NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2002

I can think of two explanations:

1. the DV standard uses the D1 aspect ratio of 720 X 486 where the Media 100 uses the square pixel ratio of 640 X 480. Perhaps the conversion of the aspect ratio caused some artifacts. I would expect the video to look somewhat soft in this case.

2. This isn't so much of an explanation as it is an observation coming out of my own experience. We use a Canon XL1s to shoot and have a Panasonic DVCPRO deck in our edit suite. When we tried to capture DV footage digitally through firewire (whether from the DVCPRO or the XL1) the image tends to be somewhat "blocky" as though you can see the grid the Media100 is using for digitization. Keep in mind that the Media100 was built to digitize analog video and its codec is based on motion JPEG compression - great for analog but questionable when translating another digital format. Our solution was to use the component outputs of the DVCPRO deck and the video looks great. Digitizing from the S-video output of the DVCPRO or XL1 looks almost as good as component and both look dramatically better than the DV capture.

Hope this helps,
Mark Smithhisler

[Mike Butler]

Y'mean we're all gonna have to go get HD cameras now? (I'm sure Panasonic would be only too happy to sell me one!)

[Steve Nunez]

I've seen my XL1s footage on a tube TV (Sharp) as large as 36" and it's always been fantastic...the big HDTV sets will liekly not impress you- Consumer Reports recently tested a Hitachi 55" HDTV ready set (along with a bunch of others) and proclaimed it the very best because of how well it displays analog tv signal (the HDTV images were great as just about all the manufacturers seem to have it down)....the trick according to Consumer Reports is how well they handle analog footage....the Hitachi 55" was the king...if anyone's looking for a big set to show-off your XL1S footage- the Hitachi set would likely be the best bet. (Mitsubishi's sets came in a close 2nd)

have fun fellas,

[Greg Matty]

Apple had demoed DVD SP 1.5 on several ocassions in the past couple of months. My guess is that it will be announced at NAB.

I would like to make a DVD version of my travel video but I have heard the QT MPEG 2 enoder is not the best.

Assuming a reasonable bit rate of say 8.5, how close will properly shot XL-1 footage look on a DVDSP made DVD to the original footage? If perfect XL-1 footage is a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, where would you place DVDSP footage? I have to say that a VHS dub is about a 3.

Thanks.

Greg M

[Greg Matty]

<<<-- Originally posted by stevenyc1@aol.com : Ken,

Mac's are amazing aren't they?

Prior to burning the DVD (during compilation) iDVD did prompt me and say that there was more than 60 min of content and that the video content would decline in quality slightly...but in actuality there was only about 19 min of actual DV footage- the rest were slideshow images that i'm assuming get encoded into an mpeg2 at whatever screen rate DVD's use.......this is the likely reason iDVD prompted me with such a message.....

...my 60&quot; TV is on the outs so I can't view it there- but will try soon on another set.......

Ken which Mac did you get with the superdrive?

I picked up the 933 mhz model w/SuperDrive at B&amp;H in Manhattan- so far the system works like a charm.
Mac's rule! -->>>


Ken,

What do you feel you are putting up with with the Mac platform?

I have to say I am tired of a 133mhz system bus and only ghz speeds, but that will change at MW in July. Supposedly Apple demoed some real fast hardware to some key Japanese players at the MW there last week. Dual 1.4ghz G4's( no G5's) on 400mhz logic boards with DDSRAM, blah, blah, blah.

I will buy a new machine in July and I hope it is blazing fast. Speed tests have shown the dual ghz machines to be "only" 2.5 times as fast as my single 450. It has something to do with the lastes G4 chips still doing less work per clock cycle than the orginal. Yes they are clocked higher, but there is no scaler speed increase. Sigh.

Greg Matty

[Ken Tanaka]

Greg,

By "What do you feel you are putting up with with the Mac platform? " are you asking me what the annoyances of the Mac platform are?

If so, the answer is a resounding "Nothing". Just the contrary. There are a few trivial tasks that -seem- a step or two slower on the Mac than on Windows but they are truly trivial. On the whole I have to say that I am able to devote 99.99% of my time with the Mac working with my applications rather than fiddling with the environment. I will say, however, that the Unix embodied in OS 10 still needs a bit of polish. But on the whole the current version is very good.

[Greg Matty]

Ken,

I misinterpreted your post. When you said "put up with", I assumed there were some issues that you did not like but were willing to deal with. I was thinking less 99.99% satisfied and more like 60%.

I am very much a Mac person and could not imagine doing this work on a Wintel platform.

Greg Matty

[Chris Hurd]

Ah, Greg, but you *can* do this work on a PC... I'm using a Canopus DVRex RT with a Pioneer A03 DVD burner, and it's pretty much effortless... to each his own platform, as they say.

;-)

[Mike Butler]

Well, if the Machinist Mate can jump in, I have been on both platforms for years. My creative tool of choice continues to be the Mac, and that's with the same applications installed on both--Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, Acrobat, MS Office, etc... everything but FCP on the Wintel box. <grin> I am realistic about the relative merits and demerits of each. The biggest thing to "put up with" about the Mac is trying to get support in a corporate IT environment. After you get past "go to the Start Bar" and "right click on..." (which is pretty comical to us Mac users) the help desk begins to realize that they can't do much for you. Fortunately, the thing doesn't gum up too often, and the problem usually resides in the (Windows) NT server network.

The big deal is that the mac was a turnkey Firewire system and of course we know which platform you gotta be on to run FCP. Hee hee! I know of very few types of computer that you can literally open the box, plug your camcorder into it and burn DVDs of your freshly NLE-edited DV footage without an ounce of computer tech prowess.


BTW, Chris, did you catch Midnight Oil last night on David Letterman?

[Chris Hurd]

Howdy from Texas,

You *can* edit DV on a Windows machine right out of the box; provided it was built by an integrator who knows what they're doing. This is how I bought my Canopus DVRex RT. I sure didn't want to build one, so I had one built for me... pulled it out of the box, hooked up a keyboard, mouse and monitor and was "just editing" within a few minutes.

<< BTW, Chris, did you catch Midnight Oil last night on David Letterman? >>

I thought Pete looked quite stylish in that flashy red shirt. "Golden Age" was a great choice for that show. Letterman has always been an Oilhead. Great to have the boys on nationwide American airwaves again! Last time was the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics. Hopefully we'll see more of 'em.

[Mike Butler]

<<<...provided it was built by an integrator who knows what they're doing. ... I sure didn't want to build one...>>>

Exactly! This is not some $900 Dell, it's a custom-designed professional video production tool --that also happens to be able to run MS Office!:) And the $900 Dell clientele sits and says "Macs are expensive!"

For those of us who don't make a living as computer engineers, a "ready-made" machine is the answer.

Oil were great, hope they're on TV again soon. I guess the only Aussie band that gets much airplay "up over" is AC/DC.

[John Locke]

Mac DV mecca! Ahhhh! Feels good doesn't it? No more Mac/PC wars. No strange, foreign-sounding programs, cards, and techno widgets.

Problem is, Macs are so user friendly and trouble-free, I'm worried the posts here will look something like...

[Mac User 1]
Plugged in my G4 and everything is working fine. I love it!

[Mac User 2]
I've got a G4, too. And I love mine, too, too.

[Mac User 1] (one week later)
Well...my Mac is still doing fine. FCP, Cleaner...everything working great.

[Mac User 2]
Everything A-OK here, too.

:) Looking forward to interfacing with fellow Macs.

[Dave Raaum]

I used capture now to capture many XL1 music clips to my FCP browser. I had previously used imovie 2.1.1 to capture a series of other clips. I am able to view and listen to the imovie clips (they are shown in the browser with a DV mini-icon. You have to render the clip before you can hear it (noted by the red bar across the top of the clip. The problem is with the FCP QT clips.

When I drag (or open ) one of the Quicktime clips (that's how they are saved in FCP) to the canvas the video looks great but the audio isn't synced and plays super fast, finishing in about one fourth the time of the video segment. How did I screw this up? I am assuming that it was a setting that I set inadvertently. Since FCP saves the clips as quicktime, the audio and video are separate. Is there something I can do to get everything back in sync short of capturing all over again?

[Ken Tanaka]

<grin> I never considered that possibility! You may be right, John. I had one OS-X glitch last week (which was a really nasty gotcha) but otherwise all's quiet here.

[Ken Tanaka]

Hello Dave,

I am confused. Are you:

a. having problems viewing iMovie-captured clips while in FCP,
b. having problems viewing FCP-captures clips using QuickTime outside of either FCP or iMovie, or
c. neither of the above?

While in FCP you might be able to get a clue to problem (a) by right-clicking on a clip to get more info on it's audio characteristics.

Is it possible for you to recapture the iMovie clips from tape while in FCP? If so, I'd really recommend that you do so. It may seem like a brute-force solution but, in my experience, it will probably save you alot of wasted diagnostic and remediation time. Not to mention that you'll probably have to constantly re-render the iMovie clips' audio while working with them in FCP.