[Baz Leffler]

Here is another test you could do –

After you have created your bins and imported all the media into each start a new sequence and drag a clip from each bin into the sequence.

Then restart the program and open that project. If the problem has occurred again go to the sequence you created and see if all the clips are there. If they are select one of them and right click “reveal in project”. It should show which bin the clip is in. If the sequence has opened with clips missing then you have a big problem and should probably consider suicide!
Baz

[Baz Leffler]

[Ray] “Premiere Pro has the largest userbase in the world”

OK so thats what you are told – so here is a test for you; advertise for a FCP editor and advertise for a Premiere editor. I bet you get many more FCP applicants.

As mentioned earlier I have both Premiere AND FCP and I dry hire edit suites. It is a 10:1 ratio of people who want FCP over Premiere – now that is real world statistics to me.

And as a footnote, earlier this year a local multimedia college asked me to help them resolve their Adobe Premiere Pro 2 problems. They had 10 desktop systems and 2 notebook systems.
I spent a lot of time there and their systems were fine; the software was too flakey for the students but I couldn’t help them. I recommended them to move to FCP but that was a huge cost so they replaced 4 of their desktop systems only with FCP.
They recently contacted me and said they spent the year with the students ALL on the 4 FCP systems and trashed the Adobe systems. For the new year they are getting another 6 FCP systems and 2 macbook FCP systems.
They are also setting up similar colleges in 2 other cities, all FCP.
What this means is that there will be more and more people with FCP experience than Adobe. I have a reputation here as an expert on Adobe Premiere and quite often get freelance Avid and FCP editors pay me to train them on Adobe so they can make themselves available if the opportunity arises. I have not had any go thru with it because of the inefficiencies that they find with the software and I am sick and tired of making excuses and defending Adobe. So now I tell them I am not interested in showing them Adobe but I still get lots of Avid people wanting me to show them FCP.

Baz

[Baz Leffler]

Certainly for acquisition getting rid of tape is the way to go but there are other issues that have to be addressed if that is the way to go. I would be buying stock in hard drive companies at the moment if I wasn’t wasting my money on low performance software.

There is a new software program soon to be released that can take a DV file and split it into its respective timecode segments. I can’t say too much about it at the moment but I recently used it on a project that was shot on HDCAM.

I captured each tape via a Sony HDCAM JH3 with the firewire option as SD DV using Premiere. I then used this new software package to detect the timecode inconsistencies and create separate files. I then did a SD off line and when complete I re-injested the trimmed project as full HDCAM and it worked without a problem (other than those that are associated with Premiere). All in all it took a couple of days off the edit time which would have been used for logging each tape to identify the breaks.

Recently I did a SD doco where we injested 60 x 40 min digibeta tapes as DV. Spent 6 weeks editing and when we got to the on line edit we discovered that the digibeta camera’s they used occasionally dropped a few timecode frames each time they buttoned off (this IS a very common problem!). So what should have taken 3 days to on line and master ended up taking over 2 weeks – just because of these small timecode jumps; as the tape got further down to the end the offsets became greater – WHAT A NIGHTMARE! Of course FCP would have recognised these timecode inconsistencies on the original DV capture and compensated. A very expensive lesson learnt…

So there is hope out there still and when this new program is about to be released I will post a link to the purchase site.

Baz

[Baz Leffler]

One thing Adobe IS good for is driving people to FCP. There are many ‘basic professional’ needs that us professionals need like timecode ‘irregularities’ and especially audio thruput.

What I find interesting is that many ‘respected’ people here defend Adobe and for the life of me I cannot understand other than for a financial benefit or maybe a free dinner every NAB.

I edit every day of the week making international television documentary’s and series and it is not rocket science to know if a software package is up to it or not.

I have both Premiere AND FCP and dread having to do something using Adode software and awake every morning hoping it will be a FCP day. This dream is slowly coming a reality for me as I have just closed another one of my Premiere edit suites and replaced it with another FCP.

Don’t let the ‘tapeless movement’ convince you that tape is dead – at least not for highend users. I would like to see HDCAM SR on a SxS card – you would probably get about 10 mins max what with 8.2meg per frame! And besides, try and deliver a memory stick to Discovery Channel and say “there you go, there is your program!”. Maybe a hard drive one day but tape is the safest and proven way to go.
Baz
(ps. I am open to a financial incentive to promote someone’s lacking software but it better be a large package!)

[Baz Leffler]

Garret – I am using a HDLink with the latest firmware with no problems but not the same config as you.

I am coming out of a Multibridge Extreme via HD-SDI into a HDW1800 deck and out of the deck HD-SDI into a HDLink and then from that into a HDMI HD plasma – but it is all 1080 50i stuff.

Baz

[Baz Leffler]

[BELAP] “Do you know if I have the same possibility with Sony Vegas ?”

Sorry I can’t answer that but I am sure the BMD guys could. I would have to guess that it would be able to going by the functionality of the software with other editing packages.
Baz

[Baz Leffler]

[David Roth Weiss] “Just to be absolutely clear, Don did not mean to imply that reformatting would not erase all files from your raid array, because it will…”

DAMN! too late :>(

[Baz Leffler]

[BELAP] “My question is : can I perform a INSERT EDIT in a tape, and choose the tracks ( video, A1, A2, A3 and/or A4 ).”

Yes you can do all that – in fact you can output all 4 channels of audio at the same time with both FCP and Premiere.
Baz

[Baz Leffler]

I have on the odd occasion taken a box out with PPro and a decklink card to an outside broadcast where I capture live and edit then turn it around and play it back out to air with no problems. Just remember to have a fast array for the uncompressed SDI stream.
Blackmagic do have a compressed format (MotionJPEG) which is very good but I would test it first to ensure it doesn’t create artifacting on your chromakeys.

Just as an FYI I recently was involved in a hi-def OB where I did the same turnaround capture/edit with PPro – you gotta have good nerves when doing that type of work, especially when you are relying on Adobe software to perform!
Baz

[Baz Leffler]

[mike velte] “The darn thing now is like loosely knit together with rubber threads. It falls apart easily and panels get lost.”

I reported this bug in the public beta and worked with them to resolve it. I wasn’t surprised when the final CS3 version came out with that bug along with several others I had gone to the trouble to report.

So my conclusion was that it wasn’t a ‘public beta’ but a undertested ‘teaser’.

Tim – just open and close the titler windo a dozen or so times and you will end up with a postage stamp size work area but at least you can resize it back. I think you have been spending too much time with your FCP and not enough with CS3 – I wish I could spend more time on mine but its booked out solid with freelance work!
Baz