Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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seamus,
Open up your Mac and reset the PMU switch. That should also reset the firewire BUS on your machine. Consult your Mac’s owner’s manual for the PMU switch’s location and how to reset. I’ve never done it myself but I understand this is a known fix for FW. Since your LaCie drive works fine an another Mac we now know it’s your machine that’s the problem. If the reset doesn’t work then I would suspect it’s a hardware thing……unless you have other FW drives that do indeed work on your Mac. You never mentioned anything about that. If the problem turns out to be a hardware issue then you’ll need to take it in for service. Wouldn’t be the first time this has happened.
– Don
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If you’re using the FW drive exclusively for your Mac then the only decision you have to make is to initialize the disk in Mac OS extended with journaling turned off. Journaling is only needed for your startup drive. Hard drives used for video editing have no need for journaling or partitioning or indexing. That stuff just slows everything down, especially file transfer rates.
Get a copy of DiscWarrior and run that to keep the media drive directories in top shape. This program is far better than the others in that it builds a completely new directory instead of trying to fix the old one like lesser programs do. Don’t let anything from Norton Utilities touch your drives. If you have Norton virus protection, turn off “Auto Protect”. There are known issues with that program and Final Cut Pro.
– Don
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I don’t know which field is dominant in PAL. But here in NTSC land the field dominance is always the lower one. Just try both and keep the result that looks the best.
– Don
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Before you use any new drive you should reformat in Mac OS Extended (aka HFS+) using Apple’s disc utility which is on your startup drive. Leave file journaling turned off for all drives EXCEPT your startup drive, and don’t partition your media drives. Partitioning will do nothing but eat up valuable storage space. Some LaCie drives come formatted in FAT 32 binary which is the formatting that can be read by both Mac and PC machines. The trouble with that is you’re restricted to file sizes no greater than 4 Gbytes. This is probably the root of all your problems.
Once you’re up and running with your properly formatted drive get the program Disk Warrior and use it periodically to keep the directories on all your drives on top shape. Directories will get corrupted with lots of use because files are constantly being deleted and added during your projects.
Here’s a link to an article on proper hard drive maintenance, important stuff when you’re running programs like Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro.
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/care_feeding_panther.html
– Don
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In window arrangement choose ‘two up’ instead of ‘standard view’ and your log and capture window will appear in the larger size.
– Don
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Sorry but I don’t have the real world info that you’re after. You might want to put out a call for Graeme’s expertise to address your particular questions. Maybe you could start a new thread with his name in the subject title. That’ll get his attention as well as others that are more experienced with the various aspects of 24P. I’ve got an XL2 but have not had a chance nor the need to shoot in 24P just yet. Graeme Nattress and you are in the same time zone (NYC and Ottawa, Ontario Canada) so that should make it easier to talk to him before the weekend if he’s around here tomorrow.
Good luck with your project.
ps I’m pretty sure your 24p footage was shot correctly for FCP editing. 24p for direct transfer to film and 24p advanced for editing in FCP. If you tell FCP what the footage frame rate is, it will “see” the 24P advanced flags that are buried in the data stream and will remove the pulldown automatically as it’s captured to the hard drive. But……wait for Graeme’s response to your new thread.
– Don
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The link below might help you to understand the differences between 24p and 24p advanced a little better. The article was written by Graeme Nattress, who makes the best effects plugins for FCP. If anybody can put the information about 24p into perspective for you it’s Graeme.
Don’t let the title of the article fool you. There’s a section on 24p towards the bottom.
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/beyond_dv_nattress.html
– Don
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The Sony VX2100 you’re using isn’t capable of shooting at a frame rate where pulldown pattern is an issue for you. Even if you shoot at 30 progressive and import into FCP the program will still show it in 60 interlaced but without the two video fields. Just use the DV NTSC codec within FCP to import your footage and make sure your timeline is the same (DV NTSC). Once you export your movie from FCP perhaps that is when you’re introducing the horizontal line artifacts by choosing to export via uncompressed. This last statement is just a guess, however.
– Don
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Graeme Nattress makes a killer standards conversion plugin for FCP that is exactly what you’re looking for. Check it out:
https://www.nattress.com/standardsConversion.htm
– Don