[Alan Okey]

Conduit 2.2. It’s still the best all-around tool for node-based compositing within FCP. Why use prepackaged keyers when you can custom-build better, more flexible keyers yourself?

https://www.dvgarage.com/conduit-2

dvMatte Pro 3. Quicker if you don’t want to get your hands dirty learning the nuts and bolts of compositing, but not as flexible as Conduit. Includes light wrap.

https://www.dvgarage.com/dvmatte-pro

Also, check out Motion 5 – it has a great keyer, and it’s only $50.00.

[Alan Okey]

“Finally?”

Smoke (and DS, I believe) has had this for years. “Finally” at this price point, perhaps.

I think Apple, Adobe and Avid are way behind the times for not including advanced masking tools within their NLE products. I’m really surprised that NLEs haven’t absorbed more of the tools that are taken for granted in today’s compositing apps. As we all know, NLEs aren’t used strictly for cutting anymore, especially in the low to middle end of the market.

I’m very surprised that Apple didn’t simply combine Motion 5 and FCP X into one application. There’s really no reason that Motion’s tools couldn’t be integrated into FCP X, even as separate “rooms,” etc. Then again, I say this as a Smoke fanatic and a compositor/editor, so perhaps it’s not as cut and dried as I’d like to believe.

[Alan Okey]

[Jake Extine] “I had footage on an SD card shot on a panavision in AVCHD format.”

WOW! A PANAVISION camera that records AVCHD?

Sorry…

Could. Not. Resist.

😉

[Alan Okey]

If you’re just looking to fill up the available space on the DVD so that it looks full to the naked eye, try adding some orphaned tracks to the DVDSP project. For example, just duplicate the existing video track but don’t add any links to or from the copied tracks. That way they won’t be accessible to the viewer, but they’ll take up space on the disc.

[Alan Okey]

[Walter Soyka] “Fortunately, Windows is very stable and maintenance-free on good hardware, so this particular point in the platform wars is a wash.”

I couldn’t agree more.

I have not always owned and used Macs for video work. I actually started out on SGI systems, so I was used to a bullet-proof 64-bit OS (IRIX) long before OS X matured to the point where it was even usable.

In my experience, many Mac users have little experience using other operating systems, or at least little recent experience. I’m sick of hearing the same old tired arguments against Windows that I heard back in 1995. As much as I dislike Microsoft as a company and its earlier versions of Windows, and despite the fact that I currently use Macs, I must admit that Windows has matured to a point where it’s just not a factor anymore in terms of its reliability or performance. Indeed, it has some advantages over OS X, especially its support for a wide variety of graphics hardware and better OpenGL performance.

Probably the smartest thing Apple ever did was to develop ProRes. If Windows had fully integrated native ProRes read/encode support, that would go a long way toward encouraging many video pros (non-FCP users, that is) to abandon the Mac platform completely.

The only things keeping me on a Mac at this point are A) FCP 7, B) ProRes and C) Autodesk Smoke. (A) will become increasingly irrelevant. Not sure about (B), and I’m curious to see if Autodesk eventually decides to port Smoke to Windows. I don’t own or use laptops, and Apple’s Mac Pro is downright abysmal at this point from a price/performance perspective when compared against Windows PCs. I don’t see Apple releasing a new Mac Pro that does anything but further restrict expandability by removing so-called “legacy” ports, PCIe slots and internal drive bays.

Having said that, I am in no way an Apple hater. I adore my iPhone and iPad, and I still love my 2006 Mac Pro. Unfortunately, as far as desktop computing goes, Apple has moved away from me, not the opposite.

[Alan Okey]

On what drive are you storing your media and render files? If your answer is the internal system drive, that may be your problem. To ensure the best performance for playback, use dedicated storage for media and render files. This could either be a separate internal drive (if using a tower), or an external drive with a FireWire, Thunderbolt or eSATA interface. Do not use USB drives for video storage.

[Alan Okey]

Unfortunately there’s not an iPad-optimized version yet, but Photosynth on the iPhone is a great tool for use in communicating the results of location scouting. Best of all, it’s free!

[Alan Okey]

Agreed, ProRes 422 would be an ideal sequence setting for this project.

[Alan Okey]

ProRes 4444 is complete overkill, as DVD is MPEG-2, which is 4:2:0. ProRes 422 is more than adequate for DVD sources.

[Alan Okey]

Download the AJA System Test software, run it and let us know what numbers you get back for your Firewire 800 storage.

https://www.aja.com/en/products/software/