Chuck Reti
Forum Replies Created
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There are a number of USB 2.0 PCI cards, roughly in the $30 range, more and less, from Sonnet, IOGear, Belkin and others. Easy to install, usually offer 3 or 4 USB 2 ports. Some cards have combo USB 2 and Firewire. Check the usual online Mac retailers for prices and varieties.
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One of the very many pitch shift filters will get you the deep scary part, plus a small bit of reverb to enhance.
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Well, for starters, go to the source..
https://www.apple.com/mac/
https://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/
lots of basic information and tutorials.
Look at the top of your menubar, click “Help” to bring up an extensive help file that will answer many questions.
If you bought your Mac at an Apple Store, all the stores offer free orientation classes for new users. Many areas have active Mac user groups where help is available. There are hundreds, if not more, Mac-related sites for both experienced users and newbies (Google is your friend).Also very useful are David Pogue’s “Missing Manual” books. “Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual” is current and full of useful tips. Highly recommended. Lots of other help in book form.
Mac OS X is the native Macintosh operating system. We users generally find performance and overall user experience superior in many ways to Windows. Depending on how recent your machine is, you can, should you desire or have the need to, install software that will allow you to install and use various flavors or Windows on the same computer. However, for very many Windows applications, there is equivalent Mac software.
If you’re doing serious editing work, of course you will need to purchase and install editing software. A basic editor, iMovie, and basic DVD authoring, iDVD should already exist on your machine.
Suggest getting familiar and happy with your gear and the OS before diving into Final Cut Studio or the like. -
This is easy with the free “Video Downloadhelper” add-on for Firefox.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006 -
[Rafael Amador] “This was call “Venetian Blinds” and is what happens with any video segmented format when the video heads are not equilibrated (optimized) before recording.”
This can also be caused by incorrect adjustments during playback as well. The banding in the first, dark still looks like phase error caused by either the guide position or guide height (skew/scallop) being misadjusted enough for the electronics not being able to fully correct (this is Old Fart 2″Quad Guy stuff). Also looks like at least one channel’s EQ is mismatched (can see it in the fuzzy red light on the closeup shot). If there’s any possibility of having the 2″ redubbed, do it, maybe at a different facility, though I’d guess it’s one of those tapes that survived that last dub pass but might not last for another.
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The “phone filters” we still like to use are a throwback to Western Electric desk sets with carbon mike transmitters and metal diaphragm earpieces. This is the sound that we have come to expect when depicting the far side of a phone conversation. The landline phone system and hardware nowadays do sound just a little better than that, but we’re psychologically prepared to hear that tinny sound on film, video and radio.
What we really need to have is what suzin wants, a preset “cell phone sound” filter. Ideally(?) it would output voices a bit muffled, full of digital glitches, sampling errors and aliasing, occasional drops, and complete sentences scrambled and wrongly reassembled. Like in real life. -
Onyx (free) and Cocktail (shareware) are great “Swiss Army Knife” tools that allow cleanup of cache files, logs, etc. (including the aforementioned daily/weekly/monthly scripts), as well as a few tweaks to Finder and Safari (that do not modify System files). Both utilities are GUI gateways to OS functions available to users, but usually only via Terminal commands.
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[suzin daly] “I do not see any instructions or guidelines”
As with most Mac applications, a user guide/help file is available under the “Help” column in the top menu bar.
Available here is “MPEG Streamclip Guide,” also invoked by Command-?. -
[Sean ONeil] “Having a cellphone even near them is going to cause a really loud hum.”
(Sorry for inadvertent blank post above.)
The digital signal that the current generation of GSM/G3 phones generate gets into almost everything, not just nearby speakers.
On both studio and EFP shoots, we have to make sure crew and talent cell phones are in the full Power OFF, not just ‘silent/ring off’ mode to avoid the buzz getting into both wired and wireless mikes. Same with studio headsets and intercoms. Have heard this even on radio programs when talent’s phone gets into the audio board. This will occur all by itself, when the cell phone and nearby tower sites need to communicate with each other, not just when a call is in progress.
As to the OP’s hum problem, it does sound like a ground issue, which can affect audio monitoring regardless of the equipment price or manufacturer. Besides the recommendation to try an isolation transformer (though i suspect everything’s on wall warts anyway), sometimes careful re-dressing of power and audio cables can help. Make sure speakers and speaker leads are nowhere near power supply or mains cables and especially transformers. -