[Bob Cole]

[walter biscardi] “If the quality of simply blowing up the footage in FCP and rendering is good enough for you and your client there you go. If not, you want true hardware scaling”

Thanks! You’ve put your finger on the question: what sort of magic does the Kona 3 do vs. software uprezzing (e.g. Red Giant’s Instant HD), for using SD sources in an HD show?

[Bob Cole]

[Bob Zelin] “how do you propose that you will get a Betacam 8 bit uncompressed SD signal upconverted to uncompressed 10 bit 1080i HD-SDI, with just FCP, in real time, unless you have a piece of HARDWARE to do this ?”

Bob, I think perhaps you misread my post. You had stated that the Kona 3 was the only way to do this, and I was asking whether you meant that Kona 3 was the only way to do this in real time.

If you don’t have to do this upconversion every day, it might be more sensible to take the hit and render in software, provided the quality was good enough.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Bob Zelin] “if you do need to UPCONVERT standard def to HD, there is no choice but to get the AJA Kona 3.”

As a recent buyer of an LHe maybe I’m indulging in wishful thinking. But I thought there were other ways to upconvert SD to HD, via software. What is it about the Kona 3’s HD conversion that is so different from simply upscaling via After Effects or indeed FCP? Real-time?

[Bob Cole]

[Bret Williams] “Didn’t they add a feature to make the text huge with 5.1”

Thanks — you are so right: User Pref’s – General Tab.

But the browser’s little arrows still require precise positioning to open them successfully.

Dark on light is easier to read. That was one of the things that first set the earliest Mac’s apart — they were the first computers I saw that offered dark text on a light bg.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Matrox might have a multi-monitor product you could use.

— Bob C.

[Bob Cole]

[CharlieX2] “Anyone else? Or do I need to go outside more often”

Cheers to you for bringing this up. I agree. Not just Apple but many software designers provide icons and fonts that are too small. The little drop-down arrows on the FCP browser bins can take a couple tries to hit just right.

otoh, some companies get it — e.g., Firefox, my browser of choice, enables you to enlarge the font size of a web page quickly and easily.

And… you DO need to go outside more.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Mark Suszko] “show your talent without having to pick Cowart’s work out from Spielberg’s”

re: Spielberg. I’ve heard that when he was a teen-ager he bought old movies of WW2 and intercut aerial combat scenes into his backyard-and-basement epics. Worked for him.

Putting the ethics and the copyright laws aside, the suggestion to get footage that you can legally use is a good one. Perhaps you could find a shooter who has a good reel, and offer to edit his/her footage into a great reel, in exchange for use of the footage.

Practically speaking, you’ll be better off using footage that is not famous, because that would distract people from you to… Spielberg. And he doesn’t need your help to get work.

— Bob C.

[Bob Cole]

[David Roth Weiss] “I told ya to turn those settings to “none.””

Problem solved. I turned the Energy Saver’s computer sleep option to off, set the monitor option to one hour, and unchecked the hard drive box. After that, I didn’t see the twirly circle in FCP after several hours of inactivity.

Thanks.

— Bob

[Bob Cole]

[Bob Flood] “i can have a nested sequence, which i access by double clicking. but if i drag that nested sequence out of the main sequence to a bin, i now have 2 nest sequences with the same name that are not the same.”

I did not even drag the nested sequence to the Browser — the old version of the original nested sequence simply showed up in the timeline when I double-clicked the child sequence. (the FCP manual uses parent and child language for this too, but backwards as far as I can tell.)

Cmd-E does nothing on my Bella keyboard. I used File-Export-QT Movie, and reimported it.

Andy, this “instance” thing is weird. I surely did not mean to invoke multi-cam or multi-clip funtionality. I looked at the software you recommend, and it would be great, but I do not do enough of this to justify it.

I guess I will just make a lot of QT movies and import them. It is a shame, because being able to ripple a change all the way through would be fantastic.

Thanks Andy and Bob for your feedback. I feel slightly less insane now than before, always a welcome feeling.

When the spots have finished airing, I am going to go back into the project and try some things — perhaps emptying the trash will help.

— Bob

[Bob Cole]

[Bob Flood] “i can have a nested sequence, which i access by double clicking. but if i drag that nested sequence out of the main sequence to a bin, i now have 2 nest sequences with the same name that are not the same.”

I did not even drag the nested sequence to the Browser — the old version of the original nested sequence simply showed up in the timeline when I double-clicked the child sequence. (the FCP manual uses parent and child language for this too, but backwards as far as I can tell.)

Cmd-E does nothing on my Bella keyboard. I used File-Export-QT Movie, and reimported it.

Andy, this “instance” thing is weird. I surely did not mean to invoke multi-cam or multi-clip funtionality. I looked at the software you recommend, and it would be great, but I do not do enough of this to justify it.

I guess I will just make a lot of QT movies and import them. It is a shame, because being able to ripple a change all the way through would be fantastic.

Thanks Andy and Bob for your feedback. I feel slightly less insane now than before. When the spots have finished airing, I am going to go back into it and try some things — perhaps emptying the trash will help.

Always a welcome feeling.

— Bob