NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2007

[Andrew Clark]

I've got some ideas, below, on configuring external HDD's with the new 17" MacBook Pro but would appreciate some feedback / suggestions if this is a good / ideal way to manage my media assets or maybe another way.

- For Capturing and Editing, (2) SATA II drives (maybe 320gb each) in (2) seperate external enclosures, each of which has FW800 / FW400 / USB 2.0 / eSATA external ports.

- For Projects (completed and in progress) a (1) SATA II drive in an external enclosure (same as above), maybe 320gb.

- For Audio / Still Photos / Graphics (1) SATA II drive in an external enclosure (same as above), maybe 250gb.

Is it doable to daisy chain all these enclosures together or would it be better / safer to get a single (4) drive enclosure?

I would be editing stuff originated from Hi8, MiniDV, AVCHD, MXF (P2), XDCam HD.

Again, any suggestions would be more than appreciated.

Thanks!!

[Phil Bloom]

I can use 1080i no problem but downloaded latest firmware for both and I just cant display 1080p 25 on my apple monitor. The display is all distorted, lots of lines, hard to explain. I have selected in final cut pro aja kona 1080p25 8 bit 1920x10080. Have also tried the other settings 10 bit and rgba.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[Joseph Campo]

What is the exact workflow to ingest 1080/24P footage (not 1080/24PA) shot on the AG-HVX200P into Final Cut 5.1.4, and watch the footage in 24p?

It seems like a simple question, but I've had a hard time getting an exact answer and all the literature provided by Apple and Panasonic leaves me with a stuttering image.

Whoever is kind enough to answer, would you please be ultra-detailed in the steps required?

I greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Joseph Campo

[Katie Mims]

Hi Everyone,

So, I've gotten myself into a bit of an editing mess. Forgive me if I sound confused or unclear about any of this; I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything. I could use any help and advice that anyone has!

So here's the deal.

I have two problems. Or, really, three. I shot footage with the Sony HVR-V1U in 24A and 30p (by accident. I swear it was set to 24A. Didn't figure this out until yesterday). The three problems are:

1) I messed up my workaround and need to figure out how to fix it
2) I have two frame rates, much to my dismay. 24A and 30p, all encoded in a HDV1080i60 stream.
3) Converting HDV to SD was horrifying yesterday. Cadence problems, interlacing, flickering, noise and TERRIBLE quality.

Just so that everyone knows right off, I have a delivery date of July 9th and it needs to be delivered in SD (DVD) for projection on big screen. Eventually it also needs to be online.

So. Here we go.

1) I messed up my workaround and need to figure out how to fix it

Using information in this thread: <a href="http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=83651">DVInfo</a>

And this thread: <a href="http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=87189">DvInfo Again</a>

I decided to use this workaround: <a href="http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/articles/camcorders/FCP_24P_HVRV1U.htm"> V1U Workaround</a>

I captured HDV 1080i60
Edited in a 1080i60 timeline

Went to finish the workaround by:
-Creating new sequence set to Photo-JPG 75%
-Paste project into new sequence, render, export, open in CinemaTools and Reverse Telecine

And I realized that I had to reverse the INDIVIDUAL clips, not the project. One good thing (I think) is that the footage is 24A, so the A frame should be the very first frame of every clip. Unfortunately I tried reversing a few clips and they looked very odd.

So to fix this do I go in and reverse all the clips I'm using individually, then reconnect my media to those new files? If so, what timeline do I do this in?

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

2) I have two frame rates, much to my dismay. 24A and 30p, all encoded in a HDV1080i60 stream.

How do I safely mix these? I'm lost here. I've never mixed frame rates, and this is my first time working with HDV on top of the fact that FCP doesn't support this camera. Do convert one frame rate to the other? Or?

-----------

3) Converting HDV to SD was horrifying yesterday. Cadence problems, interlacing, flickering, noise and TERRIBLE quality. I have a delivery date of July 9th, and to make sure I had something ready, I wanted to get a backup plan together, so yesterday I decided to just ignore the frame judder and try to just convert my current timeline (HDV1080i60) to SD.

To convert to SD I simply created a new timeline that was SD/DV/NTSC. Copy/pasted everything from the HDV timeline into it, rendered and took a look.

It was pretty terrible. The image quality was very poor, there was tons of noise/flickering in many of the clips, not to mention the obvious pulldown issues that were already there.

To fix the noise/flickering issues in the clips, a friend suggested that I export Uncompressed QT then create .Tiff files of each frame, import those into Shake and fix it in there. I'm not familiar with Shake, but my friend offered to show me how to do this.

One thing I totally didn't get was the fact that my 30p footage looked like it had interlacing problems when it shouldn't. My camera shoots progressive.

----------

Seriously. There has to be a better way to fix all these problems. I did some searching and found a few things.

This <a href="http://digitalcontentproducer.com/hdhdv/depth/edit_v1_final_cut_052907/index1.html">Workaround</a> for 24A.

Would re-capturing my used media as AIC and using the above workaround solve some of my problems? Any and all advice is appreciated.

[Lloyd Choi]

So FCP 5.1 supports HDV editing? Specifically, can it effectively capture 24f from the XH-A1?

Thanks :)

[Ryan Flesher]

Anyone know the best way to export audio from a sequence (audio only, no video) to then use in itunes for transcription. I can do it as a AIFF file but those are huge files.
How about as AAC or MP3?
Any work flow would help.

I have FCS2

R

[David Garvin]

I'm in FCS2 and I have a multitrack project open. I've tweaked and added EQ and reverb using SpaceDesigner and gotten the dialogue to sound how I want it to sound.

All I want to do is to export the single line of dialogue to an aiff file. However, whenever I do any export, whether it's a full mixdown, individual tracks or whatever, the resulting file sounds nothing like what I'm hearing in SoundTrack.

Most noticeably, the reverb is WAYYY off. I have just a small touch of small room reverb that I added with Space Designer, but my exported files sound like they're in a cavern. Additionally, immediately after exporting if I play back my Soundtrack timeline, the reverb is horrible there as well. But then all I have to do is open and then close the Space Designer window and everything in my timeline plays normally again.

I've had other issues with SoundTrack as well, but this seems to be the most basic and hopefully has the easiest solution. There's obviously something wrong here and I'm hoping somebody knows a way to fix it. All I want to do is to export an aiff that sounds like what I'm hearing in SoundTrack.

Thanks

[Charles Papert]

I have some HDV footage, shot in 24p mode on the HV20, which I need to convert to DVCPROHD to be cut with Varicam footage. I've captured the material into FCP using the HDV preset, and the clips look OK. However when I attempt to do the conversion, the resulting clip has "ghost"/double image frames in it. Can someone run me through the settings in case I am missing something (frame dominance or some such)?

[Jack Steiner]

I'm new to motion and would appreciate help on this presumably straightforward task:

I'm working with 3d space enabled in the new motion and trying to do a peel of a 2d image. I'd expect there to be a pre-made behavior for this but haven't found it and have not had luck creating it. If I've neglected any necessary info, apologies.

Thanks,
Jack

[Tobin Strickland]

I am shooting nature footage in the bay ...lots of footage for each 20 second clip that is good. So, I have to log and capture.

What is the fastest, most straight forward, way to log and capture?
FCS2, Firestore, a deck...what?


I have FCE 3.5.1, Mac book Pro 2.16 - gig, 1t my book, Cannon Xh A1. Shooting in 60i 1080. DHVSCap. Mpegstreamclip.

Willing try anything else.

Thanks in advance.

[Chris Leong]

Hi there
Just trying to install an ATI radeon X800 XT onto my dual 2GHz PCI-X G5 Powermac.
It's running OS10.4.10 with QT 7.1.5 pro and FCP 5.1.4,
Problems start on boot up as soon as the display card driver kicks in.
I"m getting tiny red tramlines all over both screens, QT checkerboards, won't display anything clean, even playing a simple QT file off the desktop.
Horrible effect!
Effect lessens when I lower resolution, color depth, etc, but who wants to edit at 640x480 on 20" apple cinema screens...

So I've done a bit of research, and upgraded to the Aug 2005 v109 ROM upgrgade, whereupon I discovered that in safe boot mode (which you have to get into to install the ROM upgrade) the screens clear up and there's no problems.

However, without the driver installed (and yes, I downloaded the latest versions from the website), the Quartz Extreme mode needed to run FCP isn't installed and so FCP won't boot.

So I can't be the first person having this problem, right?

I started a ticket at the ATI site (now down for maintenance, apparently), and it stated that there's a Jan 2007 driver available on the ticket entry window, but of course there's no such thing on the download page. That's probably my problem, since OSX.4 came out at about the same time this mythical 2007 driver did.

Is it a simple driver issue, as I suspect?

Thanks!
Cheers
Chris

[Aram Rian]

Hi.
Is there any way I could select an object in a video scene? i mean, like creating a path in Photoshop and using the pen tool to isolate an object from its context. what are the tools for doing the same in Final Cut Express HD?
Thanks.

[Jon Paul Johnson]

I used to shoot with 2 DVX100s and recently upgraded to an XH-A1. I could only afford one as I also upgraded both tripods and lighting. Does anyone have a recomendation on using both of these cameras together? I like shooting in 24p. For my last wedding I used the DVX100 with the letterbox setting and the A1 in HDV 1080i. I then upconverted the DVX100 footage to HD with UpConvert 1.0....Besides the tremendous render times...my results were still mediocre. I wish to edit in Final Cut Studio 2.0 in HDV and downconvert on the export. I consider my editing skills to be pretty good but this is giving me a lot of trouble in post. Any help would be appreciated as I can not afford another A1 at the moment.

[Russell Kolter]

I am editing footage shot from an XLH1. It was recorded 24f, ingested wrapped as 60i through it's HD-SDI out. It was transcoded to the Sheer codec to save space. Now that FCS2 is out, I'm trying to get it to ProRes HQ in Compressor 3.0.1 (or whatever the latest is) but it doesn't work. I don't think it is the sheer codec itself, as I can transcode to every other codec listed, except ProRes. Now if I convert it to another format, such as Apple Uncompressed HD 8bit 4:2:2 and THEN to ProRes, it works. Strange? How come I can't go straight from Sheer to ProRes, but I CAN go from Sheer to Other Codecs? Is this a problem with ProRes itself? Compressor? Quicktime? I'm stumped.

[David Chapman]

If you ever use DCDP, read this. It took me forever to find the solution…

I opened up my FCP HDV720p24 project to discover I could not view the DCDP on my second monitor. I repaired permissions, restarted, cleared my PR ram, launched FCP again—nothing happened. I changed the easy setup and adjusted my settings once more, and it didn’t work.

Out of desperation, I deleted my Prefs folder. It turned out there was a preference corrupted. After launching the program again, everything worked fine.

Hopefully this will help someone out there who hasn’t yet found the answer.