Ben Holmes
Forum Replies Created
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[Nils Crompton] ” (The HDMI input of the Intensity is null given that HDV can be capture to prores over firewire.) “
You can do better that that with the Kona – you can use the component outs on an HDV deck to capture DVCProHD – better to edit with and excellent to look at. I forget from the original post if you have an HDV deck (although if not it’s far more preferable.
I would also go for the Kona because I think (and many other people think) they provide better support and backup. If you get the Excellent HVC 20″ CRT monitor you will save some of the extra cost of the card in all probability – as well as purchasing one of the best tube monitors I have ever seen.
I’ve seen far too many people have to backtrack after building similar set ups and buy something like the Kona, throwing away the original card they wasted money on. You gain so much more flexibility on delivery to clients for one thing. Unless all the work you do goes to the web, don’t cheap out on the capture card – it’s the centre of your system.
Ben
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[Berenger Capmany] “I have experienced a little bit more “erratic” behavior on FCP, specially on the UI drawing.. I have to say that at home I have the MBP connected to a 30 inch screen”
Wow. Not suprised! Didn’t think that was supported – doesn’t it exceed the MBP’s gfx card specs? Perhaps I missed an update (mine is a 2.33Ghz).
I suspect not everything in the Leopard garden is rosy. I have many many apps cluttering up my laptop, and I have even seen the old grey screen of death twice, but not when using Apple apps. My point is that Leopard has been around as a development tool for a year now, and certainly Apple will be ahead of the curve when developing their own software. I don’t have any evidence if this except my own anecdotal experience, but it seems to fit for me.
We’re all going to have to move on soon anyway. Newer systems just won’t support Tiger installs. I think the time is probably upon us (unless you’re an Adobe user – which I’m not, except Photoshop CS3, which works fine on my laptop).
Search back a couple of years, and you’ll find all the same posts for Tiger. I would expect another FCP update around Macworld, or at any rate in the next month or so. That should people added confidence about making the leap. We’re not on .0.0 anymore…
Ben
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Oh – forgot to mention that my airport connection to my Belkin router drops out all the time under Leopard. So it’s not all champagne and chocolates. Could be down to the ridiculous amounts of wireless gear in my house though….
Ben
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Sounds like the footage is offline. Not sure from your description. This means FCP can’t link the clip to the master footage you captured, or the footage is gone from your media drive. This is either because you moved it – in which case you can re-link it, or because it was deleted (more of a problem, but you can recapture if you captured it with timecode originally via batch capture, and not ‘capture now’).
If it’s showing in the canvas, that’s because you’re viewing a render file you made before the file went offline. If you were to re-render, it would not display.
Ben
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[Dan Brockett] ” Didn’t there used to be a trick with duplicating the video track, then applying the de-interlace filter to both, one with upper field order first, then one with lower, then combining them somehow?”
You’re refering to this: Duplicate the video as de-interlace as you suggest, then set the top layer opacity to 50%. It’s not bad, but it’s not progressive. There are numerous other de-interlacing filters around – some better than others. Some, like the one in the CGM set use ‘smart’ deinterlacing (doesn’t Natress one do that?) which uses a motion detecting algorithm to ‘blend’ the fields. You’ll still struggle to get a great match – but you can improve on the FCP one.
Ben
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David
Nice to hear someone else say this – as I said in a previous post I have used FCS2 with Leopard on my personal MBP since the launch with no problems.
Let me go further than that: I have used FCP with Leopard since launch with NO CRASHES. Not one. This is on HDV, DV and Uncompressed SD projects. I don’t use it intensively, but still… Perhaps the fact that I haven’t used any third party devices such as capture cards (as it’s a MBP) is relevent here. I don’t think I even did a clean install on my laptop (as I said it’s a personal machine), so I think FCS2 was already installed when I upgraded to Leopard. Not that I would recommend doing that on our work systems in a thousand years…
Also, over the same period, our Mac Pros that have FCS2 installed on Tiger have been stable, but have had the odd crash. With Motion 3, they’re a disaster – I usually save after any changes worth keeping. Motion 3 runs better on my MBP with less RAM and a worse gfx card under Leopard.
Now this ain’t very scientific an’ all – but perhaps it’s not very suprising: in all likelihood FCS2 was written with Leopard in mind, so it ought to run well on it. Does it run faster? Not that I can see on a direct comparison on the MBP. However, as others have commented, Leopard looks a little sharper graphically, clearer on the screen, and I find this a little easier on the eyes on a laptop screen.
I am happy to recommend Leopard to anyone now who uses FCS2 – handy since a new Mac Pro will have little choice but to run Leopard….
Ben
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[walter biscardi] “Funny thing about our Mac Pro Quad 3.0. It has never lost renders. Our G5 Quad 2.5 loses renders on occassion.”
Ah – now that’s interesting. I have only seen this on our Mac Pro dual 3.0. Never on the other two G5 systems – not had a workflow that would cause it on our Quad 3.0’s – but I’m betting from what you say this might be Intel Mac only – don’t think I ever read that…
Ben
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[walter biscardi] “Funny thing about our Mac Pro Quad 3.0. It has never lost renders. Our G5 Quad 2.5 loses renders on occassion.”
Ah – now that’s interesting. I have only seen this on our Mac Pro dual 3.0. Never on the other two G5 systems – not had a workflow that would cause it on our Quad 3.0’s – but I’m betting from what you say this might be Intel Mac only – don’t think I ever read that…
Ben
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Previously, new Macs have not allowed older versions of OSX to be installed than the version they came pre-installed with. This is presumably due to firmware versions and issues. I would imagine these new Mac Pros will be the same and not allow Tiger.
Ben
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Apple say the basic card is good for 2×30″ monitors. As usual, if you make heavy use of Motion, consider the upgraded one, BUT:
As I pointed out below, the basic card is the XT version of the card in the iMac, which either means the iMac is an amazing machine for the money (and it probably is) or…. Perhaps someone can shed light on how ‘bleeding edge’ this card is – Apple have a habit of wimping out on gfx cards, as anyone who ordered last time can testify.
Also, when I tried to add the nVidia card to the Mac configurator I got a 3-5 week wait. Seems familiar to anyone who ordered up last time around….
Ben