[Colin Mcquillan]

Working great for me.

The only issue I’m having is with large speed changes using the new timeline dropdown speed keyframes. When changing speed from 300% or more to 100% or less I get a stutter frame on the key frame.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

In my experience it is best to use cinema tools to conform the footage to the frame rate you will be working in, and then speed it up if you want it to play faster.

Dropping 60P footage into a 30fps or 24fps timeline then slowing it ~50% doesn’t get you the frame by frame clean slomo you are after. It is as though FCP blends the frames when you initially put it into the timeline, then interpolates the slomo from the reduced blended frames. This leaves you with ugly slomo.
Also, the realtime playback of the material isn’t as good as it should be either.

Conform the footage in cinema tools to the framerate of your project, then speed it up the the desired speed you are after. This works best.

Test it out and see for yourself. Duplicate a clip of your source material, run one instance through cinema tools and conform it to 30FPS. Import both files into FCP and drop in a 30FPS timeline. Slomo the 60FPS footage to 50% and compare it to the stuff you conformed. See how much crisper and nicer the conformed footage looks!?

Now speed up the conformed footage to 200% and it will playback regular speed way better than the 60FPS material. (this is far more evident when viewing on a proper external monitor.) The 60FPS material plays back on TV monitors as if it was shot with a high shutter (very ugly,) and the conformed 30fps material sped up 200% will playback smooth.

Hope I didn’t loose you there… In short FCP does a far better job speeding up footage than it does slowing it!

Cheers,

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

Shift-L is the keyboard shortcut to turn on/off Linked Selection.
It’s a good one to set to memory!

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

I have purchased many plug-in packs and find I use the Noise Industries set far more than the others.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

Perhaps you have some corrupt media in the project. I have seen that cause nightmare problems with projects not opening, saving…..

Take a look in your capture scratch and render folders and see if you have an insanely large .mov or render. If you find any try playing it back in QT Player.

If this is a complex project I’m sure this could be a daunting task, but if there is a piece of corrupt media or a bad render file linked in the project, deleting the bad media can bring an otherwise dead project back to life.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

Another thought is that many people are using the SD Card adapted SxS’s in the EX1/3’s. If this is the case then no worries with the SD slot on the 15″

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/662235-REG/E_Films_1201_MxR_ExpressCard_SxS_Replacement.html

If you want to do anything more than just log and xfer I’d stay clear of the 13″. Go for the 15″ with the dedicated gfx card.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

Oh, and yes it does suck that Apple took out the express slot on the 15, but the camera or card reader will still plug in via FW.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

IMO If you travel a lot the 15″ is the way to go. The 15″ with a 23″+ on the desk to plug into. That way you have a great big screen to work off when at home-base, and a more portable workhorse when out on the road/ on location.

I had a 17″ and loved it…. until the novelty of the beast wore off. At the time I was doing a bunch of road travel and hotel room editing. It may seem like only a few inches here and a few ounces there more than a 15″ but it really does take its toll in the laptop bag. Add an external or two and adaptors and headphones, perhaps a deck, IOHD, whatever the case …… every inch and every ounce counts.

The 17″ was unfortunately stolen and I replaced it with a 15″.

What a difference in portability. In my case I’d never go back to the 17″.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

Hitachi bought G-Tech almost a year ago now.

They were using Hitachi drives in their units long before Hitachi bought them.

I have one G-Speed eS pre-hitachi ownership, and one post-hitachi, both working great!

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Colin Mcquillan]

As they say “There are many ways to skin a cat.”

IMO best solution: Get a vector (.eps, .ai) version of the logo made and do your “zoom” in Motion or After Effects (Motion only likes .ai)

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.