NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2002

[Bill Markel]

Rik,

Thanks for the tip. Works exactly as I wanted.

Bill

[Rik Sanchez]

Bill,
glad to hear you were able to acheive the effect you wanted. let me know if I can help you in any other way. see on the boards,

Ive just done my first project.
A football (soccer match) i recorded.
I originally compressed the edited footage out of FCP2 as a quicktime file using the default codec(dont know which this one was).
when viewing back on quicktime the pixels were all hazy and jumpy - it was so unwatchable - I also burnt it to dvd and tried it there also- again it was unwatchable still

I then compressed the file again with the sorenson codec but still not much improvement.

I tried again - this time with the dv video codec, the image has certainly improved but not what i would call 100%, I know about video noice but its worse than that.

Have you guys any suggestions for the best exporting format and codec - The files will be going on DVD

thanks

[Joe Redifer]

For files going to DVD you want MPEG2 720x480 best quality. Be sure to encode that from the original DV source material and not something that has been compressed and recomepressed 100 times in various formats. For web I usually make my Quicktimes Sorenson (never Sorenson 5, though) with a quality setting of about 65%, 29.97fps or 15 for smaller files. Size =320x240 or 160x120 for smaller files. Never a limit on the file (where it says "Limit file to 192kbps" or whatever it says). Sound = Stereo IMA 4:1 44100.

[arenhansen]

hi,
the easiest thing to do is to make a FCP reference movie.
Export->FCP movie->make self contained. There is ZERO quality loss(until your DVD authoring program gets ahold of it). Compressing it beforehand makes no sense.
Aren

[arenhansen]

...actually, I screwed up. For a reference movie, UNCHECK the box make self-contained. This way, the file just points to the media on your hard-drive, which saves space and time.
Aren.

thanks for the replies guys,
after trying compression a few times with different codecs,
i finally made a final cut pro movie.

this worked well with apples idvd2, and i now have a good dvd of my football(soccer) match

[Kevin McCarthy]

If you don't mind a PC, AVID DV Express Ver 3 is pretty good.
I'm currently cutting several shows on one.
Nice hi-res NTSC monitor, two 22 inch computer monitors, studio speakers, trancoder for s-video and compostite, "Rosetta Stone" to control RS422 remote for UVW-1800, plus the latest Dell computer
All for less than $5000

It looks and acts just like the regular version of express.

At home I have FCP, After Effects and a "Snow" imac which works great too!

[Joe Redifer]

I want to get one of those new dual 1Ghz Macs. But I refuse to purchase one. Why? Because they are not using DDR RAM yet. Does anyone have any word on when Apple will finally see the light and make computers with DDR RAM? It really does make a difference. I think they offer a server that has DDR but I don't want a server. Does the system bus in Macs still run at only 100MHZ?

I dream of the day when Macs are fast by todays standards.

This is probably a dead horse (thread is nearly a month old, purchase has probably been made) but....kick kick kick.

I stayed away from Macs as long as I could until all of this FIreWire stuff started a couple of years ago.
I had my PC running with Premiere and was pretty happy.
Then I tried getting FireWire (already installed) to work with Premiere (Note, bad configuration from the PC manufacturer, FireWire DOES work with Premiere on many systems I've come across).
I couldn't get MY PC to work with Premiere and FireWire.
I picked up an iMac, plugged it in, plugged in my camcorder via FireWire, started iMovie, captured some video, edited some video, took the iMac back, bought the (then) top of the line PowerMac G4 w/SuperDrive.

Sure you can get RT cards for the PC, but with FCP 3.x you don't need anything other than a G4 500mhz or faster to get RT.
If you go PC, you'll end up working with Premiere and After Effects, and still won't have the flexibility and power of FCP (IMHO). Apple never intended to compete with Premiere, they set their sites on AVID...and are starting to bite (OK small tiny baby bites) at AVID's business.

If you already had a PC, I'd say go with Vegas Video.
If you were already familiar with (and couldnt' live without) AVID, I'd say get AVID DV Xpress (on a Mac, not a PC).
If you want a nice turn-key system that will scale from simple home movies up to feature films, go G4, iMovie, FCP.

- Chip

p.s. Everything Ken said...I agree with.

[Allan Sargan]

Wow, this thread is back up again! Anyway, I am really glad that you guys replied bec. I havent bought the system yet. I was planning on getting the MJ-12 PC editing system at alienware.com.

Now I tried to look at the MAC system and it is definitely a very popular system for editing. I kinda went back to looking at PC bec. of the "no rendering" capability of Canopus. But at the back of my mind I still think that FCP is the way to go.

I need a dv editing system ASAP. I want to get a price quote on the system Ken listed above. I havent received a quote yet. Anyway, do you guys know anybody in Chicago or online, besides "MacSpecialist" (they still need to get back to me), that can give me a turnkey dv editing system?

Thanks!

Allan

[Ken Tanaka]

By "turnkey" do you mean that FCP is already installed? I ask because, that relatively small task aside, a Mac basically -is- a turnkey system. Adding a 2nd ATA drive (such as the IBM DeskStar) is a 5-10 min job with a Mac, even if you're a compu-klutz. The side flips down and the drive carriage is right in front of you. Much easier than the anthropological dig required by most PC's.

If you're really in a hurry, I'd recommend putting most everything together at macconnection.com (outstanding site, excellent service, very competitive prices and impressive inventory). Unlike many PC's the Mac itself is a relatively fixed-price item. You won't find more than a $10-15 variation for a specific configuration among vendors. You'll pay shipping, of course, but with Chicago's 8.75% sales tax you'll likely save money on such a large sale.

Just got FCP 3 and my new G4 1G dual... It's loaded with 1.5G ram and two Seagate X-15 Hard drives (striped), plus an 80G IDE for the main....

Problem is, no matter what, I constantly get dropped frames, even on the tutorial... Have cleaned EVERYTHING out, started FRESH, reinstalled all software, but still get it.... Have also removed all added hardware and everything by process of elimination, with NO change...

HAS TO BE A BUG... ANYBODY GOT THE SAME PROBLEM PLEASE LET ME KNOW...

Thanks

[David Bogie]

It's not a bug because it doesn't happen with everyone's system.
The most likely causes for dropped frames are trying to capture to your startup drive or to a drive that isn't fast enough to handle the data stream.
Do you drop frames when attempting to capture to each of your drives?
Why did you stripe the x15s? Are you capturing uncompressed component?
If your RAID is the only volume that is dropping frames you've got a SCSI problem. Those are easy to cure or nightmares, depending on your familarity. If all of your drives are dropping frames there is something fundamentally wrong with your FireWire setup, most likely.
Can you play back without dropping any frames if you use imported files from tutorials on CD or DVD?

david


<<<-- Originally posted by sergeant : Just got FCP 3 and my new G4 1G dual... It's loaded with 1.5G ram and two Seagate X-15 Hard drives (striped), plus an 80G IDE for the main....

Problem is, no matter what, I constantly get dropped frames, even on the tutorial... Have cleaned EVERYTHING out, started FRESH, reinstalled all software, but still get it.... Have also removed all added hardware and everything by process of elimination, with NO change...

HAS TO BE A BUG... ANYBODY GOT THE SAME PROBLEM PLEASE LET ME KNOW...

Thanks -->>>

[Aaron Frick]

I just upgraded on my media100 from grafitti 1.0 to boris red 2.1 and every title I had in my system is now way out of whack. Any suggestions on how to open grafitti once I have installed red?