[Andy Mees]

Hey Danny

If you haven’t already done so, you might want to check your levels against the the scopes. Press Option 9 to bring up the scopes, and make sure your white level is not exceeding 100% … use either the color corrector, broadcast safe, proc amp or levels to bring them down if necessary.

Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

i could be wrong, but the Dark Green indicator suggests that a render is not needed for playout.
doesn’t the area of the timeline indicated in Dark Green mean it can playback in “Full” quality without rendering?
if you render it anyway, of course it will still playback in “Full” quality … but it would do that anyway.

on a purely geek level i’d be interested to get a definitive answer

on a user level i’d have to go with Walter … always render before output, regardless.

cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

thanks for the clarification Walter, i was pretty sure you did mean the filter.

and, yes, of course, nesting the sequence and applying the filter to the nest is a totally valid workflow.
but still, if i’m working inside the nested sequence, its not straightforward when making clip placement adjustments with respect to the letterbox filter applied to the nest … of course, I can drag off a floating canvas window for the nested sequence etc etc but the timeline playhead isn’t ganged between the nest and its sequence so clip by clip placement is clunky.

i think to understand why the generator method could be useful, then you’ve got to put yourself in the mindset of the producer/editor who is working with subtitled footage. in this case the subtiltes need to be removed for promo work and the letterbox is a means to masking the subtitles without necessarily having to blow up the image and then deal with degradation in image quality that that brings. every shot needs to be adjusted dependent on the composition of the shot AND the subtitles that may or may not be present, sometimes that means masking, moving and resizing.

i’m certainly not trying to suggest that people should use this rather than any other method … there are many many ways to skin a cat, and this is just another one. for those who have to deal daily with the situation i just outlined above, then thay might find this plug-in useful.

cheers
Andy

ps i’d hate to be that poor skinned cat … fcp seems to have a hundered ways of doing everything!

[Andy Mees]

hi Walter

the letterbox matte generator ?
i know theres a widescreen “filter” which you apply to clips to letterbox them … if theres a letterbox matte “generator” then i’m surely wasting everyones time and bandwidth, not least of all my own!

if you’re meaning the filter, then the difference is that between a filter and a generator … you’d apply this to an empty track. it just adds a letterbox matte which you can resize as needed. then you can use the basic motion controls on the lower layers to adjust resize/offset the letterboxed clips. its very basic warts and all plugin, but can be useful depending on your workflow.

if there is already a letterbox matte generator, please point me in the right direction.

thanks
Andy

[Andy Mees]

Hi Kevin

Matte’s instuctions should have sorted you out (thanks, Matte).
I tend to always assume you adminstrator privilledges on the target machine, otherwise you might have trouble making these changes.

Not sure if yours was a privilledge issue or not, but if you’re still having a problems saving from FCP, then post your email address and i’ll just send you the plug-in.

Glad its still getting some mileage.

Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

could you reformat the drive?

[Andy Mees]

oh man, i still have to ‘fly’ these online DVE dogs every day … gimme a mouse, keyframes and drag and drop any day, so much more control and so much more flexible. did you know you can adjust most all of the parameters in the motion tab and filter controls by using the scroll wheel on your mouse? if you haven’t discovered it already, i can promise you that the extra tactile control is a real winner. especially for those of us more used to joysticks, buttons and dials.

for that old DVE joystick feel you could try digging out your old usb gamepad or joystick … i should think it could be programmed to control the basic x and y moves via keystroke prograamming? maybe the ‘fire’ button could be programmed to first select the canvas?

and FCP 5’s brought us the first real control surface integration. i’ve never truly cared for the keystroke sending controllers available to date, as the OS caches every keystroke sent and sends them to FCP for processing in turn …even when you’ve stopped spinning the damn thing. the thing is, i’m used to spinning the jog wheel then stopping it dead when i get where i’m going, but currently i’m left waiting for fcp to finish processing those keystrokes, taking me way beyond the farme i wanted to stop at, for me its frustrating. but now, the Mackie Control protocol’s jog integration hooks directly into FCP’s jog implemenation so when i stop spinning the jog wheel on our Tascam FW1082, then my playhead stops, no more post processing. good stuff. ok there’s still plenty of room to expand the depth of control available / hooks into the system from these control surfaces, but its a great start … not forgeting to mention how much easier it is to do an audio mix now.

with Synthetic Appetures Color Finesse 2.0 plugin and its integration with JL Coopers MCS Spectrum we stand to get colour correction surface control … at a price certainly, but depending on the type of work you’re doing this could be a huge time/cost saver.

to be honest, for me, FCP5 was no great groundshaker, at first glance. (can you guess i don’t need multiclip?) but under the hood, wow. the multichannel audio import is huge, thats why we HAD to buy it …. and the control surface integration is turning out to be the next big winner.

the product may not exist yet, but it might be coming.

cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

for clone and paint capabilities you might want to look at Re:Fill or Clone at
https://www.revisionfx.com/rfil.htm or https://www.chv-plugins.com/clone.html respectively
both work in FCP 2

[Andy Mees]

this can sometimes be an issue with incorrect permissions on your render directory.
if you’re in a multiple user setup, make sure that you have Read & Write access for the enclosing folder of your Render Files directory.

cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

hey Don

thats right on both accounts ….
completely re-rendering would be unwise if your project is two-hours and graphics heavy. good call!
and yes, remove the oldest renders … no need to remove all but the most recent renders, just enough to give you breathing space.

cheers Andy