NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2003

Jeff Donald · June 30th, 2003, 04:18 PM

Try log and capture, rather than batch capture. If that doesn't do it, you are trying to capture a clip longer than the space you have or perhaps an error on your drive (directory error etc.). Three gigs is only about 15 minutes of space. Use Disk Warrior on the questionable drive if you suspect a drive error.

Filling up a drive more than 80% is also not recommended. Dropped frames can occur and system errors can also occur.

Simon Plissi · June 30th, 2003, 06:10 PM

Xl1 (not s)
Lacie D2 FireWire hard drive

Anybody with the same set-up as me?

If so can you capture to the drive with the camera connected to the hard drive which in turn is connected to your Mac? If so please can you let me know. And specifically what size hard drive you have and what Mac. Mine is the 200GB version drive and a TiBook 1GHz/SD.

This is following on from my earlier post here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=11326

I still can't capture when it's connected in this way on either on my TiBook or B&W G3, in either FCP 3 or iMovie.

Tested the drives speed using the included Lacie software and that seems to be fine, but according to Lacie it could be my XL1. According to them some cameras saturate the FireWire bus, or something like that, which will not allow me to successfully capture in this way.

Went over to a friends the other day to see his set up and he could capture with his XM2 (GL2), 150GB Lacie D2 FW HD connected in a similar fashion to his CTR iMac.

When I get a chance I'll take my kit over to do some testing with his cam and drive, but until then could anyone with the same set-up as me please let me know how successful your captures have been. I'd be most grateful.

David Crompton · June 30th, 2003, 08:41 PM

Thanks. I was using log and capture so maybe do to that partition be nearly full or maybe due to some other disk error...

Jeff Donald · July 1st, 2003, 01:09 PM

I read your other post and links. I, too have tracked down dropped frame and stutter issues to bad FireWire cables. I would try a different cable before anything else. You may save yourself a lot of frustration. I would also wipe your media drive and partition it, rather than having one large partition. Put nothing but media on the one partition. Mixing media with other files is asking for trouble.

Simon Plissi · July 2nd, 2003, 04:50 AM

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for replying. I picked up a new 4-6 pin cable to connect my XL1 to the FW hard drive, which didn't solve the problem. Perhaps the FW cable from the hard drive to the Mac could be at fault? I'll check that out next, as well as your other suggestions.

What gets me is that all these years I've been using a Mac as well as capturing video through FW I was always the one who never had any problems. Now that I've advised some friends on what to get I have the problems and they're fine!

Bud Kuenzli · July 2nd, 2003, 04:23 PM

If you disk is heavily fragmented it becomes worse as it gets more crowded. You might use the Diskwarrior defragmenting tool, or the Norton defragging tool, or you can back it up, wipe it out and restore it to defrag it.
before doing that be sure to run disk first aide and DiskWarrior to make sure the problem isn't directory related.
If it is on the same hard drive that FCP is on (you are capturing to the same drive but just a different partition) then that could be the problem. Creating a different partition is not the same as capturing to a different hard drive. It may "look" like a different hard drive but it isn't and the head still has to travel back and forth. The idea is to capture to a different hard drive than your FCP/OSX (or9) hard drive...not just a different partition.

Curtis T. Stoeber · July 2nd, 2003, 06:21 PM

What I usually do is edit the video so that it does what I want (let's say it is 1 minute long before it loops). Then in Photoshop I create the text for the menu with a blank layer at 720x480. I then import the PSD into Final Cut Pro and lay it on top of the minute long video and render. Export the video as an .m2v file. Take it into DVD Studio Pro and create a new menu and select that video file. Make sure the "Simple overlay" is on and choose some colors. Then create your buttons in DVD-SP.

This will result in the fastest menu you can do. If you keep the PSD file native in DVD-SP with many different layers, it will respond VERY slowly when in a real DVD player. Yes, it can look nicer, but I don't like the cursor moving down a second or two AFTER I press it.

Takeshi Fukushima · July 2nd, 2003, 06:49 PM

We have an 73 minutes worth of footage to print out on tape.
The thing is , with Firewire DV, it seems there is a dropped frame and the audio and video are out of sync. We go around to use the Cinewave to rerecord on to Digi beta. Is anyone familiar with this problem with long footage? Can someone tell me if there is a good help page for this.
Thanks in Advance.
Takeshi

Matt Stahley · July 2nd, 2003, 07:49 PM

Thanks Curtis I never thought about doing it that way. I will give it a shot.

John Locke · July 2nd, 2003, 08:49 PM

Takeshi,

There could be a lot of reasons for that...would you mind posting your computer/software specs? That'll help us to have a better idea of what the problem is.

Matthew Kaplan · July 2nd, 2003, 09:19 PM

I'm on the verge of buying the DVX-100, but at this time I don't have enough funds to buy the camera and a new computer to edit with Final Cut Pro 4.

See I own an ibook 500 G3 with FCP 3. So FCP 4 requires me to buy a whole new computer as well as the upgrade. Even with an Emac that is still a large sum at this point.

Anyone, if I can afford to upgrade my computer, will using the DVX-100 be a pain in the ass for editing?

I see no advantage to edit in 24 fps mode, so I assume I can still editi in 29.97, but do I have to do anything.

My understand was the footage recorded on to the Mini-Dv tape is 29.97, but the 24 info is also stored on there, so you can get the footage to be in 24 if you so desired.

So if I wanted to shoot on 24p, but edit in 29.97 using Final Cut Pro 3, should I have no problems?

I jsut want the film look that 24 gives you, but since I don't plan on going to film I see no need to edit in 24fps.

thanks for any education you can give me.

Thank you.

Jeff Donald · July 2nd, 2003, 10:03 PM

I have a notice stuck near the top of the DVX100 Forum with some links that should help. If you have additional questions post back here and I'll try to help.

Matthew Kaplan · July 2nd, 2003, 11:03 PM

I didn't see any notice about Final Cut Pro 3... I saw one about 4 that linkes to the Apple website.

Basically I just want to know if I buy this camera, and shoot in one of their 24 modes, can I edit the footage using FCP 3?

What are the steps?

Can I pop the tape I recorded on the DVX-100 into my Sony deck and import the footage like I always have before.

Takeshi Fukushima · July 3rd, 2003, 12:39 AM

John,
ahh, you're in Tokyo too?

here it is.
one G4 1G dual OSX with Cinewave Final cut pro 3.0
37GB OS HD, over a tera of raid HD, 120GB Firewire HD,
one G4 OSX with Final cut pro 3.0
20GB OS HD, 115GB for video storage.
We do split the sequence into different pieces, but there seems to be jumps on the audio when printing to tape. Seems to happen to both machines. This did not happen to other projects, just this long one. This is strange.
Takeshi

John Locke · July 3rd, 2003, 01:36 AM

Takeshi,

Yes...I'm in Hakozakicho. I'll send you my phone number by e-mail... we should talk sometime.

Now, about your problem. First, the dropped frames...it's possible to get a dropped frames warning when there haven't actually been any dropped frames. This happens sometimes when other processes are running on the computer, such as your e-mail being checked automatically, etc. You'll see that the "dropped frames error" box has popped up. But if you click to "continue" and then later check, sometimes you'll find that there's no dropped frames at all...the footage looks fine. So, my first recommendation is to continue rendering to the end and then check to see if there actually is a problem. Have you done that? Let us know. If so, we'll try to come up with another option.

About the audio being out of sync...have you selected the "Sync Audio" option in your FCP preferences? If that is selected, that'll help your audio stay matched to your video. Have you done that? If not...give it a try and let us know if that works. If it doesn't work, I do something very "low tech" that seems to work. I'll just cut the video and audio at certain intervals...unnoticeable in the final product.

If none of the above helps, we'll get some of the FCP wizards involved. It's nighttime in the U.S., so as soon as morning hits maybe we can get Jeff Donald or Ken Tanaka to chime in with their ideas.

June 30th, 2003, 04:18 PM	#676
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	Try log and capture, rather than batch capture. If that doesn't do it, you are trying to capture a clip longer than the space you have or perhaps an error on your drive (directory error etc.). Three gigs is only about 15 minutes of space. Use Disk Warrior on the questionable drive if you suspect a drive error. Filling up a drive more than 80% is also not recommended. Dropped frames can occur and system errors can also occur. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

June 30th, 2003, 06:10 PM	#677
Simon Plissi Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: London, UK Posts: 105	XL1 plus Lacie D2 FW HD Owners? Xl1 (not s) Lacie D2 FireWire hard drive Anybody with the same set-up as me? If so can you capture to the drive with the camera connected to the hard drive which in turn is connected to your Mac? If so please can you let me know. And specifically what size hard drive you have and what Mac. Mine is the 200GB version drive and a TiBook 1GHz/SD. This is following on from my earlier post here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=11326 I still can't capture when it's connected in this way on either on my TiBook or B&W G3, in either FCP 3 or iMovie. Tested the drives speed using the included Lacie software and that seems to be fine, but according to Lacie it could be my XL1. According to them some cameras saturate the FireWire bus, or something like that, which will not allow me to successfully capture in this way. Went over to a friends the other day to see his set up and he could capture with his XM2 (GL2), 150GB Lacie D2 FW HD connected in a similar fashion to his CTR iMac. When I get a chance I'll take my kit over to do some testing with his cam and drive, but until then could anyone with the same set-up as me please let me know how successful your captures have been. I'd be most grateful.

July 1st, 2003, 01:09 PM	#679
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	I read your other post and links. I, too have tracked down dropped frame and stutter issues to bad FireWire cables. I would try a different cable before anything else. You may save yourself a lot of frustration. I would also wipe your media drive and partition it, rather than having one large partition. Put nothing but media on the one partition. Mixing media with other files is asking for trouble. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

July 2nd, 2003, 04:23 PM	#681
Bud Kuenzli Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: North Pole, Alaska Posts: 197	fragged? If you disk is heavily fragmented it becomes worse as it gets more crowded. You might use the Diskwarrior defragmenting tool, or the Norton defragging tool, or you can back it up, wipe it out and restore it to defrag it. before doing that be sure to run disk first aide and DiskWarrior to make sure the problem isn't directory related. If it is on the same hard drive that FCP is on (you are capturing to the same drive but just a different partition) then that could be the problem. Creating a different partition is not the same as capturing to a different hard drive. It may "look" like a different hard drive but it isn't and the head still has to travel back and forth. The idea is to capture to a different hard drive than your FCP/OSX (or9) hard drive...not just a different partition. __________________ on the Internet, when you get where you're going you still don't know where you are

July 2nd, 2003, 06:49 PM	#683
Takeshi Fukushima Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Tokyo, Japan Posts: 86	DVD authoring. We have an 73 minutes worth of footage to print out on tape. The thing is , with Firewire DV, it seems there is a dropped frame and the audio and video are out of sync. We go around to use the Cinewave to rerecord on to Digi beta. Is anyone familiar with this problem with long footage? Can someone tell me if there is a good help page for this. Thanks in Advance. Takeshi

June 30th, 2003, 08:41 PM	#678
David Crompton New Boot Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Vancouver Posts: 17	Thanks. I was using log and capture so maybe do to that partition be nearly full or maybe due to some other disk error...

July 2nd, 2003, 04:50 AM	#680
Simon Plissi Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: London, UK Posts: 105	Hi Jeff, Thanks for replying. I picked up a new 4-6 pin cable to connect my XL1 to the FW hard drive, which didn't solve the problem. Perhaps the FW cable from the hard drive to the Mac could be at fault? I'll check that out next, as well as your other suggestions. What gets me is that all these years I've been using a Mac as well as capturing video through FW I was always the one who never had any problems. Now that I've advised some friends on what to get I have the problems and they're fine!

July 2nd, 2003, 06:21 PM	#682
Curtis T. Stoeber Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Lakewood Colorado USA Posts: 150	What I usually do is edit the video so that it does what I want (let's say it is 1 minute long before it loops). Then in Photoshop I create the text for the menu with a blank layer at 720x480. I then import the PSD into Final Cut Pro and lay it on top of the minute long video and render. Export the video as an .m2v file. Take it into DVD Studio Pro and create a new menu and select that video file. Make sure the "Simple overlay" is on and choose some colors. Then create your buttons in DVD-SP. This will result in the fastest menu you can do. If you keep the PSD file native in DVD-SP with many different layers, it will respond VERY slowly when in a real DVD player. Yes, it can look nicer, but I don't like the cursor moving down a second or two AFTER I press it.

July 2nd, 2003, 07:49 PM	#684
Matt Stahley Major Player Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Waynesboro, PA Posts: 648	Thanks Curtis I never thought about doing it that way. I will give it a shot.

July 2nd, 2003, 08:49 PM	#685
John Locke Retired DV Info Net Almunus Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Austin, TX USA Posts: 2,882	Takeshi, There could be a lot of reasons for that...would you mind posting your computer/software specs? That'll help us to have a better idea of what the problem is. __________________ John Locke SursumFilms.com

July 2nd, 2003, 09:19 PM	#686
Matthew Kaplan Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: United States Posts: 60	DVX-100 and Final Cut Pro 3 I'm on the verge of buying the DVX-100, but at this time I don't have enough funds to buy the camera and a new computer to edit with Final Cut Pro 4. See I own an ibook 500 G3 with FCP 3. So FCP 4 requires me to buy a whole new computer as well as the upgrade. Even with an Emac that is still a large sum at this point. Anyone, if I can afford to upgrade my computer, will using the DVX-100 be a pain in the ass for editing? I see no advantage to edit in 24 fps mode, so I assume I can still editi in 29.97, but do I have to do anything. My understand was the footage recorded on to the Mini-Dv tape is 29.97, but the 24 info is also stored on there, so you can get the footage to be in 24 if you so desired. So if I wanted to shoot on 24p, but edit in 29.97 using Final Cut Pro 3, should I have no problems? I jsut want the film look that 24 gives you, but since I don't plan on going to film I see no need to edit in 24fps. thanks for any education you can give me. Thank you.

July 2nd, 2003, 10:03 PM	#687
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	I have a notice stuck near the top of the DVX100 Forum with some links that should help. If you have additional questions post back here and I'll try to help. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

July 2nd, 2003, 11:03 PM	#688
Matthew Kaplan Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: United States Posts: 60	I didn't see any notice about Final Cut Pro 3... I saw one about 4 that linkes to the Apple website. Basically I just want to know if I buy this camera, and shoot in one of their 24 modes, can I edit the footage using FCP 3? What are the steps? Can I pop the tape I recorded on the DVX-100 into my Sony deck and import the footage like I always have before.

July 3rd, 2003, 12:39 AM	#689
Takeshi Fukushima Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Tokyo, Japan Posts: 86	specs John, ahh, you're in Tokyo too? here it is. one G4 1G dual OSX with Cinewave Final cut pro 3.0 37GB OS HD, over a tera of raid HD, 120GB Firewire HD, one G4 OSX with Final cut pro 3.0 20GB OS HD, 115GB for video storage. We do split the sequence into different pieces, but there seems to be jumps on the audio when printing to tape. Seems to happen to both machines. This did not happen to other projects, just this long one. This is strange. Takeshi

July 3rd, 2003, 01:36 AM	#690
John Locke Retired DV Info Net Almunus Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Austin, TX USA Posts: 2,882	Takeshi, Yes...I'm in Hakozakicho. I'll send you my phone number by e-mail... we should talk sometime. Now, about your problem. First, the dropped frames...it's possible to get a dropped frames warning when there haven't actually been any dropped frames. This happens sometimes when other processes are running on the computer, such as your e-mail being checked automatically, etc. You'll see that the "dropped frames error" box has popped up. But if you click to "continue" and then later check, sometimes you'll find that there's no dropped frames at all...the footage looks fine. So, my first recommendation is to continue rendering to the end and then check to see if there actually is a problem. Have you done that? Let us know. If so, we'll try to come up with another option. About the audio being out of sync...have you selected the "Sync Audio" option in your FCP preferences? If that is selected, that'll help your audio stay matched to your video. Have you done that? If not...give it a try and let us know if that works. If it doesn't work, I do something very "low tech" that seems to work. I'll just cut the video and audio at certain intervals...unnoticeable in the final product. If none of the above helps, we'll get some of the FCP wizards involved. It's nighttime in the U.S., so as soon as morning hits maybe we can get Jeff Donald or Ken Tanaka to chime in with their ideas. __________________ John Locke SursumFilms.com