[Alan Okey]

I know my opinion is in the minitory here, but I would strongly suggest that you consider purchasing an integrated RAID solution from a reputable vendor like CalDigit, Dulce Systems, etc. instead of building your own RAID.

If cost is critical, then so be it, but there’s a lot to be said for purchasing a complete, custom-integrated solution instead of rolling your own. A major benefit to buying form a RAID vendor is that if you should encounter problems, you then only have one support contact to deal with in order to fix the problem. Yes, you pay extra for that level of support, but if trouble-free reliable storage is your goal, then consider buying from a professional RAID vendor.

[Alan Okey]

[Eric Meek] “Im really not trying to be a jerk here so please dont take it as such. This post is not an insult but I do have a few thoughts I’d like to get out about the above post by Alen Okey. “

Eric, your thoughts and opinions are welcome in this forum. I try not to take disagreements personally, as long as they don’t devolve into personal attacks. Please note that if you want to respond to me by name, I would appreciate it if you spelled my name correctly.

[Eric Meek] “For one, even if you claim to use Apple products I still get the feeling from you that you harbor ill will toward apple and its fanatical users. It sounds like it bothers you when people say good things about FCP because of your disgust for Apple in general.
“

Eric, nothing could be further from the truth. I adore Apple products in general. I love my Mac Pro and my iPhone is a technological marvel. OS X is fantastic, and only getting better. I’m not disgusted by Apple’s products, but I do have some issues with Apple’s behavior as a company at times.

[Eric Meek] “Even with all its quirks and bugs. I guarantee AVID and Premiere have as many , if not more bugs, than FCS. “

I never made any claims to the contrary. I just wish Apple wold concentrate more on polishing the tools that it has instead of focusing so much on adding new features.

[Eric Meek] “But I keep asking myself, why you use FCS? If your life would be just as easy without it why not use something else?”

Because FCP/FCS is currently the best option. Since I like the tools so much overall, I am that much more passionate about Apple making genuine improvements and not ignoring ongoing issues.

[Eric Meek] “You really are wrong on a lot of things. You say apple didnt know anything about high end compositing? They didnt have to because they hired ROn Brinkman, developer of shake and Nuke. They had the father of compositing IN HOUSE.”

That’s nice to know, but in my opinion Apple has not released any new products to date that really reflects the depth of his expertise. Having great R&D and expertise isn’t worth much if it never translates into great new products.

[Eric Meek] “Motion has changed the game and soundtrack is so powerful is crazy. To call either of these apps lackluster

Are you kidding me? If you cant realize how good motion is and what its bringing to the table than i know its just pure apple contempt on your part. Motion has changed the industry. “

I don’t know anyone who really uses Motion beyond a quick previs tool for client sessions. Everyone I know uses After Effects for motion graphics and higher end software for compositing.

I don’t think Motion has fundamentally changed the industry. Motion doesn’t really have any competitors. It’s a quick, GPU-accelerated motion graphics tool that has some decent basic compositing tools, but it can’t really compete with AE for motion graphics or with Shake, Nuke, Fusion, Combustion etc. for compositing. It has a quirky interface that annoys motion graphics pros and compositing pros alike. It’s really designed for editors who want to easily throw together some motion graphics quickly or do some basic compositing/roto tasks that are beyond the capabilities of FCP.

I really just don’t see the need for Motion to be a separate app. I think Motion’s roto/masking tools and optical flow retiming would be far more useful built right into FCP. I think the motion tab of FCP’s Viewer window should inherit Motion’s functionality – better scaling, better keyframe tools, and Behaviors.

Motion is a nice tool for editors who aren’t well-versed in motion graphics or compositing. I just don’t see Motion gaining much traction with professional motion graphics artists or compositors, however, and I really don’t think that Apple was targeting those markets with Motion in the first place.

One of the ancillary benefits of Apple releasing Motion was that it may have been a good kick in the pants to other companies to start harnessing the tremendous power of GPUs. Adobe has in fact done so, partnering with nVidia to harness the power of their GPUs in Adobe’s production software:

https://www.nvidia.com/object/builtforadobepros.html

I haven’t used any of these products, but in theory it’s a good idea. If Apple can go in a similar direction with OpenCL and FCS, it will be a win/win situation all around.

[Eric Meek] “You say if you didnt have FCS you would SIMPLY use other things. LOLOL. SIMPLY? you my friend take FCS for granted as a fool would.”

Now you’re getting personal, which I don’t think makes you look any better. It’s disingenuous of you to open your post by saying that you aren’t trying to insult me, then you call me a fool. Which is it?

[Eric Meek] “You keep using FCS and why? Its the best. Either that or you cant afford any other. “

It’s a little bot of both. I can’t afford any other application (read AVID) that has FCP’s capabilities at a better price. So yes, FCS is the best, but only at a given price.

If AVID ever wakes up and realizes that the expensive proprietary hardware game is over, they could compete more directly with FCS. However, they aren’t willing to do this yet so Apple has made huge inroads in the market, starting form the bottom up. AVID is really in a bind because they’ve painted themselves into a corner by focusing only on the high-middle to high end market. They seem arrogant about their position in the market and very dismissive of the importance of mindshare and momentum generated by a huge mass of “lower end” users. They have only begrudgingly offered Media Composer as a software-only product because of FCS. The standalone Media Composer software is crippled by the lack of HD I/O and a lack of support for inexpensinve third party I/O hardware from companies like AJA and Blackmagic. As FCP’s capabilities become greater at a lower cost, AVID’s market is shrinking upward. AVID reminds me very much of SGI, another once-great company who made great technology but was ultimately run into the ground by corporate arrogance and a slowness to react to market realities.

I think AVID should wake up and smell the coffee and realize that the days of proprietary hardware are over. They should open up their products to support products form companies like AJA and Blackmagic. This would be better for everyone – it wold open up AVID products to a new group of users at a new price point, and it would spur a healthy competition between Apple and AVID to offer better products at lower prices.

[Eric Meek] “You think this many people use FCP because its bad. “

You’re putting words in my mouth and making unsupported assumptions about my opinions.

[Eric Meek] “And on a side not, i notice in your post you never mention the addition of Color to FCS? “

Color is the crown jewel of FCS, in my opinion. There’s nothing out there that’s even remotely close to Color’s price that can touch it. I wold pay the full cost of FCS for Color alone. It’s that good. On this point, we agree.

[Eric Meek] “The addition of Color to FCS just tells you that Apple is committed. I think you just spite apple to much to notice. “

You are making incredible assumptions about my opinion of Apple and its products. Just because I have a few beefs with FCS doesn’t make me an Apple hater. if anything, your violent reaction to my post makes you seem like an Apple fanboy. But I don’t know you, so I won’t make that assumption. You do come across as being very defensive about criticism of Apple, however.

[Eric Meek] “Motion is not as good a compositor as AE no, but I can argue its a lot better than AER at a lot of things as AE is better than Motion at a lot. As far as a quick visualization motion cant be beat. Real time playback in front of a client is priceless.”

I agree with you.

[Eric Meek] “You dont seem to get that. Its not trying to be shake. THEY HAVE SHAKE FOR THAT. And they do sell 3000 dollar apps. Shake for linux is 5000.”

I DO get that, just read my comments above. And Shake has been officially discontinued now, by the way. It’s no longer for sale at the Apple store.

[Eric Meek] “Bottom line, i think your sorely mistaking the purpose of motion.”

No, I get what Motion is. It’s just not particularly useful for my needs.

Eric, I appreciate your comments and I respect your opinions but I think you really need to be careful about taking things so personally. I think we can agree to have a difference of opinion without you resorting to calling me a fool or an Apple-basher.

Take care.

[Alan Okey]

What RAID level does your backup RAID need to be, i.e. JBOD, RAID 1, RAID 5, etc.?

If you need RAID 5, does the backup RAID enclosure need to have a built-in RAID controller, or do you have space for a second RAID controller card in your host system?

[Alan Okey]

I’ll get right to that, just as soon as I finish rearranging my stamp collection, chewing broken glass and dragging a rusty nail across the surface of my eye.

[Alan Okey]

[Jim Eckes] “This stuff was shot 1080i 24p, but apparently the hvx camera he shot it on adds the pull down or something as it shoots. You end up with a 29.97 on tape and that’s what is going into my system. So I’m guessing it’s ok. “

Check to see if the footage was shot in 24p or 24pA (Advanced Pulldown). If it was shot in 24pA, you’ll have to capture it as 24p, removing the pulldown, then have the post house add pulldown when dubbing to HDCAM.

24pA is not meant to be viewed as 29.97 – it has a pulldown cadence that looks very jerky when played back. It’s designed for optimal results when removing pulldown for a 24p workflow. If your footage was shot in regular 24p (not 24pA), then you don’t need to worry about it.

If you can’t contact the DP to find out what mode the footage was shot in, simply step through the footage frame by frame to determine the pulldown cadence.

Here’s a must-read article on the subject of 24p/24pA. It applies to HD as well as SD.

https://www.adamwilt.com/24p/index.html#24pRecording

[Alan Okey]

If none of the 24p workflow advantages that I outlined above are applicable to your project, it might be simpler and faster for you capture and work in 1080i60 (29.97) for the project. Just know that there are advantages to the 24p workflow in certain situations.

[Alan Okey]

What has PBS requested as a deliverable? Tape? File? You don\’t have HDSDI out on your Intensity card, so you won\’t be able to connect to an HDCAM deck. If PBS requires you to deliver on tape, you\’ll need to have your project outut to tape by a post house. If PBS will accept a file, get the exact specs they need and use Compressor to convert a Quicktime reference movie exported from FCP.

[Alan Okey]

Do you have a link to these announcements? I could find no reference to this on the Combustion support page.

[Alan Okey]

There are definite advantages to capturing and working in native 24p and only converting to 60i if and when necessary:

1. Space savings of 20% in local storage
2. Slightly lower data rate for playback
3. Faster rendering (due to 20% reduction of frames needing when processing relative to 60i)
4. Better chromakey results (if applicable)
5. Better compression results when authoring DVD/Blu-Ray
6. Space savings of 20% when authoring DVD/Blu-Ray
7. Better results if compressing for web (no deinterlacing needed)

In short, if you shot 24pA, there’s really no drawbacks to capturing and working in native 24p, but there are definitely drawbacks to capturing and working in 60i.

[Alan Okey]

Why do you want to capture footage from a DV VTR through your Decklink card? By doing so you’re adding an unnecessary D/A and A/D conversion to the process, reducing the quality of your original DV source footage, which is already a fairly compressed 4:1:1. Since your VTR doesn’t have component analog video outputs, you’re further degrading the quality of the source footage by capturing it as composite or Y/C analog through the Decklink card.

Capturing via Firewire wouldn’t defeat the purpose of your Decklink card. The Decklink card has many functions apart from capturing video. Use the Decklink card for monitoring your FCP video output or for recording video out to an analog or SDI-equipped deck. If you have a professional CRT, it should have multiple inputs so that you can connect both your DV deck’s analog video output and your Decklink’s SDI video output. Just switch the monitor to the deck when you capture and to the Decklink when you edit.

If you plan to work in ProRes or Uncompressed SD projects, just capture your DV footage via Firewire and let FCP transcode the footage when you render the final output. At least then you’ll be bypassing an unnecessary digital/analog/digital conversion. You can simply use Firewire for deck control in Log and Capture within Final Cut. If you’re outputting to Beta SP, connect the Beta SP deck to the component analog video outputs (and the the RS422 serial control port) of the Decklink card. You could even connect the Beta SP deck’s video monitor output to your CRT (assuming it has enough inputs) if you need to monitor the Beta SP deck during recording.

You should be able to view FCP on your monitor – strange that you cannot. Double check the Playback Output section of the A/V devices tab of the Audio/Video Settings preferences menu in FCP to make sure that you have the correct device (Decklink) and format (525i 29.97) selected for playback.