Enzo Tedeschi
Forum Replies Created
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It’s always a delicate balance between size and quality. If you are compressing for delivery via broadband, I have found that quality is preferable to size, and I am pretty happy if I get my web stuff running at about 3Mb per minute of video. By far the best encoder on the Mac has been H.264 – really crisp encoding at lower bitrates. Far more efficient (with less fiddling) than the sorenson codec.
If you encode down to a meg a minute – it’s gonna look pretty dodgy, I think, no matter what codec you use.
e.
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Absolutely!
Your system is reading and writing to your boot drive all the time. This fragments it, making it slower. And the more full it gets, the slower it gets. On my Media drive, I start to notice slowdowns in access speeds even when I have 10 to 15Gb left. It also clears the bus, providing a whole uninterupted data stream to and from the drive for nothing but your video, minimising bottlenecks.
If you haven’t already tried this, I suggest you give it a go!
e.
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I was only half-kidding about the language!
Your supervisor sounds like a guy I used to work for… there is a fine line between putting your head down and getting up to speed in your work, and being taken for a ride. Taking his crap for too long is disrespectful to yourself and your own skills.
But Jim is right – I learnt a hell of a lot working for that nightmare, particularly in AE – it was the solution to all of this guys problems. At the time I had done a beginner’s course and some really simple stuff, and suddenly I was meant to be a master. Just be careful he doesn’t take advantage of you.
I hope the money is good!
e.
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Glad we could help!
:o)
e.
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These are all good tips, but reaading your post closely, I think there may be something else going on here.
When you say “dropped frames”, is FCP complaining about them, or are you seeing jerky playback in the Log and Capture window? Can you see the footage droping frames on a video monitor (or even your camera’s display?). The Log and capture window DOES NOT give full 25 or 30 frame playback and will look staggered while capturing. If FCP is not complaining about dropped frames (the default), then you may not have a problem. If you check the captured files, you may find that they have been captured just fine.
Good luck, hope this helps.
e.
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As Tom said, the file needs to be DV codec for FCE – check that. It may involve making a new QT from iPhoto.
e.
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Folder imports shouldn’t be a problem with stills – I do it all the time. How exactly are you trying to do the edits?
e.
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It sounds like you are rendering your “work area”. Two things you can do – adjust your work area in the timeline to what you want, or in your render settings, change the setting from “Work Area Only” to “Length of Comp”.
Check the manual / help files for detailed info.
e.
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Now, now, there’s no need for bad language… 🙂
Question 1: By “Rendering”, I think you mean RAM previewing from the timeline (not actually rendering out a file..?). If that’s the case, the way to increase your 4 second window is to increase your RAM. What resolution are you working at? – you mention HD… I wouldn’t expect 1Gb of RAM to get you too far in HD world…
“Is there a way I can just render the whole thing?” – Render out to a file…?
Question 2: Select your Comp in the project window, and Ctrl-K will open up your Composition Settings. From here, you can change the duration of the composition. If you know in advance, you can set the duration of a new comp as you are creating it.
As for your B/W title – need more info. Did it have an embedded alpha channel? Are you overlaying it over video, or just black background? What were your render settings?
e.
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Hard to say without seeing your footage, but I’m guessing you haven’t shot greenscreen.. :o)
I’m not sure that tracking is going to help you very much – is it a long clip? Perhaps you could consider rotoscoping the subject?
e.