[Ben Holmes]

Off the top of my head, I don’t believe the Mac itself does RAID 5 (and it’s certainly not in the eSATA card) so it has to offered as a hardware option on the array – but I couldn’t swear to this. Certainly that’s the way to go, it means that the array can be transferred between machines – I would not want to use a software RAID 5 solution on any system.

FWIW, I would go with the G-Speed. Although I have a number of Lacie arrays myself, they are not as well made as the G-tech gear in my experience, despite the rugged looks.

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

I would say it has to be a subjective decision – what you are talking about is essentially the ‘look’ of a shot, and where the mids lie will depend on the shot itself – areas of shadow and light, and will also very from hue to hue. Setting the black and peak white levels correctly will ensure your mids have the full range available to them. Having a well set up CRT is more vital here than scopes.

Just my 2 pence.

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

NTSC DV is 720×480 – check the FCP sequence presets.

Export the sequence in its current size and codec as a FCP Quicktime. This maintains the quality and size, and will be fully rendered with all effects etc. You will find this a useful resource for other uses.

Open a new project using the NTSC DV easy setup. Import your 1280×720 file into it. Open the new sequence 1 in the new project, and then select ‘sequence settings’. Tick the ‘anamorphic’ tag in the settings – you will see the canvas window change shape to 16×9.

Drop your 1280×720 quicktime into the timeline for this sequence. It should resize itself into the canvas automatically to fit without any letterboxing – it will automatically shrink the scale to fit.

Export your DV QT from this sequence (it will require a render on export) or print to tape etc. It will be an anamorphic DV stream that will now need to be stretched by a TV or projector by selecting the 16×9 option on the playback device.

Hope this helps.

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

Simple – select the ‘show overlays’ option above ‘show title safe’ first – it’s considered an overlay option, so that has to be selected first.

Make sure you have set the size to ‘fit to window’ to ensure you see the entire frame.

Have a nice day etc.

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

Walker

What is the bitrate of the QT you have made? It’s possible to create H.264 QT’s (or other codecs) that have sufficiently high bitrates to not play well on lower spec computers. The sort of file you describe would require a dual 2.0Ghz processor as a minimum.

The random jerkiness you described sound like the issues my Mac mini has playing HD movies – which my MBP plays fine. I would urge you to seek client approval via video playback, not QT files – however more convenient that may be.

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

Paul

FWIW, I have done a ‘dirty’ install of Leopard on my MPB with FCS2 already installed. We are yet to upgrade any of our work systems, I did this just for kicks on my own computer.

I also did it mid project (although all media and projects were on an external drive) and then carried on with the project.

So far – nothing. No problems. All my many plug-ins seem fine, and it’s all as stable as it was before. Now, I could just be lucky, but remember this is Apple software running on an OS Apple devs have been using for nearly a year. It SHOULD be stable. As others have said, third party apps may not be so good (although only NeoOffice has required an upgrade for me so far) but Apple apps? Pro apps? Let’s hope it’s all generally ok, or the PR would hurt Apple badly.

On a new machine with a clean Leopard install, you ought to have few problems, otherwise there would be a flood of complaints on the web and swift action from El Jobso to fix it…

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

I sincerely hope (and I say this as someone who has a great deal of respect for AJA’s support) that he has more luck than me. They have not followed up on two emails I sent them on this topic, and only replied to the first one with the usual standard responses – a fair first reply, but one I had hoped we could move on from.

I fear this may be the problem with dealing with a US company on a PAL issue. I hope someone there can prove me wrong, and actually test the PAL capture with PAL equipment. Until someone does, I am going to assume something is fundementally wrong here. At present, I cannot slow down any footage in the timeline without de-interlacing it first, or I get field judder, on top of the issue with ‘cuts’ I mentioned before. Not ideal.

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

You crazy Americans with your moron-led, fear-mongering, “hasn’t anyone read 1984?” government! You kill me! And probably will!

😉

[Ben Holmes]

Usually ‘expensive’ means ‘shot on film’

Achieve a cheap film effect by de-interlacing the footage. Of course, you can use any of the hundreds of ‘film look’ bundles such as the ones you mention.

Since you are a FCP user, I would consider Color if you have the hardware to run it – and I use it on a 15″ Macbook using an LCD screen as a second monitor if I just want to sex up some personal projects – Not the same as the MacPro’s and HD monitors at work, but great for the preset effects in Color to make my home movies look fun!

Ben

[Ben Holmes]

I know. They go on about it in that video. However, it’s likely that although it was a video camera, they used something like the Pro35 adapter to bolt a photograhic or cine lens onto the body, as it was shot by a film DoP and camera crew. Shutter speed is also universal to both formats.