NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2004

[Jonathan Noone]

Does anyone know who makes the best training DVD's?

I'd prefer those that you sit and watch the tutor giving a demonstration on film rather than me reading and doing tutorials.

Any suggestion would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Jonathan

[Vic Owen]

Check out the Magnet Media DVD at the LAFCPUG store; it is quite good. There are others there, as well.

http://www.digitalmediatraining.com/products/fcphd/index.html

[Guy Cochran]

http://www.apple.com/motion/trial/

Nice 30 day free trial! Some with older machines note before you do the hefty download that you might want to check the specs and see if your machine can handle it http://www.apple.com/motion/specs.html


Motion PowerStart Now Shipping! * LA Motion User Group

[Rhett Allen]

The only time I've seen this happen is when you have ALSO recorded some regular DV on the same tape. Don't mix DV and DVCAM on the same tape. I've seen people burn bars and tone at the head in DV (even on another camera or deck when bulking up for a shoot) then switch to DVCAM or reuse a tape that had been used for DV previously. Also, are you moving the tape at all between the stop and start? Meaning, do you stop the tape while recording, view it, then record some more? Make sure you use "end search" if so.

[Zareh Tjeknavorian]

Talk about fixing it in post...

I just got back from the other side of the globe where I shot in 16:9 anamorphic squeeze mode (DVX100A) and noticed, upon digitizing (FCP 3) that seen in full frame a lot of footage has some curved vignetting on the left side of the screen (especially upper and lower corners). This was caused by a mattebox error, which I failed to notice on location as it was cropped out of the camera viewfinder and LCD.

Should I worry about this showing up on wide screen televisions, or will it naturally be cropped in any non-NLE/pro monitor playback environment? If this is an issue, what are my best options? I know I can crop it out on FCP by blowing up the shot, but I fear this will greatly affect the resolution.

Any thougths would be appreciated.

Also, to avoid this happening again, does the anamorphic 16:9 viewfinder adaptor available for the DVX show the full frame?

Many thanks in advance.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Just about all prosumer cameras overscan unfotunately. The anamorphic viewfinder adaptor is just a lens that squeezes the existing image into proportion, it can't change the overscan problem.

My 16:9 LCD monitors (Sony 17" and Samsung 22") both overscan by about 3%, which is pretty comparable to the viewfinders on my Sony cameras. Since you're on a Mac you might want to download the free program "Test Pattern Maker." It creates 720x480 JPEG's of a variety of charts, one of which is an overscan chart. By sending this chart to your camera from FCP via firewire you can see how much the viewfinder or a monitor overscans: http://www.synthetic-ap.com/downloads/tpmmdown.html.

Instead of stretching the video to eliminate the vignetting you could crop it a little which would result in some very narrow black bars that probably wouldn't be too noticeable, if they show at all on a consumer TV.

[Mark Callahan]

I'm trying use an older TV as a preview monitor to FCP. By "older" i mean that the TV only has a coaxial input - no RCAs. To get the video from FCP to the monitor, I'll go FW to a Dazzle! bridge, then RCAs from the bridge to a VCR, then coax from the VCR to the TV.

Is this a good idea or should I just front $70 and go get a cheap TV that has RCA inputs?

[Graeme Nattress]

I'd invest in a new telly.

Graeme

[Zareh Tjeknavorian]

Thanks very much Boyd. I couldn't have hoped for a clearer, more helpful response.

I'm looking into cropping as you suggested, though I'm not certain that eliminating the vignetting on one side of the frame with black bars on either side would be any less distracting, in the event that a given monitor displays that much of the image.

I see that I need to create a new sequence to crop and center a shot - though I am still not clear on how to reintigrate these shots afterwards into the original timeline, among the uncropped shots.

[Nigel Garvey]

Hi
More a question that answer!
Wouldn't your set give huge latancy and additional noise to the signal?
I have tried using a TV with FCP though FW to Canopus to TV and found moderate latancy,
Cheers
Nigel

[Mark Callahan]

It probably wouldn't look the best Nigel, but I figured that if I can make it look good through that system, then it would look awesome on better systems.

[Grinner Hester]

when I was a staffer at CMT, we had old 25" Magnavox consumer TVs as the client monitor in every linear suite. Never told lies on title safe, showed how certain colors would bleed and we even turned down the studio monitors and listened through the little mono speaker every now and again while mixing. Not a bad thing to have at home.
Swing by radio shack and grab an RCA to coax adapter.

[Nigel Garvey]

Mark I think your dead right there which was my plan, however the latency I was getting put me off, it seemed to make my "contour" shuttle behave like spagetti mixing!

Having said that, what I was concerned about in your message was noise induced by the "multiple" connections through a multitude of devices,
but Grinner seems to have answered that one nicely, thanks Grinner.

Me I went out and bought a sony trinitron TV and run it straight out of my mac's S video port now. Nice colours, crisp image and no latency noticable really. But I have to watch it's tendancy to gointo "dynamic mode" on switching on with the S vidio plugged in, as that blows seeing what I have really have for a sony inhancement.

Cheers Mark and again for the advice grinner.

nig

[Zander Taketomo]

hey ive been trying to learn shake and its quite confusing. i was wondering if anybody knew a place with good tutorials or good books on it. thanks

[Alan Tran]

Apple Pro Series training books..