[Dan Monro]

I edit on my MBP. HD. Its not as fast as my desktop system, but I haven’t had any real issues. I run FCS3 and Adobe CS4 on it. 2.53ghz with 4g of ram. I would think it should suit you, especially if you want portability. I do run all of my media on an external drive via firewire 800. Again, not optimal, but it works for me.

Good luck,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 4 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Final Cut Pro 7 Quicktime 7.6.6
– OR –
2 x 3.2 Quad Xeon; 16 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 Quicktime 7.6.6

[Dan Monro]

Is the audio unrendered, or not there at all? Red lines or beeping when you play, or just silence? And no waveforms I take it?

What are your sequence settings? What are your audio settings? Sample rate, format, etc.

Could be a lot of things, can you give us some more info please?

D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 4 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Final Cut Pro 7 Quicktime 7.6.6
– OR –
2 x 3.2 Quad Xeon; 16 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 Quicktime 7.6.6

[Dan Monro]

Hi Ersel,

Here’s my quick two cents.

Avid requires every piece of media you use to be encoded for Avid, and put into the appropriate Avid directory structure (via importing it into your project). If your Avid project is SD everything you import must be SD. Likewise with HD everything must be HD. Anything that isn’t in the proper format (frame size, compressor, sample rate, file type) either needs to be converted ahead of time or during import. When it comes to tape ingest and output Avid is rock solid & frame accurate.

That being said, I haven’t worked much with the newest Avid software (v5, right?) that – I believe – allows you to work with a broader range of formats. But you still have to convert on input – I believe. Somebody jump in here and correct me if I’m wrong.

Final Cut, on the other hand, will accept multiple frame rates, frame sizes, compressors & file types all within the same project. This eliminates the need to convert on import. You can move your media around at will, as long as you reconnect it once you do. You can use media from anywhere you can store media – hard drive, system drive, thumb drives, networks. And that’s also BAD news. You can inadvertently be trying to edit with HD footage over an ethernet connection which just doesn’t work.

As my friend Myron says, “The good news is that Final Cut will let you do anything. The bad news is that Final Cut will let you do anything.” You’ve got to be much more careful about where you put your media, where you import from, etc. And using all of those varied formats within your project can also produce less than desirable results, and lots of rendering. We’ve had much better looking footage by converting ahead of time than by letting Final Cut do the down/up converting in the timeline.

Lastly, Final Cut does not play well with tape decks. At least that’s been my experience. I’ve had frame offset problems, synch problems and drifting. But that has also been related to the I/O card, and various builds of FCP & AJA software – not to mention OS – not being compatible. So I can’t put all of that off on FCP. But, since Avid uses proprietary hardware, you’re less likely to have conflicts.

As far as the interface goes, they’re both great. I’ve been editing in the timeline with Avid for years, so the jump to FCP wasn’t all starting from scratch. Both have strengths and weaknesses not mentioned above (FCP can have multiple projects open; Avid allows you to access individual bins at the finder level). Both are fast and flexible. Both do well with FX, interface with Adobe well, mangle resizes, crash occasionally, and constantly need to be upgraded.

So that’s my take on the differences. My personal preference has become Final Cut, mainly for the pricepoint, but also for the suite it brings along with it. Compressor is my first stop (prior to edit) and my last stop after output from FCP. I am beginning to really like Motion, although I’m much more comfortable with AfterFX. Color is great, I just haven’t had a chance to learn it well.

Now, if you’re really interested in an Avid vs. FCP discussion, I’m sure you’ll be amazed by the passion and vitriol one can produce. But as far as I’m concerned, they’re just two of the tools that every editor should have in his/her toolbox.

So much for a “quick” 2 cents…

Good luck with it,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 4 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Final Cut Pro 7 Quicktime 7.6.6
– OR –
2 x 3.2 Quad Xeon; 16 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 Quicktime 7.6.6

[Dan Monro]

Ditto that. I’ve made a few over the years. Use position, and crop, a little ragged edge, or make a matte in photoshop. You can add a little randomness to make them feel more organic, and a little jump cut to simulate the lost frames.

Cheers,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 4 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Final Cut Pro 7 Quicktime 7.6.6
– OR –
2 x 3.2 Quad Xeon; 16 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 Quicktime 7.6.6

[Dan Monro]

I don’t know of any automatic way. If I had to do it, I’d use the track selector to select only the video track, but patch audio, then do the following for every clip:
mark clip (x)
go to in (shift i)
match frame (f)
mark in (i)
overwrite (F10)
next clip (arrow up)
A pain? Sure. But you’ll never forget your audio again. Not everything can be automatic, not even in FCP. Maybe there is an automatic way – be a whole lot cooler if (there was).

Good luck,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 4 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Final Cut Pro 7 Quicktime 7.6.6
– OR –
2 x 3.2 Quad Xeon; 16 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 Quicktime 7.6.6

[Dan Monro]

We experienced similar problems working with ProRes 422 HQ material, 23.98. Even small timelines crashed. Just clicking on a spot in the clip could crash it. We updated our Kona drivers, tried all of the troubleshooting techniques alread mentioned. Lucky for us we have an engineering staff and good tech support.

We eventually got through the project by keeping our projects as small as possible. We treated FCP projects like AVID bins – one for the cut, one for graphics, one for music, etc. (since you can have multiple projects open at once). Keep only one timeline at a time open, render everything and save constantly. Watch for those green flashes; FCP is about to crash. We found that Pro Res HQ is overkill, unless you’ve got graphics that demand it. We converted a lot of our footage from HQ to pro res 422 using compressor and re-cutting it. You can force FCP to re-link to the new files. Try to keep as much material in your sequence format as possible.

Sorry, that’s kind of all over the place. Just some ideas.

Good luck,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 4 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Final Cut Pro 7 Quicktime 7.6.6
– OR –
2 x 3.2 Quad Xeon; 16 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 Quicktime 7.6.6

[Dan Monro]

Your frame rate has changed. Since your original edit was 30 (29.97) frames per second, and your new edit is 24 frames per second, you need more seconds to see the same number of frames. I tried to do the math, it works out about right – 6 fps x the total number of seconds divided by 24 (fps) works out to 56 something…

I’m guessing that FCP was also retiming your video for you – interpreting it at 29.97, so the timecode doesn’t match exactly the re-interpreted (24 converted to 30 converted back to 24) footage in the new sequence. I assume you had to render it?

I haven’t actually done this, but you could try removing attributes (right click) and see if you have speed changes. But you may have to re-edit. Not sure…hopefully someone smarter will weigh in with the quick fix.

Your other option is to export your finished 29.97 cut as a quicktime and convert that. What is your delivery format?

Good luck,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 4 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Final Cut Pro 7 Quicktime 7.6.6
– OR –
2 x 3.2 Quad Xeon; 16 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 Quicktime 7.6.6

[Dan Monro]

Hi Antony,

Is “Master Control” a mixing board? I’m not familiar with it. But it sounds like your problem is with the setup of the mixer.

You want to feed the headphone output of the mixer into the VO booth for the talent to hear, and the main or aux outs of the board into your AJA for FCP.

Feed Ch1 (vo mic) to the main or aux outs, AND to the headphones, and feed 7&8 (AJA analog) to headphone only. That should send talent only into FCP.

Make sense? Good luck,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 4 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Final Cut Pro 7 Quicktime 7.6.6
– OR –
2 x 3.2 Quad Xeon; 16 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 Quicktime 7.6.6

[Dan Monro]

As Matt said, cut the missing graphic in at the end of your sequence; right click “copy”, then right click “paste attributes” on the clip with the incorrect graphic and select “content” and paste. It should work…

Good luck,
D

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 4 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Final Cut Pro 7 Quicktime 7.6.6
– OR –
2 x 3.2 Quad Xeon; 16 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 Quicktime 7.6.6

[Dan Monro]

The other option might be to blur it with a soft mask if you can’t eliminate it completely. It might at least be less distracting…

Dan Monro
FCP, Avid, AfterFX, Atlanta
MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 4 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Final Cut Pro 7 Quicktime 7.6.6
– OR –
2 x 3.2 Quad Xeon; 16 GB ram
Mac OS X 10.6.4
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 Quicktime 7.6.6