[Baz Leffler]

[Gene Colburn] “Which Kensington MxR are you using”

Hi Gene – maybe you were a little confused by my post – what I meant was “Kensington AND MxR devices” being different units. I started with the kensington but went over to the MxR from e-films as they allow the door on my ex1 to close properly.

I was also using 2 x SanDisk 16g ultra II and now have got 2 x Transcend 16g memory which now allows me to shoot all day without having to do a data dump.

Also when I need to shoot some overcrank (love that word!) I just slip in 2 x SxS 8g ones I got with the camera – no sweat!

[Gene Colburn] “I have spent hours researching this subject, and it seems there is much mis info about SDHC.”

I also did lots of research but trust me, my combo’s work! Be cautious of copycat Sandisk and transcend stuff – others here have mentioned it so don’t go ‘all out cheap’ cos you will get burned. I call it ‘the Nigerian San-scam’!

Baz

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!

[Baz Leffler]

Another great if not unknown feature of this ‘timeline to XDCAM to SxS to camera’ treatment is that the timeline’s timecode is embedded into the final media file – and more important, when you play it on the camera out the HD-SDI connector to a HDCAM deck switched to ‘sdi timecode’ your original timeline timecode becomes the HDCAM’s master timecode – W A Y T O G O ! ! !

Baz

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!

[Baz Leffler]

[David Dobson] “One extreme advantage of PPro is that you can do some pretty sophisticated audio mixing IN THE TIMELINE. FCP audio mixing capability is really, well, amateurish.”

I have use both programs extensively and although they do audio completely differently the same results can be achieved. But does CS4 allow connection of an audio control surface like FCP does? That is a BIG PLUS for me.

If I was going to stab FCP about anything it would be its incessant need to ripple portions of the timeline without asking first! eg. if you want to change the speed of a particular clip in the time line it will do so and then automatically RIPPLE just that track all the way to the end and put everything out of sync… and if you were not forever vigilant you would not notice until it was too late.

The problem with comparing FCP to CS3/CS4 is that they DO operate in such different ways but aim for the same goal. The saddest thing for Adobe is that the whole Premiere product range has got such a bad reputation amoungst professionals that most colleges (and students) end up FCP trained and subsequently it is much easier finding good FCP freelancers that what it is Premiere freelancers.
I continually get resumes sent to me by people seeking work and it would normally list Avid, FCP, After Effects, Photoshop but never Premiere – why? Its not that hard once you learn the other Adobe interfaces; maybe they feel it is a lesser professional product and don’t want to admit knowing it – just a guess. When I was a purely Adobe post house I would take Avid and FCP editors and train them myself – they complained and complained like a bunch of old women but I would say “shut up and just do it!”. But back in those days you really needed to have some technical background to use the product whereas products like Avid, it it stopped working, call Avid and they would come out and fix it. Isn’t that a little counter-productive let alone expensive?

[Mike Cohen] “My much blogged about ACE 25 ran on DOS 2.0 and was very unstable depending upon prevailing conditions of relative humidity and moon phase, but I dare say it too was a Pro product.”

Back in the ’80’s I owned a company that made linear editing system and sold over 150 world wide. It was based on the PC platform but we rewrote everypart of the interface including Microsofts DOS (except for disk read/write) – we even used Borland C rather than Microsoft C and it never crashed, started up within 5 seconds would control 7 machines, a vision desk and an audio desk, had 16 gpi’s and extensive EDL management – did I mention that it never crashed? Maybe that was because it took control of ALL the system resources and was ONLY used for this one function. Thats really what these NLE software engineers should be doing. Rather that making their application a ‘plug in’ for the OS, make it as a ‘dedicated’ NLE ONLY from bootup – it really aint that hard!

[Mike Cohen] “While I spent many hours with my upper body well inside a 1” machine replacing parts back in the day, I never called Ampex and asked them if it was a professional product. “

Well the key word there was ‘Ampex’ – if it was a Sony 1″ you would never have to get inside it unless you wore it out. I still remember the days when the Ampex VPR3’s MDA’s would go outta control and send the scanner into redline and self destruct having to pull head components out of the ceiling tiles – and then I remember the weekly explosion of our old Ampex AVR 1 2″ quad machines where we had to replace the requlator power transistors; it always happened about 2AM so it very inconvenient for my sleep pattern.

Oh look, I have pealed off and hijacked the thread

[Tim Colb] “I agree it really isn’t the same feature…as it’s a reinterpretation of the audio file, but it accomplishes the goal, ’tis true. “

As I said above; The problem with comparing FCP to CS3/CS4 is that they DO operate in such different ways but aim for the same goal; so we agree on that at least.

Baz

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!

[Baz Leffler]

[Nicholas Buer] “can the PCI express card supplied with the Multibridge only be installed in desktop computers.”

This is only for a PCIe slot on a desktop Mac or PC.

I think it would be a really nice feature for BMD to develop an ExpressCard adapter for the MacBookPro or even a PC notebook that would interface all their Multibridge products for editing. Interestingly enough it MUST be possible as Matrox do it with their MXO2 where they supply both the PCIe card AND the ExpressCard for either interface.

Maybe Joshua Helling from BMD would care to chime in here….

Baz

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!

[Baz Leffler]

I may be a bit late on this but this is how I do it…

Export the FCP timeline to the required XDCAM EX format (VBR) directly to the SxS card.

Place the card back in the camera go to the setup menu and select –

OTHERS > CLIP > UPDATE > MEDIA and choose the SxS card that has the exported sequence.

Then it’s all good! It will show up in thumbnails on the camera as well as the XDCAM transfer software on the puter.

Baz
(from an earlier post)

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!

[Baz Leffler]

[Tim Kolb] “Try to slide sound in finer increments than a frame in FCP…can’t happen…in PPro, you can convert the sound tracks to operate in audio samples instead of video frames, and literally edit out a click or pop with a razor cut and delete in a smaller increment than the ear can even detect.”

Hey Tim – sorry to have to enlighten you and please don’t confuse me for a Mac defender but I need to correct you on the point of ‘sub frame editing. Please see…

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/997154

So yes you can do it in FCP – just not like the convenient way Adobe do it. But then ummmm….. FCP have a far superior multiclip editing tool than CS3 but at least both apps support it as do both apps support editing audio right down to the sample rate.

Also regarding long durations in Premiere timelines – that is not the problem; its more to do with the complexity of the timeline and the ‘longer’ a complex timeline gets the more ‘resources’ are sucked out of Bill Gates magic OS – I think you were alluding to that when you said…

[Tim Kolb] “PPro seems to actually run better on a Mac in my experience”

… and in my experience too!

Baz

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!

[Baz Leffler]

Hey Matt

I had been using Adobe Premiere since its PC inception (4.2) and all the way up to CS3. I was a severe Mac hater and was forever finding myself arguing with what I called ‘the pink crowd’ (mac lovers).

I got commissioned to edit a High Def series and upgraded one of my edit suites with the most powerful PC around and a Blackmagic Extreme. Prior to that I was using Canopus hardware.
The PC was built as per BMD’s specification right down to the raid controller and graphics card etc. (quad core AMD 64 bit)

It took 18 weeks to edit 5 episodes and the projects got so large it took approximately 8 min to load each ep; a major problem, given that it would crash 8 to 10 times a day. I worked with some Adobe people to resolve the issues and they were very helpful sending me beta .DLL files etc and I also was very helpful back to them. I also worked with the hardware supplier to resolve major issues and it all boiled down to Adobe’s memory management; I could go into more detail as a techo but I will just cut to the chase…

As I was now so far behind in this series I was editing, I decided to bite the bullet and try FCP; luckily my Multibridge worked on Mac as well so I was only up for the cost of a G5 and some storage.

The next 5 episodes I edited took 4 weeks all up! AND that included the learning curve of walking in cold on a new system and not only learning HOW to use a Mac but how to use FCP as well. I must admit I was so bewildered with this new experience of working a whole day without a crash, fast project load times, the ability to output to HDCAM without having to do 10 pickup edits every half hour episode, the list goes on!

Then I did another 5 eps and they were out in 2 weeks; I think I had peaked by then…. but come on, 18 weeks as compared to 2 weeks? As a professional time is money and that equates to a lot yeah?

So back to your original question “Does anyone use PPro as a professional?” I would have to say yes; plenty do but I am sure they could not make an existence using it on very large intricate projects, unless they had the time and the patience; oh and the knowledge that auto save was set to about 2 mins AND continually going ‘ctl S’ every second keystroke.

I have now converted 3 of my edit suites to FCP and have never looked back. I even put an Octocore MacPro with 8 gig ram and 8 terrabyte raid in one of the edit suites and does that puppy run well. I am such a Mac lover now and I really don’t mind being part of the ‘Pink Brigade’ – yes I have been eating humble pie ever since. Incidentally has anyone ever noticed how quite a Mac runs as compared to a PC? It really IS chalk and cheese! Anyhow, I have now also got a MacBookPro with a Matrox MXO2 for field editing so I guess that confirms I am a converted soul. (oh, did I mention I have an iPhone as well?)

So back to Premiere – my ‘all bells and whistles’ PC that I mentioned earlier has now been upgraded to Vista 64 and Adobe Premiere CS4 and am beta testing the CS4 hardware… say no more…. Its all looking pretty good (for a noisy box) but I work it very cautiously as it brings back bad memories and will do forever I think.

I still believe Premiere was designed for Bollywood (just read the AP credits…) and maybe Bollywood isn’t as adventurous as what FCP caters for. What do I use Premiere for nowdays? It is mainly delegated to Blu-ray authoring and encoding and the occasional mastering of an external project that come to me created on Premiere.

I should stop now before someone says ‘horses for courses!

Baz

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!

[Baz Leffler]

[Arnie Schlissel] “Only STP 3.x can open OMF files.”

Where can I get an upgrade to Soundtrack Pro 3? I also only have 2.02 and need to import omf files. I can’t find any reference to it on the Apple site.

Baz

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!

[Baz Leffler]

I have had this same problem and I fix it by dropping the quality a little. I think it defaults to 90 and I just drop it to like 80? and then it will complete. I could go into more theory about why it is happening but I won’t.

Baz

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!

[Baz Leffler]

[Bob Zelin] “your BVM CRT will go soft by next year”

Thanks for the words of encouragement Bob; especially as I have 4 edit suites with Sony 21″ BVM grade 1’s, audio post and MCR all with Sony BVM grade 1’s…. but they have been running faultlessly for a number of years. And prior to that they were all Barco’s – what a joke they were. At any stage there was always at least 1 at the repair shop and then slowly 2 then 3 and finally I sold the lot on ebay for a hundred bucks and replaced them with the Sony’s – funnily enough I got the Sony’s from a major broadcaster here in Oz really cheap when they upgraded to HD. Funny thing was they asked if they could buy them back 6 months later when they realised the cost of Sony HD BVM CRT’s!!!!

It reminded me of when I brought an old ADO 100 to do aspect ratio conversions for client previews and then the person who sold it to me later wanted to know how he could do the same thing. When I told him to go get an old ADO or Abakas etc he said “I use to have one of those once, I wonder what I did with it…?”

Back to ‘going soft’; no sign yet, its only my eyes that are doing that which would have a bit to do with me having a few more years on you….

Baz

What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!