Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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To find out your vid card type just go to the apple menu and choose: ‘about this Mac.’ In resulting dialogue box choose ‘more info’ and that will bring up your system profiler which will contain your video card info under ‘PCI/AGP cards’.
I’m also running a G4 and have found the most stable OS for us is 10.3.4. There are known reliability issues with 10.3.9 with some (but not all) G4 boxes. I guess it depends on one’s particular configuration. I’m running the earlier OS with FCP 4.5 and have never had a crash. The setup is rock solid. I only hope that my next Mac is so fortunate.
Just a note: make sure your LaCie FW drive is formatted in Mac OS Extended (aka HFS Plus) and choose to turn off the journaling for that drive. Some of the LaCie drives were shipped in FAT32 binary even though the literature that came with the drive said they were already formatted in Mac OS extended. Fat32 is the formatting compatible for both Mac and Windows machines but file size is limited to 4 GBytes, and FCP does not like the Fat 32 formatting one little bit.
Everything else about your system looks good. I would suspect your capturing trouble is because of your Norton App. Norton and FCP definitely do not mix at all.
– Don
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You need to pass on some info about your system before anyone can make an educated guess on what the trouble might be: particular Apple computer, operating system version, amount of RAM, video card, hard drive types and capacity, peripherals connected and what they are (including the camera/deck you’re capturing from, etc.
Just a wild guess: If you have any virus protection running in the background such as Norton Anti-Virus, disable it before you start any capturing. There are known issues with that program and the capturing process of FCP.
– Don
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I forgot to add that your capture preset should also be set to DV NTSC Anamorphic instead of the standard DV NTSC. This is in addition to activating the anamorphic checkbox in the log and capture window.
– Don
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Are your viewer and canvas windows set to ‘fit to window’? If they’re set to a percentage less than that you’re going to see space around the video footage in those windows.
If the footage you’re importing truly is 16:9 then all you need to do is check the anamorphic box in the log and capture window, make sure your sequence is set to DV NTSC Anamorphic and drag the clips to the timeline. If that doesn’t make your video fill your viewer and canvas windows then there is something else contributing to your problem.
Sometimes corrupt FCP preference files will make capturing and displaying the correct aspect ratio troublesome. It’s happened to me in the past with 16:9 not being captured or being displayed properly. Trashing my FCP preference files cured the problem. Try trashing them before proceeding if the above workpath fails.
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/trashing_fcp_prefs.html
– Don
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OS10.3.4 seems to be the most stable version for us G4 users.
– Don
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Since there are two ways to record 24p with the XL2 you need to know which format you used: 24p or 24pA (advanced). Then you’ll be more prepared to decide how to capture to FCP. While you’re finding that out you may want to go to the link below and read the very helpful article by Graeme Nattress:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/24p_in_FCP_nattress.html
– Don
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Andrew,
Yes, if your footage was captured using the anamorphic or widescreen setting you must check the anamorphic box in the log and capture window. Also make sure your capture preset is also anamorphic. You didn’t specify what your camera is, but if you’re using the DV NTSC capture preset you’ll need to change to the DV NTSC anamorphic preset.
The short explanation is that even though you’re shooting widescreen the image is still captured to the tape in a 720×480 window (for MiniDV) but the image is just squeezed. Telling FCP that it’s anamorphic will cause the program to unsqueeze it.
– Don
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Assuming you’re going to be using a mono boom mic, I used to plug mine directly into one of the RCA jacks. I never had an XL1, but an XL1s. If the setup is the same on both you’ll need an XLR-to-RCA adapter, some cable and a male RCA plug to go into the XL1. Depending on how hot your mic is you might need an adjustable XLR attenuator to drop the signal down a bit. Using the MIC ATT setting in the XL1 is also an option but it might drop the signal too much depending on the boom mic’s sensitivity.
– Don
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The answer to your side question would be to get the Nattress standards conversion plugin for FCP to covert your PAL to NTSC footage. Works great and is inexpensive.
– Don