[Ben Holmes]

Andy, I’m with the others on this. Firstly, your friend is only cutting video, so how would he know if he has a problem with his audio in FCP. Both FCP and iTunes use core audio, and access audio devices. Much could depend here on whether or not you are using a PCI capture card with seperate audio outputs, but at any rate both bits of software will clash on a core audio level, even before they wrestle for control of the audio output device.

I use iTunes when I’m editing sometimes to audition music and find a track for an edit. But I do it when FCP is not playing back, and I close iTunes before I go back to FCP. I have never had a problem.

You want to run FCP reliably? Shut down iTunes. An ipod and iM3 speakers does the job for me 🙂

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]

Wow – I used to use 2 17″ displays and thought that was a lot of space.

Most of the time desk space is an issue for me, so I just use 1 x 23″ display and (obviously) an SDI monitor. If you don’t have a huge bin and don’t use thumbnails in it, I often don’t often see the need for more space. Both canvas and viewer are a good size, I can get the timeline how I want it, and I can always find the cursor… All my colour/fx work is viewed on the external video monitor anyway.

I know this is all personal preference – But I feel confident that in 2 years we will have a thread titled “2 x 42″ displays vs 1 x 50″ display”.

I always thought the best thing about FCP was that you only needed a few windows open all the time. Still, if it were me, I’d go for the 2 x 23″ (which I use at the office) as you can use the second 23″ for pixel-per-pixel HD preview.

Good luck with the system.

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]

Nice try with the zoom-window thing. You can see for yourselves how bad that looks by using the screen zoom functions in the “universal access” section of user preferences.

I suppose I now know once and for all that it can’t be done yet. Doesn’t it seem strange how Apple have ignored this in only FCP – Timecode is pretty important in pro video, perhaps more so than in music production (such as Logic).

Polite applause all round for effort anyway – thanks to everyone for trying.

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]

I often work in the edit position in an OB truck where space is usually at a premium. However, supposing you have a nice big edit suite, do you really think the best solution is to replicate the ENTIRE desktop on another monitor just so he can read the WORLD’S SMALLEST timecode display?

Don’t get me wrong – I have spent a lot of time persuading my broadcast clients to accept FCP systems on jobs. Usually, they come around to it when the hired-in Avid crashes and I sort out the opening package that has to air in an hour. I love FCP – I just think they missed a trick here…

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]

See – that’s two of us already! That’s worth $20 of anyone’s time.

Seriously, after a very successful 12 hour edit with a client, constantly amazing him at the speed and stability of the system, when I asked him if he prefered it to tape or Avid, all he said was “well, it’s more difficult to read the timecode you’re working on”.

Sometimes I think Apple forget that before we sit down to work, some poor producer has sat in front of a viewing machine logging TCs on paper. Frankly, I prefer not to have someone sitting so close to me (in order to read the screen) that I can see how clean their ears are every time I turn around….

[Ben Holmes]

Just happened to be on and posting…

Stop me if I’m stating the obvious, but click on “Final Cut Pro” on the menu bar, then “Audio/Video Settings” then check the setting for “Audio Playback” at the bottom.

If you’ve been using firewire to load/play DV then it may be set to Firewire Audio rather than Built-In Audio. Or vice-versa. I assume that you don’t have a seperate capture card, as your question is not that specific.

If that doesn’t work, post some more details about your problem (video format, other equipment etc.)

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

Does raise a common need amongst my clients. More than one have complained about the lack of a decent sized TC display during editing – One concrete thing they can complain about that Avid actually has.

Sorry – I know it’s a bit off topic, but I just don’t understand why FCP doesn’t deal with this issue better.

With reference to the actual question asked above, naturally you could use the Timecode filter in FCP to output burnt in versions of your rushes – If you want to render each and every one seperately on to your harddrive…..

[Ben Holmes]

Hi All

I wasn’t going to reply to this thread until I had had the chance to try the following out on the system, but here is a customer support response from AJA:

“Hi Ben

The clue is it is happening both in the canvas and the Kona output meaning
it is not the Kona. If it is the Kona, then the canvas should remain clean.

To make sure turn off the external video and see if the canvas remains
corrupted ( toggles the external video on and off).

Suggestion:

1) Delete the FCP preferences:
a) Close FCP
b) Go to: users/username/library/preferences/FCP user data.
c) Delete the FCP preferences and cache files.
d) Go to Easy Setup Menu.
e) Make sure Show all is checked.
f) Select a Kona easy setup
g) Click on .

2) Go to Kona 2 Control Panel:
a) Close FCP ETT or Log and Capture.
a) Control: Set Default output to anything but input passthrough.
b) Control: Set Genlock to Freerun or Ref In.

3) One other possibility is bad RAM.

Keep in touch.
Thanks
Rudy ”

So – Fairly basic advice really. The system is STILL with our client, who seem to accept the workaround of exporting the timeline to quicktime before playing-out. Otherwise, they are so blown away with the speed and reliability of the system that they will accept this one bug.

I have an identical system running a digital voodoo card, with none of the above problems. So I guess my query is: If this is NOT a Kona issue (and I see where they’re coming from with this), why will changing the settings mentioned in 2) above help? I am pretty sure that the input default IS set to Input Passthrough, so I will advise the client to change the settting. I have already tried all the above 6 or 7 times anyway. As for bad ram, anything’s possible….

Keep you posted.

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

David

Only seen this in Uncompressed 10-Bit PAL – because that’s all it’s used for at the moment (with HD around the corner here in the UK).

Desktop layout is a default layout. But this breakup is on the canvas AND the SDI output no matter what layout is used. Nice try though….

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

David

Interesting – and good to know, although my cellphone is always on AND I use Lacie for project archives(presumably firewire in that thread) and have never seen that – although we use different frequencies in the UK, so maybe that’s why.

I have spoken to the client recently who confirms they had the flashing, but got rid of it before edit to tape by exporting the sequence as a clip and playing that out. Not perfect, but at least it works….

Perhaps if I explain more about the type of break-up it may jog someone’s memory. The white lines flicker on for a frame only, they are not a full line but are only a single line each time, and they are in random vertical positions. It almost looks like a slighty bad analogue problem – except it can’t be, right? I did not mention earlier that I had been unable to get an analogue monitoring output from the Kona 2 card – however I had put that down to something wrong in my Kona set-up. However, I suppose it may be a related fault in some way. Feel a bit stupid for not mentioning that earlier…

I’ll post when AJA get back to me – the time difference means they have only had a half day to reply so far, so I expect to hear from them soon (from what I’ve read on the Cow).

Ben