[Herb Sevush]

Dan –

You can’t change the multi-clip defaults; it’s always set to in-points. It’s a typical type of annoyance found in all NLEs that serve to remind you that they are designed by software engineers, not editors.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Mark –

It’s important to realize that in Raid 0 you increase the likelihood of drive failure by the number of drives in the raid – a 3 drive raid is 300% more likely to fail than any single drive, a 4 drive raid is 400% more likely – all of which is to say I agree with you and never trust my media to anything less than raid 5(3).

Another note for William is that he should calculate the cost of buying as much ram as he can afford, and then buy 1 Gig more. It will improve both the stability and speed of FCP more than any other factor.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Dino –

It would be nice if the method you outlined actually worked the way it is supposed to – however in the real world it is highly prone to error. It’s sort of the Russian Roulette method of digitization – and like the man said, you’ve got to ask yourself “do you feel lucky?”

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Paul –

Our back and forth is an example of the old George Bernard Shaw quote about the English and the Americans: “two peoples separated by a common language.”

arc = aspect rate conversion.
fha= full height anamorphic.
lb = letter boxed.
14:9 = another complication in the already absurd world of modern tv standards to bedevil editors.

Thanks for the education.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Paul –

do you mean you’ve arced 16:9fha to 14:9lb in a 4:3 sequence?

I don’t know what you mean by “arced”, 16:9″fha”, or 14:9″lb”. I especially don’t know where you got the 14:9 aspect ration from.

The original post was simple “i am shooting in sd dv 4×3 but want the final to be in 16×9. should it be edited in a 16×9 project or in a 4×3 project with a 16×9 crop.”

The answer is also simple – in most cases, the sequence settings should match your delivery settings. Edit in a 4×3 project with a 16×9 crop if you are outputting to SD TV. If you are going for an HD blowup, then edit in a 16×9 HD sequence and scale up the clip 200%. If you’re only going to be distributing in DVD then you could edit in a SD 16×9 sequence and scale up 133.33.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Dave –

Does this mean simple letterboxing of the 720×480 frame?

Yes

Does it mean working in a 16×9, 720×360 frame (preserving the footage’s 0.9 pixel aspect ratio)?

I have no idea what this means.

Does it mean something else?

No.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Michael –

Use a 4×3 project with a 16×9 crop. No stretching or scaling this way and you can adjust which part of the frame to use with the motion tab.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Pat –

When I set up my first Mac system the Kona 3 was not out yet. At that point the bang for the buck pushed me to use BlackMagic cards. I now have 2 systems running with them and they have been flawless for about 4 years. The BlackMagic cards are cheaper, some significantly so, and do have an advantage with analog I/O. However, if I were starting over I would probably go with the Kona3 based on it’s up and down conversions and it’s ability to be a “pass thru” converter when going from deck to deck via SDI. Aja does have superior tech support, but BlackMagic is not bad in this area, just not as good.

You might be tempted to tip your toe in the water with the cheaper Blackmagic solution, but if you add another Mac the two cards are not compatible in terms of the files they digitize.

Good luck.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Carlton –

H.264 takes a lot of time to encode. For that reason there now exist external USB accelerators to help speed up the process. I use the Elgato Turbo264 excelerator and it speeds up the proces by a factor of 4 to 1 over FCP. It costs under $100.

https://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/Accessories/Turbo264/product1.en.html

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Michael –

I would suggest re-posting this on the SANetworks forum. That’s where Bob Zellin and a number of other very knowledgeable SAN guys answer questions like these.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions