Blackmagic Decklink SD
 

Is anyone using the Blackmagic Decklink SD card on a Mac with FCP 4 ? I am considering buying it soon, but am looking for some reviews... Have you got experience with the "Jpeg Online" codec and color correction filters (better in 4:2:2 than with a standard DV codec ?).
Cheers,

JDB

Capture as one whole thing and use scene detection to split it into subclips.

counting edits
 

is there a way to have final cut 3 count the edits in a timeline?

If you draw all your timeline contents into a bin you can see how many clips you have. Not sure if this will help you. What exactly are you trying to do?

just curious as to how many edits i have in my current project and im to lazy to count them.

FCP4 bringing 30 into a program set for 24
 

Hey DV thundercats:

I am in the middle of editing a feature shot with the Panasonic DVX-100 in 24p advanced mode. I have some old 16mm film footage on VHS that I am trying to incorporate into my story. Does anyone know how to mix footage shot in 30 into a program set to edit in 24? I tried and it looks terrible and gives me massive split screens.

I would appreciate if anyone had any insight. Thank you.

-JOSH MITCHELL
http://wickidpissaboston.iuma.com

Or you could just change the in and out points on the master clip each time before you drop it on the time line.

Premiere Pro (7) for Mac?
 

Near as I can tell there is no Premiere Pro (version 7) for the Mac. We are using Premiere 6 right now. If there are not going to be further updates to Premiere for the Macintosh, would it be best to migrate to Final Cut Pro 4?

Strangely enough, it might be easier for us to get a new editing system with FCP4 then to ask for updates of system software. Particularly if our editing software is no longer supported.

We have a G4 (700someMHz model) w/20gig media drives OS 9.2
Thanks.

-Marcus

Apple had a promotion going where you send in your Premiere disc and get FCExpress for free or discounted Final Cut Pro.

Final Cut is a great program- much better than Premiere in my opinion. A lot of pros are using FCP. A single processor 700mhz G4 might be a bit slow, but it really depends on how much speed you need. You are not going to get much RT effects (1 layer maybe?) and the program will be sluggish on large projects.

There are some great NLEs on the PC side too. A PC can be very cheap and powerful if you build it yourself. If you're coming from the Mac side then that's probably not for you.

Maybe you can use cinema tools to remove 3:2 pulldown.

I sorta recall reading somewhere that Adobe has discontinued developement on Premier for Mac because of the impact FCP has made on Premier/Mac version sales.......


....but continues development on other Adobe products (I recall reading more licensed Photoshop/Mac licenses than other platform/sales)...so Adobe is still in the Mac software realm but has bitten the bullet when it comes to Premier...


...correct me if other information proves this wrong.

Everything is correct, Steve and Glenn. However, after scouring the Apple Store for the dates of the Premiere Promotion, it appears that it may have expired. I could find no information on the offer.

I don't have Cinema Tools right in front of me right now, so I'll try this from memory:

On your 16mm video, after it is transfered over to DV, make sure it has 3:2 pulldown. In other words, it should go:
frame-frame-frame-jitter-jitter (repeat)... you may need to select "High Quality" under the video attributes of the Quicktime file itself to see the jitter frames... otherwise DV QT's only show you a single field at a time and that's why they look fuzzy.

If the two jitter frames are the first two frames on the DV video (make it so they are), open it with Cinema Tools and see select "Reverse Telecine". Now you have a bunch of drop menus and radio buttons. See the set of buttons toward the bottom (there should be 5 in a row) that say something like (this is what I can't remember) AB BC BB CC or some jive like that? Well select the middle button. Don't change anything else. Press change or save or whatever button it is and Cinema Tools will create a version of your DV Quicktime with a REV suffix. You can import that into the 24 timeline and it'll work fine.

Go FCP - I left premiere with FCP version 1, and have enjoyed every minute of it. It also helps that I left premiere with the version 5 fiasco!

Partitioning drive
 

Hi all Need some advice on partitioning my little 60GIG drive for FCP and DVD studio Pro. Such as should I bother or can I set my little 60 gig drive up to work with these applications, or is it possible for it to run on a single drive with the OS and FCP AND media files all on the same drive
Thanks Dave LeBlanc