[Boyd Mccollum]

I think the upgrade caveat deals more with a major version upgrade, i.e., FCP 4.5 to FCP 5.0 or Panther to Tiger. 10.4.2 to 10.4.4 could help your situation (wouldn’t hurt). Word on the street is that FCP 5.0.4 running on 10.4.4 with QT 7.0.4 is very stable.

You could reinstall your old graphics card to see if your problems go away – your new graphics card may be the culprit.

Of course, it never hurts to zap your preferences, pram, render files and the like to see have that helps.

[Boyd Mccollum]

It could have something to do with the whole “F” thing (quite complex and not really FCP-friendly yet, from my understanding). You could convert it to SD or DVCPRO HD and edit using one of those.

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Boyd Mccollum]

Trashing prefs is always a good place to start. In case you have a bad render file, you could trash all of them and rerender from scratch. You could also try breaking the project into smaller projects, open them separately, then start building your project again from the ground up, to see when/where the issue starts coming in.

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Boyd Mccollum]

Do a google search with words that you just used to describe what you were looking for.

Also, search for Walter Murch and Sean Cullen – they’ve used Final Cut on their last two features (Cold Mountain and Jarheads) and there is a lot of info on the web on how they did it. Jarheads interesting as they down rezed to 720p for editing.

Check out this link on the Apple website on Jarhead – some very useful info:

https://www.apple.com/pro/film/murch2/index.html

The Editors Guild magazine has some articles that might be useful as well:

https://www.editorsguild.com/news.html

Where in the middle kingdom are you?

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Boyd Mccollum]

You actually have 2 questions and the answer isn’t all or nothing. Avid Xpress Pro is platform independent. You can stay with Avid and switch from PCs to G5s. If you go with a Mac platform, you can also get FCP (now or at later date) and add flexibility to the editing platforms/choices you offer clients.

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Boyd Mccollum]

Apple did a really bad job rolling out FCP 5 and there was, and continues to be, some major miscommunications – often their fault, but at quite a considerable cost ($600-700) to the user. A couple of suggestions:

1. is there an Apple Store where you are at? Maybe if you go in person, especially if you tell them the story and offer to buy the full version, they may give you credit.
2. Call Apple and keep pushing it up the chain of command ’til someone has the authority or sense of fair play to help you out. There is a level of inconsistency with all businesses where some people never say “yes”, some that don’t think they can, and some that will.
3. Go to eBay and buy an older version of Studio for less $. I looked yesterday, and it looks like you can pick up an older version of an individual app for $100-150 (again, check that your upgrade will work with an upgrade from an app to full suite, not full suite to full suite). Then use the upgrade you have.

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Boyd Mccollum]

First is to just accept that death, taxes, and no upgrades from the Academic version of FCP are facts of life ;D If it’s any comfort, I went through this myself, and I know others who have as well.

You could just return the upgrade and buy the full production suite at full price. Even at full price, it’s a great deal, and really a small price to pay for what you get in return.

The other option would be to check ebay (or Craigslist, etc.) and buy a very cheap copy of an earlier version of either the Production Suite, or one of the stand alone non-Academic version of the apps in the suite (FCP, DVDSP, etc.). Check the Apple site for which upgrade goes with what you are doing. If you have one of the apps, I believe the upgrade is $699, but you need to have the correct upgrade (for an app to the suite, not from the suite to the suite).

What you really need is the license – and it should be a legitimate license – to upgrade. It would be a cheaper way to go.

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Boyd Mccollum]

Did a little more checking and it seems that the Canon XL H1, especially the “F” mode is somewhat problematic for capturing into FCP.

Here’s a link to a thread on the Creative Cow Canon DV forum with a possible solution:

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?univpostid=855035&forumid=59&postid=855035&pview=t

and this from the CC HDV forum:

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?univpostid=858882&forumid=162&postid=858882&pview=t

Here’s a link to a general article on the camea as well:

https://videosystems.com/mag/video_canon_xl_3/

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Boyd Mccollum]

I broke down and got the 30″ display. The wow factor wears off after awhile and it takes up less space than two 23″ monitors. I actually like it for the vertical real estate – great for seeing the viewer/canvas at 100% and a ton of tracks on the timeline. It also allows me to use the larger font sizes in FCP5.

I think the it really comes down to personal preference.

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”

[Boyd Mccollum]

The “cannot locate timecode” message suggests you may need to select “non controllable device” in the capture settings tab under device control. If this is the case, you’ll need to manually start your tape, let it run a few seconds (the tape needs to come up to speed) then do a capture now. Not sure if HDV(60i) or HDV1080i60 apply to the Canon XL H1 – have you check with Canon (or in the manual) what settings to select with NLEs?

Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”