Boyd Mccollum
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Nickie, forgive me if I’m missing something – I really don’t understand why you need to leave your camera daisy-chained in your set up. You only need it to pull in additional source media – you don’t need it while editing.
[Nickies] “I am trying to save all FCP files to the external drive. It works fine if I capture everything to my computer and transfer to the external afterwards (I always seem to loose a few files in the process)”
You already have the workflow in place for what you should be doing – maybe with a minor tweak or 2. This is the workflow I use when editing on my Powerbook (long form documentary as well).
1. Hook your camera up to your Powerbook.
2. Set you Capture Scratch disk to your internal harddrive.
3. Log and capture the clips from your tape to your internal drive.
4. Unplug the camera from the computer, plug in your external drive with the firewire cable.
5. Transfer your captured media files to a media file folder for your project on the external drive.
6. Double check it went okay.
7. Delete captured media from your internal drive to free up space. Repeat Steps 3-7 as necessary.
8. In your FCP project (keep this on your internal drive, and back up to external hd), reconnect the media links to your new location. (using File/Reconnect Media)
9. Start editing.If you shoot more video, bring in the footage you need when you have it. That’s the only time you need to have your camera attached to your computer. You also shouldn’t be “losing files” when you transfer from your internal drive to your external.
Trying to run your camera through your external drive really doesn’t work too well (not that it can’t). Basically your trying to pull information in and send it out at the same time on the same firewire bus, and that creates problems.
[Nickies] “but this is not going to work for long as I am editing a 50 minute video and I don’t have the space to edit on my powerbook drive”
Editing from an external drive does work and that’s the only way to go with a powerbook and the amount of footage you have when cutting a documentary.
Boyd
“Go slow to go fast” -
Check out Michael Wiese Productions (www.mwp.com). His book Film and Video Budgets 3 is excellent and gives links on his website to download excel budgets spreadsheets for documentaries. I believe the book has been updated to version 4.
Boyd
“Go slow to go fast” -
I think all the books in the Apple Pro Training Series are first rate. I just picked up the same book for FCP 5. I haven’t gone through it yet, but it looks solid.
Boyd
“Go slow to go fast” -
I’m not sure if I’m understanding you correctly, so take my suggestions with a grain of salt. When you double click a nested clip, it opens the elements of that nest in a separate timeline (with the name you gave when you created the nest). So if you apply effects to those clips, depending on the effect and your sequence settings and you system, it would need to render those effects in the nest.
If you want to open the nest (not the elements of the nest) in your active timeline, you can Ctrl+click (or right click) and select Open in Viewer, or hold the Option key and double click the nested clip. This will open the nest in the viewer and you can apply effects, change motions properties etc, and you should not need to rerender (unless it’s an effect that needs rendering on your computer).
Boyd
“Go slow to go fast” -
Your drives just may not be fast enough. I’ve always had trouble capturing from a Sony PD170 to an external drive when I used by powerbook (17″G4 1.5Ghz, 1.5G Ram). My solution was to capture directly to my PB internal drive, then I would copy the media to my external drive (not ideal).
No experience with a FW cardbus, but I think it’s a good accessory for a powerbook.
Boyd
“Go slow to go fast” -
glad to help. Just remember to let your tape run for 5-6 seconds before doing capture now – this ensures the tape is playing at speed and helps to prevent sync slippage.
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what type of camera/deck are you capturing from? do you see any image when you just play the media in the Log/Capture window and can you control your device with the transport controls in FCP? also, what message do you have in the device status area?
The “looking for 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.
Boyd
“Go slow to go fast” -
I would recommend the Apple Pro Training Series book Final Cut Pro 5 (or HD if you have 4.5) by Diana Weynand. It comes with a DVD that includes lessons and media files. It’s very comphrensive. Check out Amazon for good deals.
Boyd
“Go slow to go fast” -
Not sure about FCE, but in FCP you can select specific clips or areas to render or do a render all. Try Cmd+A to select everything in your timeline, then CMD+R to render selection.
Boyd
“Go slow to go fast” -
You might want to consider moving up to one of the iMacs. My wife edits with FCP 4.5 on a 20″ iMac (not even the new ones that just came out, or the ones before that with the speed increase) and it works pretty well. I haven’t upgraded it to FCP 5, but it should work if we do. The new iMacs should work well with DV and FCP5 (and if you decide to add the studio package down the line, you probably have more flexibility in doing so). Just my $.02.
Boyd
“Go slow to go fast”