[David Roth weiss]

Different OS’s, different GFX cards, and different monitors could explain why you’re seeing the differences. But more importantly, I’m assuming the colorist is working on calibrated monitors, are your monitors also calibrated?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

1) How are you connecting and monitoring audio?

2) Have you checked in PP to make certain you’re not dropping frames?

3) What are the specs of the video you tested (codec, resolution, etc.)?

4) What type of media drive(s) are you playing from?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

Go to YouTube, do a search, watch any one of the many video tutorials that answer your question.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

Why are you exporting to MPEG-2? What’s your goal?

MPEG-2 is most often used to encode DVDs, which must comply with DVD standards, which are limited to SD resolution at only 640×480 or 720×480 in the NTSC world, or, 640×576 and 720×576 in the PAL world.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

Your weakest link seems to be your media drives… Your 2-drive RAID-1 is a bit slower than a single drive. How is it connected (you didn’t answer Shane on that)?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

Do your audio and video have matching timecode?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

Sorry, but without a guide track on the footage you can’t batch sync or successfully use any app such as Pluraleyes – both the built-in sync function in Premiere and Pluraleyes sync waveforms from the 2nd system audio with the waveforms from the guidetrack on the camera footage.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

Of course you will be losing lots of data, but data bits are meaningless in the video world if your final product is being displayed on the web, or on HD TVs, or over highly compressed satellite TV, etc.

So, where is your final product headed? Without that info no one can even begin to answer your question with any degree of precision that will be helpful to you.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

I’m sure that any new computer with a newer GPU will run circles around what you’re cutting on now, but a year from now you’ll be wishing you’d waited for the faster GPU. That’s just the way it works, cuz files just keep getting bigger, and more and more of what we do is accelerated by the GPU. If you can, I’d wait a few more months… You might also consider contacting Puget Systems to see what they are offering – their machines are pretty much leading edge, but not bleeding edge, and somehow not as expensive as many other custom built for hi-end editorial.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

You’re eventually going to want the more powerful GPU, so I would advise that you wait a bit until more motherboards are released that can accommodate the 1060. If you can’t wait, then pay more for the Alienware box and pray for the best.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.