supposed to be OS X only. OS 9xx users will be stuck in FCP 3.

Jeff

Software RAID configuarations are not nearly as fast as hardware RAIDS. Depending on the type of operation (file size, read only, write only, both etc.) software RAIDS are at best about 20% faster than a single drive. You loose some CPU cycles managing the RAID, so in some tests it will run slower than a single drive. I would try the software RAID and see how it feels. Renders would probably be slower (lost CPU cycles) but file swaps (Photoshop) would be faster.

Best all around solution would be to sell the existing card and buy hardware RAID card. I think you will have to try the the existing setup. but I don' think you'll notice any apreciable speed increase. If you do a lot of rendering, go the seperate drive route. If you do a lot of Photoshop with large swap files then go software RAID.

Jeff

Jeff,

Thanks for taking the time to post this link. The survey was interesting. Let's hope they take the info into consideration for the next version.

There is a good tutorial here http://www.lafcpug.org/tutorials.html#anchor5362344 for scanning, Photoshop and preparing work for AE. Don't worry that some of tutorials are for FCP. The chief designer of Premiere designed FCP, so they are very similar.

Jeff

Thanks for the link Jeff. I am finally throwing away my copy of Premiere and buying a copy of FCP this week, so the tutorials will be a great help.

I've done some dialogue voice overs in a sound room and am trying to match them up with the dialogue recorded on set. The v/os were recorded with the mike closer to the actor, and while both audio tracks sound good, the v/os sound, well, closer. I've got FCP 3.0.2. I've messed around with the EQ 3 way and reverb and echo filters, to limited success. Does anybody know any neat tricks? Also, how do I get an audio track that was recorded in stereo to move to one "side," I mean I've got a centered stereo sound and I want it sound like its coming from off camera. I tried the Spread slider but it just swaps the channels and as the sound was recorded pretty much centered it makes little difference. Any ideas? Thanks

I've been trying to learn Final Cut Pro on my own and have had a measure of success but I'd really like to immerse myself in the best instructional program available. Is there a course taught somewhere that is considered the best?

You might want to check out DV Creators:

http://www.dvcreators.com

They have some self paced CD's that should help you learn the program. You might also want to check into your local community college.

Vince,

Check out this address. This may help you out.

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

Good Luck,

Bill

EQ is your best friend in this scenario. As your subject moves further from the mic, the low frequencies drop off. On your studio tracks, cut your bass and low mid frequencies a little at a time until they match up better with your live dialog. Once the frequency response is closer, you may want to add a small amount of reverb to simulate the acoustics from the shoot.

MIDIMan

The key to encoding is to keep the bitrate as low as possible but keep the pic quality as high as possible. The high end encoders will allow you to do this much better than QTpro. Lower bitrate means higher compatibility, more bandwidth for multiple angles, multiple audio streams etc...

You can only use 3rd party encoders, external writers and DLT drives with dvdsp and not iDVD I believe. Yes the dvdsp encoding will be better using the dvdsp encoder as it's VBR (kinda) and not CBR.

There are afew options for encoding on a mac but many authors switch between pc and mac for various parts of the whole process. QTpro has it's place but I use BitVice http://www.innobits.se/ for mac encoding. Cleaner is a great product but not the best when dealing with mpeg-2. All your options are:

Heuris MPEG Power Professional 2.5 www.heuris.com

Wired MediaPress Pro YUV www.wiredinc.com
Wired MediaPress Pro SDI

Sonic SD-1000 www.sonic.com
Sonic SD-2000

Cleaner www.discreet.com

BitVice www.innobits.se

Others are poping up like http://mediapipe.sourceforge.net/

You can also use a dvd recorder demux and remux. I've got the philips dvdr890 and it seems you can demux and remux with no sync loss issues.

I would have to say that dvdsp with and encoder like BitVice will give you far better quality(and features) than iDVD.

HTH

Jake.

There may also be a difference in the ambiance of the background sound. When on location I always record a minute or two of silence. Then I mix it with the dialog that gets rerecorded. This give it the same background.

Jeff

I just got an email from a friend (Apple Tech.) and he confirms that the Superdrive will fit the 667mHz and 800mHz (most recent models). It will also fit the previous models, 550MHz and 667MHz, but will require a different ribbon cable. earlier models are not compatible.

Rumor and speculation is that Apple will not offer an upgrade program. The Superdrive should be available for retrofit in about 4 to 6 months.

Jeff

Anyone found any RAID controller cards that do RAID 10 and also work under OS X? I've searched high and low and I can't find a thing. Too many dead drives ... I need both protection and speed so RAID 10 it is. Also interested in people's experiences using the RAID 10 cards if they do, in fact, exist.

thanks

-Aaron

The few post house that I know that do both RAID 0 and RAID 1 do it separately. The RAID 0 is hardware configured with Sonnet http://www.sonnettech.com/product/default.html , ACard or one of the other hardware cards. The RAID 1 is done in software (included in OS 10.2.X) and separate drives.

Jeff

Another vote for DV Creators stuff -- it's excellent. You should also check out the FCP Intelligent Assistant. It's very informative.

http://www.lafcpug.org/dvd_tuthodgetts_popup.html

FCP has a lot of great user groups in cities. That might be an option.

Jeff,

Thanks for the news! Just so that I understand what you've said..

As an 800 owner, in about 6 months time I should be able to purchase the Superdrive and replace my existing drive with it without changing the ribbon cable.

Guy, you are correct, Your 800MHz will not require a new ribbon cable. I doubt the drives will be available from Apple. I would get in contact with http://store.powerbook1.com/ and ask to be contacted when the new Superdrives become available.

Jeff

Thanks to all who responed to my request for opinions as to the best FCP instruction. As per one suggestion, I've ordered two CDs from DVCreators and will see how far I get. DCS

How is software RAID? I'm very distrustful of it both from a performance and a reliability standpoint. But that could be a viable creative solution to my problem.

-Aaron

The very fact your doing a redundancy (RAID 1) your losing some performance. The software RAID will cost you some CPU cycles. I would not recommend it for rendering. You will have a decrease in performance. But for large swap files (Photoshop) or DV capture it will be barely noticed.

How are you planning to mount 5 drives in G4? Are you doing FireWire or SCSI and going external?

Jeff