NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2002

[Daniel Berube]

It's doubtful that FCP would already be installed on one of the eMacs at CompUSA or Apple Store, since the focus of the eMac is towards education. It's worth a try though, but you'll probably just see that iMovie is installed.

an eMac is perfect for DVD creation. For FCP editing, though,....I would tend to recommend either a discontinued G4 tower or a flat panel iMac, like the 17incher.

Do check into seeing what price drops are available for a discontinued G4 tower, you may see that it is worth it for you and at that point you will have an upgrade path as you FCP skills increase.

Hope this helps, and welcome to FCP!

[Ken Tanaka]

The issue would not be that of Commotion Pro. It's perfectly capable of dealing with higher resolution than that of broadcast television.

Do you really expect to have your work broadcast? If so, you'd be smart to check with stations in your area to see how they want material submissions; it's unlikely to be on a miniDV tape.

[Steve Nunez]

With big multi-million dollar budgets and production aimed squarely for theatrical release (movies) I'm sure the producers of "Gladiator" looked at every possible special effects package available and they chose Commotion Pro...matter of fact in the DVD there's an interview where you can see G4 Macs with Commotion running in the background- the interviewer was at his editing station and you can see the equippment and scenes from Gladiator still in their compositing setup. (look hard I don't think they made a specific effort to show this)

I'm not good with Commotion at all as I have almost no free time to learn this new software but seeing the demo CD and finding producers using it over AE and Elastic Reality was enough for me to deduce it's the best package bar none (with the exception of proprieatry packages used by ILM and such)

Quality is there- I'm pretty sure you wont see a difference in rendered footage- the whole point of special effects is to fool the viewer that what they're seeing is real or actually happened....in my brief useage of Commotion 2.0 (old version)- rendered material looked exactly like the source footage- it runs very well because it's preloaded into RAM (as you specify)....

good luck.

(I wish I knew of a Commotion class in NYC- if anyone hears of one drop a line on this thread)

[Tore Krudtaa]

everyone, for the feedback.....

[Daniel Berube]

Also check out Boris Red, the url is http://www.borisfx.com.

Best of luck!

[Kevin McCarthy]

I created several titles with an alpha in photoshop for import into FCP.
I have the text moving from "off screen right" to "off screen left".
At the point where the titles were placed in the time line on V2, the clips on V1 get brighter. I tried putting dissolves at each end of the title clip, but it still "pops" brighter.
I have changed my alpha setting in FCP but that did nothing.

Any suggestions?

Thanks
Kev

[Jeff Donald]

Hi Kevin,

Try looking under Sequence>Settings>Video Processing and the first item is RGB proecessing or rendering. I believe the box should be unchecked.

Jeff

[Kevin McCarthy]

That is unchecked.
My text was created in RGB, does that make a difference?

Kev

[Jeff Donald]

It might be a Photoshop issue. Read this post http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?14@@.3bb96c8e and also this from the LAFCPUG http://www.lafcpug.org/basic_photoshop_files.html Did you flatten the layers?

Jeff

[John Kaye]

am using FCP 3.0 I am editing my clips and making sub clips. I must have hit something by mistake since I_got wireframe on the image inside the viewer. I managed to get rid of that by going under the "View" icon and checking "Image" only. Now I got a jerky image with the audio kinda out of sync with the image! Other clips play well but this one doesn't! Anyone got an idea on what went wrong? or how I can fix it? Thanks :)

[Kevin McCarthy]

I did flatten the image by saving as a PICT with Alpha.

The articles you sent seem helpful. I'll give some of those suggestions a try.

Thanks again

Kev

[Ken Tanaka]

In response to a recent inquiry to Matrox concerning the RTMac's functionality under OSX (currently NOT functional) I received the following rather disappointing response from Matrox today. Thought I would share with you, since I know that many of you either have this thing or are potentially contemplating its purchase.
-------------
Mr. Tanaka,

Thank you for your interest in Matrox RTMac. In response to your inquiry,
there has been a recent development regarding the OSX drivers. The following
is the official announcement from Matrox concerning the RTMac OSX drivers,
taken from the user forums:

"After hitting many road blocks and obstacles, and many months of hard work,
Matrox has reached some very important milestones with respect to OS X
drivers for RTMac. We currently have the following working:

-video capture and playback working in a test application
-effects working in a test application
-secondary computer monitor display working in several resolutions in a test
application

More coding and debugging work, however, is required in these and other
areas.

The next important milestone will be to get video playback working in Final
Cut Pro. We should start to see progress on this front in the coming weeks.

While we wait for more news on how integration within Final Cut Pro
proceeds, we invite current users to submit their candidatures for beta
testing. The initial testing program will be a closed beta, and as we
progress to more stable and useable software, we will proceed with a public
open beta. Please see below for instruction on submitting your candidatures
for public beta.

At this point, depending on how progress on coding and debugging goes, we
estimate a closed beta in 1-2 months, with an open public beta to follow.

We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We appreciate your
patience and continued interest in Matrox RTMac. Another update will follow
in a few weeks to let you know how the integration within Final Cut Pro is
progressing.

Please note that our immediate focus is on OS X support for Final Cut Pro.
Matrox has not evaluated the amount of work required to support Adobe
Premiere under OS X.

To have your candidature considered for OSX beta with Final Cut Pro, please
send an email to OSXbeta@matrox.com and provide the following information:

- Complete contact info (name, address, phone, FAX, email)
- Complete description of your RTMac system configuration (software and
hardware)
- A list of video equipment at your disposal (decks/cameras, outboard gear,
other NLE)
- A brief description of any beta testing experience you may have (omit if
not applicable) and your background
- A guesstimate of the number of hours you can allocate to beta testing per
week
------------------
Yulian Pugachevsky
Macintosh Video Products Specialist
Technical Marketing Team
Matrox Video Products Group"


Until the time we do release the RTMac drivers for OSX, please keep in mind
that the RTMac is completely functional under OS 9.2.2. Combined with RTMac
and Final Cut Pro 3, working under this OS gives all the functionality
offered by Matrox hardware.

The following link has a description as to how the RTMac complements Final
Cut Pro 3:

http://www.matrox.com/videoweb/products/enduser/rtmac_benefits.htm

If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me.

Regards,

Mark Kelly
Channel Marketing
Video Products Group
MATROX ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS LTD.
1050 St. Regis Blvd,
Dorval, Quebec, Canada, H9P 2T4
Tel: 1-800-361-4903
E-mail: video.info@matrox.com
Visit www.matrox.com/video

---------------------------------

[Ken Tanaka]

Offhand I say that toggling the wireframe display option is completely unrelated to your stuttering clip display. Are you certain that the master clip ever played smoothly? Perhaps you inadvertently changed the display resolution on your sequence (just below the sequence name tab).

[John Kaye]

hi ?en,
The master clip worked normal and I was in the middle of doing sub clips when I hit somehing by mistake I have a feeling it is a display resolution type of problem but have no idea how to fix it since I have the clip in the browser and not in the timeline. I can't find the display resoluation tab in the browser! sorry if my reply sounds stupid :)

[Ken Tanaka]

Well it's got me stumped. I'd be inclined to delete the sub-clip and then re-mark it from the master to see if the phenomenon disappears. Or build a new sub-clip that duplicates the problem clip. How do your other sub-clips (from the same master) look?