NLE Mac / Final Cut questions from 2007

[Darin Boville]

The new iMacs, just announced, have a ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO graphics card. I looked up the specs and there is a line that reads: "MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264/AVC encoding and transcoding."

Does that mean it does the H.264 compression in the hardware (i.e. fast)?

The new iMovie looks very nice, also.

--Darin

[Kevin James]

I am taking about 80 minutes of footage down to 3:30, and was looking for some tips for improving the look.

I added motion blur, which improved the choppy look of the person in frame (this is a surfboard being shaped), but really killed the detail on the deck of the board.

I have heard people mention deinterlacing and changing the field order or blending can help.....?

I'd appreciate any thoughts on the subject, thanks guys.

[Nate Benson]

I imported some footage of a dance show I shot tonight with a GL2. The image is clear on my camera, however in the viewer of FCPS2 the image is a bit pixelated when the dancer moves.

any ideas why that is, or how i can fix it in fcps2

[Chris Gorman]

I did this months ago, but now when I try to do it again, my computer timeline via final cut pro seems not to be recognizing my Z1U vtr. I've gone through all the setting in the vtr and cam settings, checked the manual - no luck.

This is a native hdv edit of 1080i/60 which I want to record back onto tape using my Z1U. Please help.

[Bradley Paul]

A few days ago I posted this problem: http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=100641. In a nutshell, I noticed that when I brought my captured clips (24p HDV) into Final Cut, the quality was greatly diminished, and diagonal lines in particular became very blocky, even though the original clips were very sharp. I've made a little bit of headway and was hoping someone here might have some further advice.

It appears that the problem is one of frames and fields. I think I've got this right: the 24p is of course caught in a 60i stream, and when importing into Final Cut I think I was getting only part of the progressive frame. I downloaded the Nattress plugins, and have some success: the images suddenly become crisp again! This happens when I apply the "G Film Converter" plug in. The problems now are:

-- The Natress plugin seems to erase my color corrections.

-- The Natress plugin wants to convert the 24p back to NTSC (it doesn't seem to offer the option to just keep 24p as 24p), so a fifth frame gets added and frequently has interlacing artifacts (all this after I had to do a Reverse Telecine in the first place to get the 24p clips!)

-- I'm a little daunted by the notions that (A) after I've edited a short, I'll have to apply Nattress to every cut and (B) everything I've written here seems to imply that Final Cut actually CAN'T import 24p HDV Quicktime clips without a plugin! It automatically messes with the clips as soon as I pull them in. Surely this can't be the case. Have other people noticed that 24p HDV clips won't go smoothly into Final Cut without some kind of plugin? Is there another plugin I should be looking at to address this issue?

[Tobin Strickland]

anyone making graphics in Flash CS3 for their movies. I am giving it a go and seems to be working well.

question.... can the flash content be overlaid onto the FCE content. IN otherwords is there a way to make the flash graphics with a transparent background so it overlays the FCE image?

I can do it all in Flash...but I am worried that the files would be larger in flash.

[Elmer Lang]

Having dropped my "Apple Loops for STP" folder (containing 3 smaller folders: Apple Loops, PowerFX Loops, SoundIdeas) onto GarageBand, they don't all seem accounted for.

Take "Orchestral String Section 85" from PowerFX Loops. When I type it into GB's search it doesn't come up. 86 does. Many others don't either.

Why don't they all show?

thanks,
lmr

[Dino Leone]

Hi all,
I'm currently using FCE and I'd very much like to "upgrade" to FCS. After reading parts of the manuals I found one particular feature about compressor that would be very useful: compressing jobs distributed over several machines (to accelerate compressing and to distribute the load).
Now I'm wondering if it's possible (and legal) to install compressor/Qmaster on several machines having just one single FCS license? The manual isn't quite clear about that (I would assume that's in the EULA but I don't have that since I haven't bought the software yet).
Has anybody tried this?
Best,
Dino

[Kevin Harrington]

I am recently re-logging some clips shot 24f, 16:9 from an XL2 a year ago. I have an XLH1 and an HV20 now, but the HV20 will not recognize ANY footage on the tape in playback (blue screen, no timecode) and the XLH1, while it shows video, lacks timecode, and worst of all, no audio when captured. Is my only solution to go back to the XL2 to capture, or is there some settings I can fiddle with within FCP?

I know 24f from the XL2 had some problems with FCP, but the fact that the Canon cameras cannot playback is very worrisome, as the XL2 is across the country and not really an option for me to use as a deck.

[Chuck Spaulding]

Is anyone using ProRes in HD Production?

If so:

What is your source material?
What are you mastering too?
Are you using the HQ 220 or Medium 145?
Any noticeable difference between the HQ and Medium quality?
What capture card are you using?
Are you having any problems?
What has been your overall experience?

As part of FCP6 ProrRes has been out for a while but there's surprising little debate about it which leads me to believe that few people are using it, it works great and there's no need for discussion or there isn't a need for it.

We recently completed an HD project with 11 DVCProHD cameras, about 6TB worth of data. We are thinking we would like to switch to Sony HDCam and then capture to ProRes 145.

Any insights or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[Patrick Pike]

I produced a wedding video for a client about a year ago. At the time, when I logged the tapes into FCP, I simply used the Capture Now function.

Recently, the client contacted me and asked me to make a dew changes to the video. Not having the footage still on my computer, I would have to recapture it. However, because I used Capture Now originally, there is not enough pre-roll space on the tapes to correctly capture the logged clips. I tried to recapture a tape using Capture Now, and then relinking the clip, but FCP couldn't match the start and end times of the clip.

Am I stuck, or is there a solution that I am missing?

[Owen Meek]

I'm looking at crossing over to OSX, my query is to determine if FCP is more CPU reliant like Vegas or Video Card reliant like Premiere for editing HDV? (Canon HV20)

I am more of a dabbler than a serious video editor. I want a Mac more so for Logic Audio but I don't want to negate my options if I take a shine to FCP.

I basically need to know if the first Powerbook option with the "NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 128MB SDRAM" will suffice compared to the 256MB version at a $700AU difference.

[Kalunga Lima]

I'm looking for a FW800 Host card for a 8-Core MacPro, the idea being to keep my FW800 external drives on a separate FW bus while I use the existing FW ports for connecting my camera (XDCam) when indesting and for my audio mixer.

Any suggestions as to make and model?

Thanks

[Hans Ledel]

Hello

I have a question about Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC).

At the moment I have an Intel IMac Core Duo and Final Cut Studio 1 (FCP 5.1.4) and I am editing in SD so far.

I have been looking at the new Sony CX6 witch use AVCHD codec and I am aware of that my FCP 5.1.4 will not import that.
However, I have just bought IMovie 08 and that program will accept AVCHD and will convert it to AIC.

At first it sounded like a good idea to capture in Imovie and then open the files in FCP since my FCP will accept AIC.

When I looked for AIC in “Easy Setup” the only one I can find is "HDV-Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i50" (I’m in PAL country) and this is where I got confused since it said HDV.

Is that another AIC that won’t work with my IMovie AIC or are they the same?

To put this in one question: Could I use my Imovie 08 to capture AVCHD into AIC and the import those files in FCP under AIC1080i50 even if it says HDV-AIC?

I hope someone will be able to help me with this question.

Cheers

Hans

[Ariel Ferrer]

Hi I have a lot of material for a feature film shoot on a DVX100 in 24p Advance using a 16:9 anamorphic converter lens. I am Using FCP6 and I am capturing with a custom preset to be able to capture in 16:9 with the Remove Pulldown option cheked to edit in 24p (I will eventually transfer to film) The weird thing or problem that I am having is that most of the clips shows up as 23.98 as it should be But some times I get some clips in 29.97!!!! The camera Setting was never changed in Production!!! it always stayed in F6 the 24p Advance setting!!! I then tried the remove Pulldown options in Tools menu but I ended up with a clip with interlace fields!!!! very Weird!! So I thought that the tape was shoot in regular 24p, but I made a test shoot in regular 24p and then tried to remove the Pulldown via the Tools menu option but It won't let me because it was NOT shoot in 24pA!!! Si I have a Bunch of clips in 29.97 That I KNOW I shoot in 24pA but for some reason when I capture it doesn't remove the Fields and When I tried to remove it after capture I ended up with a interlace clip!!! Does anybody know id theres a Bug with this Workflow!! The camera is the DVX100 not the DVX100A or DVX100B. I used Cinema tools to convert the footage and it did it fine, But I want to avoid using Cinema Tools because it adds more time to the production!!! Can anyone have a clue? Thanks in advance!!!

ariel