NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2005

[Corey MacGregor]

Just wondering if anybody else has had this problem and know's how to fix it. I'm using FCP 4.5HD. Every once in awhile I'll be editing as usual and all of a sudden I get that message saying that I some of my audio files have gone missing. Y'know the message that pops up if you trash your media files then open up a project. I've had this happen several times and it really sucks because I have to recapture and reconnect the media. Oh yeah, the files go missing from the project as well as the drive itself. I'll go to check the scratch disk where the audio files should be and they're not there. No problems with the video files that belong to them though, it's just the audio files.

Here's a rundown of my system:

G5 dual 2.0
OSX 10.3.6
FCPHD 4.5
Blackmagic Uncompressed Capture Card
Editing 8 bit uncompressed Betacam SX Footage

Thanks in advance if anyone can help me with this!

Corey

[Pete Wilie]

Is there a way in FCP HD to create an audio "window" effect?

Let me explain. I have a sequence where dialog is taking place between two people, one inside a car with the windows rolled up, the other outside. So, they are talking through the window. Both people were recorded on separate channels using lav mics.

So when I cut to a shot, say on the outside, where the person inside the car is talking, how do I filter the sound so that it sounds like it is coming through the window?

TIA.

[Jen Dougherty]

Does anyone know any good LA FCP intermediate/advanced training programs? Right now I'm looking at NYFA's 3 month program and some 2 day workshops (can you really learn a lot in 2 days??). I have been using FCP for 4 years but am self taught...I want to learn more about effects and streaming (and DVD Pro, Cinema Tools and Soundtrack if possible - the NYFA program covers this). Thanks for any help!!

[Rota Akimoto]

I'm new to both Motion and FCP so im just playing around now but i've encountered a few problems. First I'm not sure what preset to use for Motion. Up until now, ive been using the NTSC DV preset which is 720x480. But when i import it into FCP and export it as a DV stream, the text in the Motion created clip is very low quality, but everything else is okay. Is there anyway to fix this? Also, am i doing it right when i export it as DV stream if i want to use IDVD to burn it onto a DVD? If not then what is the right way for the best quality? thank you

[Kurth Bousman]

www.istabilize .de Has anyone given this a try and with what results ? thanks

[Cannon Pearson]

http://www.macintouch.com/perfpack/comparison.html

I saw this posted on another forum and thought that it might be of interest here.

[Stylianos Moschapidakis]

As many of you may know already, Apple offers a 30-day trial of its Motion software which one can download from Apple's web site. I just received the 30-day trial of Motion on CD and was wondering if any of you wants it; I am not going to use it so I'll be happy to mail it to you.

[David C. Scott]

Here's one I can't figure out: Is it possible to link multiple video clips (say, for instance, a series of still images) to one audio clip (an imported song, for example)? I'm successfully creating nice, tight synch among various still images and an audio track and want to make certain I wed each image to a precise point of the audio so that subsequent manipulation won't inadvertently separate the two. I certainly can link ONE of these still clips to a song track but as soon as I try to link a second picture to the same audio track, my first link disappears.

[Peter Wiley]

There is an interesting article on H.264 standard at MacCentral:

"One of the most talked-about video codecs in the last year, H.264, will make its debut in QuickTime 7 this year when Apple ships Mac OS X Tiger. Apple says that because H.264 is a standard and has been adopted by standards organizations and many other companies the battle for the successor to the current MPEG-2 video standard is basically over."

full article: http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/01/31/h264/index.php

This is quite a claim, and the comments on the story on the MacCentral site flesh out the growing debate. This Cringley article is interesting too: The Mac Mini is all about video.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050120.html

[Dave Kasprzyk]

Sorry if this post is a bit basic, but I need to export video to an FLV file. I don't have Flash MX 2004, which seems to be the only way on the surface to do it. Am I wrong? Is there another way without buying more software?

Thanks,
Dave K.

[Bryan Roberts]

Well its been a month now with the mini: I just recently purchased a new external HD and was responding to one of the other HD posts when I realized it should be its own thread since people are still awaiting more mini verdicts.

FROM A PC - WHAT OF THE MINI:

After a month, the mini hasn't lost its novelty yet. It seems so impressive to be sitting next to my PC and have almost as much power in a much more elegant and quiet form. As a PC user coming over to Mac land, the thing I've been most pleased with however is OSX. I've really grown to love the feel and graphical grace of the OS, which when switching my input selector back and forth between XP and OSX on my monitor becomes quite evident after a short while. XP has started to feel extremely boxy and bland (well, this is unfair as I have windows configured graphically for the highest performance which puts everything into "classic style"). Also, its been nice to have only programs I need installed on the mini. PC users can attest that several months to a year after a clean os reinstall that the little programs we install, mostly PC only, really pile up and clutter everything. When switching over to my mac, there are just a few essential items to choose from (I cleaned up my Dock to have only the programs I need which is 4 or 5). Finally, internet has been a big strong point of the mini and macs as well. At first I was planning to keep my mini off line and untouched by the internet to hopefully keep performance high. After some coaxing by fellow members, I tried it out online and have been impressed with its lack of popups and it just feel like a clean run - (firefox OSX helps out a bunch as well). My only gripe is that I still have many programs that are PC only which constantly brings me back when I'd like to just spend a few days mac only online etc. (after effects, music programs like Rhapsody, compression programs I had only purchased for PC, Photoshop PC version, Frontpage). With these, the PC will remain a large part of my computing world for some time to come.

AN ESSENTIAL UPGRADE FOR FCP MINI USE:

I recently purchased a 300 gb Maxtor One Touch II external FW / USB 2 HD for the mini. Let me say that after hearing all the gripes of slow performance and a slow HD to blame on the mini that you MUST purchase at least an extra HD if you plan to work in FCP. I previously tried to capture some DVX100 24p footage to the internal 4200 rpm HD with audio sync problems but no dropped frames. I figured that the problem might lie elsewhere since there were so many posts regarding audio sync issues. With the One Touch II, the system captured perfectly with no dropped frames and perfectly synced audio (plug your DV camera into the second FW port on the back of the One Touch II and set your capture scratch to the external drive, works like a charm). My test segments were both short and long ranging from 15 seconds to 30 minutes with perfect results.

Previously while running FCP with footage captured onto the internal 4200 drive and running FCP off that same drive, the performance was just at acceptable. I had been used to running FCP on other people's powerbooks with 512 megs of ram so it was almost at the same level using one drive- which isn't super fast but you can get a cuts only job done (and in fact I cut the majority of a feature length film on a director's powerbook and Lacie external HDs without any significant hiccups). Now, the 1.4 mini with 1 gig of ram should have been running a bit faster than these older powerbooks but what I found out is that the 2.5 internal drive was the big bottleneck. When running FCP now with the footage captured on the One Touch II, it was like running a different machine. I tried to lag the system by randomly seeking in footage and other tests with ease where previously there started to be struggles. Granted the render times wont be too much faster as that's mainly processor but when using footage and non renders, the difference is incredible.

The One Touch II also impressed me in comparison with Lacies I've used in the past. I know one director who has 7 external Lacie drives so I've seen quite a few - The Lacie's are a dependable drive, I've never had a single problem with any of them but they're loud and when they go to sleep, it takes a while to get them going again and they sound similar to a jet starting up when they do. The Maxtor is barely audible sitting right next to me cooling fan included. When seeking for information, the disk drive is super quiet not to mention its time from sleep to wake is noticeably brief. I was able to purchase mine for $245 shipped from my favorite online store, NewEgg so the price wasn't too harsh for 300 gbs. Finally the included software took 5 minutes to setup and a few minutes to format the drive for mac use and that was it. In conclusion, the One Touch II really impressed me and made FCP much more pleasent to use nudging my FCP on a mini rating from just at acceptable to running well (again, I'm coming from powerbooks not g5s and this is SD not HD which I doubt would be as kind).

NOT AS UPGRADEABLE BUT LOOK TO ALTERNATIVE UPGRADES FOR HELP:

Right, there seems like not much to upgrade to with a cap of 1 gig on the motherboard, the processor option and that's it. Well as we all knew but I know understand first hand, the slow internal HD is the bottleneck which can lag some of the 1.4 mini speed down to laptop levels, essentially an LCDless laptop in a "cute" box. If you're doing FCP work, a fast external drive should be mandatory for you, otherwise things will be rough and you'll feel like an idiot for trying to work on the mini. My One Touch II really brought more confidence in my mini as a reliable FCP edit box (I would consider it more reliable than a powerbook, possibly because it'll be moved less) and people edit longer projects all the time on powerbooks and external FW drives, mainly cut only.

So now what to upgrade? Well, the final issue for FCP use and my other programs is still the internal 4200 rpm drive. This can be upgraded with a 7200 speed 2.5 inch 60 gig Hitachi drive for ~$150. A spin cycle increase from 4200 to 7200 is significant and this would be the final bottleneck to open up. I don't plan on this upgrade in the near future but it will be my next and final upgrade at somepoint. So, expandability? Well not the greatest like having a tower but it's not awful - you have ram and HD's to work on which leaves out adding a second processor, vid card or perhaps a firewire 800 drive but with FCP bumping along for what I do, these aren't dire concerns. If you're a gamer, it would suck.

Finally, at what cost will I reach that I kick myself for not getting an emac or spending a little more on a g5 imac? As I've always said, the emac and g5 imac have always been out of the picture because I didn't need or want another monitor to clutter up my desk space. I already have an LCD screen I'm very happy with and really hated the thought of having a non-laptop mac tethered to a screen. So my only other possible kick myself option would be a used mac. It seems as though a souped up dual processor G4 might have been an option but these go for a bundle on ebay. My current mini mac costs, for the top of the line is now around 1g with the used souped up g4's running $400 more and that's for used off ebay which can be a little unnerving. Used single G5 processors can be had for also about $400 - $500 more than what I've spent on my mini mac but these are towards the base model end with not as much ram and I'd want to upgrade them right away which would knock that up to $700 more than the mini mac costs which is technically more than enough to purchase a second mini! Bottom line is if you've used FCP before and are comfortable with the system at a single processor g4 rate and dont' need a new monitor that can only be used with your mac, then the mini can be a great system for you. I'm still happy with the purchase but I think I was inside the direct target market of the product (though on the fringe with souped up mini FCP plans). Hope this helps...

[Tom Koerner]

I've recently gotten some footage that, were I shooting, I could have cleared up by adjusting the Coring on camera. Basically there is a room, lit low levels in a similar orange tone (simulating candle light). All the larger surfaces have some distracting noise.

Is there anything I can do as an editor to conduct damage control on this? I'm running FCHD, but I'm pretty good with after effects too if there's any tricks or plugins i could use.

[Aaron Koolen]

I've been looking around and notice some vendors selling FCP in the following versions

FCP HD and FCP HD 4.5

Are these different? I thought 4.5 was the HD version?

Cheers
Aaron

[Jaime Corretjer]

Newbe user here, just read about Flip4mac and Im unsure if there are any other compresion/conversion tools available for HD enconding to the wm9 format. Also read about the wm9 dvd players too.

Now, with the introduction of this technology, I am starting lean towards a JVC HD1 for starters (I know the FX1 is superior). Im a dual 2.5 user who has not upgraded to FCP HD or FCE HD yet. I think as far as hardware, with the addition of ram, Im ready for HD. My main question is, is this a new way to distribute hd?

How do you make a wm9 dvd ready to be played in one of this players?
Do you finalize your project into the wm9 format first?
How does it work with IDVD? Im confuse about the relationship between the wm9 and the mpeg2 formats and dvd burning. Can I just burn wm9 footage or can I still produce menus for my wm9 dvd.

If this is possible, Im surprised I haven't heard more of this new distribution tool. Please advice. Thank you

[Steve Anderson]

I’m using a modest but very dependable eMac 800mhz – 768MB’s – 700gigs total hard drive capacity – OS 10.2.8 Running FCE 2.0
The FCE manual says a sequence can be up to 2 hours long. I have never even come close to pushing that limit until recently. I created a 60 minute sequence of wedding footage and everything looked a played fine on the viewer and canvas on screen monitors. So I exported as Quick Time movie to use in iDVD. After exporting I reviewed the QT movie at around 35 minutes the video disappeared only audio remained. I tried checking FCE preferences settings etc. and re-exported the footage with same result. I ended up dividing the sequence and exporting both segments which did work. I seem to be limited to around 35 minute segments for video. Other than this bug I haven’t had any problems - no crashing, freezing etc. since I installed FCE 2.0 about 4 months ago. – Any one else experience this? Should I reinstall FCE ?- Is there a setting I missed to increase segment limits ? What do you think?
One last thing FCE 2.0 has the same interface as Pro and settings are simular so you folks running FCP could be helpful (Pro manual says segments can be 4 hours long)
Thanks for any input -