[Ben Holmes]

Glenn

Don’t know if your firewire drives will support the bitrate of the photo jpeg (which the EVS systems we use record), but if they do, there MAY be another solution, although I havn’t tried it – and it may not look as good as your DV workaround…

If you are using the video output on the laptop to feed composite video to a monitor, why not set the video output in FCP to go to “DIGITAL CINEMA DESKTOP 2” – ot whatever it calls the video port, and your canvas playback should magically appear there!

You can find this option under A/V devices in the Audio/Video Settings option, and select the video output drop-down. Or access it from the bottom of the view tab.

Just a theory – never tried it with mjpeg, and don’t know how smooth it will be. I suspect not as smooth or processor pleasing as the DV option, but saves a lot of messy on/off-lining.

Love to know if you try this, and how you get on.

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS and FCP specialists
Current Mac systems All Dual 2.7Ghz with Kona 2 and Digital Voodoo cards, 6Gb Ram, Sapphire, SCSI320 Medea and Huge Arrays.

FCP projects include Sky TV coverage of the Ryder Cup and US Open Golf – Live OB specialists. Edit/slomo vehicle.
http://www.editec.co.uk

[Ben Holmes]

The out of memory error has nothing to do with drive space – it refers to system memory. Usually this error is caused by a corruption in the sequence or a ‘divide to zero’ type of problem on a filter (which is essentially just a series of mathematical equations). It can be a big problem – usually you need to revert to an earlier version of the sequence from the autosave. You could try trashing preferences…

Anyone got any other solutions – I’ve been caught by this a few times…

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS and FCP specialists
Current Mac systems All Dual 2.7Ghz with Kona 2 and Digital Voodoo cards, 6Gb Ram, Sapphire, SCSI320 Medea and Huge Arrays.

FCP projects include Sky TV coverage of the Ryder Cup and US Open Golf – Live OB specialists. Edit/slomo vehicle.
http://www.editec.co.uk

[Ben Holmes]

If you’re working in a compressed format, you may increase the colour or luma banding effect you get from lower quality colour compression – especially if you try to stretch the luma at the top and bottom.

If you over-grade it, it could show. Depends how good/bad the original footage and the grade are…

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS and FCP specialists
Current Mac systems All Dual 2.7Ghz with Kona 2 and Digital Voodoo cards, 6Gb Ram, Sapphire, SCSI320 Medea and Huge Arrays.

FCP projects include Sky TV coverage of the Ryder Cup and US Open Golf – Live OB specialists. Edit/slomo vehicle.
http://www.editec.co.uk

[Ben Holmes]

I used to dub commercials for the channel I started work for. Originally as everything came in maxed out at +6 we used to have a policy of winding them down a few db to keep the viewers happy.

Now, instead of 6 channels, that broadcaster has 200+ and all commercials are loaded onto profile servers for playout. They are only handled by the transmission department. Everything is now back at max! Unless the broadcasters or regualtors re-define what they call ‘legal’ for commercials you will always have this problem.

Actually, you hit the nail on the other head when you mentioned the West Wing. Most programmes (and especially movies) have far too wide a dynamic range on the audio – suitable for a dubbing suite or a movie theatre, but not for a living room. Again, we were trained to QC movies and reject them for this. but no one ever did anything to fix it. If broadcasters paid more attention to their own programme audio ranges, viewers wouldn’t have to wince every time a commercial came on.

‘Course, over here we have the BBC – that solves the commercial problem at least…

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS and FCP specialists
Current Mac systems All Dual 2.7Ghz with Kona 2 and Digital Voodoo cards, 6Gb Ram, Sapphire, SCSI320 Medea and Huge Arrays.

FCP projects include Sky TV coverage of the Ryder Cup and US Open Golf – Live OB specialists. Edit/slomo vehicle.
http://www.editec.co.uk

[Ben Holmes]

Lori

Best thing is to get hold a filter set that includes a film effect. There are a number of cheapo filters available from the likes of CGM filters, G filters, Joes filters etc. You can probably search for some of these on this forum. I like CGM for vaule and results from the cheap ones.

For a little more, you can spend a thousand bucks on Cinelook, Magic Bullet (mmmm) of Sapphire (mmmmmmmmmm) – but I suspect you won’t want to.

If you export your movie from quicktime player and select options, you can apply filters FOR FREE (wow) including a film effect with hairs and everything. I suspect it is horrible, but I don’t know what standard you are aiming for.

I love shooting and playing with super 8, and have tried to match video to it before. You can get close with a great filter, but it never looks the same. You need to mess with the frame rate of the video as well to get the jerky, soft, wonderful motion that is super 8. Love it!

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS and FCP specialists
Current Mac systems All Dual 2.7Ghz with Kona 2 and Digital Voodoo cards, 6Gb Ram, Sapphire, SCSI320 Medea and Huge Arrays.
FCP projects include Sky TV coverage of the Ryder Cup and US Open Golf – Live OB specialists.

[Ben Holmes]

Peter

Would help if you were a little more specific.

I will assume what you mean is that you want to create a ‘fake’ widescreen letterboxed version of a 4:3 video – not that you are interested in anything to do with anamorphic video.

Assuming you have a single video file of your completed edit, the simplest thing to do is to crop your video in a new timeline, setting the top and bottom crop to a sensible figure. The extent to which you can do this will depend on the point at which you start cutting the heads off your subjects. FCP will achieve this in real time on most systems, making this a quick solution.

Not very nice though – video and film should be shot how you want it framed ideally.

You may want to check out the FCP forum at Creative Calf – It gives better advice on simpler problems.

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS and FCP specialists
Current Mac systems All Dual 2.7Ghz with Kona 2 and Digital Voodoo cards, 6Gb Ram, Sapphire, SCSI320 Medea and Huge Arrays.
FCP projects include Sky TV coverage of the Ryder Cup and US Open Golf – Live OB specialists.

[Ben Holmes]

Could this support article on http://www.sonybiz.net be relevent here? Sound familiar if not TOTALLY related to all the problems mentioned above….

RECORDING OR EDITING AUDIO SIGNAL WITHOUT VIDEO SIGNAL RESULTS IN FAULTY OPERATION

Unit may not operate properly when recording or editing an audio signal without a video signal. As a result,the following symptoms may occur frequently, rarely, or not at all, depending on the operating environment.

– Channel condition shows red while recording or playing back
– Incorrect audio or video signal is output during playback

Precise processing requires an input video signal as a reference. Recording or editing audio signals without a video signal causes audio and other blocks to begin signal processing at different times. The resulting timing differences may eventually cause faulty operation.

NOTES ON OPERATION Observe the following when recording or editing anaudio signal.
– Input a video signal simultaneously. If no video signal is available, use a test signal from the internal SG.
– Video signal must be in sync with audio signalsource if used for recording AES/EBU audio signals.
– Test signal from internal SG is in sync with incoming video signal. If an unstable video signal is input to unit, recording will not be performed correctly.

A typical video signal source (such as from a playback VTR) will be unstable if:
– Power is turned on/off
– A mode is changed from playback to EE
– Tape is loaded and unloaded

Broadcast Products

Applies to
DNW-75, DNW-75P, DNW-A100, DNW-A100P, DNW-A220, DNW-A220P, DNW-A25, DNW-A25P, DNW-A28, DNW-A28P, DNW-A45, DNW-A45P, DNW-A50, DNW-A50P, DNW-A75, DNW-A75P, DVW-500, DVW-500/1, DVW-500P, DVW-500P/1, DVW-A500, DVW-A500/1, DVW-A500P, DVW-A500P/1

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS and FCP specialists
Current Mac systems All Dual 2.7Ghz with Kona 2 and Digital Voodoo cards, 6Gb Ram, Sapphire, SCSI320 Medea and Huge Arrays.
FCP projects include Sky TV coverage of the Ryder Cup and US Open Golf – Live OB specialists.

[Ben Holmes]

Make a subclip from the master – if you have marked the in and out on the master, this will only have the short duration. Beware – the new subclip will have no extra frames either side of the in/out for transitions.

However, if you put the clip in timeline and modify it from there, you will get the same result – without the above problem.

BTW – expect to be flamed for newbie questions here. I believe they now have a http://www.creativecalf.net expecially for this purpose, where you may play in safety.

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS and FCP specialists
Current Mac systems All Dual 2.7Ghz with Kona 2 and Digital Voodoo cards, 6Gb Ram, Sapphire, SCSI320 Medea and Huge Arrays.
FCP projects include Sky TV coverage of the Ryder Cup and US Open Golf – Live OB specialists.

[Ben Holmes]

Frogman

The kind of animated move you’re talking about is normally designed and rendered by a 3d artist or animator, working for the sports broadcaster in question.

Let’s assume for a moment that you have a couple of animations of the team logos in 3dsMax. You need to export these into FCP in a format that has the transparency information – the “key” or “matte” information in it. Various formats support this in photoshop. In my experience, animated sequences of this type are usually exported as .tga or targa type files, as these contain the embedded key information. I feel sure someone more familiar than me with these things can give you other types of files that do the same thing. If you import these targa sequences (which are just a list of stills, one per frame) into quicktime player (>file >open image sequence) and save them as quicktimes you can import them directly into FCP and the key information will be there automatically, just like a FCP generated text. All you do is drop this file into V2 and put a cut/dissolve in the layer below, et voila.

Now, this is not a lot of use if you don’t have a 3d artist or animator handy… You could generate both logos in photoshop as ‘cutouts’ with a nice soft border and open the PS file in FCP, aming sure you saved it with layers. If you just want to export from PS just as jpegs or similar, you can export the logo itself, then save the ‘alpha layer’ (aka the key or matte) as a jpeg, then import both to FCP and animate them within Final Cut. To make this work, put the matte (alpha layer export) on the timeline at V2 and set the attributes to “travel matte luma” or “travel matte alpha” depending on the type of photoshop export you try. Then put the logo (the fill) on the layer above (V3 in this example), then animate them identically using whatever motion effects/settings you wish. Putting a simple dissolve or even cut on the lower layer (if your logos go full frame at any point) to make the ‘flying transition” work.

Phew. Crucially, assuming you don’t have a handy animator (and I would find one if at all possible) you WILL need photoshop (or similar) to make this work. You need a good quality still of each team logo, and you need to spend plenty of time making a nice ‘cutout’ of each logo in PS.

Hope that helps – never had to try this from scratch on my own, so I’m not sure I envy you this one….

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

Wow – Did this guy not get his post answered.

Actually, I would love an elegent answer for the above – and I’m not breaching copyright. As an editor working on live sports events, I frequently find myself using tracks from my itunes library for a closing montage to a show – It’s not quite broadcast quality, but it’s a lot easier than carrying around 250 CDs so that I have just the right track I need for a show. The broadcasters I work for have blanket agreements that mean (within certain guidelines) they can use any commercially available music they like – excluding film soundtrack music for reasons I have never really understood. Once I use it, someone somewhere eventually gets paid for it, which I like.

In answer to the original question, FCP will not allow you to use .m4a files directly, and I can accept that with bought tunes it’s probably necessary to protect them against software that allows you to convert them into any audio format you like (as FCP does). However, 90 percent of my music is ripped off CD, and I can’t use this either, except by burning it to a CD and exporting the raw AIFF files on the CD straight into FCP – Remember to copy the track from the CD to your hard-drive first, or it will disappear from your project as soon as you eject the CD!

Note that the above workaround completely bypasses the copy protection on bought itunes tracks, since once it is on a CD (burnt from WITHIN itunes) it’s just music, and not protected data. On that basis (and assuming that, like me, you’re not breaking any laws and are actually financially benefitting the artist by doing it), can I not do this some other way that DOESN’T involve me wasting another CD-R on one track? I’d really also like it not to involve yet another bit of software to convert it to something FCP likes (AIFF, WAV, mp3 I think) AS I AM USING APPLE’S OWN AUDIO CODEC. Can no one see the irony here?

Finally – I am glad to see that no one on this forum has EVER done a personal edit with copyrighted music. Yeah right…

Ben