NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2004

[Jen Dougherty]

Can anyone help me? This is probably a simple matter, but I'm relatively new to FCP4 and never had this problem with v1.2. If there is a timecode break in my miniDV tape, I cannot seem to capture the footage after the break (when the timecode starts back at '0'). I've tried Batch capture and capture now, but nothing seems to work. I'm guessing this is a simple Preferences setting, or is there something I can do when I'm shooting to get rid of timecode breaks? Whenever I look at the footage and start again, even if I overlap with the previous footage, there's a break. Thanks so much for your help!

[Pat Chaney]

Have you tried changing the FCP setting of User Preferences -> General -> on timecode break? I don't understand why you get timecode breaks if you overlap with previous footage though. I suggest that you check the camera settings too.

[Jeff Donald]

Call apple for a definitive answer, but to my understanding the new QT key will not work with older versions.

[Duane Martin]

Justin, this is entirely possible in FCP, but how good is it going to look? That depends on how careful you are at planning the shots, getting the shots, and how adept you are at using the tools. Well, and how complex the shot/effect is going to be. Does the effect follow hard on your characters butt or follow a couple steps behind? Is your camera moving or locked? What are you shooting on? What are you delivering on? I can imagine scenerios where this would work well in FCP, and others where it would require more fit-to-purpose compositing software.

Here is a crazy idea. Try shooting a practice reel of this and seeing what you can do! Take it to your local Final Cut Pro Users Group and ask for some advice. Post clips to your .Mac site and ask people to take a shot at it. Hire an a cinematographer that knows this kind of work, a director, an editor, someone, anyone, with some experience.

And make sure to post your work-in-progress asking for advice. Who knows, it might be easier than any would think with all the help available.

[Stylianos Moschapidakis]

Thank you Jeff.

[Zareh Tjeknavorian]

Hi Graeme,

A belated thank you for your reply.

[Zareh Tjeknavorian]

I'm editing PAL 16:9 material on a mac in NTSC land. We are trying to determine what additional hardware we need to be self sufficient in post. Do we need a multisystem DVD recorder to output for both PAL and NTSC audiences? And what kind of PAL monitor is recommended?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as always.

[Robert Simon]

I just finished a football highlight reel for my son's team and stumbled upon something strange to me. I edit in FCE and generally use "color corrector" and "desaturate" filters to improve the look a bit (but I'm no expert). In FCE, there is no gamma adjustment within the color corrrector, just the ability to adjust highs, mids, lows and white balance.

Since I know very little about gamma, other than understanding that it can be tweaked to make video look more like film, I thought I would apply a "gamma correction" filter to a clip set at 25% speed. This gamma filter in FCE only has a slider that can be adjusted from the the default of 1.00 to say .50 which makes it brighter, or 1.25 which makes it darker.

Funny thing is, when I set it at 1.25 and rendered the clip, the slo-mo suddenly looked much smoother (and a bit darker). The difference was more than subtle, and I wish I had tried this before burning 15 copies of my DVD!

Can anyone explain what is going on? Note that I didn't do any sort of de-interlace on the footage.

[Don Berube]

Here's one solution which allows you to hide a dead pixel in footage using the "DH_Reincarnation" Plug-In for Final Cut Pro. Allows you to hide two (2) dead pixels at a time.
http://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/fina...gins_flash.htm
Plug-in cost: $10
(There's also a nice video tutorial demo of the plug-in on the Digital Heaven website)

Spread the word to anyone you know who needs a bit of dead pixel relief!

Lots of other highly useful and affordable plug-ins from Digital Heaven, including the "DH_Dropout" plug-in, which allows you to repair dropouts in footage much easier and better than before.

- don

[Donie Kelly]

Hi all

I know this issue has been discussed to death here but I've created a DVD using FCP and I'm using 16:9. It looks ok in final cut but I export the video to dvdsp3 using compressor as an mpeg2 120min two pass template.

When I view the mpeg file it appears stretched, to be expected I think. However, when i import into dvdsp3 it still appears squished even though I have selected 16:9 as the project format. I'm not sure, the options are 4:3 letterboxed or 4:3 pan and scan or both???? Which one should I select???

When i play the created dvd in my standard phillips Q40 dvd player it doesn't letterbox. I am forced to select widescreen on the tv to view it properly. Even when i tell the dvd player my tv is 4:3 the output is the same, no letterbox.

Have i missed something??? I'm worried that the fact that it appears as 4:3 (squished) in dvdsp3 is the problem?

Can anybody shed soem light on this? I know it's been talked about before but I'm obviously missing something I guess?

Thanks
Donie

[Justin Sammarco]

<<<-- Originally posted by Duane Martin : Justin, this is entirely possible in FCP, but how good is it going to look? That depends on how careful you are at planning the shots, getting the shots, and how adept you are at using the tools. Well, and how complex the shot/effect is going to be. Does the effect follow hard on your characters butt or follow a couple steps behind? Is your camera moving or locked? What are you shooting on? What are you delivering on? I can imagine scenerios where this would work well in FCP, and others where it would require more fit-to-purpose compositing software.

Here is a crazy idea. Try shooting a practice reel of this and seeing what you can do! Take it to your local Final Cut Pro Users Group and ask for some advice. Post clips to your .Mac site and ask people to take a shot at it. Hire an a cinematographer that knows this kind of work, a director, an editor, someone, anyone, with some experience.

And make sure to post your work-in-progress asking for advice. Who knows, it might be easier than any would think with all the help available. -->>>

thank you I will take that into consideration. Much thanks

[Robert Flanagan]

I have shot a feature on a SONY TVR 900 in the standard mode, looks great, but I heard that a more film- like motion can be had by rendering with programs such as Magic Bullet. Has any body tried this program or do you have any advice about making DV look more film like. THANKS-Robert

[Graeme Nattress]

Magic Bullet for Editors, for FCP does not do the 24p part of film look. Check out my Film Effects at www.nattress.com for a true 24p effect, and faster rendering than Magic Bullet. You could also use DV Film Maker which does a 24p effect. I'd adivse to download the demos of all, and email the authors with your questions and see what their tech support is like. Check out the quality of the 24p effect too.

Graeme

[Donie Kelly]

Hi all

Does anybody know what the implications of turning on the macrovision bit for dvd's you burn yourself. DVDSP3 warns of patent or whatever on macrovision but the checkbox is allowed to switch. I've looked on the macrovision site but it gives very little away and I cannot get a return call from their sales guy in the uk (I've tried him 4 or 5 times today but all i get is voice mail).


Do I need to pay royalties to them to switch on this feature? Does it work for DVD-R burned in a powerbook?

I'd appreciate some info...
thanks
Donie

[Donie Kelly]

Not an expert but maybe blue screen the peron walking in the same area with a screen behind her so that your camera angles are correct. Maybe there are better ways, I don't know.

Then shoot the before for the before, change the layout (whatever) and shoot again. If you don't move the camera it should be ok as regards position.

Tehn show the before room with transition to the after shot . I'm sure you can find a tranisition that follows the person who is moving in the shot.

Then add the person you shot earlier on the blue screen with the background removed.

Should be easy (sortof) but I havn't done anything like that before so I don't know the pitfalls....

Donie