NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2003

Edwin Quan · May 16th, 2003, 12:57 AM

i'm not a fan of editing video on an ibook or a powerbook. rendering on my dual 1.25ghz is already a chore. before this machine, i had a quicksilver 867mhz and it was just torture using that machine. also, laptop hard drives are known to be small. unless you've got yourself a firewire drive of some sort, you'll find yourself filling up that internal hdd fast. not to mention all the other apps you'll have installed. those will take up space as well. and keep in mind laptop internal drives can't be upgraded!

basically, if you're looking to buy a machine for editing, i'd recommend looking into a fast desktop. if you're going at it the other way around, (getting a machine for every day use and video editing on the side or as a hobby) then get what you may.

Edwin Quan · May 18th, 2003, 04:43 AM

i am using the movie mode feature on my canon xl1s. i believe this will cause my camera to record at 30fps. when using fcp, should i edit the fps settings for sequence, capture and device control to 30fps as well? the defaults are all set at 29.97.

or am i totally off here and the movie mode feature is recording at a fps speed other than 30? thanks.

Jeff Donald · May 18th, 2003, 05:52 AM

Leave all the presets at 29.97 fps. That is the specification for NTSC video. The frame rate gets abbreviated to 30 fps (quicker to write I guess) all the time but it is always 29.97.

Joe Lloyd · May 19th, 2003, 12:14 AM

Just wondering how people captured their videos here? Batch , scene detection , or just capture the whole tape if you have the room?

Ken Tanaka · May 19th, 2003, 12:20 AM

Hi Joe,
With large disk space so relatively inexpensive these days, I find it much easier to grab whole chunks of a tape and just use scene detection to break it up. It's just so much quicker than cueing and logging every little scene. (Not to mention less wear on my deck.)

Jeff Donald · May 19th, 2003, 05:12 AM

I log and capture probably 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time I capture the whole tape (usually less than a half hour of footage).

Jeff Price · May 19th, 2003, 10:31 AM

My iMac just has 2 FW ports and I need to keep one available to plug the camera or an iPod into. I have three FW drives (1 Maxtor and 2 WD). Mostly I use iMovie and iTunes on this computer with some Elements and iPhoto.

My question is whether it is better to run all the drives via a powered hub or to just daisy chain them together. I've not tried the hub but did have some strange behavior when they were all daisy-chained together (I'm pretty sure it was a bad cable).

I usually only turn on one FW drive at a time, only rarely two (to transfer data) and I don't think I've ever had them all running at once.

So, hub or daisy-chain?

If daisy chain then is there a source for good short cables. I don't need a 6' Belkin cable (or even 3') for a daisy chain. None of the local places I've chacked in Boulder, nor the Apple store, carry shorter cables.

In the future I'll be moving to FCP4 if that matters.

Thanks.

Bud Kuenzli · May 19th, 2003, 02:21 PM

FW is more problematic than many people think so the questions are very reasonable but the answer isn't easy because it depends on the drives you have, the cables you have, how well defragged the drives are, etc. It really is a matter of playing with it to find what works for you. That said, you might check

granitedigital for good quality short cables. I'm sure there are other sources.

if you are chaining the drives, put the main media drive first. Keep it defraggged for dv work.

a hub is theoretically better but of course that's one more piece of hardware that might cause a problem. If you chained drives work, great. If they don't, try the hub.

imovie is much more forgiving than FCP. For FCP I'd recommend getting a 120 gig internal and using that drive for your main working drive, and using the media manager to offload work to an external when you are done with a project and want to keep the footage on a hard drive.

fcp4 may be better for FW support...we'll see.

you can run the itunes chained with no problem ( I have three external fw drives with all my itunes on the last drive in the chain)

Michael Westphal · May 19th, 2003, 09:04 PM

I've worked both ways and both work fine. Currently, I'm working on small projects, so I use a hub and only hook up the drive that has the project I'm working on. When working on big projects, I daisy-chain, cause I have 4 external drives, but only a 4 port hub (and since one port goes to the computer, that only leaves 3 ports...)

With that said, I've had difficulties capturing to the external drives through either configuration, except to capture direct to the first external drive.

But I have an internal drive, which I can use and then copy the files out to an external drive before editing.

Belkin does make 3' cables. I have seen 1.5' cables, but I can not find a source at the moment...

Michael Westphal · May 19th, 2003, 09:16 PM

Joe,
I log and capture the whole tape, unless I've managed to gather a time-code break -- and I work hard to prevent those. I always leave my tapes at the end after a shoot, then when I go to capture, I immediately know where to stop, and I always record a header on each and every tape, so I know that I can start within the first 20 seconds of a tape and miss nothing. Then I can watch my tape during the capture and review online to learn (remember) where everything is.

Of course, if there's a break, then you have to find it and log each part...

Why the whole tape? The camera wear and tear issue for one. Two, I usually need everything I shot anyway. 3, it's easier to search, review, and mark on the computer than on the camera, and 4, disk space is cheap and time is money.

Boyd Ostroff · May 19th, 2003, 09:18 PM

I have three daisy-chained FW drives and don't have problems capturing, editing or playing back on a G4/733. However, I note that I'm using FCP 3 under MacOS 9.2, not OS X. When I used one of the same drives on my PBG4 667 under OS X I experienced dropped frames. However this was a year ago with an older version of OS X. Your mileage may vary...

Jeff Donald · May 19th, 2003, 10:43 PM

The older lap tops have FireWire performance issues. The new ones (667 DVI and newer) have a different bus controller if I remember correctly. I daisy chain FW drives of my Ti 800 without dropped frames or other problems in OS X.

Matt Stahley · May 20th, 2003, 02:53 PM

I have a 867 QS with the DVR-103 and had updated the firmware to vs. 1.90 when the update was released months ago .When i run software update i get a "Power Mac SuperDrive Update 1.0" as not installed.Is this the same firmware update and why wouldnt it recognize that the version was already installed? Thanks for any info.

Jeff Donald · May 20th, 2003, 05:58 PM

It's possible the update didn't install properly. Use the Apple System Profiler to check the version (should be v1.90). If it doesn't show the correct version download the installer and update again. Post back if you need help with any of this.

Matt Stahley · May 20th, 2003, 08:29 PM

Jeff the system profiler has version 1.90 listed as the firmware version.Would there be any harm in trying to install the update again? Thanks for all the help.

May 18th, 2003, 04:43 AM	#452
Edwin Quan Regular Crew Join Date: May 2003 Location: United States Posts: 38	FCP / XL1S / FPS question... i am using the movie mode feature on my canon xl1s. i believe this will cause my camera to record at 30fps. when using fcp, should i edit the fps settings for sequence, capture and device control to 30fps as well? the defaults are all set at 29.97. or am i totally off here and the movie mode feature is recording at a fps speed other than 30? thanks.

May 18th, 2003, 05:52 AM	#453
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	Leave all the presets at 29.97 fps. That is the specification for NTSC video. The frame rate gets abbreviated to 30 fps (quicker to write I guess) all the time but it is always 29.97. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 19th, 2003, 12:14 AM	#454
Joe Lloyd Major Player Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Auckland, NZ Posts: 202	FCP Capturing Just wondering how people captured their videos here? Batch , scene detection , or just capture the whole tape if you have the room?

May 19th, 2003, 12:20 AM	#455
Ken Tanaka Retired DV Info Net Almunus Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,943	Hi Joe, With large disk space so relatively inexpensive these days, I find it much easier to grab whole chunks of a tape and just use scene detection to break it up. It's just so much quicker than cueing and logging every little scene. (Not to mention less wear on my deck.) __________________ Lady X Films: A lady with a boring wardrobe...and a global mission. Hey, you don't have enough stuff! Buy with confidence from our sponsors. Hand-picked as the best in the business...Really! See some of my work one frame at a time: www.KenTanaka.com

May 19th, 2003, 05:12 AM	#456
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	I log and capture probably 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time I capture the whole tape (usually less than a half hour of footage). __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 16th, 2003, 12:57 AM	#451
Edwin Quan Regular Crew Join Date: May 2003 Location: United States Posts: 38	i'm not a fan of editing video on an ibook or a powerbook. rendering on my dual 1.25ghz is already a chore. before this machine, i had a quicksilver 867mhz and it was just torture using that machine. also, laptop hard drives are known to be small. unless you've got yourself a firewire drive of some sort, you'll find yourself filling up that internal hdd fast. not to mention all the other apps you'll have installed. those will take up space as well. and keep in mind laptop internal drives can't be upgraded! basically, if you're looking to buy a machine for editing, i'd recommend looking into a fast desktop. if you're going at it the other way around, (getting a machine for every day use and video editing on the side or as a hobby) then get what you may.

May 19th, 2003, 10:31 AM	#457
Jeff Price Major Player Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Chico, California Posts: 357	Fw drives - hub or daisy chain My iMac just has 2 FW ports and I need to keep one available to plug the camera or an iPod into. I have three FW drives (1 Maxtor and 2 WD). Mostly I use iMovie and iTunes on this computer with some Elements and iPhoto. My question is whether it is better to run all the drives via a powered hub or to just daisy chain them together. I've not tried the hub but did have some strange behavior when they were all daisy-chained together (I'm pretty sure it was a bad cable). I usually only turn on one FW drive at a time, only rarely two (to transfer data) and I don't think I've ever had them all running at once. So, hub or daisy-chain? If daisy chain then is there a source for good short cables. I don't need a 6' Belkin cable (or even 3') for a daisy chain. None of the local places I've chacked in Boulder, nor the Apple store, carry shorter cables. In the future I'll be moving to FCP4 if that matters. Thanks. __________________ Jeff Price Flickerflix Nature Videos flickerflix@yahoo.com

May 19th, 2003, 02:21 PM	#458
Bud Kuenzli Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: North Pole, Alaska Posts: 197	it all matters... FW is more problematic than many people think so the questions are very reasonable but the answer isn't easy because it depends on the drives you have, the cables you have, how well defragged the drives are, etc. It really is a matter of playing with it to find what works for you. That said, you might check granitedigital for good quality short cables. I'm sure there are other sources. if you are chaining the drives, put the main media drive first. Keep it defraggged for dv work. a hub is theoretically better but of course that's one more piece of hardware that might cause a problem. If you chained drives work, great. If they don't, try the hub. imovie is much more forgiving than FCP. For FCP I'd recommend getting a 120 gig internal and using that drive for your main working drive, and using the media manager to offload work to an external when you are done with a project and want to keep the footage on a hard drive. fcp4 may be better for FW support...we'll see. you can run the itunes chained with no problem ( I have three external fw drives with all my itunes on the last drive in the chain) __________________ on the Internet, when you get where you're going you still don't know where you are

May 19th, 2003, 09:04 PM	#459
Michael Westphal Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Baton Rouge, LA Posts: 166	ditto, Bud's remarks I've worked both ways and both work fine. Currently, I'm working on small projects, so I use a hub and only hook up the drive that has the project I'm working on. When working on big projects, I daisy-chain, cause I have 4 external drives, but only a 4 port hub (and since one port goes to the computer, that only leaves 3 ports...) With that said, I've had difficulties capturing to the external drives through either configuration, except to capture direct to the first external drive. But I have an internal drive, which I can use and then copy the files out to an external drive before editing. Belkin does make 3' cables. I have seen 1.5' cables, but I can not find a source at the moment... __________________ Michael A Westphal

May 19th, 2003, 09:16 PM	#460
Michael Westphal Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Baton Rouge, LA Posts: 166	Joe, I log and capture the whole tape, unless I've managed to gather a time-code break -- and I work hard to prevent those. I always leave my tapes at the end after a shoot, then when I go to capture, I immediately know where to stop, and I always record a header on each and every tape, so I know that I can start within the first 20 seconds of a tape and miss nothing. Then I can watch my tape during the capture and review online to learn (remember) where everything is. Of course, if there's a break, then you have to find it and log each part... Why the whole tape? The camera wear and tear issue for one. Two, I usually need everything I shot anyway. 3, it's easier to search, review, and mark on the computer than on the camera, and 4, disk space is cheap and time is money. __________________ Michael A Westphal

May 19th, 2003, 09:18 PM	#461
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,802	I have three daisy-chained FW drives and don't have problems capturing, editing or playing back on a G4/733. However, I note that I'm using FCP 3 under MacOS 9.2, not OS X. When I used one of the same drives on my PBG4 667 under OS X I experienced dropped frames. However this was a year ago with an older version of OS X. Your mileage may vary...

May 19th, 2003, 10:43 PM	#462
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	The older lap tops have FireWire performance issues. The new ones (667 DVI and newer) have a different bus controller if I remember correctly. I daisy chain FW drives of my Ti 800 without dropped frames or other problems in OS X. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 20th, 2003, 02:53 PM	#463
Matt Stahley Major Player Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Waynesboro, PA Posts: 648	Superdrive firmware question I have a 867 QS with the DVR-103 and had updated the firmware to vs. 1.90 when the update was released months ago .When i run software update i get a "Power Mac SuperDrive Update 1.0" as not installed.Is this the same firmware update and why wouldnt it recognize that the version was already installed? Thanks for any info.

May 20th, 2003, 05:58 PM	#464
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	It's possible the update didn't install properly. Use the Apple System Profiler to check the version (should be v1.90). If it doesn't show the correct version download the installer and update again. Post back if you need help with any of this. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 20th, 2003, 08:29 PM	#465
Matt Stahley Major Player Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Waynesboro, PA Posts: 648	Jeff the system profiler has version 1.90 listed as the firmware version.Would there be any harm in trying to install the update again? Thanks for all the help.