[Bob Cole]

[Dennis Size] “you can’t go wrong with a Mini Plus Lite Panel.”

Thanks Dennis. That sounds pretty neat.

You mentioned using a Litepanel as an eyelight. How to use the eyelight is a topic I’d like to know more about. I have sometimes used a 100 watt fresnel, but haven’t been crazy about the results. I may need to use a broader and dimmer source.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Thanks for all of the advice. CDFinder is terrific. I’ve already cataloged three hard drives from my archives shelf.

I found a use for it about two hours after installing it, when I opened an old FCP project that had three files missing. CDFinder told me exactly which offline drive they were in, and which folder.

With 300 GB hard drives costing about $100, and software like this to organize the results, archiving is going to be a lot simpler, and much more rewarding.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Thanks, guys. Those programs look great — I assume what you’re talking about is that they can give you visual icons for image assets.

What I have in mind is much simpler, I think — just a list of the filenames and folders on the hard drives on my shelf — searchable so I can rapidly retrieve something from a project, or so that I can reload a project for more editing.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[JeremyG] “When you go into capture mode, the Kona should go into video in ref. Make sure you keep it to free run.”

Sorry – don’t understand this. Are you saying that the Kona does something on its own when I start capture?

In Kona Control Panel, I have reset the reference to Free Run. I tested this by turning the power to the Horita black burst generator off and on. When I turn it on, the Kona Control Panel displays “525i29.97.” When I turn the black burst generator off, that label disappears.

re: the audio clicks. I’m testing with an interview which was very cleanly recorded with a Schoeps mic and sounds perfect when playing the tape, both from the camera and, while capturing, through the Kona-driven reference speakers. But when I play back the captured file, there are rather quiet clicks, which seem to cluster near the interviewee’s actual words. iow – quiet when there is little audio to be heard. They are rather random except for that tendency.

I just got back from the local CompUSA, where I bought a bunch of external FW drives, so I could offload a lot of files from my internal RAID. When I talked with an AJA tech support person about a similar issue, he suggested that a loaded-up RAID might be the source of the problem. (He was not correct, as it turned out. My problem was that SD and HD timelines weren’t playing back without dropping frames; the solution was to make sure that the Sony Z1 wasn’t powered up or connected to the computer. Go figure. It worked when I disconnected, it again gave problems when I reconnected.)

[Bob Cole]

[JeremyG] “Do you have your reference set to free run?”

No. When I changed it to Free Run the sync problem disappeared, but the clicking remains. I’m off to get another hard drive so I can offload some files and see whether that helps.

Thanks!

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[JeremyG] ”
You aren’t going into the XLR inputs of the mackie are you?”

No, but the AJA White Paper was useful. My RAID (of three drives inside the Mac Pro) is pretty full — only 150 GB out of the original 1.5 TB available. Kona’s Disk Read/Write Test gives 133/118, which should be enough for DVCPro HD.

I will check out the Disable Polling trick from the White Paper, delete some files from the RAID, and try again.

Thanks for your help.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Graeme Nattress] “deinterlace and then set the 1080i timeline to field order none, and then nest into the 720p timeline and render, with high quality motion scaling turned on in the sequence tab.

Graeme”

I have a similar issue, though I have the LHe card. I have 1080i 59.97 footage and 720p60 (which I think is actually 59.97, though FCP calls it p60). I will need to edit them together, and I’d like to use 720p.

Graeme, without fear or favor, I would like to know what you recommend, including your own products, for crossconverting the 1080i to 720p.

I plan to upgrade to FCP 6. Would FCP6 be able to handle the two formats in one timeline well, or should I bite the bullet and crossconvert?

Thanks!

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Thanks — what a timesaver. Now I remember it from doing the tutorials, but I guess I never used it.

This works great, but I’m still curious about the second part of my question: is there a way to modify a filter and make the modified version of the filter the default?

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Todd at Fantastic Plastic] “what’s a paper filter?”

You turn on the fixture, and in about five minutes it starts giving a very authentic “bonfire” effect — wait, gotta go, I have a problem here!

[Bob Cole]

I can’t seem to find a setting for millions of colors. Two monitors where this occurred are set to 32-bit.