Debe
Forum Replies Created
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Are you monitoring externally or internally?
Can you see the audio meters running and can’t hear it, or there’s nothing on the meters?
Have you trashed preferences and repaired permissions lately?
Repairing permissions is done in Disk Utility usually located in [main hard drive]>Applications>Utilities.
For info on trashing prefs, look at here…
https://www.lafcpug.org/trashing_fcp_prefs.html
The following is a nifty little program that stores and trashes prefs for you. Just be careful backing up the first time. Make sure you’re backing up clean prefs.
https://fcprescue.andersholck.com/
If this doesn’t help, post back with details of your system. Computer & OS, FCP version, QT version, capture card, storage, external audio/video monitors, everything. We need more details to help you troubleshoot this.
debe
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It’s so different depending on where you are and what the market around you will bear.
The best thing to do is to add it all up. What do you and your partners need to get paid to support yourselves? How much does the equipment and software cost, and how often will you need to upgrade? How much is rent on your space, and will it likely rise in the first year? How much do you spend on incidentals that you can’t line-item on an invoice? Do you need any form of insurance for your company? Do you expect to work every day, or will you have low points that you’ll need to carry yourselves through? Will you have to hire any outside people for any of this work, and what are their rates, generally? You need to know how much running the company will cost you in order to set your rates.
You also need to know how much it’s going to cost you to produce these materials before you can set rates. It also wouldn’t hurt to know if there’s any competition in the area and what kinds of rates they charge. Not to undersell them or to “steal” business from them, but if you know what businesses in your area are already willing to spend, it can also help you figure out how much to charge.
“Too much” or “too little” is relative. For three weeks and 2 days of work, assuming those are full days and you wouldn’t be able to work on anything else at the same time, you are looking at earning an average of 391.30 euro a day maximum. Does that cover your expenses, both business and personal, for all of you? I’d assume there’d be some taxes in there of some sort.
Pricing isn’t a “one-size fits all” kind of thing. I can charge less than someone with a full-blown facility because I didn’t have to buy nearly as much equipment. My day rate is lower because I have lower overhead. It doesn’t cost me as much to run my business as someone who has five racks full of gear, or an entire machine room and multiple edit/production suites. However, I also am limited in what I can offer. If my clients need more, we have to rent other facilities. In those cases, the rates change.
Just sit down and do the math. If you can’t pay the bills, then it’s too little. If you could buy a small island, it’s probably too much.
debe
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It’s so different depending on where you are and what the market around you will bear.
The best thing to do is to add it all up. What do you and your partners need to get paid to support yourselves? How much does the equipment and software cost, and how often will you need to upgrade? How much is rent on your space, and will it likely rise in the first year? How much do you spend on incidentals that you can’t line-item on an invoice? Do you need any form of insurance for your company? Do you expect to work every day, or will you have low points that you’ll need to carry yourselves through? Will you have to hire any outside people for any of this work, and what are their rates, generally? You need to know how much running the company will cost you in order to set your rates.
You also need to know how much it’s going to cost you to produce these materials before you can set rates. It also wouldn’t hurt to know if there’s any competition in the area and what kinds of rates they charge. Not to undersell them or to “steal” business from them, but if you know what businesses in your area are already willing to spend, it can also help you figure out how much to charge.
“Too much” or “too little” is relative. For three weeks and 2 days of work, assuming those are full days and you wouldn’t be able to work on anything else at the same time, you are looking at earning an average of 391.30 euro a day maximum. Does that cover your expenses, both business and personal, for all of you? I’d assume there’d be some taxes in there of some sort.
Pricing isn’t a “one-size fits all” kind of thing. I can charge less than someone with a full-blown facility because I didn’t have to buy nearly as much equipment. My day rate is lower because I have lower overhead. It doesn’t cost me as much to run my business as someone who has five racks full of gear, or an entire machine room and multiple edit/production suites. However, I also am limited in what I can offer. If my clients need more, we have to rent other facilities. In those cases, the rates change.
Just sit down and do the math. If you can’t pay the bills, then it’s too little. If you could buy a small island, it’s probably too much.
debe
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I’ve had a Tungsten T for three (or is it four?) years. It’s been a champ! It died once when I first got it, and took all the data with it, but a firmware upgrade fixed that so it now shuts off before all power is lost so it doesn’t lose data. I sync it frequently, though, so didn’t actually lose all my data, anyhow.
I sync it with iCal and Address Book, and now my iPod. It’s been a great thing. Before that I had I used a daily calendar for three years. Not a dayplanner, ‘cos I don’t plan parts of my day, I plan whole days, usually. I honestly didn’t think I’d like the Palm. It was a surprise from my husband. I resisted it for the first few months. But when my schedule started hopping that first year, it was great to have!
The only problem I’ve had with it is recently my battery started to not hold as good of a charge, so instead of replacing the battery after so many years like a smart person would, I listened to someone else’s suggestion of doing a hard reset and seeing if the reset would “coax” the battery into holding the charge better. It was only then I found out that my backup file was corrupt. I had to fish through it to find the bad piece of data, but all is well now! Since the corruption came from the backup file on my Mac, I can’t really blame Palm for that.
Just wanted you to hear from someone who’s had a positive experience! I even have a copy of my demo reel on it! It actually helped me get two new clients!
debe
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Check your outpoints. They should be the last frame of the segment, not the first frame of black after the segments ends.
That’s probably where your extra frame is coming from. Marking in/out is actually more like marking in/in-of-next.
Avid does this too. I Mark In/Out, then go to the outpoint, back up one frame using the arrow key, and reset the outpoint to that frame.
Having the outpoint be the first frame of the next clip or whatever is good for editing, just not good for timing. Otherwise, that frame would get overwritten or shifted down to after the edit. That’s the reason it marks it like it does.
debe
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What about your OS isn’t working, and could you try 10.3.9 first?
I’m still on 4.5 and 10.3.9. It’s so solid!
Upgrading mid-project is risky. It’s been done, but with widely varying success rates. Even upgrading to 10.3.9 is risky. But if you can’t get anything done with the system as it is currently, the risk is probably worth it.
debe
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I don’t have an answer, but if you intend on re-editing in the future, make darn sure that the camcorder records real timecode on the tape and that it matches exactly in the down-convert. Otherwise, your eventual up-convert will become a complete re-edit.
I’d normally question the want to work at all in MPEG2, but since you specifically state this isn’t for professional use, whatever quality loss you will encounter is of lesser concern.
Are those MPEG2 files muxed or demuxed? You may have to add a step to demux the files
It very well may be possible, but I think you’re setting yourself up for a lot of frustration.
But I certainly don’t mind being proven wrong!
debe
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I have a Wacom table on the left and a mouse on the right! Very efficient!
I’m left handed, but was “forced” to learn to mouse with my right hand. Consequently, and happily, I can drive a mouse as comfortably in my right hand as I hold a stylus in my left.
Not recommended if you’re not at least a little bit ambidextrous. If you are, you will be amazed at how easy it is to compartmentalize tasks into pen vs. mouse and move along in your day very quickly.
The mouse is the Kensington USB wireless 2-button optical mouse with scroll wheel. With a backup set of rechargeable batteries, it’s a great combination. (It does tend to suck down regular duracells.)
debe
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I thought you could batch change things like that before capture, but after capture, you have to do it one at a time.
Better still if I’m wrong!!
debe
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I think, unfortunately, it’s a one-at-a-time proposition. Still, right-click and pick from a list is a lot easier than retyping each one.
Is that assistant still hanging around? This’ll be something he/she’ll never forget, and I bet if you use this a teaching tool, you’ll improve the relationship with the assistant (not that I’m assuming it’s bad to begin with…even a good relationship can be improved upon!)
If at all possible, have the assistant fix their mistake. It’s an easy one to forget when you’re starting out! (Even though FCP makes sure you know there’s a new tape…not like the old days of Avid when it didn’t remind you!!)
debe