NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2002

Mac Daddy · October 29th, 2002, 03:04 PM

Hi everyone,
I asked previously about what master to use for DVD duplication/replication. I got some very good information, but wanted to look further into it with clients lining up for projects.

1. The superdrive on the Mac doesnt make authoring discs.
2. It was suggested to use Firewire portable drives to deliver content.

Anyone do this? I talked to a couple of places here in Atlanta, and they didnt have firewire =:>o

3. The cost of the authoring DVD burner by Pioneer is about $1000 if you are lucky on Ebay.

My problem is all money going out- need more coming in!! Hard to spend yet more on another item. Anyone own/use one?

4. After talking with several places, came up with a plan to put the project on a DVDrom. SAme size, just burn a dvd and store the files on there for transport(as opposed to formatting a DVD disc).

Has anyone done this? Is this as feasible as it would seem? It seems that I would have to add the price of a DVD author-disc to be burnt somewhere, and then sent to the replicators. (quoted $125)

Final question- whats the best price you've found for DVD duplication or replication?

Seems much cheaper to do a run of 1000 rather than shorter runs of 500 or less.
I get quoted about $1.35 @ for 1000 dvds here.

Thank you!

Jeff Patnaude

Mac Daddy · October 29th, 2002, 03:15 PM

Hi,
I bought my computer from a company on the internet called Smalldog.com
<http://www.smalldog.com>
I watched the site for a month with various price fluctuations. I got lucky and got some money together right when the new 125 Ghz G4's came out. That made the Quicksilver G4 dual 1 gigs much cheaper! They have demo models that are very reasonable, and they are quite reliable. Check them out.

I purchased a Western Digital 120 Gig Hd with a 2 Mg buffer that works great. Plent of room, and easy to install. Ram is also a breeze to install on these MAcs. Check "pricegrabber.com" for the best price in the market currently.

I use my computer for everything, and I dont have problems with it. I do audio recording, internet, and yes- late night gaming once and awhile. At 40, I dont plan to grow up too soon.

Good luck to you!

Jeff Patnaude

Mac Daddy · October 29th, 2002, 03:25 PM

Hi There,
Yup- he's right. I audio engineer for a living (not much of a living, but...)
I can tell you that its a "garbage in-garbage out" process. Its best to try and capture the sound on location at its best.
You can try to "Lo-pass" the audio which cuts everything off at a set point in frequency. That will still leave you with noise- especially something as wide-band as an air conditioner.

You can try to do dialogue replacement, but its tricky and an art in itself. Might work.

Peak by Bias Inc is a great program for mono or stereo file editing.

Good luck to you.

Jeff Patnaude

Richard DuPree · October 29th, 2002, 07:26 PM

I recently received the replicated copies of my latest DVD project with surround sound (Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2). Sent in a DVD-R burned on the SuperDrive. No problemo. The company I was doing business with, No Frills DVD in S. Boston, seemed to actually PREFER the DVD-R to other methods of delivery. It was really a great company to work with. Lots of VERY useful comments and suggestions.

I think you'll find that this is beginning to become the rule rather than the exception.

Jeff Donald · October 29th, 2002, 09:21 PM

It depends on the type of projects your doing and the volume of work your doing as to if you need an authoring drive. Many, many replicators use the DVD-R format as a master. You may want to suscribe to Apple's DVD list. A lot of good information comes across it.

Jeff

Thomas Berg Petersen · October 30th, 2002, 01:59 PM

Dear forum,
I have finally decided to buy a Mac G4/FCP3, but I just have one question before I place the order:

I have a old Sony Trinitron TV monitor (PVM 1342Q) that I wish to add to my G4/FCP3 set up. Any advise how to do that and what I would need?

Thanks!
Tom

Vic Owen · October 30th, 2002, 02:57 PM

I'm assuming that the monitor has video/audio inputs. First, so as not to wear out your camera, I'd recommend a DV VTR connected to your G4 via firewire. You could then hook the monitor to the output of the VTR. In my case, my DVTR (AG-DV2000) feeds a 1X12 DA (Dist. Amp). The monitor is hooked to one of the outputs on my DA. You can then view the video coming out of the G4 during playback or from the tapes when capturing.

There are other options, but this one is simple and works well. As indicated, you could also use your camera for this (or a cheapo with a fw port so you don't put unnecessary wear and tear on your production camera).

Jeff Donald · October 30th, 2002, 02:58 PM

There may be several ways to connect your monitor. Some users connect the firewire to their camcorder, then connect via S-VHS or composite (RCA connection) to their monitor. This may cause a slight delay between the picture and the audio when viewing using this method. The loss of sync is not in the actual production, but rather caused by the delay in audio and video signals being routed through various devices.

The video card that comes with your Mac G4 may also have S-VHS out. If your monitor does not directly support S-VHS you may need to route the signal through your camera. Again, this may cause a loss of sync.

Lastly, a stand alone convertor will accept firewire in and transcode it to separate audio and video. Generally there is no loss of sync. Sony, Formac, Dazzle, Pinnacle and others make suitable convertors.

http://www.synchrotech.com/product-1...verter_01.html

http://www.dazzle.com/products/hw_bridge.html

http://www03.bhphotovideo.com/produc...MCDA2/REG/2506

Jeff

Thomas Berg Petersen · October 30th, 2002, 04:09 PM

Jeff,
Thanks for the reply.
When you say: "Just keep your media on the second drive with nothing else. No MP3's, no documents, nothing but FCP media". Do you mean on a physically second drive or will a HD partition do?
Tom

Jeff Donald · October 30th, 2002, 04:40 PM

A second drive. A partition can still cause dropped frames on capture or playback. It doesn't happen too often, but as the drive fills up the likely hood of dropped frames increase. A small 60gig or 80gig (7200rpm) drive is cheap. They can be picked up for around $100 or less. I bought a 60gig drive for $79 (after rebates) a couple of weeks ago. That's cheap. Just for a trip down memory lane in 1995 I bought two 9gig SCSI drives (external) for my Avid. They were $3,500 each. So, know you now when I say they are cheap, I mean cheap.

Jeff

Brian M. Dickman · October 30th, 2002, 06:54 PM

It's not a "miracle fix", but it's definitely worth trying to throw it through Sonic Foundry's Noise Reduction plugin. If you have Sound Forge or Vegas (or any other editor that supports DirectX audio plugins) you can grab the demo off their site and try it out.

Basically it works by grabbing a "noise fingerprint" from a few samples of only the noise (no "real" sound, just background) and creates a very fine tuned FFT to apply to the whole clip. Again, no miracle promises, but it does go a long way towards brushing over mistakes with noise.

Edit: Oh whoops. This is the Mac forum. Unfortunately, Sonic Foundry products exist only in the Windows world. It's a good enough tool that you should at least take a clip from your shoot and hunt down someone's PC that you can try it on (heck, if you don't have any pc-enabled friends, I'd even give it a shot).

Ken Tanaka · October 30th, 2002, 08:39 PM

Jeff,
Peak is, indeed, a handy and powerful tool. But its filters won't scrub out motor noise, such as an air-conditioner, which actually consists of an orchestra of frequencies. I was faced with something similar recently (an idling bus motor). Even with multiple filter passes at different frequencies I could not adequately eliminate the noise. Worse, with each pass the desired sound degenerated.

I guess that's why sound engineers are so valuable for ensuring that what we hear is as good as what we see...often better, in fact.

Paul Sedillo · October 30th, 2002, 08:44 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Nathan Gifford : Bad audio can only be fixed on Star Trek.
-->>>

Nathan,

That has got to be the funniest thing I have read on the net today! Man you need to make that part of your sig.

October 31st, 2002, 01:55 AM

I have a titanium G4 laptop with FCP, and I'm planning on getting an external hard drive that's USB 2.0 but i can't decide if i should pay the extra 100 bucks to get 7200 rpm as compared to the 5600rpm HD.

Marc Betz · October 31st, 2002, 02:48 AM

I'm a pc guy so I buy internal drives. The price difference between 5400 and 7200 drives on internals is usually so small I just get the 7200. I have heard that 5400 will work but I have not used them. I usually get the fastest products I can and I do analog video as well. Daniel Berube is a big apple guy so you may want to post this question in NLE on the Mac discussion to get some better answers.

In the meantime try this link

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58636&SaveKCWindowURL=http%3A%2F%2Fkbase.info.apple.com%2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2Fkbase.woa%2Fwa%2FSaveKCToHomePage&searchMode=Expert&kbhost=kbase.info.apple.com&s howButton=false&randomValue=100&showSurvey=false&sessionID=anonymous|156807880

Good luck

October 29th, 2002, 03:04 PM	#991
Mac Daddy New Boot Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Duluth, Georgia Posts: 21	DVD Replication Masters Revisited Hi everyone, I asked previously about what master to use for DVD duplication/replication. I got some very good information, but wanted to look further into it with clients lining up for projects. 1. The superdrive on the Mac doesnt make authoring discs. 2. It was suggested to use Firewire portable drives to deliver content. Anyone do this? I talked to a couple of places here in Atlanta, and they didnt have firewire =:>o 3. The cost of the authoring DVD burner by Pioneer is about $1000 if you are lucky on Ebay. My problem is all money going out- need more coming in!! Hard to spend yet more on another item. Anyone own/use one? 4. After talking with several places, came up with a plan to put the project on a DVDrom. SAme size, just burn a dvd and store the files on there for transport(as opposed to formatting a DVD disc). Has anyone done this? Is this as feasible as it would seem? It seems that I would have to add the price of a DVD author-disc to be burnt somewhere, and then sent to the replicators. (quoted $125) Final question- whats the best price you've found for DVD duplication or replication? Seems much cheaper to do a run of 1000 rather than shorter runs of 500 or less. I get quoted about $1.35 @ for 1000 dvds here. Thank you! Jeff Patnaude

October 30th, 2002, 01:59 PM	#996
Thomas Berg Petersen Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: NYC, NY Posts: 111	Adding TV monitor to G4/FCP3 set up Dear forum, I have finally decided to buy a Mac G4/FCP3, but I just have one question before I place the order: I have a old Sony Trinitron TV monitor (PVM 1342Q) that I wish to add to my G4/FCP3 set up. Any advise how to do that and what I would need? Thanks! Tom __________________ Thomas

October 30th, 2002, 02:57 PM	#997
Vic Owen Major Player Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 540	I'm assuming that the monitor has video/audio inputs. First, so as not to wear out your camera, I'd recommend a DV VTR connected to your G4 via firewire. You could then hook the monitor to the output of the VTR. In my case, my DVTR (AG-DV2000) feeds a 1X12 DA (Dist. Amp). The monitor is hooked to one of the outputs on my DA. You can then view the video coming out of the G4 during playback or from the tapes when capturing. There are other options, but this one is simple and works well. As indicated, you could also use your camera for this (or a cheapo with a fw port so you don't put unnecessary wear and tear on your production camera). __________________ -- Vic Owen --

October 30th, 2002, 04:09 PM	#999
Thomas Berg Petersen Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: NYC, NY Posts: 111	Jeff, Thanks for the reply. When you say: "Just keep your media on the second drive with nothing else. No MP3's, no documents, nothing but FCP media". Do you mean on a physically second drive or will a HD partition do? Tom __________________ Thomas

October 30th, 2002, 08:39 PM	#1002
Ken Tanaka Retired DV Info Net Almunus Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,943	Jeff, Peak is, indeed, a handy and powerful tool. But its filters won't scrub out motor noise, such as an air-conditioner, which actually consists of an orchestra of frequencies. I was faced with something similar recently (an idling bus motor). Even with multiple filter passes at different frequencies I could not adequately eliminate the noise. Worse, with each pass the desired sound degenerated. I guess that's why sound engineers are so valuable for ensuring that what we hear is as good as what we see...often better, in fact. __________________ Lady X Films: A lady with a boring wardrobe...and a global mission. Hey, you don't have enough stuff! Buy with confidence from our sponsors. Hand-picked as the best in the business...Really! See some of my work one frame at a time: www.KenTanaka.com

October 29th, 2002, 03:15 PM	#992
Mac Daddy New Boot Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Duluth, Georgia Posts: 21	Hi, I bought my computer from a company on the internet called Smalldog.com <http://www.smalldog.com> I watched the site for a month with various price fluctuations. I got lucky and got some money together right when the new 125 Ghz G4's came out. That made the Quicksilver G4 dual 1 gigs much cheaper! They have demo models that are very reasonable, and they are quite reliable. Check them out. I purchased a Western Digital 120 Gig Hd with a 2 Mg buffer that works great. Plent of room, and easy to install. Ram is also a breeze to install on these MAcs. Check "pricegrabber.com" for the best price in the market currently. I use my computer for everything, and I dont have problems with it. I do audio recording, internet, and yes- late night gaming once and awhile. At 40, I dont plan to grow up too soon. Good luck to you! Jeff Patnaude

October 29th, 2002, 03:25 PM	#993
Mac Daddy New Boot Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Duluth, Georgia Posts: 21	Hi There, Yup- he's right. I audio engineer for a living (not much of a living, but...) I can tell you that its a "garbage in-garbage out" process. Its best to try and capture the sound on location at its best. You can try to "Lo-pass" the audio which cuts everything off at a set point in frequency. That will still leave you with noise- especially something as wide-band as an air conditioner. You can try to do dialogue replacement, but its tricky and an art in itself. Might work. Peak by Bias Inc is a great program for mono or stereo file editing. Good luck to you. Jeff Patnaude

October 29th, 2002, 07:26 PM	#994
Richard DuPree Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Denton, TX Posts: 38	I recently received the replicated copies of my latest DVD project with surround sound (Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2). Sent in a DVD-R burned on the SuperDrive. No problemo. The company I was doing business with, No Frills DVD in S. Boston, seemed to actually PREFER the DVD-R to other methods of delivery. It was really a great company to work with. Lots of VERY useful comments and suggestions. I think you'll find that this is beginning to become the rule rather than the exception.

October 29th, 2002, 09:21 PM	#995
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	It depends on the type of projects your doing and the volume of work your doing as to if you need an authoring drive. Many, many replicators use the DVD-R format as a master. You may want to suscribe to Apple's DVD list. A lot of good information comes across it. Jeff

October 30th, 2002, 02:58 PM	#998
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	There may be several ways to connect your monitor. Some users connect the firewire to their camcorder, then connect via S-VHS or composite (RCA connection) to their monitor. This may cause a slight delay between the picture and the audio when viewing using this method. The loss of sync is not in the actual production, but rather caused by the delay in audio and video signals being routed through various devices. The video card that comes with your Mac G4 may also have S-VHS out. If your monitor does not directly support S-VHS you may need to route the signal through your camera. Again, this may cause a loss of sync. Lastly, a stand alone convertor will accept firewire in and transcode it to separate audio and video. Generally there is no loss of sync. Sony, Formac, Dazzle, Pinnacle and others make suitable convertors. http://www.synchrotech.com/product-1...verter_01.html http://www.dazzle.com/products/hw_bridge.html http://www03.bhphotovideo.com/produc...MCDA2/REG/2506 Jeff

October 30th, 2002, 04:40 PM	#1000
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	A second drive. A partition can still cause dropped frames on capture or playback. It doesn't happen too often, but as the drive fills up the likely hood of dropped frames increase. A small 60gig or 80gig (7200rpm) drive is cheap. They can be picked up for around $100 or less. I bought a 60gig drive for $79 (after rebates) a couple of weeks ago. That's cheap. Just for a trip down memory lane in 1995 I bought two 9gig SCSI drives (external) for my Avid. They were $3,500 each. So, know you now when I say they are cheap, I mean cheap. Jeff

October 30th, 2002, 06:54 PM	#1001
Brian M. Dickman Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 148	It's not a "miracle fix", but it's definitely worth trying to throw it through Sonic Foundry's Noise Reduction plugin. If you have Sound Forge or Vegas (or any other editor that supports DirectX audio plugins) you can grab the demo off their site and try it out. Basically it works by grabbing a "noise fingerprint" from a few samples of only the noise (no "real" sound, just background) and creates a very fine tuned FFT to apply to the whole clip. Again, no miracle promises, but it does go a long way towards brushing over mistakes with noise. Edit: Oh whoops. This is the Mac forum. Unfortunately, Sonic Foundry products exist only in the Windows world. It's a good enough tool that you should at least take a clip from your shoot and hunt down someone's PC that you can try it on (heck, if you don't have any pc-enabled friends, I'd even give it a shot).

October 30th, 2002, 08:44 PM	#1003
Paul Sedillo Major Player Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 607	<<<-- Originally posted by Nathan Gifford : Bad audio can only be fixed on Star Trek. -->>> Nathan, That has got to be the funniest thing I have read on the net today! Man you need to make that part of your sig. __________________ Paul Sedillo Image::Studio http://www.image-studio.com Houston, Texas

October 31st, 2002, 01:55 AM	#1004
GreenRubberPlant Posts: n/a	Hard Drive Performance question! I have a titanium G4 laptop with FCP, and I'm planning on getting an external hard drive that's USB 2.0 but i can't decide if i should pay the extra 100 bucks to get 7200 rpm as compared to the 5600rpm HD.

October 31st, 2002, 02:48 AM	#1005
Marc Betz Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: NH Posts: 95	Speed I'm a pc guy so I buy internal drives. The price difference between 5400 and 7200 drives on internals is usually so small I just get the 7200. I have heard that 5400 will work but I have not used them. I usually get the fastest products I can and I do analog video as well. Daniel Berube is a big apple guy so you may want to post this question in NLE on the Mac discussion to get some better answers. In the meantime try this link http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58636&SaveKCWindowURL=http%3A%2F%2Fkbase.info.apple.com%2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2Fkbase.woa%2Fwa%2FSaveKCToHomePage&searchMode=Expert&kbhost=kbase.info.apple.com&s howButton=false&randomValue=100&showSurvey=false&sessionID=anonymous\|156807880 Good luck __________________ Marc Betz