[Chadwick Chennault]

I highly recommend downgrading to 10.5.4 and reinstalling FCS. Final cut was nearly unusable for me (in spite of doing all the maintenance) until I did this.

[Chadwick Chennault]

Yeah… but can it iron a dress shirt? That’s the feature I really need.

[Chadwick Chennault]

I may be way off here… but what version of OS X are you running. I had no end of rendering headaches in FCP and Motion running 10.5.6. A little research revealed that Apple rewrote the video drivers in 10.5.5… which was a major disaster… so they rewrote them again for 10.5.6… which was a minor disaster. I down graded to 10.5.4 and that solved most of my rendering woes.

[Chadwick Chennault]

I do this kind of thing frequently, but it’s messy.

Depending on what format you want to edit the footage in, a crossover cable, or switch between the two systems will work. If you are trying to edit uncompressed… forget about it. But DV, DVCpro(HD), ProRes422, HDV *should* work okay.

If you have a third computer that you can set up as a server, it will probably work much better. I am using a single core G5 1.6 connected to a RocketRaid array as my file server, and it can serve ProRes files to two editors simultaneously with only the very rare dropped frame.

As for two editors sharing the same file… here is a strategy I suggest: Break the Doc into segments. This can be scenes, acts, reels—or whatever way your organizational mind works— as long as each segment can be it’s own sequence. Now duplicate the project file. Call one project file “BigStinkinDocMaster” and the other “BigStinkinDocSteve” (assuming your assistant editor is named Steve).

Assign Steve to work on a specific segment. When Steve is done with that segment, or ready to pass it on to you, simply open Steve’s project while you have your master project open, and drag Steve’s sequences into the master project. When you are ready, you can either drag Steve’s sequences into your main sequence… or select all… copy… and paste from Steve’s sequences.

[Chadwick Chennault]

Duplicate the layer (or layers) you wish to be the source for your light wrap. Select the “move all attributes…” option. This should copy your camera and lights into the pre-comp. Turn visibility off for the pre-comp and select it as your light wrap layer.

If you are not done making changes to the camera/lighting, it is possible to link the camera and lights in the two comps with expressions, but I can’t tell you how to do that off of the top of my head. It’s always possible to copy lights and camera layers from your main comp into the pre-comp right before rendering.

[Chadwick Chennault]

If using AFX is an option, and you have a plate of the bench with no ladies on it, then you may consider using a difference matte. This by itself usually won’t give you satisfactory results. Most likely you will want to add blur and levels effects to the resulting alpha channel from your difference matte, then apply it as a track matte to an untreated duplicate of the footage.

If using this technique, it may also be helpful to color correct all of your footage before applying the difference matte. You will need to pre-comp or pre-render the color corrected footage before applying the difference matte.

[Chadwick Chennault]

I went through this exact problem a few weeks ago… I wish I took better notes, but I can give you a rough idea of how I fixed it. First, I ran FCS remover https://www.digitalrebellion.com/fcs_remover.htm

Then, I searched through ALL my library folders for anything FinalCut, FCS, or ProApp. All these files went into the trash. Finally, I reinstalled FCS and bingo.

Don’t bother calling Final Cut support. They will charge you $200 to tell you to trash your system preferences.

[Chadwick Chennault]

Perhaps I should clarify…

I have an hourly rate… I am curious as to what strategies you guys use to calculate how many hours you should bid/estimate.

Obviously, I can do a better job of tracking and reporting how long jobs take… but while I am building said database, I would like to know if you have any neat tricks to determine how many hours you bid.

Thanks.

[Chadwick Chennault]

In my experience… NTSC (YRB) absolutely HATES red. Anything higher than 235 in the red channel (if you are looking at the red in After Effects 8-bit color) is going to give you fits. Also, NTSC SD is no friend to sharp diagonal lines.

My recommendations would be to:

1) Fudge the red a bit to ensure it is color safe. In my opninion… close counts when working with NTSC. There is absolutely no chance that any monitor the video is played back on will faithfully reproduce whatever red you create. As long as it does not look orange, you are cool.

2) Create your motion graphics at 854X480. This is the square pixel size for SD wide screen. Anamorphic and non-square pixels always invite tears when creating motion graphics.

3) Apply a 1-2 pixel vertical blur to the image. Back in the day when everything was interlaced, this was an absolute requirement for all motion graphics. But it still comes in handy in the beautiful new world of progressive frames.

[Chadwick Chennault]

I would begin by swapping out your memory if possible. In my experience, memory can go bad without warning or provocation, and cause all kinds of insanity inducing freezes and crashes. A memory swap is a quick and easy “elimination.”