[Baba Goof]

or dragging a clip will bump along in one frame increments?

[Baba Goof]

my experience with the two is that for single user purposes ppro is
possibly the better choice. the interface is simpler and more straight
forward. fcp, on the other hand, is generally a more developed app.
i tend to work on projects that involve communication with other
users, things like sending fx sequences and audio mixing to outside
vendors. fcp will do a much better job of this. fcp’s edl support and
omf export are pretty much non-existent in ppro. ironically, the
larger user base can make this less relevant since you can often just
take your drive and fcp project directly to the outside house. this
is much less doable with ppro.

one major annoyance i’ve had with fcp is that i’ve never worked on a
system that would play files requiring render without first rendering
them. i just get a blue frame that says the media needs to render.
ppro will always try to play media no matter how complex the required
render. it may be blocky and stuttery but it will try to play, and
simple things like a minor repo will play as if they didn’t require a
render at all. this has been a major time saver for me on ppro systems.

bottom line for me is: fcp is more robust, if a bit clunky, with a
larger community. ppro is good for the single user with some time
saving advantages but the philosophy behind them is unrealized as yet.

lastly, if your system is crashing a lot, something’s wrong with it
or the configuration. crashing is not inherent in either app, though
i’ve experienced it in both.

[Baba Goof]

so what i’m gathering is that staying with dv preset is the way to go
in general. exception would be to create a custom preset, one presumably
with no compression and at 720×480 rather than the fcp supplied preset
at 720×486.

sounds simple enough. one question, however. if a major reason for
staying in the dv preset is to avoid the recompression in the return
from uncompressed space, don’t i have to do that anyway, given that
most of the timeline in question is comprised of full frame supers
involving two to four layers? if i had a single track of video i’d
be able to avoid this recompression, as i understand it, but since
the image is a marriage of several, i’ll have to recompress anyway.
please confirm or correct me on this.

lastly, we’re not really sure what the final output will be. the
filmmaker i’m working with is an artist and, as such, he’s making the
pieces he wants to make. where they get shown varies from large
halls to small galleries to broadcast. certainly there will be a
need to output dv at some times, but there will also likely be
occassions where dvd is desirable and others where the highest
quality would be best. in this context i felt that going to an
uncompressed space early would be good as we could step down from
it as necessary. our archive would be in this larger format.

oh yeah, and how does one move an image precisely one pixel down?

thanks for all the considered input. it’s very interesting.

BabaG

[Baba Goof]

the idea here was not to make anything better but to
keep it from getting worse. the piece in question has
a lot of subtle layerings and superimpositions lasting
most of the duration of the piece. it’s an art pice.
the idea was to maintain image quality through the
process of rendering and processing these supers into
the single composited image.

the idea of media management was more to do with disk
management. the filmmaker does a lot of trial and error
and his timelines are littered with lots of media that
never actually gets used. he’s also not particularly
savvy about management and workflow so things can get
messy. in that context i wanted to use the media manager
to consolidate a simpler project containing only the
final material, minus all the experimentation, from
which we could derive our masters, maintaining as much
quality as possible.

good to hear that 8bit will suffice. in context of the
layering i’m describing, does the comment about dv—>
uncompressed—>dv being worse because of recompression
still hold? i’m still not clear on this. makes sense in
context of an unaltered image, but not clear on whether
this still applies when a new image, one comprising
three or four full screen supers, is being created. iow,
does it still hold when the image being rendered is
significantly different than any one of the originals?

thanks,
BabaG

[Baba Goof]

thanks scott. no choice with these tapes. somebody else shot them
and they seem to have their shooting habits well ingrained. what i
was wondering about was the dubbing method. tried one pass from the
camera to a fresh tape on the deck but there were glitches on the
copy when it got to the breaks. was wondering if i need to use pre-
blacked tapes to make the dub. or if i missed a setting on the deck
or camera. did i have the tape ‘cloned,’ breaks and all, when i
should have had the recording deck in another mode to continuously
lay fresh code?

thanks again,
BabaG

[Baba Goof]

so final cut can import omfi?

[Baba Goof]

duh. thanks guys. told you it was a dumb question. 😉

[Baba Goof]

been researching the above referenced app and have a couple of thoughts.

first, it is, apparently, in english. haven’t yet seen it myself, but
others i’ve read posts from in the avid forums say so.

second, in my situation the one function i’d use it for is apparently
not functional, and i’m sure others would like to have that functionality
too. that would be the ability to play omf files for preview purposes.

my case is that there is a vast amount of footage digitized in omf
format that i need to convert to avi for use in premiere. of course, i
don’t want to convert all of it, i just want to convert what i will use.
the way to determine that is to preview the files, find the one i want
at any given time and then do selective conversions. with the proliferation
of nle systems like premiere, fcp, vegas, and edius, i’m sure there are
others who could make use of an app that would provide the ability to
view avid media. obviously, these other nle’s don’t have such a problem
as they capture in avi or mov formats. their media can easily be viewed
on pretty much any system. omf’s, however, are different. it would be a
real service to the larger community if this functionality were to be
realized in this app.

thanks,
BabaG

[Baba Goof]

that’s great news! just looked at the site though. any info
in english? before i download it, is the app in english or
russian? might be pretty difficult to figure out how to use
it if it’s in russian. especially since i can’t read anything
about it on the page either. just asking.

thanks,
BabaG

[Baba Goof]

i was told in a separate thread that avid free couldn’t
read omf’s captured by xpress pro. is that not true?