NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2003

Joshua Kopple · December 14th, 2003, 03:25 AM

Hey everyone,

Brief: iDVD isn't seeing chapter markers from FCP3.

Quickly trying to burn a DVD of a family vacation I slapped together of last year's holidays for this year's holidays. First project I've completed with FCP3 and I'm just trying to send it through iDVD (not DVDSP 1.5) because I need it ready tomorrow (today, Sunday evening) and I don't have time to design my own menus with DVDSP.

Having said that, before I exported as a Quicktime movie, I set chapter markers using the playhead in the timeline. Hitting "m" then "command-option-m" and checking "Add Chapter Marker" and "Add Compression Marker." A little green marker would show on the bottom edge of the timeline (as opposed to the markers that show up on the actually footage in the timeline - what is the difference between the two?). I made about 7 then exported as a quicktime movie.

iDVD: I started a project, dragged the .mov in there but no scene selection menu is created. And when I "preview," and try to click through to another chapter, it just goes to black/ends.

Am I not setting the chapter markers properly in FCP3? Am I not toggling something in iDVD? Any comments would be appreciated. Though I'll give this 13 minute film to them without chapter markers, I'd prefer to get them in there....

Joshua

Jeff Donald · December 14th, 2003, 06:49 AM

I'm not a big iDVD user, but I think you have to export a referenced FCP file and not a QuickTime. I think the conversion to QT strips the markers.

Jeff Donald · December 14th, 2003, 06:53 AM

They are supposed to be available through Software Update via System Preference. If apps that need to be updated are recognized, the correct files will be seen as available for install or download. Use the download option. Do not update over the internet.

Ken Tanaka · December 14th, 2003, 11:45 AM

Ah, I discovered what I believe Andrew actually means. There is a 1.9Mb single update titled something "Pro Apps" that's out there now. I ran it on my PowerBook. No apparent change. The update appears to be basically some sort of internal patch. (Apple's beginning to look more like Microsoft's perpetual patch factory.)

Joshua Kopple · December 14th, 2003, 12:06 PM

God bless you. Outputting it as a Final Cut Movie with chapter markers made the difference.

Problem solved.

Joshua

B. Moore · December 14th, 2003, 10:29 PM

Hi,
If you have iMovie 3.0.3 it's very easy. On the right side you have an button called photos. these are photos from the photo library of iPhoto , which you can usevery easily in iMovie 3.

I believe you can export from photoshop to iPhoto or to iPhoto imoprt from photoshop.
good luck

J. Clayton Stansberry · December 15th, 2003, 11:12 AM

Not in front of my mac at the moment, but I seem to remember having had trouble with iMoive not recognizing a file format after scanning a photo (specific to my scanning program). Check to make sure your photos are in a supported format (usually jpg is a good bet.) Good luck...

Clay

Michael Gibbons · December 15th, 2003, 11:16 AM

I have an older release of Imovie. But I'm thinking of buying the new updata of osx. I did find a way to get the pictures I needed into the project.

Thanks
MG

Heath McKnight · December 16th, 2003, 02:36 AM

I'm pricing an HD system for my next film, and I'm looking at both AJA and Decklink. (Pinnacle is out of the question, due to my experiences with various cards.)

What's better? AJA is top knotch, but I've never used Decklink (it's also a lot cheaper than AJA).

AJA

Decklink

Anyone?

heath

Dave Turner · December 16th, 2003, 04:33 PM

I just bought a new gl2 and am wondering if you guys have any recommendations on an external hd? I have a newer imac and imagine I will want an external hd soon, so I might as well buy one now. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks,

Ken Tanaka · December 16th, 2003, 05:13 PM

Congratulations on your new GL2, Dave!

There is really no "best" external drive. There are many brands and models out there.

Personally, I use drives from Wiebetech. Reliable, great customer service, wide line. I especially like the bus-powered models since they are completely powered by your Mac's Firewire bus and require no wall-wart power converters.

They are having a sale on selected models until year-end.

Jeff Patnaude · December 17th, 2003, 10:20 AM

Try <www.smalldog.com>
I bought a demo model dual 1 gig and it works great, and at a reduced price. I watched their website for a few weeks before I saw the G4 go on sale.

One word of advice- buy as much and as fast a computer as you possibly can. I suped mine up to 1 gig ram- and it was inexpensive compared to other macs I've had. I then bought extra hard drive space.

Good luck!

Jeff Patnaude

Don Berube · December 17th, 2003, 03:27 PM

Pretty neat.
http://www.ipodcleaner.com

- don

Clayton Farr · December 17th, 2003, 05:06 PM

I've also seen a lot of good reviews for this one as well:
http://www.radtech.us/icecreme.html

Glenn Chan · December 17th, 2003, 05:07 PM

The ones that use the oxford 911 bridge chipset are better than others I believe.

Larger drives are typically faster (which might reduce problems). And the extra space is always handy.

Be aware that some people have problems using firewire drives (dropped frames on capture and export). The workaround is capturing and exporting from an internal drive.

barefeats has some benchmarks on which firewire drives are faster. example: http://www.barefeats.com/fire29.html The numbers there are pretty high and not for real life situations. In practice you need a lot of headroom to capture DV without dropped frames. DV is 3.6MB/s, which is a lot lower than benchmark numbers. Yet some people have problems with firewire drives. So you need to take benchmarks with a grain of salt.

What you can do is to just buy a FW drive and refund it if it doesn't work (watch out for restocking fees!). Make sure you fill up the drive because some people report that the drive becomes problematic as it gets fuller.

December 14th, 2003, 03:25 AM	#1456
Joshua Kopple Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 29	Quick Help Appreciated - FCP3 Chapter Markers -> iDVD Hey everyone, Brief: iDVD isn't seeing chapter markers from FCP3. Quickly trying to burn a DVD of a family vacation I slapped together of last year's holidays for this year's holidays. First project I've completed with FCP3 and I'm just trying to send it through iDVD (not DVDSP 1.5) because I need it ready tomorrow (today, Sunday evening) and I don't have time to design my own menus with DVDSP. Having said that, before I exported as a Quicktime movie, I set chapter markers using the playhead in the timeline. Hitting "m" then "command-option-m" and checking "Add Chapter Marker" and "Add Compression Marker." A little green marker would show on the bottom edge of the timeline (as opposed to the markers that show up on the actually footage in the timeline - what is the difference between the two?). I made about 7 then exported as a quicktime movie. iDVD: I started a project, dragged the .mov in there but no scene selection menu is created. And when I "preview," and try to click through to another chapter, it just goes to black/ends. Am I not setting the chapter markers properly in FCP3? Am I not toggling something in iDVD? Any comments would be appreciated. Though I'll give this 13 minute film to them without chapter markers, I'd prefer to get them in there.... Joshua

December 14th, 2003, 06:49 AM	#1457
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	I'm not a big iDVD user, but I think you have to export a referenced FCP file and not a QuickTime. I think the conversion to QT strips the markers. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

December 14th, 2003, 06:53 AM	#1458
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	They are supposed to be available through Software Update via System Preference. If apps that need to be updated are recognized, the correct files will be seen as available for install or download. Use the download option. Do not update over the internet. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

December 14th, 2003, 11:45 AM	#1459
Ken Tanaka Retired DV Info Net Almunus Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,943	Ah, I discovered what I believe Andrew actually means. There is a 1.9Mb single update titled something "Pro Apps" that's out there now. I ran it on my PowerBook. No apparent change. The update appears to be basically some sort of internal patch. (Apple's beginning to look more like Microsoft's perpetual patch factory.) __________________ 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

December 14th, 2003, 12:06 PM	#1460
Joshua Kopple Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 29	You're a genius. God bless you. Outputting it as a Final Cut Movie with chapter markers made the difference. Problem solved. Joshua

December 14th, 2003, 10:29 PM	#1461
B. Moore Major Player Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Glendale, AZ Posts: 181	Please help- is there a way... Hi, If you have iMovie 3.0.3 it's very easy. On the right side you have an button called photos. these are photos from the photo library of iPhoto , which you can usevery easily in iMovie 3. I believe you can export from photoshop to iPhoto or to iPhoto imoprt from photoshop. good luck

December 15th, 2003, 11:12 AM	#1462
J. Clayton Stansberry Major Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Colorado Posts: 316	Not in front of my mac at the moment, but I seem to remember having had trouble with iMoive not recognizing a file format after scanning a photo (specific to my scanning program). Check to make sure your photos are in a supported format (usually jpg is a good bet.) Good luck... Clay __________________ I understand everything about nothing.

December 15th, 2003, 11:16 AM	#1463
Michael Gibbons Major Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Loveland, Colorado, USA Posts: 292	good to know I have an older release of Imovie. But I'm thinking of buying the new updata of osx. I did find a way to get the pictures I needed into the project. Thanks MG __________________ " When some wild-eyed, eight foot tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head against a bar room wall, and looks you crooked in the eye, and he asks you if you've payed your dues, well, you just stare that big suker right back in the eye, and you remember what old Jack Burton always says at a time like that, 'Have you paid your dues, Jack? Yes sir, the check is in the mail."

December 16th, 2003, 02:36 AM	#1464
Heath McKnight MPS Digital Studios Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Palm Beach County, Florida Posts: 8,531	What's better, AJA or Decklink? I'm pricing an HD system for my next film, and I'm looking at both AJA and Decklink. (Pinnacle is out of the question, due to my experiences with various cards.) What's better? AJA is top knotch, but I've never used Decklink (it's also a lot cheaper than AJA). AJA Decklink Anyone? heath __________________ My Final Cut Pro X blog

December 16th, 2003, 04:33 PM	#1465
Dave Turner Tourist Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: United States Posts: 4	Best external hd to use with gl2 and a mac? I just bought a new gl2 and am wondering if you guys have any recommendations on an external hd? I have a newer imac and imagine I will want an external hd soon, so I might as well buy one now. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks,

December 16th, 2003, 05:13 PM	#1466
Ken Tanaka Retired DV Info Net Almunus Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,943	Congratulations on your new GL2, Dave! There is really no "best" external drive. There are many brands and models out there. Personally, I use drives from Wiebetech. Reliable, great customer service, wide line. I especially like the bus-powered models since they are completely powered by your Mac's Firewire bus and require no wall-wart power converters. They are having a sale on selected models until year-end. __________________ 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

December 17th, 2003, 10:20 AM	#1467
Jeff Patnaude Major Player Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Duluth, Georgia Posts: 248	Try <www.smalldog.com> I bought a demo model dual 1 gig and it works great, and at a reduced price. I watched their website for a few weeks before I saw the G4 go on sale. One word of advice- buy as much and as fast a computer as you possibly can. I suped mine up to 1 gig ram- and it was inexpensive compared to other macs I've had. I then bought extra hard drive space. Good luck! Jeff Patnaude

December 17th, 2003, 03:27 PM	#1468
Don Berube Moderator Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Boston, MA (travel frequently) Posts: 837	Repair scratches on iPod or iBook Pretty neat. http://www.ipodcleaner.com - don __________________ DONALD BERUBE - noisybrain. Productions, LLC Director Of Photography/ Producer/ Consultant http://noisybrain.com/donbio.html CREATE and NETWORK with http://www.bosfcpug.org and also http://fcpugnetwork.org

December 17th, 2003, 05:06 PM	#1469
Clayton Farr Contributor Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Salt Lake City, UT Posts: 94	I've also seen a lot of good reviews for this one as well: http://www.radtech.us/icecreme.html

December 17th, 2003, 05:07 PM	#1470
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	The ones that use the oxford 911 bridge chipset are better than others I believe. Larger drives are typically faster (which might reduce problems). And the extra space is always handy. Be aware that some people have problems using firewire drives (dropped frames on capture and export). The workaround is capturing and exporting from an internal drive. barefeats has some benchmarks on which firewire drives are faster. example: http://www.barefeats.com/fire29.html The numbers there are pretty high and not for real life situations. In practice you need a lot of headroom to capture DV without dropped frames. DV is 3.6MB/s, which is a lot lower than benchmark numbers. Yet some people have problems with firewire drives. So you need to take benchmarks with a grain of salt. What you can do is to just buy a FW drive and refund it if it doesn't work (watch out for restocking fees!). Make sure you fill up the drive because some people report that the drive becomes problematic as it gets fuller.