[Craig Alan]

canon has a slightly different firewire standard I’ve heard and can be fussy. try the reset button on the cam.

try to have the camera powered on and in play mode then power up computer and open editing app. I got so tired of this dance that lately I just copy the tapes to a ki pro as ProRes 422. You might want to convert to SD in the editor not from the cam. You might try a sony deck instead of a camera.

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

true. keep in mind that if the heads are slightly out of alignment on either cam, it’s best to use the cam you shot with. also the hv 20-30-40 cams are poor vcrs. the remote sensor is in the front of the cam and its not always very responsive. if you are capturing whole tapes no biggie. i guess.

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Jerry, Yeah I know the drill. Just thought maybe I3s were a no go and you or someone might know off the top. I’ll boot em up, write down the stats, and check the min. for Adobe, AVID, FC. This too shall pass. No way they were ordered with higher end graphic cards. My guess is FC will be slow but will work. Probably not color or motion. Avid maybe not. This is where the Imacs’s lack of upgradeability becomes weak link. Still they should be fine for preproduction and Imovie. Would love to see an update on your article that gave the recommended system requirements/QT versions etc for all the different editing choices. Remember the one on different versions of FC/OS X?

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Jerry. I follow. Thanks for the encouragement/insight. I know FC will be around for a while. But mine are students who, for the most part, haven’t yet developed an interest in editing. The fact that FC is EOL really bothers me. Not yet over the shock. But as you point out, editing is editing and variations in interfaces can be learned. Good thing we are all going to live forever, have unlimited resources and capacity to learn new tools, time is not precious and artistic crafts are not something that is mastered over a long career but rather ingested and spit out like sticks of bubblegum. Will FCS, AVID MC 5 or Adobe Prod. Suite work on I3 Imacs?

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

The experiment with headphones makes sense. I’ve done it often for testing mikes and trouble shooting audio problems. As talent, I avoid turning toward walls. I think I just need to train the person giving the lesson to know what his/her boundaries are. Your suggestion should teach them with instant feedback and within a practice session solid muscle memory.

[Jordan Wolf] “it’s the reason that Crown PCC160s and similar mics work so well at what they do.”

I’ve never used one of these. If they are mounted on a stage floor do they actually pick up dialog well enough to replace head worn mikes? Or are they in addition to. Just seems like they would be very far away from talents’ mouths. On a lectern or conference table I could see them being effective assuming the speakers are facing the mounted mike. Even then, I imagine different speakers would produce wildly different levels.

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Actually, the same thing happened with Imovie.

Imovie HD was a great hobbyist/starter program. I used it in a beginner video production course for students and it was great but needed an update. We were looking forward to a couple more tracks of audio and video, a second viewer, different views in the browser, compatibility with apple pro res, JKL keyboard control, and get the bugs out of quartz effects. And it crashed too much even with external media drives.

The education market and hobbyist market were so upset at the new Imovie that Apple offered a free download of the old one — after a bunch of bad reviews and many protests from consumers. As the new one added features the protest died down but there are still folks that miss the old simple timeline interface.

When they EOLed the old Imovie the new one did not allow “extracting audio” from the video it was linked to.

It did not support all the plug-ins that third parties wrote for the old Imovie like effects and masking and keying and ken burns variations. The new one was a huge step backwards and folks were pissed.
Everything felt themed and for a teacher did not feel like kids would learn editing basics.

Apple said (or did people just guess, not sure) that the new one was better cause many consumers couldn’t learn the old one easily and therefore didn’t use it. Funny cause I used FCP 3 but needed a cheaper program to install on underpowered school computers. A student helped me learn Imovie. I had kids editing within two lessons and being pretty independent within a week. Then I’d get kids who asked about features that Imovie didn’t have and I’d tell them about FCP.

Now, an industry was not at stake, but the pattern is surprisingly similar and in a dummied down way for the same reasons.

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

if you open the folder you can select all the subfolders and files command-A and then get info command-I and make changes — lock/permissions to all at once.

I have not tried this and have always found permission issues buggy in OS X. But it is an option.

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

FCP 7 is supported in Lion. But FCP 7 will never be updated and and most likely will not work on any Mac OS that follows Lion. FCP X has replaced it in Apple’s mind. But FCP X cannot open FCP 7 files. I’m just saying AVID is a lot more future proof at this point in time.

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Considering FCP is EOL, what if she needs to open the project say 2 years from now? I can understand that if they use a certain app in house and that is their comfort zone why they would want it created if possible in that app. But FCP projects will shortly be a big problem to work with. After Lion all bets are off. If they were willing to hire an outside editor why would doing the same down the line be a problem?

Besides would you be unavailable for these tweaks? Can’t you offer her x amount of time for re-edits?

On the other hand, working with these folks might have been a big mistake. Hope you got paid for the time you already wasted.

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Any hints at when MC6 will arrive or does AVID keep it a secret like Apple?

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.