[Craig Alan]

Let’s assume some features will be added to X. What I would find interesting is the different way X works with media. Is this different way of working a step forward, back, or just different?

As X stands now, it is not usable in many pro situations. That’s already been determined.

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]

[Bryce Moose] “Outside shots are just fine”

So it is not a camera malfunction, but one of lighting. Small lenses need more light. Either work outdoors or use an open window as a key light or get yourself a light kit.

That said read through the manual and make sure you are not locked into the wrong settings. I teach my students to be on P mode, press in the joystick, push down to exposure, and manually set that. But in low light conditions the cam will auto boost the gain. Keep in mind the LCD shows a brighter image than a TV monitor. If you hook up your cam to a TV and watch it live you can get a good feel for the actual recorded image. FC does not show a true image in the canvas.

The HV20-30-40 are great little cams for the price but you need to provide them with light. A good light kit will last you a lot longer than a camera. Same with good audio gear. Both don’t care what format you are shooting in. And both have good resale value if you get bored or want a new kit.

One other possibility: the camera is messed up. Try the reset button to bring all back to factory defaults. Hard to tell without seeing some footage.

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]

[Craig Alan] “Could you give me a link to the adapter?” You do mean converter, right?

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]

Could you give me a link to the adapter? And let me know how your set up is working out. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. Had the idea before reading article, but when I read it I thought cool … but how? My teleprompter has vga in and my cameras have hdmi or component out.

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]

In the original copy of this promotion Apple included the line, “We make tools for these people.”
It seems they have lost the difference.

One of the great mistakes made throughout history is throwing out what was organic, ergonomic, historic about the old workflow to make room for new innovation. BOTH/AND not EITHER/OR. True genius is not disrespectful of its history. Einstein revolutionized physics but Newtonian physics is still around and Einstein obviously studied it before disproving parts of it and going beyond.
Sooner or later the old way comes back in fashion in some form. I don’t mean an evolutionary advancement of the same idea. Cheaper faster storage drives faster computers all good. Software not being able to read the previous generation’s projects. Irresponsible, arrogant, ruling class, anti-innovation. There are times that a hand drill works better than an electric one. A Teflon pan for omelets is a good innovation. For almost everything else, it’s a step backward. But they are good for business. Sooner than later the coating wears off and customers buy a whole new set. In the process, their cooking skills diminish.

I see nothing revolutionary about FC X. There are some nice new features and obviously the code is written for modern computer systems. That’s evolution. But throwing out a developed language set and workflow for another is counterproductive. If the language evolved with the times that’s evolution. Throwing out a language set arbitrarily is arrogance. Cloud distribution is revolutionary for the arts and all forms of communication. But as a storage archiving production system it has serious flaws at the moment. Security being one. Archiving being another. A developed business model being a third. There has never been a great way to archive artistic works. They fade. They get stolen. They get mistranslated. They get lost. They get destroyed. I think computers hold at least the promise to create a preservation system. But to do so requires each generation of software/hardware to import the old projects. Otherwise you have huge missing links.

I think its good to help new editors by creating software that is easier to learn. In FCP 1-7 a common early frustration for new editors and videographers editing their own work was the need for handles. You don’t want to throw out the concept of handles. Camera operators should use pre rolls and post rolls. Talent should allow for these extra few moments before and after. But it would have been not so difficult for the pop up when a new editor tried to apply a transition to explain the problem rather than just saying: “not enough media.” It could easily give the option to adjust the edit points x number of frames to accomplish this. If the results suck. Undo. You’ve now learned why we use handles and why in and out points in a nondestructive workflow is cooler than cutting up the footage into smaller clips. I think the non-collision of the magnetic timeline can be pretty cool. It could be added to FCP 7 as a toggled button like linking or snapping is now. Personally I see snapping as magnetic behavior and the magnetic timeline as a sort of auto tracking. Like a train switching to a parallel track to avoid collisions.

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]

Be more specific about this marketing. Getting a decent image and producing a successful video are too different things. How will you light? How will you capture sound? How will you stabilize the camera. I’d hire a pro. Let the student intern with the pro. There is a lot more to it than just the camera. For the most part, more expensive cameras are easier to use not harder. A consumer camera does fine on a tripod, outdoors on an overcast day or just before dusk or dawn with auto everything. With a steady hand you can can get nice moving travel shots.

But adjusting the exposure, clean sharp images, control of what part of the image is in focus and in frame, white balancing, etc. is far easier on a more expensive camera.

All that said, the Canon vixia mini-cams take a nice image for the price. Be prepared to read the manual. And like all cameras, you need good lighting and the camera needs to be mounted on a tripod at the very least. You’ll need mikes and a way to mount them.

How can you market high-end engineering tools if your video looks and sounds like you have no idea what you are doing? I assume anyone who buys this type of equipment has really nice HD TVs and computers to play these videos.

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]

Look into a video switcher/mixer.

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]

Try going from camera to laptop, laptop to teleprompter.

What’s the purpose here? I read an article a while back in which they used a cam feed to teleprompter so that the interview subject was looking directly into the lens.

But they didn’t say how.

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]

I told you this could be a hit. We already have fans lining up in support of one side or the other.

My original idea for this was not about comparing specific NLE apps but rather an Iron Chef, America Got Balls, or Dance, or Idol reality TV contest type show with editors being given raw footage and a time limit to make something of it. Personally, I could live without the contest part of contest shows and would find just watching different people producing different results interesting. Be it cooking, designing, editing, singing, whatever. I personally would like to see more of the techniques that go into the craft instead of the melodrama of who wants to win and how much it means to them. But people like winners and losers and even controversial decisions. Hell our Government has decided the fate of the country should be determined using a win lose paradigm.

I modified my idea here to include reproducing someone else’s edit, which is a film school practice activity and the head to head workflow of one app compared to another.

The part of the contest that would be interesting to me, and I assume anyone else on the fence about where to go from here, is what David has been talking about – the NLE UI as both a metaphor and a spatial workflow reality. What plays well for what? It would also be really cool to see the raw footage and what talented editors make of it.

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]

No. But I was hoping you’d be one of the judges.

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.