[Don Greening]

Why don’t you contact some of your local evening news stations? I bet they run into this sort of thing all the time and would be in a good position to offer the benefit of their experience dealing with the legal issues in your area.

– Don

[Don Greening]

I know. I get it too. I do know that FCP inserts compression markers automatically into the timeline but you’d think that if you choose not to export any markers at all along with the exported QT movie they shouldn’t show up as a text track. BTW, when creating a DVD with a QT .mov file with an imbedded text track you don’t have to delete that track. It won’t show up on the final DVD product.

I almost phoned you today to tell you how impressed I was with your website. I love it! Hope it’s not too cold in the cow town for you tonite.

– Don

[Don Greening]

[rob katz] “viewfinder—it is b&w, right?”

Nope. It’s a colour VF.

[rob katz] “how is it in low light?
“

It’s certainly not as good as my PD170. I’d have to go to +6 or sometimes even +12 on the gain to equal the zero gain setting on the PD170. But just think a minute about why there’s such a difference: The pixel density on the 170’s chips are less than half the amount found on the XL2’s chips. But the individual pixel size on the PD170’s chips are sunstantially bigger. This means each pixel can gather more light but at the expense of picture quality, because there’s more interlace “tearing” when high contrast lines fall between pixels. It’s just a matter of physics. You use different cameras for different situations. Overall, the XL2’s low light capabilites aren’t all that bad, but the PD170 is still the undisputed king of low light shooting in the MiniDV class, and that includes HDV as well. That’s why I bought one.

[rob katz] “do u miss a flip out screen?
“

Not really. I like the VF of the XL2, especially on sunny days. I hate the VF on PD170, not because it’s black and white but because I have trouble seeing though it without it going all blurry on me. My eye has to be in an exact position in order for it to work for me. Any more than a micron off and it goes blurry. The Canons have a ton more latitude in this regard. Don’t get me started.

[rob katz] “is it too big & not “stealth-like” as is the sony pd170 & the pannie 100a?
“

Yes.

[rob katz] “has a “hunting” autofocus been a problem for others?
“

Not really. Any camera you use with auto focus is going to fall on its face in low light situations. Auto focus with proper lighting works very well on the XL2. More physics. I will say that It’s something you should be aware of with the XL2 and that in low light you need to get used to using man. focus just like any other camera. The PD170 seems to be slightly less “confused” when in auto focus mode than the XL2. But again, it’s to do with the amount of light the Sony can gather with it’s bigger pixels.

[rob katz] “does everyone end up buying a wide angle adapter?
“

Can’t answer that one. When I need a wide angle shot I’ll reach for the PD170 and the .7 wide angle converter that it came with. I love it.

You won’t like the image stabilization of the Canons if you’re used to it on the PD170. It’s about 2 times better than the Canons.

Hope this has helped.

– Don

[Don Greening]

Hi E. J.

There is no setting to choose between the two types of TC on an XL1S. MiniDV, which is what you’re using, is drop-frame by default. So, not to worry. Also, any video editing system will auto-detect whether or not the footage is drop-frame or non drop-frame by reading the TC on the tape. So just start shooting the way you’ve always done in the past. There is no difference between the two TC formats as far as the actual passage of time goes. It’s just two different ways of arriving at the same conclusion 🙂 Just make sure your client wasn’t really asking you to shoot in interlaced mode as opposed to frame mode on your XL1S. It would be important to find that out first before you start shooting.

Best of luck.

– Don

[Don Greening]

Perhaps you should read the link provided below:

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/understanding_16_9.html

This should put things into perspective for you (pun fully intentional)

– Don

[Don Greening]

HI Paul,

Have to tried trashing the FCP preference files yet?

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html

– Don

[Don Greening]

Actually, QT is quite capable of adding words to a .mov file. It’s generally referred to as a text track. It’s found at the top of the frame, taking up 720×20 pixels of space.

Dean, if you’re working in QT7, start your movie, go to the ‘Window’ menu and choose ‘Movie Properties’ from the list. Just uncheck the box beside ‘text track’ at the bottom of the list and it will dissappear from the top of your movie.

If you’re working in QT6 go to the Edit menu>delete tracks and choose to delete the text track.

The text track is for programs like DVDSP and Compressor that use it to insert compression and chapter markers into the resulting MPEG2 file during the encoding process. If you don’t want to see this track in a QT movie don’t export any markers out of FCP when you make your QT movie.

– Don

[Don Greening]

Within Compressor (for example) you can apply the gamma filter to saturate the colour a bit more and bring it back closer to the chrominance in the original footage. Using the gamma correction filter is always a trade off because while increased saturation is what you want you’ll also be making your footage darker with increased contrast (lowering the luminance) at the same time. Make sure your footage can take the lowered luminance hit i.e. crushing the blacks too much or losing shadow detail. Start with a gamma correction setting of 1.1 or go 1.2 if you want a little extra. Encode 5 min. of test footage, burn your DVD and have a look at the result on a television to see if the result is what you’re looking for.

Such is the nature of MPEG2 encoding. It always washes out the chrominance a little. And never by the same amount each time. It’s all dependant on your subject matter.

Hope this helps.

– Don

[Don Greening]

Sadly, there is no auto scroll feature in FCP…….yet. The workaround is to hit: “shift-page down” (without the quotes) while your timline is playing and that will push the timeline forward one………page I guess.

– Don

[Don Greening]

I wonder what Mat@LaCie will have to say when he shows up later today and reads all this stuff……..

I consider myself lucky I guess because I’ve got 3 LaCie FW drives and have never had a problem with any of them in over a year and a half of constant use (knocking on my wooden head for luck).

– Don