[Don Greening]

The constant flashing of the blue light means the drive wasn’t shut down properly to begin with. A common reason for this to happen is if your computer crashed and you had to do a hard boot. Try shutting down the drive and the computer first. If it’s a relatively new LaCie drive it should shut down automatically with the computer. Then just start everything up again.

– Don

[Don Greening]

NTSC video uses 2 interlaced fields for each frame of video. When you try to capture a still you need to use FCP’s de-interlace filter before the jumping around problems cease. Or you can export the frame out of FCP and into Photoshop and use that program’s de-interlace filter as well. Then import back into FCP.

– Don

[Don Greening]

Read the 5th post in the link below and see if any of the suggestions will work to get your log and capture preview up and running.

https://www.creativecow.net/forum/view_thread.php?threadid=802343&forumid=8&postid=111287727613903

– Don

[Don Greening]

When you’re ready to receive the workpath text you can knock on my door at: Reeltimevideo@shaw.ca and I’ll send it to you.

– Don

[Don Greening]

You might want to mixdown your audio before recording your timeline back to tape or when the timeline doesn’t play back properly within Final Cut Pro. Go to the sequence menu/render only/mixdown. This function will create an invisible file that consolidates your audio for laying back to tape, etc. However, if you make any changes to your audio track after using this command your mixdown file will be deleted and you’ll have to mixdown again.

If your timeline is destined for DVD Studio Pro may I suggest that you export a QT movie from FCP without exporting the audio at the same time. Your completed audio tracks can be exported separately using another command. Use APack to compress your audio instead, as the resulting file will take up far less space on your DVD than the normal AIF audio and secondly there will be less likelyhood that some DVD players will choke on the higher bitrates present that AIF audio uses. This is a proven workpath for output to DVD Studio Pro.

Here’s a link to the proper way to use APack:

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

Hope this helps. If you wish I can e-mail you a complete guide (offline) that takes you from FCP output through to the final DVD SP and APack compression workflows.

– Don

[Don Greening]

Thanks for the heads up, Mitch, but if I started spending even .02 cents more on gear right now by monday I’d be in divorce court.

– Don

[Don Greening]

Damn, Adam. Wouldn’t THAT be something. I’m drooling already. I knew there was a reason to wait and use use my G4 a little longer. I read somewhere the other day that Apple is poised and positioning itself to go after the heady Silicon Graphics market. That can only mean good things for us.

– Don

[Don Greening]

The people who told me that I could only use a VariZoom battery for a VariZoom monitor was not VariZoom. It was my broadcast supplier. He was told by his tech dept. that the monitor would have to be re-wired in order to use a 3rd party battery. And since my broadcast supplier is quite p*ssed at VariZoom at the moment because they won’t pay to have one of their brand new monitors shipped back to them because it’s defective, I know the last thing the broadcast supplier wanted to do was to order a battery for me if they could have sold me a 3rd party one instead.

However, sometimes I don’t have a grasp for the obvious and like Thax has just pointed out: if the VariZoom battery comes with a 12v car adapter, why can’t I use a 12v battery and cable? This is a question I’ll be asking the broadcast supplier tomorrow.

– Don

[Don Greening]

Trash your FCP preference files and see if that helps. Here’s a link on where to find them on your hard drive and how to trash them properly:

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

You can also download a free program that will trash FCP prefs automatically and install a fresh set. Do a Google search for “FCP Rescue”.

– Don

[Don Greening]

I’m going to have to go with Ray on this one. I actually started this reply before I read Ray’s post but I’ll keep the message the same.

Your client’s request may end up being simpler to satisfy than you think. Ask if what they mean by “self starting MPEG2 disks” actually means they want a DVD to begin playing automatically without having to push the play button on a remote control. If that’s the case then all you need to do (if you’re using DVD Studio Pro) is to connect the “first play” in the connections window to your main movie, which will also be found in the connections window opposite (right side) to the first play connection.

You should also choose to use the audio compression program APack to encode your audio instead of getting Compressor to work with the AIF file. AIF files cause some DVD players to choke on the high bit rates, and although it won’t matter for your 22 min. presentaion, an APack file size represents a significant savings on DVD disk space. APack comes bundled with DVD SP.

To quickly sum up:

Export your movie from the FCP timeline as a self contained movie and leave the “include audio” button UN-checked. Then export the AIF audio from within FCP as a stereo file (no video).

Open the AIF file in APack and encode as a stereo left and right file. Settings are 192 bit rate, normalizing to -31 so the dialogue doesn’t change. Set compression preset to “none”.

Use Compressor to encode your movie to MPEG2 and then import that and the APack 192 bit rate file into DVD Studio Pro. Highlight both files in the DVD SP assets window and drag them to the timeline. They will be automatically be in sync.

– Don