[David Roth weiss]

Ya have to use compressor now.

[David Roth weiss]

Charlie,

This issue is not typical of MPEG2 files created in FCP or using Compressor. I routinely create MPEG2 files from FCP and use them in a host of PC apps including Procoder 2, and ReelDVD. If you want me to check out a file for you, send a small test to “drw at drwfilms dot com” and I’ll se what I can see.

DRW

[David Roth weiss]

[Mat @ LaCie] “I never said that we are using consumer level drives vs entreprise level drives.”

Mat,

Go and enjoy your drink and have a great vacation. When you get back we’ll revisit this, because I want to know, does LaCie use enterprise level drives in their products or not??? More importantly, what is the MTBF for the drives LaCie uses in their products?

THNX,
David

[David Roth weiss]

Ed,

Unfortunately your post doesn’t clarify, as you skirted the most important issue I raised in my previous post. I’m not sure if you just wanted point out any ommisions I might have made, or what, but my central point, which you failed to even mention, was about life expectancy, or MTBF (mean time bewteen failiures as its know in the industry). It is the only scientific way to judge hard drive reliability. Brand names are really irrelevant. If your Seagate has a 500,000 hour MTBF, its statiscally every bit as reliable as any other brand with the same MTBF. The point is, if a manufacturer is putting drives in its products that only have one year warranties, its no wonder that some of them fail at six months. Its all about averages.

DRW

[David Roth weiss]

Don,

A few weeks back I exchanged a few posts with Mat from LaCie. If you can find that thread you will see that, according to Mat, LaCie uses consumer-level drives rather than enterprise-level drives. And, he further states that this now typical of “the industry.” Here’s why this is a problem waiting to happen…

Buying hard drives is a bit like buying life insurance. Consumer-level drives carry only a one year warranty and an average life of only 100,000 hours, while enterpise-level drives carry a five year warranty with an average life of 500,000 hours — that’s a 500% difference no mater how you slice it, and amazingly, you don’t even have to pay extra to get that. You can luck out, and end up with a 100,000 hour hard drive that lasts for years, but you’re just playing a game of numbers, because the average life expectancy of those drives means that half the drives fail at just 50,000 hours, while the other half lasts for 200,000 hours. Meanwhile, half of the enterprise-level drives may fail after just 250,000 hours, but the other half will last for 1,000,000 hours. So, even a faulty enterprise-level drive should last longer than the very best consumer-level hard drive. It doesn’t take a genius to see the advantage…

Consumer-level drives are simply not built to the same standards, and they are not built to the standards that video professionals require if they want truly reliable, and long-lasting hard drive subsystems. Companies like LaCie are in business to provide quick, cheap, and easy solutions. So, if you want proven reliability, don’t expect to find it in components that have math that is not on your side.

DRW

[David Roth weiss]

One of the recent software upgrades (FCP or QT) blew away the HDV codec for some users. It happened to few folks I know, but not on my own system. You’ll need to get the codec somewhere and install it.

DRW

[David Roth weiss]

Norm,

Are you using FCP 4 or 4.5 by any chance?

DRW

[David Roth weiss]

Alan,

Just write up a very brief license agreement yourself, and include the name of the two companies, the production title (presentation in this case), the length of the clip, the length of the license (maybe in perpetuity, maybe not), and most import of all, include the statement “for one time usage only,” meaning he can only use it in this one presentation. It should be understood that if he creates a new presentation and wants to use your clip, he has to relicense it from you.

The one time usage thing is really the key to every license agreement, but, and its also the way you can expect to get ripped-off, cuz its very hard to enforce. Just remain vigilant and keep your eyes open, but try not to lose sleep over it.

Hope this helps,
DRW

[David Roth weiss]

Try to sell the old one on Ebay and at least you’ll recoop some of your investment.

[David Roth weiss]

Biil,

Humm??? That’s funny, I never noticed that. I’ll have to try it out for sure.

Meanwhile, I think if most people really understood that progressive scan doesn’t really work on stuff that nots progressive, they’d more often get the results they want when encoding or when simply playing on a player.

DRW