Debe
Forum Replies Created
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How about the ol’ power down and power up everything but the CPU first…
What is your A/V Devices in your A/V Settings set to? Perhaps that got set to something funky?
That’s in the menu Final Cut Pro HD>Audio/Video Settings, or Option+Command+Q.
debe
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err…that should be “relaunch”, not “restart”!
debe
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Quit FCP and restart with the non-controllable device on first.
If you turned on the device after you had launched FCP, it just didn’t know that now there is a device there, so it doesn’t know that “All Frames” is now an option.
debe
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Well, shave my head and call me baldie!
That’s REALLY new, and sure could solve you’re issues!
Of course, now you need a SATA card for the tower so you can move between the systems.
debe
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[Walter Biscardi] “Much easier to have a dedicated external drive for your projects. Simply move the project file back and forth between your Tower and laptop along with the drive. When you start the project on either machine, it will open up normally since the drive will also be there.”
I’ve had trouble with that in the past, Walter. I captured to the tower’s internal drive and then copied the files to the FW drive. ( I did not have a second FW bus at the time, so I couldn’t capture directly to the FW drive). I moved the drive from the tower to the laptop, put the project file on the internal drive of the PB, and when I opened up the file, I needed to reconnect media. When I reconnected media, FCP couldn’t find any of the files. I had to reconnect them all by hand, even with the “Reconnect All Files in Relative Path” box checked. Every time I quit, FCP lost the connection and I had to re-connect every time I opened the project.
Out of frustration, I wiped the drive and media managed the files from their original location on my internal media drive on the tower, and FCP had no issues after that.
Now, it is possible that my FW drive was suffering from a directory problem, and wiping it is really what solved the problem. After that, I’ve Media Managed half a dozen 5 minute or shorter pieces back and forth, and have had absolutely no problems.
So, perhaps if the original poster starts having problems with reconnecting, maybe he should copy the files to another location, re-initialize the drive and copy the files back.
debe
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Technically, yes you can work that way. You’ll have to do a lot of reconnecting media, but it should work.
I usually use Media Manger to move whole projects from my G5 tower to the PB. MM makes a new project, copies the media, and eliminates a lot of the mucking about. There still is reconnecting, but you really only have to guide it to the drive and that’s about it. I’ve successfully moved projects to and fro 3 or so times, with no lost media or lost data. You have to spend the time having FCP copy the footage, but for my short projects, Media Managing didn’t turn into a huge amount of additional time. In your case, it may. Especially if you plan move between systems several times and if it’s a large project.
However, I’ve not used this method with FCP 5 yet, and there are reports of Media Manager being somewhat more broken in 5 than in 4.5.
Anyone working in 5 have anything to add?
debe
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There are no SATA PCMCIA cards. I wonder if the current PCMCIA standards would really support access for SATA drives. There have been rumors of SATA PCMCIA cards, but to the best of my knowledge, none have emerged.
debe
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All good points, Walter.
It will be my first HD project, and I won’t be getting nearly my day rate for it. Technically, I’ll lose money on this project, whether I buy a card or not. It’s a pro-bono thing for a “good cause”. They have less than half the budget they need.
I should consider future revenue, however. I always seem to agonize over spending money on my system, and when the financial dust settles, something seems to always come along that makes me wonder why I was so worried!
I don’t have any other clients asking for HD at the moment, though. However, once I have the ability, it seems like they always find me!
Thanks for the input!
debe
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Walter–
This is more of an additional workflow question.
If it’s an HD offline, what benefit/detriment does is do the project to have the HDCam tapes downconverted to DVCam and just capturing DV resolution? As long as the timecodes match…
That would save the need for a card, although I’m sure the cost of making the DVCam dubs would probably make that financial saving a wash.
If there project is going to be finished elsewhere, does one really need to have the card?
(I’ve the possibility of a longform project in a few months. I’m not against getting the card, but if I can put that money towards something else…I can get the dubs made for a song ‘cos someone owes me a big favor, and it’ll be a limited number of tapes.)
I didn’t intend to hijack the thread. It seemed a natural progression!
debe
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I have the PCMCIA card, the aforementioned “FireWire bus card”.
I’ve not used it with any resolution other than DV, but it’s been a champ! A real workhorse! I have one that has (2) FW 400 and (1) FW 800. Both work great. (knock on wood!)
I ordered mine from weibetech.com (or if that’s no good, try wiebetech.com…sheesh, “i” before “e” except after “w”?). There are other vendors out there, obviously, This is just one I’ve had good experiences with.
Again, the render times will be loooong, and using FW for storage does open you up to inherent problems with the nature of FW. I have not had too many issues, especially since I started working with the PCMCIA FW bus card. I do have some playback issues that I attribute to throughput problems, but I’ve come up with enough workarounds that have so far been able to get me through any situation. One big tip, ALWAYS make a self-contained movie of your final product before trying to print to video or edit to tape. Saving the system from having to hunt for the media really makes a difference!
I also limit what I expect of FCP when I’m using FW drives and my laptop. I don’t expect to get the same performance from the laptop that I get from the G5 tower, and I’ve yet to really be disappointed. If I expected the same performance, however, I would be VERY disappointed!
debe