NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2002

[Jeff Donald]

I do some freelance editing and have clients that have the Aurora RT card and the CineWave card. Another client was looking at the Digital VooDoo card, but is now leaning towards the Kona card. He thinks the Kona has higher picture quality (at least to his eye). My system consists of a standard Mac G4 for DV editing. Between the Aurora and the CineWave, I prefer the Aurora. It seems more stable and the type of work they do doesn't require alot of RT effects. But it's hard to compare them fairly because the base systems are not identical. The Aurora has 8 Seagate 15,000 RPM SCSI RAID 0 drives. It never misses a beat. The CineWave I edit on uses 2 Maxtor 10,000 RPM RAID 0 drives. It occasionally has a problem or two. Is it the drives, or the maintance (or lack there of?) or the card itself? I can't tell you. But editing on the Aurora is a very pleasurable experience. Few if any problems and consistent performance, no surprises. Perhaps a little better picture quality too. I'm looking forward to editing on one of the other two cards in the coming months and I'll post my thoughts then.

Jeff

[Ken Tanaka]

Mike, that's great news! I'm confident that you'll have a long positive experience with this Mac and the next, and the next,...

After nearly 20 yrs in a PC-only world I was skeptical. No more.

Have a blast!

[Ken Tanaka]

Hi Bruce,
In brief, the underlying foundations of OS 9 and OS 10 are as architecturally different as you can imagine. OS 9.2 introduced the facilities for OS 9 to be invoked by OS 10 ("Classic mode") as a bridge to enable older apps to continue to be functional under the new OS.

Actually, I'm quite surprised at how good of a job Apple did at making this transition in light of how different the old and new environments really are. Because Apple holds such absolute control of its market OS 9 will not be around long.

[Simon Plissi]

I'm a Mac user and I'm not going to say you should see how PC works. Couldn't care less. And there's no way I would say you should wait for OSXVII. OS X 2.0 is a beauty.

All Classic is is around 20mb and with a few other controls just starts up OS 9 inside X. So for all intense and purposes OS X is just one big system. You can of course move OS 9 to another drive, or bin it altogether if you think you're never going to need it.

As Ken mentioned, the architecture is very different and could not therefore allow X to run OS 9 apps without Classic. Some apps do run natively in X after some modification. Have you updated your apps to do so? At the end of the day it works incredibly well, I was sure surprised how good it was when I first tried it, but I now launch Classic or boot into 9 very rarely.

"…personally I think it's pretty lazy on Mac's part." Don't blame your poor Mac it's how "Apple" made him. ;-)

[Mark Sloan]

For software companies Classic has been a way for their applications to continue to be vialbe even with a new operating system. But the best thing Apple has done is create Carbon. A programmer can take their Classic application and change a portion of the code to make it run on both Classic and OSX natively. Because of that, Photoshop and other great applications can run on either OS. THAT is pretty impressive!

[Jeff Donald]

By making an application Carbon, it extends your products self life. This satisfies two goals, providing existing customers a product if they haven't switched (OS 9) and also satisfying the need for OS X applications. It also buys the developer time to make the software OS X native (Cocoa). Cocoa apps run quicker in OS X and can better take advantage of multi processors.

Jeff

[Tore Krudtaa]

Hi, I'm a newbie to rotoscoping and compositing.

I'm about to invest in a powerbook G4 and FinalCutPro3 for editing.

I want to do compositing and rotoscoping:
(I want to combine objects from one footage into another footage).

1. What software should I go for without having to sell all of my belongings?

2. I would also appreciate info of good books and online information on how to do this.

I'm using XM2 camcorder from Canon.

[Dan Dorsey]

I am thinking about getting the 800 Mhz, Super Drive Emac for editing with Final Cut Pro. I have two questions concerning this box.

1. Is anyone currently using this box to cut with FCP and what are your thoughts/complaints/praises on it? (not the program but the overall system)

2. DVD burning w/ Super Drive. I have heard that ther might be some compatability issues on DVD's burned on the Superdrive playing back on other DVD devices. I heard from quite a few people that they had been urged to wait on a DVD burner that will be more compatable with other devices. Has anyone caught wind of this?

I have already wasted my time and money once before, I would like to avoid this situation again.

Thanks,
Dan

[Matt Stahley]

ive had no problems with dvds playing in dvd players from sony/toshiba/panasonic/apex/GE(rca) and several PC's but most of these players are recent models and the only problems i have heard of happened in first generation dvd players

[Matt Stahley]

compatible players

http://www.apple.com/dvd/compatibility/

[Mark Sloan]

Here is Apple's page with tested DVD players:
http://www.apple.com/dvd/compatibility/

Apple's FAQ for iDVD has some good info:
http://www.apple.com/idvd/faq.html

For DVD Studio Pro:
http://www.apple.com/dvdstudiopro/specs.html

For DVD Studio Pro they say this: "A partial list of compatible consumer DVD players can be found here. This compatabilty only pertains to Apple branded DVD-R media. Projects that are sent to duplication houses should be 100% compatable with all players."

As for burned DVD-Rs working on computers with other drives like DVD+R or DVD+RW drives, I couldn't find it, but I am sure you can find links on the web if you care.

[Jeff Donald]

Hi Dan,

I haven't personally edited on an eMac with FCP 3 and I guess my concern is how it would respond. What length of projects would you be doing? Would you use a lot of effects (rendering time)? If you're not doing anything very lengthy or loaded with layers of effects it may be fine for your needs. I just got my wife an iMac G4 flat screen and put FCP on it. It is slower than my G4 450 dual processor. I found myself doing a lot of waiting. Have you had the opportunity to use an eMac with FCP yet? If not maybe try to test drive one at a CompUSA or an Apple Store.

Jeff

[Ken Tanaka]

Adobe's AfterEffects and Pinnacle's Commotion Pro make a very good, and relatively economical, pair for compositing and rotoscoping.

Visit these sites for more information:
http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/main.html
and
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage.asp?Product_ID=110

[Steve Nunez]

Commotion Pro is the undisputed king in rotorscoping...it's compositing capabilities are awesome and astounding- in fact- the movie "Gladiator" used tons of Commotion work- especially in the "arena" scenes-....AE is the defacto standard but Commotion does it all and is a "paint over time/video package" as well......it's sorta like Photoshop for DV.......give Commotion a serious look and get a demo CD- it has awesome video clips showing the capabilities of Commotion- you'll be amazed.

[Tore Krudtaa]

Looks like Commotion is the right tool!

Thanks again for the advise...

How about quality of the end result after finishing compositing and rendering... footage taken with XM2 mini-dv camcorder, XL1s etc....

Do you have some comments on this... :-)

What I'm thinking of here is ..... Is the resolution in the footage from mini-dv and camcorders above good enough to do compositing in Commotion. Will the rendered composited work have approx the same quality as the original footage or will you see the difference in resolution and sharpness on playback...

This might be a silly question.. but I would not end up with buying a tool like Commotion and after find out that the quality of the footage delivered by my XM2 and (mini-dv) is not good enough to produce a "broadcast quality" end result....


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