[Craig Seeman]

True 1080P from true 1920×1080 chips.

What’s “better” really depends on what you’re shooting and why.

Me? I shoot 1080p30 in most cases. I’d shoot 720p60 for sports since temporal resolution may be more important. I may be shooting sports in which everything will be slow mo so I might do that 720p24/60fps.

There may also be reasons to shot 1080p24, 720p24 or 1080i60 depending on your distribution intent.

[Craig Seeman]

Imagine Products (ShotPut EXpress) got back to me and said it’ll be out be end of April the latest.

[Craig Seeman]

Firmware update should happen in July or August although I’ve heard some disagreement about what it will actually contain.

[Craig Seeman]

I think you’re faced with having to reinstall the ProApps and then update to FCP 6.0.2 keeping Quicktime at 7.3.1 for OS 10.4.11.

FCP 6.0.2 and above contains the codec for the EX1 HQ modes and if you’re not seeing it and after trying everything else, you have a bad install. I also think people like “Mike” should not make a declarative statement when they do not know the software involved.

Apple probably won’t answer your questions unless you have support contract and they’d likely say the same as I’ve just said.

If you have FCP 6.0.2 or .0.3, if you have QT 7.3.1 – 7.4.5, if you have XDCAM Transfer 2.1 or 2.5.1 and you’re not seeing the media the only thing left is to delete the ProApps (ugh) and then reinstall and update back to FCP 6.0.2 (it won’t go to 6.0.3 unless you have QT 7.4.1 or 5).

[Craig Seeman]

Depending on how much space you have, the old computers sometimes work as good web browsing stations. Old NLEs might work as offline boxes if still fully functional. Also donating them to some not for profit (usually small ones in your community) can help if they can’t afford a modern computer.

[Craig Seeman]

See Microsoft for specs. CPU is important.
https://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/choosingpc.aspx

[Craig Seeman]

Upscaling to fill screen can have impact on quality but on the other hand very large frame size can tax some machines. Certainly doing 1920×1080 might work but I’d really run a test because the demands on the system and data rate needed for good quality smooth frame rate playback are significantly higher than 1280×720.

[Craig Seeman]

[Stacy Formby] “I’ve actually been using Episode 4.3.2, I will switch to 4.4.2 if that will give me better results”
It should. They’ve improved some things with WMV encoding.

[Stacy Formby] “I’ve been playing with the WMV9- Download – HIgh Quality setttings with average rate of 1200 kbit/sec. Should I be able to go higher than this and still have it play back? What doesn’t look good is my dissolves between stills. It looks blocky during and right after the dissolves, then resolves itself and looks better. “

If the computer playing back the file is fast you can certainly push thing to 6000 to 8000kbps and even higher. I think I’ve done 15000kbps but you better be sure the playback CPU can handle it. Also with the a higher data rate you could go to 1280×720 frame size. You’d be able to go higher than that if their screen supported it.

[Craig Seeman]

You need to check your TV manual to see what audio inputs go with which video inputs.

For example, I’m running DVI to HDMI cable from my computer so I can see EX1 HD from my NLE full screen on HDTV. On my HDTV I MUST use HDMI 1 input and patch analog audio to a set of inputs that are dedicated to that (HDMI 1) input. No other HDMI inputs with analog audio inputs will work.

Find which audio ins go with the component in and you should be OK.

[Craig Seeman]

Windows Media Player plays . . . . Windows Media. It can play a few other things on Windows boxes but those usually involved 3rd party plugins.

You shouldn’t be getting blocky dissolves with a “good” encode but you haven’t provide enough info for a meaningful response.

If you’re using Episode make sure it’s 4.4.2.
Compressor (depending which version) also uses Episode plugin as well as Flip4Mac.

I can do WMV HD encodes with either and they both will look good if your data rate is up around that of a typical DVD encode.

I can’t even begin to make suggestions without knowing what he has “Windows Media Player” on.

It should be beefy enough to play WMV HD. As an alternative you could burn a SD widescreen DVD.