NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2003

[Nicky Loi]

Hi everyone,

I upgraded to OS X recently (Jaguar) and continued working with FCP 3 for OS X. The editing bit's fine, and in fact great because I can open up other apps but not worry about depleting too much memory. But I did notice when the editing's done, and I export to tape, the audio is often scratchy, and the video is sometimes stepping enough to notice, but not to get the "Dropped Frames" notice to kick in. I've tried exporting as a DV stream and then running it as a single clip (instead of reading all the cuts and transitions) but it's failed. Finally I just booted on 9 and it runs smoother, as intended.

Any suggestion on how to remedy this? I've locked the timeline, exported to DV, unchecked the playback on the computer, quit all the other apps, and won't run OS9 in the background. I think it's mostly the speed of my iMac. 400 MHZ G3. Thanks.

Nicky Loi

[Jeff Donald]

How much ram do you have? I would max it out (1 gig) if you haven't yet.

[Rob Jacobs]

I'm using fcp 3 on a g4 400 with 320 megs of ram. Render time is horrendous. My question is will upgrading to just a 800 processor and another 512 ram make much difference. I know you need at least a 500 for real-time effects. I can't afford more than an 800 upgrade at the moment so I'm wondering if it's worth it?

[Jake Miner]

i was wondering if anyone could shed some light on whether or not powerbooks are good for editing. i was looking at the g4 powerbook to start editing on. also, what should the minimun requirements for a machine to do editing on be and would the g4 powerbook or even ibook be ok for that? thanks

[Jeff Donald]

What are you trying to render? Some rendering is more processor intensive, some memory intensive. But if you boost both, you will see an overall increase in performance. Your upgrade should just about double your system performance. The biggest gains would come from upgrading to dual processors. But if it's not in the budget, cutting your render times almost is half isn't bad.

[Jeff Donald]

What software are you going to use to edit with? That will really determine the appropriateness of the PowerBook for editing.

[Jake Miner]

i also dont know what software i should use, but id probably use final cut pro

[Nicholi Brossia]

I'm sure this is a common topic, but I couldn't find an exact answer through searching. So if anyone can point me in a general direction, I'd appreciate it.

I have recently made a couple small video productions that are intended to be mailed out on cd and eventually downloadable from the web. Right now, I am running Final Cut Express on a 1.25dp G4 (I don't know if that makes a difference). I plan to upgrade to Final Cut Pro 4 soon, and would like to use a full-blown compression program such as Sorenson or Cleaner as well. Everytime I read more about FCP4 I see more and more that it is capable of, thus eliminating the need for extra programs. So I guess my question is this... Is FCP4 alone good enough to handle what I plan to do?

Also, it seems so far that one big hang up, at least with FCE, is exporting a video file to a format that both Quicktime and Windows Media Player can play. Right now I'm asking everyone to download Quicktime so they can view the file, but I'm afraid this might be viewed as an inconvenience to some people. Is there anyway to avoid this "inconvenience" by saving to a format viewable to both players?

I've done some basic research and experimenting on this topic, I'm still just getting started with all of this, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks
nicholi

[Ken Tanaka]

Nicholi,
No, not really. Neither FCP nor FCE are compression applications, per se. They can work though Quicktime Pro to export compressed sequences but that facility is fairly limited.

You'll need to invest in a top-notch compression app like Cleaner 6 in order to effectively accomplish your complex goals of producing multi-format streams and video cd's. You'll probably also need an app like Toast to burn decent video cd's.

[David Hurdon]

In a PC environment I've been doing what you describe, using the 185 MB miniCD-rs so that I can mail in a letter envelope at letter rates (using vinyl sleeves, not jewel cases). I use MPEG1 because both Mac and PC recognize it. My experience has been that on a Mac the format calls up the Quick Time player and on a PC Windows Media Player.
Depending on the length of the production downloading these files from the web can be a chore - and you might want to export a web-friendly version for the purpose. My site stats tell me that 90% of my visitors use Internet Explorer so I'm comfortable with the .wmv file format. If you have the disk space on your server you can of course include QT versions too.

David Hurdon

[Shawn Mielke]

I too am interested the power book, indeed, the laptop in general, as editing suite, what softwares seem to work well with which, etc.

[Jeff Donald]

I think if you're using a Mac FCP is the way to go. Avid has some interesting features, but FCP 4 has more features for the money vs. Avid. You wouldn't go wrong with either one. FCP allows off line editing at a lower resolution. This allows you to capture more footage and do the edit at low res. When the edit is done, using the media manager, you can recapture just the high res footage needed for the edit. This helps with limited disk space on a laptop.

[Rik Sanchez]

I use FCP 3 on my 800mhz iBook using the RT Offline mode and it has worked okay. I later transfer the edited version to my G4 and recapture at full DV rez.

If you haven't gotten your laptop yet, be sure to get the extended warranty. I didn't but I still have 4 months left on my one year Apple warranty, it seems with the iBooks the logic boards goes out on them, I haven't checked out the powerbooks logic board failure rate. But with laptops, there seems to be more that can go wrong with them so save yourself a lot of grief and get the extra protection. I'm going to get an extended warranty from the Apple repair shop I dropped off my iBook at so when my Apple warranty goes out, it will be under the shop's warranty($120 a year). They told me the logic board repair would normally be a $500 repair.

If you plan on using FCP 4, the minimum requirements is a G4, 667 MHz and above for the powerbook, so that leaves out using an iBook, although FCP 3 will work okay on an iBook.

And if you get the laptop, don't forget an airport card. One of my favorite things to do when I'm out and about is looking for wi-fi spots.

Sorry I went off the thread a bit, but hope this info helps.

[Najeeb Mirza]

I'm looking to purchase an LCD monitor for NLE on my Mac but see a myriad of brand name and dot pitch options. 19" LCD monitors at .29 dot pitch are about half the price of 20" .26 dot pitch ones. For video editing, is the dot pitch difference important? I mean, should one look at purchasing the finer dot pitch of the 20" for NLE, or look instead at two 19" LCD monitors to increase the workspace available? Any suggestions for brand names that are good for NLE?

Najeeb

[Glenn Chan]

Dual monitors are definitely useful. It should give you more screen area (even if you factor in some inefficiency of having 2 monitors). Bin and viewer on one monitor is one way to do dual monitors.