[Ben Holmes]

You beat me to it (you probably found my one of my old answers…) – the ‘out of memory’ message usually means a corrupted project file, in my experience. Get down on your knees and thank the autosave – again…

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

Do you have mirroring on in your display preferences? I guess if you have an extended desktop in normal use, the answer is no – but I thought I’d check.

If it’s nothing so obvious, perhaps it’s to do with copy protection? I think I read somewhere that the new displayport supports HDCP – which prevents some media being played if it thinks it’s not legit. Perhaps this is causing a problem with the full screen preview mode, as it could be used to play pirated movies? Bit of a shot in the dark – I would have thought Apple support was the way to go.

As Shane says, not many people have the new MBPs yet (I’m waiting for 10.6 and quadcore next year – yum), but if there is a genuine issue here, and not a settings problem, do report back here, so other people can benefit from YOUR wisdom…

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

[Dean Stapleton] “Is the Apple Store the best place to buy a Mac system in your opinion? Am I going to get a better price somewhere else or can I expect to pay the same thing anywhere I shop?”

The key word here is ‘system’.

Apple will sell you the box – Mac Pro, whatever – and do it for pretty much the same price as anyone else, as they strictly control the prices dealers can offer.

However, Mac (at least in Europe) are a waste of time when it comes to ‘systems’. One major broadcaster I work for recently loaned our production a laptop edit they had been sold BY APPLE. It came with a Canopus analogue/RCA input/output box that was a) not fit for broadcast and b) no use whatsoever with the Sony EX-1 camera it came with, as it only inputs and outputs DV video. Useless.

So: 1. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Good luck finding a ‘pro’ at an Apple store who can answer any questions about FCP – never found one at the UK’s ‘flagship’ store in Regent’s Street.

However – 2. If you can’t save much on the box, you can save LOADS on the system. You will save chiefly on RAM and drives, both of which Apple (although better than they were) charge a ridiculous amount for. Any good reseller will look to shave money off the price of EVERY component in your bundle. Also, never take the first offered price – get another quote, and trade a couple off against each other – if you don’t save $500 right away, you’re not doing it right.

Although I’m UK based, I’ve also used ProMax (when I came to the US last – I had them sell me a system for cheaper than the UK and took it back with me. I miss that exchange rate…) and they are EXCELLENT. I’ve used good ones in the UK, but Promax actually soak test all the gear and configure it all properly – they know their stuff. They are the best reseller I have dealt with worldwide, so far.

As Walter says, you can’t go wrong with AJA, but if you don’t want every bell and whistle (and simultaneous SD and HD playback is the biggie for me) the Blackmagic gear is also excellent, and generally half the price. I could not fault them for support either, although your mileage may vary – I went through 3 Kona LH cards on an installation a couple of years ago which were faulty, and I switched to BM. Bottom line – both are good products, speak to your reseller about what you actually NEED, not what people on here will sell you.

I now deal with an excellent reseller in the UK, who ship next day and offer their own version of AppleCare for half the money. The last Apple refurb Mac Pro I bought never worked out of the box – although it rattled with a number of loose screws. Never again.

If you want an Macbook, go to an Apple store. If you want a ‘system’ go to a professional – Especially for your first one.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

There’s no current option to upgrade from FCE, now FCS is only sold as a bundle. If memory serves, there used to be an option back in the FCP-only days.

If you have a new copy of FCE and an old FCP 5 upgrade (that’s an old product) I very much doubt you’ve got any chance of upgrading. Nice try though…

As always – Apple only can sort these issues.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

[Dave Francombe] ” I will look through Qt settings to see if I can find the loop functionality”

Easy – in QT Player, under ‘View’ check ‘Loop’ – or press Apple L.

[Dave Francombe] ” the key to getting rid of the crappy looking render is finding the closest setting to the logo settings in apple pro rez”

Well – sort of. Make sure you’re not EITHER dropping this into an SD timeline by accident, so check there is no scaling under the motion tab of the logo OR creating an animation codec timeline which will not play smoothly – and yes, any HD material with too much detail (like an overly busy logo) may look awful in SD.

Finally – and I can’t stress this enough – NEVER use the canvas as a judge of quality – it’s deliberately lower in quality to ensure smooth playback. ONLY trust your output, and be sure you’re setup correctly on the AJA card (ie. it’s primarily setup in HD with the downconvert to SD on the card, not on your video out setup in FCP).

PLEASE – check your system can play the HD QT before getting on set – I’d take a DVD backup just in case anyway, and ensure you can connect your Mac to the monitor on set as well, and that it will accept the frame size you’ve made – better safe than sorry when everything else depends on it.

Good luck.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

Hi Dave

To answer briefly:

[Dave Francombe] “Couple questions when you say to render out a pro rez movie. Should I render it out and send a movie to the drives before rendering out the timeline? “

No – just render the timeline, not export. Only export if you want to make a 1080 H.264 Quicktime for playback on the onset monitor. I am assuming the onset monitor is an HD plasma or similar – is this correct?

[Dave Francombe] “Can I composite the 1080 logo with a stretched and blurred Sd background on layer 1. “

Yes – sounds like a good idea, if the monitor is HD. Best thing is to make a sequence with the same resolution as the monitor you want to use on set – so if it’s HD, make an HD sequence.

[Dave Francombe] “To get best quality, playing out an HD movie on a computer to a monitor is better than from an SD monitor. “

You mean better than playing from a DVD? Yes – if the monitor is HD itself. You will need to check that the computer you plan to use can play the HD movie smoothly – for 1080 it will need to be a modern and powerful laptop. Try it. One other advantage of this is that Quicktime Player can do the looping for you, so you don’t have to render out 20 mins of logo – just one ‘rotation’.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

Hi Dave

I don’t know what drives you have – and this makes a difference to the best workflow.

Assuming you have an external array running via eSata, fibre, FW800 etc. or an internal array of 3 or more drives, here’s what I’d do.

Create a timeline that is 1080i/p (at whatever framerate you’re using) ProRes HQ. You will have a bunch of options in the sequence settings tab.

Drop your background into the first layer, and IGNORE the ‘change settings’ option, so you have a red bar. Drop the logo into the second video layer – this will automatically key over the background. Render the timeline, so you have an HD ProRes HQ timeline that will playback smoothly on your system. Note that the Animation codec the logo was delivered in is – well – a DELIVERY codec – it’s very high quality, very high bitrate and very compatible with other systems, but NO GOOD for playback, so you don’t want to create an animation codec timeline by accident.

If you have a Kona LH or Kona 2/3, set the external video setting in FCP to Kona 1080(whatever – see above) and set the secondary output/component output to SD to allow monitoring – see your Kona manual for this. The Kona downconverter is very good, but you MUST set the primary setup for the card to 1080 HD, and the external video to HD, THEN set the component or secondary SDI output to SD to view this material PROPERLY in SD.

EITHER – render out a quicktime in H.264 at 1080 for playback on a dual-core laptop, or more powerful system, or use compressor to create a high quality MPEG 2 for DVD, import to DVDSP and burn the DVD. MPEG2 is pretty compressed, and coupled with the conversion from HD>SD, this may cause aliasing and other ‘noise’ in the transfer. However, as with all DVDs, they tend to look a LOT better on a TV via a DVD player, as opposed to seeing it back on a computer monitor, so don’t panic before seeing it properly.

Computer playback IN ANY FORM is very unforgiving, so don’t make too much of these issues before seeing it back properly.

If you tell me more about your system, and the material, I may be able to give more specific info, but talking you through every step may be a little time-consuming…

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

Hi Dean

I don’t really have any issues with FCP – it’s very stable, and has a nice GUI. It’s as usable as AVID once you’re used to it, and it’s well supported.

Ultimately, it’s just a tool, and it really comes down to what you’re used to – the actual process of editing is pretty much the same on every system.

Color is OK – if you want some heavy duty CC work, but it’s not as stable as the rest of FCS and has a very different GUI and workflow.

Motion is OK for some quick motion GFX – but it’s eclipsed by After Effects in almost every way.

All of the suite is in need of a major update to keep up with AVID’s price-cutting and Adobe’s growing integration and better architecture.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

Hi dave

Where are you viewing it – on an external monitor I hope? As has been explained here a couple of million times, the canvas does not display at full quality – especially text and gfx.

If you are importing an HD logo into an SD timeline for DVD export, you may also see aliasing caused by the downscaling – again, this will look better on an actual monitor, but if there’s a lot of detail in the logo, it may require additional remedial work. Ultimately, this requirement depends on how prominent it is in the set.

Finally – if you want to play a loop on set, and it’s a large HD monitor or Plasma, you would get a much better result onset rendering an HD quicktime, and playing it off a laptop or similar.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

Cinema tools is very simple – just look at the manual to get started.

You can use the ‘batch conform’ feature in it to convert all your clips to the correct framerate – it will automatically put these in a ‘conformed’ folder with the same names, and your good.

Don’t be afraid – it’s easy.

Ben

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