Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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Can you not just go to the energy saver preferences and un-check the box at the bottom of the window that says: “put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible.” ? Or have you done that already? Other than that I used to use a shareware program called “spindown fix” that wouldn’t allow any internal or external hard drives to go to sleep. I used it in Panther but I don’t know if it’s okay to use in Tiger. Google “Spindown Fix” and it should come up.
– Don
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I’m not sure if you can access or even change where or the way iMovie saves its media. In FCP you can, of course, create a media folder on any disc and tell FCP to save everything in that location. Perhaps you can do the same thing in iMovie. I’d start by looking in iMovie’s program preferences.
Perhaps someone else will read your posts here and help out.
– Don
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Hi Craig,
You might see some difference using FCP and DVDSP over iMovie (and iDVD) because FCP will generate compression markers at all transitions, which makes for nicer looking fades and cross dissolves, etc. I’m not really sure if the more recent versions of iMovie have the ability to export compression markers for DVDSP because I don’t have any of the iLife programs. I’m also not sure if you can even export a QT movie out of iMovie for encoding and burning in DVDSP, but I would suspect that you can. Someone else may be able to shed some light on that. The quality between the two different workpaths will also depend on the quality of your students’ video footage. They/you may not notice any difference at all. iMovie and iDVD are more of a “drag and drop” interface for people that have little or no experience, so it all depends on what you’re trying to teach your students. If you want them to know about what goes on behind the scenes of making movies then they’ll learn more by using FCP and DVDSP. If all they’re concerned about is creating somple DVDs from their footage then I’d stay with iMovie and iDVD.
DVDSP will work well for your concerns about consumer DVD player compatability. With FCP, Compressor, a.Pack and DVDSP you have the option of compressing your .aif audio files into the .ac3 file format, which is a considerably lower bitrate. With iMovie you’re stuck with using the huge file sizes of the .aif file format, which causes some consumer players to choke on the high bitrates, not to mention that .aif files take up a lot more room on a DVD than .ac3 files do. Smaller audio file sizes mean that you have more room on a DVD left for the video.
I wouldn’t go too cheap on your DVD-R media. Prices are at their lowest levels and with cheap media you’re increasing the chances of doing unusable burns, or worse yet, having a DVD that has playing problems just a few years down the road. I’d get the best DVD-R media that you can find. Ritek, Verbatim, Maxell, etc. All good.
It’s always recommended that one uses a separate hard drive for the media. If you have your operating system, project files and media all on the same drive you invite problems because the hard drive sometimes can’t keep up with all the reading and writing that’s being asked of it. Keep in mind though, that this is for processor-intensive programs like FCP that can display multiple video and audio files. With iMovie I don’t think you can have more than one video track, so keeping everything on the startup drive won’t be such an issue. Remember that computers like the iMac and the eMac come with the iLife programming and are designed to run those apps without issues such as bogging down or crashing. Partitioning the iMac and eMac drives will not serve any purpose other than to eat up valuable hard drive space, leaving less room for video files.
Hope this helps.
– Don
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Darrin,
When FCP starts acting strangely all of a sudden, it’s usually tine to trash the preference files. If you’re unsure about how to do this go here for a short lesson:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html
You can also get a free program to do it for you. It’s called FCP Rescue. Just do a Google search and you’ll find it.
– Don
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I guess the majic voodoo gods weren’t noticing when I pushed it a lot more than once several days ago. The trusty G4 is humming right along here, albeit without the factory FW ports that’re in the dead zone. I do have to get another mother board battery though, because I got the wierd “December 31st, 1969” thing when I started up after unplugging from the wall.
Thanks for the info, Matt. I’ll pass it along to others if I get asked.
– Don
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Do any of the other computers you’ve tried the drive with still have OS9 installed? Sometimes people have reported that problem drives will show up in OS9 but not in OSX. Just a thought…….
– Don
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Hi Larry,
I think Mr. Solomon is looking for XL2 issues with Windows based mid range NLEs, although it probably will help him to know that XL2/Mac issues are minimal.
– Don
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I have a G4 Dual 800 running FCP 4.5 that is rock solid with no crashes. Your plans to maximize the amount of RAM is well justified, as this is a must to get the most out of FCP. My G4 will only accept 1.5 Gbytes but later models will accept up to 2 Gbytes, as far as I know.
As far as RT effects without rendering, my rather slow G4 will play simple cross dissolves and colour correction at the same time (on 1 video track only) in some instances if the dissolves are a half second or less without dropping frames. This is in addition to playing 6 audio tracks at the same time. Faster G4s may be able to play more RT without dropping frames.Fast hard drives will also be your best bet to get the most out of any G4 you find. Try and get an internal ATA drive for media that runs at 7200rpm. I think with the G4 @32bit addressing you can’t use more than a 139 Gbyte internal hard drive, but you’re not restricted to the same size limit if you go external with firewire. Not sure about hard drive size limitation with external SCSI or ATA raid setups, since all I’ve ever used is firewire.
I can’t advise you on running Shake or After Effects, but Photoshop works fine. My G4 has served me very well through the years and hopefully you’ll find something in Norway.
– Don
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Read all about trashing FCP prefs here:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html
…….and you can get a free program called Final Cut Pro Rescue that does it for you. Do a Google search and it’ll come up.
– Don