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External RT Playback on Macbook Pro?
I am looking to buy a Macbook Pro (my last one was just stolen). I need to make sure that the video card ouput will play the timeline canvas live with no dropped Frames.
My last computer was the first Macbook Pro 15 inch 1.83 intel core duo with 1 gb of ram. The graphics card was ATI Mobility Radeon x1600 128 mb.
I am a part of dance company and i was working with some green screen video that i had rendered to have two people in the frame. Each theater space i have to move the figures around to fit the configuration of the projector and then re-render and play it live. When i was first doing it i was using a G5 tower dual 1.8ghz computer. With that computer in the theater i set it up so that the projector was the second monitor and FCP was routed so that the canvas played all frames in the desktop monitor (that was the projector.)
This worked flawlessly for the run of the show i was doing. Now we are going on small tour and lugging a g5 tower is not an option.
When i tried to use my Macbook pro 15inch in the same configuration at a different venue it did not work. I think the graphics card was not strong enough to ouput the timeline to the projector as a second monitor. The option in FCP was greyed out and it would not let me use the projector out of the computers DVI port as the desktop monitor. I could use it as a monitor for the computer but the live output of the canvas timeline did not work.
So the projector and the computer were working fine together but FCP could not play it out as a monitor.
Is there anyone out there who may have experience in trying to use an external projector as a second monitor that is set up as FCP’s Desktop monitor?
Would anyone with a new Macbook Pro be willing to test this out and see what kinds of results you get with it.
Please post any notes you have on this with your laptop configuration included.
Thanks so much
Juniper Shuey
Visual Artist
g5 dual 1.8 ghz power pc -
7 Replies
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You have not mentioned anythng about the hard drive you’re using for playback. You’re not by chance playing back video off the system drive are you?
DRW
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Which format (codec) do you use?
Regards,
Uli
Author of “DVDs gestalten und produzieren”, a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.
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i was using the internal hardrive of the laptop at the time. my video played fine in the canvas window but it was after i tried to select the external monitor as the “Digetal cinema Desktop Preview” and then tried to select external video all frames that it did not work.
Here is the route:
So first in Final Cut Pro you go to View/videoPlayback/Digital Cinema Desktop Preview- external. After setting this as your video playback then you go into view/external video/ all frames. Then I play the timeline and it should play simultaneously on your desktop monitor (in this case the projector)
I figured it was the Graphics card that was having problems with this option since the video plays fine
The format for the video that is playing is Final Cut Pro rendered material.
I hope this makes sense. I am trying to do this because in every space when i have to adjust the screen to fit the projector it is not always useful to export the movie to DVD or some other format. Plus it means that i can see the timeline and am able to make cues for the dancers and the lighting and the sound. THe movement on the video is synched up with the dancers all have to synched for it to work so seeing the timeline is extremely helpful
Thanks
Hopefully someone can try and set up this situation. I am going to go the the apple store and see if i can set up this situation but i don’t know if the FCP on any of the machines or if they are even willing to do this set up.
Juniper Shuey
Visual Artist
g5 dual 1.8 ghz power pc -
Juniper,
Here’s the deal, when playing back video in FCP and viewing in the canvas, unless you turn off all realtime features you won’t know if you’re dropping frames. RT playback compensates for any system deficiencies your system may have. In your case, editing on the system drive is most likely causing the dropped frames, but you wouldn’t know that until you either print to tape or playback at full resolution to a video monitor.
Does ths make sense?
DRW
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I just tried it on my new Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.33g, bought two weeks ago.
It worked just fine. Here’s my setup:
20 inch DVI monitor connected to Macbook Pro.
FCP set to:
view-external video-all frames.
view-video playback-digital cinema desktop preview full screen.This was playing back an SD timeline.
Don’t do HD yet so can’t tell you if that will work.Dan
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Thanks for the info.
One thing, Is your graphics card with 256 mb of memory or 128mb
I went to the apple store today and they were kind enough to help me by setting up 20 inch flat panel out of the DVI port. It worked flawlessly with that above set up. Unfortunately the only computers on display were the top of the line ones with the 256 mb graphics card. I will for now assume the 128 mb graphics card should work pretty close. But if anyone has that one it would great to hear if it works as well.
It makes sense that i would need to turn off all of the RT stuff. But i had rendered all of the material so that it was not needing to use the memory for RT playback. But the real problem was that the options were grayed out when i navigated to try and make the projector the monitor for the time line. Unfortunately since that computer was stolen i can’t recreate my previous problem. But i did sit there for some time retrying everything when i was in that situation since my other option was to run home and lug my other computer to the venue.
it would be nice to know if i have to buy the higher graphics card or if the 128 will work.
thanks for all the responses
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The system profiler says it has 256MB of VRAM.
It is the 2.33g unit, 15 inch display.If possible, you should take your projector to the Apple Store
and hook it up to one of the Macbook Pros to see what’s what.
Maybe there is some kind of issue with the projector.
Most projectors will accept VGA too. With the MBP you can
use an adaptor to change the output to VGA.
That may help.Dan
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