[Clint Wardlow]

[Bill Davis] ” that represents nothing more or less than the path nearly every truly competent artist has employed since the dawn of time.”

Hey, not the case with me. I popped out of my mother’s womb a fully formed artist, with a Mitchell 35mm camera in one hand and a Syd Fields Screenwriting Guide in the other. And damn that Mitchell was mighty heavy for my little baby fist.

I agree, it is all a process. The source for the inspiration is not nearly as important as the end result.

[Clint Wardlow]

[Gary Huff] “Well, reading it again, it mentions that these are FireWire devices. Given their age, it’s either going to work with the adapter or not anyway”

I may have misstated due to my lack of working with Thunderbolt (my imac is the generation before Thunderbolt). It is my understanding that some older firewire devices do not work with the thunderbolt adapter (cameras, MIDI instruments, and such). Several of my musician friends bitterly complained about this. And as Gary said, given the age of my Sony HDV camera and the Canopus, I was afraid this might be the case.

[Clint Wardlow]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I think you are speaking of dropout, not dropped frames.”

I am actually talking about dropped frames. Sometimes when I upload older VHS into FCP7 I get dropped frame warnings. Also some oddball breaks in footage due to timecode issues. I think this may be due to issues with my deck and the age of the tape.

Dropouts are just something I have learned to live with.

[Clint Wardlow]

I should mention it isn’t all VHS. About a third of the footage was shot using a high-quality Betacam. I still have a refurbished Sony D600P around that I shoot with occasionally when I want that analog newsy look (it also makes kind of a cool looking prop).

[Clint Wardlow]

Thanks to everybody for all the input. It reinforces what I already knew and was afraid of. Namely, I have a lot more research ahead of me before I undertake this.

[Clint Wardlow]

[Walter Soyka] “Clint said straight off the bat that “the main work will be cleaning up the image and audio.””

Thanks Walter. I still shoot using VHS and Betacam cameras, but image quality has never been an issue before, because I was going for a look that didn’t rely on clarity.

However, with this old stuff (much shot on tube cameras) I would like to get the best image quality possible. It is more for preservation that what I normally do. So any advice is helpful.

I could outsource this I guess, but I am trying to do this with out breaking the bank.

[Clint Wardlow]

[Andy Branner] “Why wouldn’t it?”

I have only played around with FCPX and it will be a new UI frontier. That is why I ask.

One of my concerns is how it deals with dropped frames. I know on injest FCP7 complains of dropped frames but you can turn off the warning. And frankly when converting old tape formats there are dropped frames aplenty (cleaning tape heads and making sure tapes are tightly rewound can mitigate this).

[Clint Wardlow]

Well, I do have options. I have an old Canopus converter that creates .mov files. I can also use my old Sony HDR-FX1 which records to a miniDV tape. I also recently purchased a Roxio converter but it is crap frankly. I prefer the Sony as it gives more consistent results, but is a pain because it is a much longer process (analog tape to miniDV tape to capture computer.

My other concern is both the Canopus and Sony use firewire and are EOL. I’m not sure they have updated drivers for Thunderbolt. However, that probably won’t be a problem because I am keeping my old 27′ imac.

[Clint Wardlow]

I should note my standard practice in dealing with analog video is to convert it to DV (I know this isn’t the greatest method but generally works for what I do).

[Clint Wardlow]

[Walter Soyka] “[Andy Branner] “Where was anyone suggesting that?”

You mistakenly suggested that Grant Petty suggested that when you misquoted him.

There’s quite a significant difference between “this is the machine we’ve been waiting for” and “this is the Mac we’ve been waiting for.””

Honestly Walter, I don’t know why you engage with this guy. He is obviously just spoiling for a fight.

I mean really. The OP was just a comment about how if you wanted a Mac pro with PCI slots you had better scoop them up fast. Doesn’t seem that controversial to me. I don’t see what all the hubbub is about.

If you don’t want or need them, buy the tube when it comes out (which I will do since I don’t use the newest and shiniest tech and probably won’t have to worry about upgraded GPU for a long time). If you do need them, buy an old mac pro while they last or move to PC (Hackintosh or otherwise).