Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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just as a side note: recently I edited on a Macbook Pro using FCP 5.1.2 then exported an XML for editing on my G5 that runs FCP 5.0.4. I tried XML version 2 first and the earlier FCP wouldn’t open the file. Exporting an XML version 3 file was what FCP 5.0.4 needed.
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
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Your buying decision is directly related to what type pf shooting you want to do. Both the GL2 and the XL2 have their strengths and weaknesses. If you could be more specific I could give you a more informed answer.
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
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Trash the preference files for FCP 5 and try capturing again. Here are directions on how to remove the preference files properly and why this may solve your problem.
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
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[Thax] “I’m too polite to ask you why you bought TEN cameras without fully checking ONE before the purchase, ;-)”
I was wondering about that myself.
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
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[Clint Nitkiewicz Hernandez] “Can I just burn it off my regular burner I have now, or do I need a special HD DVD burner or Blue Ray burner,”
You need a special burner.
[Clint Nitkiewicz Hernandez] “I just pop in either a Blue Ray disc or HD DVD disc in my burner and it will work, really?”
Nope. Sorry.
[Clint Nitkiewicz Hernandez] “Can I really play back an HD DVD or BlueRay on my mac?”
Not unless you have an internal Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player in your Mac.
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
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I’ve been using an Epson R300 with Taiyo Yuden DVD-R inkjet printable media for some time now without any printing/fade issues.
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
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[staceL] “I was compressing my 5.6 gig project with Roxio Popcorn to fit to a 4.7 with pretty nasty looking results in my opinion.”
That’s because if you’ve already used DVDSP to encode to 5.6 gigs and then used Popcorn to reduce the size even further to fit on a 4.7 DVD. This means you’ve just encoded the same project twice. MPEG2 is a very lossy codec and compression should only be done once for best results. No wonder the final encode looks awful.
I would strongly suggest reading the DVDSP manual where it talks about how to do MPEG2 encoding. The Popcorn program you’re using is a consumer type of encoder and will not come close to the quality encoding that Compressor will provide you with. Its $49.00 price tag speaks for itself. Also keep in mind that DVDSP 4 is quite capable of authoring dual layer DVDs.
As for creating a disc image, you might try reading the article below:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/image_to_disk_stone.html
Creating a disc image is a more reliable way of authoring when it comes time to burn a DVD. You can still use your external burner to do this.
[staceL] “What does the one pass and two pass vbr really mean?”
VBR stands for “variable bit rate”. This is used for long form projects where the bit rate needs to be low so everything will fit on a DVD-5 but have a high enough bit rate in those areas of increased motion (read the manual). For example: a minimum bit rate of 4 for a 2 hour movie with a max bit rate of 6.5 to cover the fast motion areas. Enabling the VBR setting will allow the encoder to use the lower setting most of the time until it gets to areas of fast action where the high setting will be used, or somewhere in between the low and high settings. This is determined by the encoder itself. Make sence? (read the manual).
With 2 pass VBR the encoder will make the first pass to determine where the fast motion areas are and will pre-determine the bit rate settings for those areas. On the second pass it will do the actual encoding. This results in a better encode than 1 pass. If your project is a hour or less in duration you can usually get by with using the CBR setting, which stands for Constant Bit Rate. Set this for around 6 and you’re good to go.
[staceL] “I’ve never used the compression markers I really don’t know what they do.”
Final Cut Pro creates invisible compression markers at every fade and transition in your timeline. These markers tell programs like Compressor to pay special attention to these areas when it comes time for encoding. To export both chapter and compression markers from FCP use the command “Export using DVD Studio Pro Markers”.
Your burn errors may not be a problem with DVDSP but instead may be caused by compression errors when you use Popcorn to re-encode a file that has already been encoded. To save even more DVD space for video make sure you’re also encoding your audio to the .ac3 file format (read the manual). AC3 audio takes up a fraction of the space that .aif audio occupies and there’s no appreciable quality loss. This .ac3 file format is a DVD industry standard.
The path to better encoding already exists on your computer. All you have to do now is learn how to take full advantage of your Final Cut Studio programs. Did I mention about reading the manuals? 🙂
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
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Are you using DVDSP to do your encoding or are you using Compressor? What versions of DVDSP and Compresssor are you using? If you’ve created an MPEG2 video file that’s too large for a 4.7 DVD-5 disc and then use another program to downsize the file to make it fit, then it’s going to be encoded twice. The resulting MPEG2 quality will take a big hit. Another important quetion is: Are you exporting your QT movie from Final Cut Pro using compression markers? If your internal DVD burner is working properly why are you using an external one to burn a 4.7 Gbyte DVD? Have you tried creating a disc image within DVDSP and then burned using Apple’s Disc Utility?
As you can see, much more info is required in order to help you effectively.
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
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[Andrew Rice] “Am I correct in assuming that I can link the “firestore” to my Media drives via firewire and transfer footage?”
Absolutely. Focus Enhancements makes a Firestore drive for this exact purpose.
https://www.focusinfo.com/solutions/catalog.asp?id=150
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
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It’s very important that you check the crash logs for the application(s) you’re trying to launch. The logs contain a wealth of information and will even tell you if there’s a missing piece of software that’s stopping the launch process.
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”