Got Final Cut Pro 4 today
 

Because I live in PA, the location of an Apple warehouse & distribution point, I got my FCP4 today.

I have been playing with Live Type for about an hour . . . and it is really impressive. It'a a little slow on my 867Mhz.

I have also tried out Soundtrack and it shows good promise too. Unfortunately it has been "unexpectely quitting" after attempt to open a saved file. Working to get to the bottom of this.

I had Final Cut Pro itself crash on me (see my post in the thread called something like "FInal Cut Pro arriving any day now"). There is bound to be 1,000 different Final Cut Pro 4 threads. I hope Apple doesn't begin to develop a reputation like Microsoft in having many bugs in new releases.

FCP4, Soundtrack goodbye sleep!
 

Well despite my initial cursings at apple for giving me an installer that crapped out on me when i was trying to install FCP4 I have to say that this thing freaking rocks... Yeah, yeah, 4 is coool whatever but Soundtrack is so dern awesome! I only hope that I will actually get around to doing something in FCP 4 instead of just playing with Soundtrack the whole time. I seriously duobt that I will sleep in the next 4 hours because of this program (in a good way not like the waiting for programs to stop crashing way) If anyone here has reservations about the upgrade the soundtrack editing ability is reason enough to pay for an upgrade... Just make sure your installer works...

Video on a CD
 

OK

simple question for all the great Mac users. How can I get my MPEG 1 video and audio export from Avid and FCP 3 to play on a CD. I am tring not to purchace any new software (cheap). I have Avid Express and Final Cut Pro 3. When you export MPEG is splits the audio and video up. I want to make it easy for people to just pot in a cd and play a video clip. I like MPEG 1 because the picture quality looks good compared to AVI and Quicktime compressed. Now how do I get them to play together when burned to a CD. I have DVD studio Pro, Quicktime Pro, After Efects and as stated before Avid and Final Cut Pro 3. Is there any way to do it with what I already have. Or, is there a way to get MPEG 1 quality (low but decent) in an AVI or Quicktime file and still be able to get a 20 min clip on a CD with the programs I have.

I'm not sure where your problem with QT is coming from. I have 5 QT video clips on a CD, or roughly 25 minutes. It only uses half of the cd. All I did was export for cd from Premiere, and the quality is amazingly good. All of the clips are only 320x240, but still nice.

2 diff. decks 2 diff G4's audio prints no video
 

Hello,

Well, I thought it was the deck, but I can't print to video using two different decks and two different computers. Could someone tell me, just so I'm sure, what settings I could check? I mean this is crazy...the audio goes out...not the video....I captured using a 3rd party card...but I'm going out DV...I just don't get it....runing FCP III in OSX all the latest drivers/versions...please help! I can go out using the card via an S-Video cable in tot eh S Video of the deck...but it a real pain and I'd guess there might a drop in quality. Any info greatly appreciated. I did also try just playing through the timeline with the deck in record mode...no go...

Take care,

Chris

What setting did you use other that the frame size. I use Final Cut Pro most of the time. It gives you a lot of compression choises. I have tried them all I think. MPEG looks better, and the files sizes are a lot smaller. Have you ever compared the two. I have no problem with Quicktime, I just thing MPEG looks better.

Firewire Drive Question
 

Hello Group,

Anyone using this particular Firewire drive on MacOS X and FCP?


http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail.asp?action=techspec&options=S&dpno=743296#scroll


Any experiences with this product will be appreciated. :)


Thanks!

My FCP4 upgrade arrived today!!!
 

It freakin' rocks! Especially being able to look at your color-corrected frame next to the uncorrected one. It'll be a busy weekend.

This doesn't deal specifically with this drive, but always be sure to check out the tomshardware.com site before ever making any hardware purchases.

http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/index.html

It does make some recommendations/comparisons between the 250GB internal drives of Maxtor and Western Digital, and they are apparently of almost imperceptible difference.

You can be close to sure that this will hold true for the external, as all external drives are, are internal drives in a pretty box with a built in IDE to Firewire/USB converter. Hint hint... save OODLES of cash by just buying a big internal drive and finding a good external enclosure. Very easy to put together...

There was this "Quote" from someone in Apple that was reported on www.looprumors.com that Panter was going to be "unlike anything else out there," and will "end all comparisons" between Microsoft Windows and the Mac. "



now with all the great stuff going on with HyperTransport, the new IBM chips and the promise of 64 bit computing I'm fairly jazzed to see what comes out of WWDC---

but the above comments leave me questioning them--- "unlike anything.." what's that mean? It won't be a GUI?

"end all comparisions..." again, it won't be a GUI?

it's going to be an amazing time at WWDC and I for one can't wait for it.

total newb question
 

what's the difference between a split edit and a roll edit?

Don't you mean a "slip" edit?

Edwin,

A "Split Edit" is where the audio and video for one clip don't align at the same point. You'll always know you're doing this if you're using FCP because you'll see little red warning boxes on both the audio and video parts of the clip with the time showing of how much the two are misaligned. So, if you slide the audio track forward .20 seconds, you'll see "+0.20" on the audio track and "-0.20" on the video track. Think of this as the way bricks are laid off center with one another.

A "roll edit" allows you to roll the edit point between two clips back and forth. Let's say you have the start of clip 1 at point A and then end of clip 1 at point B. Then you have the start of clip 2 at point C and the end at point D. With a roll edit, you can roll B and C back and forth to find where you want the two shots to match, without affecting points A and D. Think of it as nailing down a piece of rope at both ends with a slip knot in the middle that allows you to slide the knot back and forth between the two ends.

The "Slip Edit" that Ken is referring to allows you to change the in and out points of the clip without changing its duration. So, if you want a particular clip to remain 5 seconds, but you wish you had edited it at an earlier or later point in the main clip, you can determine the new in and out points and then simply slip it into place. Think of this as a sort of "letterbox"...the letterbox frame (meaning the surrounding clips) stays the same, but you can move the clip behind the frame to find new in and out points...sort of like how a treadmill rotates within a frame.

Final Cut 3 Quicktime Export Issue
 

I've been working on a 36 minute short and have issues exporting. I think I've tried it all.

Yesterday I exported to Quicktime with no compression, thousands of colors, 720x480, 44kHz, Stereo, 16bit. It worked. However, it needed some more work.

Today if I try that same export combo or ANY OTHER export, FC will export a movie in the specified size with audio but no image, only white. I've restarted, shut down, went out for coffee and tried it all over again.

My goal is to export from FC in full quality then compress seperately in cleaner to fit onto a CD.

Any ideas?