[Alan Okey]

[Josh Evans] “OK So from what I can gather,

it will speed up everything, including scrubbing, rendering, and also the realtime effects?”

Yes, proportional with the number of drives you have in your external RAID. An 8-drive RAID will have a much higher throughput than a 2-drive RAID, given the same RAID level.

I would strongly suggest educating yourself about various RAID levels and their respective pros and cons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

[Alan Okey]

[Paul Harrison] “Obviously I am fairly new at this, but something the editor said confuses me…she contended that the footage was by definition ‘interlaced’ because it was 720p 30fps…”

Your editor is confused. 720p HD is progressive at any frame rate – there are no interlaced 720-line HD formats. Cameras that shoot 24p over 60p insert duplicate frames to create a 3:2 pulldown pattern.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/720p

1080-line HD is another story. 1080i/30 is akin to NTSC – 60 interlaced fields @ 29.97fps.

If you convert 720p/30 to 720p/24, your footage will appear to be slowed down to 80%.

If your editor or agent wants a 720p/24 product with normal motion (not slow motion), footage must be shot as 720p/24 to begin with. If your camera shoots 24p over 60p, then you’ll need to remove the pulldown on capture. Using the 720p 24 Easy Setup in Final Cut Pro enables Advanced Pulldown removal by default.

If your camera doesn’t have an option to shoot 24p Advanced (24pA), you can still confirm the 24p over 60p footage to true 24p using Cinema Tools.

[Alan Okey]

Two observations about your hardware system that have not been addressed:

You may want to switch to the ATI Radeon X1900XT for better Core Image performance. The 8800GT is only better for gaming, not for Pro Apps.

If you plan on finishing on the FInal Cut system (especially if you’re going to grade in Color), you should strongly consider changing the graphics card to the recommended model (the ATI X1900XT) for better performance.

Regarding RAM: IS your system configured with Apple OEM RAM, or third party RAM? If third party, who? While there are several reputable third party RAM suppliers out there, many are pretty sketchy. Flaky RAM is known to cause problems in Mac Pro systems. Also, there is an optimal configuration of memory modules detailed in Apple’s Final Cut Pro support pages:

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305177

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304492

What is your final delivery format? Are you doing a film out, or finishing to HD video? I’m assuming film out, as you’re working at 24fps, not 23.98. If you’re doing a film out, why edit in HD at all? Why not adopt a traditional offline SD editing workflow to generate a negative cut list? Even if you are finishing in HD, you might have better luck offlining in SD and then conforming to HD at the end of the editing process, given your storage limitations.

[Alan Okey]

Boris Title 3D is a joke. No live broadcast monitor previewing, no ability to compose over underlying video. It’s archaic.

Until someone comes out with a decent FCP plugin, you’re much better off doing titles in something like Combustion, where you can see your work properly on a broadcast monitor as you compose.

[Alan Okey]

Count me in as well. I’ve only had one issue with Qmaster, and that was when I installed Logic on a system already running FCP. Other than that, it’s a godsend. Just make sure that all of your machines are on a gigabit network for the best results.

[Alan Okey]

ArRrRGgHh… Must..resist… temptation….

must… buy… LUMINATORS!

So hip! SO COOL! They look good on ANYONE!

I particularly like the bit where the VO says “On the court” and the woman swinging the tennis racket looks as if she’s never touched one before. Hopefully I’m not insulting an acquaintance/girlfriend/wife of yours, but I just laughed out loud as she apparently tried to swat a large flying insect with the racket.

The “Oh wow!” from the couple in the pool was also quite compelling.

Thanks for sharing!

😉

[Alan Okey]

What version of OS X are you using? There have been some updates to Leopard since it was first released that restored some of the Dock behaviors that were previously available in Tiger. Make sure to connect to the Internet and run Software Update to ensure that you have the latest version of Leopard.

[Alan Okey]

Is your LaCie RAID connected via Firewire? Capturing DV to FIrewire drives can be problematic because all Firewire devices share the same bus and the bus speed defaults to the slowest device. Try capturing to a different (internal) drive and see if that solves the problem.

It’s a better idea to use internal or eSATA drives (but not the system drive) for higher performance.

[Alan Okey]

[David Roth Weiss] “And, don’t forget Combustion by Autodesk”

AMEN to that, brother!

I LOVE Combustion – I’ve been using it since v2.1. Unfortunately, it’s Autodesk’s best-kept secret. I wish they wouldn’t continue to treat it like the bastard stepchild…

For paint and roto, Combustion is king. Add in Imagineer’s Mocha and you have an unbeatable combination. Combustion’s UI is perfectly designed, and you can fly with a tablet. AE always felt clunky to me, but Combustion was love at first sight.

[Alan Okey]

[Greg Ball] “It’s replacing a Sony PVM 20L5.”

What condition is the PVM-20L5 in? Interested in selling it?