[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[chadders] “I already had a project on the system and expected the upgrade be seamless and V5 work as V4.5.”

This is always an unreliable assumption.
This has been discussed countless times on this and virtually every other technical forum.

You should not upgrade software until a project is completed and out of the system.

Sorry.

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

Will the FINISHED program be (roughly) 90 minutes or is the “live event” 90 minutes?

Or, how much raw footage will be shot with each camera?

DV captures at about 13 GB per hour, so 6 times 60 minutes of capture would be about 70-80 GB.
Plus, if you capture the “Switched” DV tape, that would be another hour, or approx. 13 GB more.

The external FW drive MAY or MAY NOT be reliable for this size edit.
Apple does not officially “recognize” FW drives for capture and editing with FCP although many editors use them successfully.

That’s a LOT of capture and a long continuous playback.
You might have better luck if you edit it and output it in shorter segments, if possible.

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[glenn chan] “In post, you apply color correction globally (i.e. to a nested project/sequence). This should counteract for the drift in white balance as the football game’s lighting situation changes.

Wouldn’t that work?”

I MIGHT, but it is so unlikely that ANY two (or more, same model or not) isolated cameras will visually “match” at any one time with just a simple white balance that the discussion gets convoluted.

There are going to be many differences in the image from each camera some more pronounced than others.

The iris level (which will CONSTANTLY be running in and out of “too high or too low” with most “small CDD” camcorders) can affect the appearance and the adjustments needed in the Color Correction (CC).
The Black Balance as well as the distinct areas for each camera of “slightly different” lighting will affect the initial WB and subsequent “darkening sky and mixing-in of artificial light” coloration.

So, a “blanket” CC just MIGHT be OK if you aren’t too picky, but I doubt it will work very well.

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

Well, to directly answer the question in the subject line:

Digital video (DV included) is designed to be recorded with “Zero black” (super-black) as opposed to analog, where the blacks are intended to be at 7.5 units above “zero”.

Many (pro and semi-pro) DV camcorders have a menu setting to allow them to record their black-levels at 7.5, but that can cause problems if, at a later time, the “edit” is AGAIN readjusted to add “7.5 black” if being dubbed to analog.

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[squire Robert J. Wolff] “Do you know if the filter is a linear polarizer, or, a circular polarizer?”

Well, its not either one, since we’re discussing using a UV filter and/or an ND filter. 😉

But you’re right, if we were discussing a polarizer.

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

Guys,
I can’t sit here and view all these replies telling Amy that she CAN cure bad audio with simple filters.
Sorry, but here come the harsh facts.

Reverb is one of the most IMPOSSIBLE-to-fix of audio problems (second only to severely CLIPPED levels).

EQ won’t do it.
Its reverb (repetition) of the PRIMARY audio… the same frequency that you WANT to KEEP.

The Noise Gate is probably the best choice, but it will PUMP if its set high enough to be effective on the reverb.

Whatever you try will adversely affect the overall QUALITY of the audio being “fixed” and be very noticeable to the listener (especially compared to any “good” audio in the same production).

The phrase is: “GOOD audio is the absence of BAD audio.”

Therefore the best cure for BAD audio… is recording GOOD audio.

That’s why major motion pictures and many TV shows LOOP (replace with ADR) their “bad” location audio with the actors re-recording the dialogue in a quiet studio.

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

You didn’t give any system info or FCP version so I’m just flying blind.

Check this link:

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301852

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

You should not edit by looking at only the computer monitor for judging quality.
FCP is designed as an editing SYSTEM to be operated with an external video monitor connected
(through a camcorder is just fine) DURING the edit process.
The external video monitor would have shown you that many video “freeze frames” will wiggle, dance, jitter, flicker, etc.

This “flicker” is absolutely normal and is due to video “frames” being made up of TWO “fields”.
If there is a lot of action in the frame you chose to “freeze”, the 2 fields will appear slightly different from one another and will jump back-and-forth between themselves, over and over during the “freeze”.

To solve the problem, just add the “Flicker Filter” or, better still, the “De-Interlace Filter” to the freeze(s).

Effects (tab) >
Video Filters >
Video >
De-Interlace (or)
Flicker Filter

Again, if you watch the external monitor, you will see the flicker go away after a filter is applied.

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[FRAZ2005] “but it wasn’t a focusing problem as such, more of a reflection problem”

I guess I need to strengthen my writing skills.

I didn’t say it WAS a “focusing problem”.
I said it was an IRIS problem.
Well, not so much a “problem” as it is just the “nature” of iris/focus relationships… in which there is a phenomenon that can cause EVERYTHING (wanted or not) to become “in focus”.

That means that under strong lighting conditions, when the iris opening becomes quite small (almost CLOSED to a pin-point), even when you set the focus on a subject a few feet from the camera lens, things virtually TOUCHING the lens are still seen in sharp focus. (If there is a filter/lens reflection it can be quite visible.)

If you use a relatively dark Neutral Density lens filter, it will cause the iris to OPEN much more to admit more light… and throw anything close to touching the lens OUT OF FOCUS.
(So, when you set the focus on a subject a few feet from the camera lens, if there is still a filter/lens reflection, it will be virtually in such soft focus it will not be seen.)

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[Steve Eisen] “SONY claims that you can reuse thier DVCAM tapes over 200 times without any dropouts.”

I’ve never had any trouble with reusing any DV tape (the cheapest of the name brands work perfectly for me).
I have video “work tapes” that get constant use and re-use… no drop-outs, no problems.

Every time I see the reply to NOT do it (or only do it a very few times) I just shake my head.
Video folks get very nervous and superstitious about these things, I guess.

The cautionary tales get told and re-told so much that they finally become “common knowledge” (EVERYBODY KNOWS you shouldn’t re-use DV tapes). Kind of an “Urban (Video) Legend.”

OTOH, DV tape is so amazingly CHEAP, I never really NEED to reuse many cassettes.
I just KEEP all my masters in a giant “pack-rat” array.