[Ian Smith]

I appreciate your feedback, though I have several disagreements with your boldly stated opinion. MANY professionals are also under tight budgets and do not have an endless budget for HD’s.

Because I’m not here for an argument/debate, I’ll refer to the original question and ask if anyone else would like to provide input from their professional experiences and workflow.

Thanks in advance for your input!

Ian

Ian Smith

[Ian Smith]

I enjoy strong opinions. Would you provide more insight backing up your thought?

Thanks,

Ian

Ian Smith

[Ian Smith]

The possible solution I have been experimenting with for a couple weeks has been using Adobe Bridge. Here is how I use Bridge:

Step 1. Using Bridge, offload video footage from CF card into specific project folder:
ie. External HD/Current Projects/Project Name/Capture Scratch/Footage.mov

Step 2. Highlight clips and add relevant Keywords to clips. DONE!

Now, you should be able to find video clips as long as you have an idea of what project the clips you want were captured during. So, some of the frustration may still be there if you don’t have any idea of what project the clips are associated, but I’d rather not dump ALL video files into one huge folder. Find the project the files are associated, and simply tick the keywords that fit footage you’re looking for and Bridge will sort and display all associated within that project. From there, you could also use Collections, and even Smart Collections to grab clips from multiple projects and locations. This would be useful for a project that is going to use clips from several projects.

NOTE: If there are multiple producers to keep in mind, the “Keyword” list should be exported each time it’s updated and shared between users. Notify your colleagues if you update the list! If your keyword list is missing keywords used by a fellow colleague, you won’t be able to find clips you need. I recommend keeping two keyword lists online for everyone to quickly grab (the most recent file) each time they come home to offload from a shoot. Now you have the most recent keyword list, and may even update it and re-save it online for your colleagues to use when they offload. Keeping two online (one with an earlier date) will keep away hassle of possibly corrupted file.

A Thought:
I’ve been wondering if you could instead of using Keywords, use Metadata to add these “keywords”, so the clips would be searchable even from Finder. Anyone know if that’s an option, and sensible?

Ian Smith

[Ian Smith]

All of these responses were helpful! Thank you all!

Solution:
Ended up only needing Effect “Channel Combiner” – applied setting “HLS to RGB”, and “Invert”.
On the Logo layer I added blend mode “Screen”.

Ending result:
I’m using the white logo graphic as a background image (30% opacity) on a lower third title bar. The layer is now also being masked by a shape layer, via track-matte “Alpha” to keep Logo inside Lower Third title bar. Now I can animate the background Logo, while only appearing inside my Lower Third title bar.

Thanks All!

Ian Smith

[Ian Smith]

Dan,

This was extremely helpful and exactly what I was looking to display. The only adjustment I made was removing the “x =” and “y =”. Your code works perfectly.

Would you mind explaining this code a little for me? Usually I am able to understand what is happening in a code, though I’m far less capable of writing my own. I’m very curious how this is working.

Thanks again!

Ian Smith

[Ian Smith]

This code was very helpful and nearly exactly what I am looking to do as well. I have one slight modification, if anyone may be able to help me.

I am tracking the coordinates of both the x and y value as if it’s from the 0,0 point. I want to be able to track the change in position easier, so I am ‘zero-ing’ it out.

The way I have it configured is by using two Nulls.

Null 1 position is an exact copy of the position.

Null 1 – ZERO is a duplicate of Null 1, with all keyframes highlighted moved to the 0,0 location. Now I am able to see 0,0 change and see exactly how much. Can I use the code you provided to display this data?

Thanks so much!

Ian

thisComp.layer("5 - TIM").transform.position[0]
p = thisComp.layer("5 - TIM").position;
"" + Math.round(p[0]*100)/100 + " " + Math.round(p[1]*100)/100

Ian Smith

[Ian Smith]

That’s really good news to hear, and helpful information!

Currently, I’m working on figuring out why BRU isn’t recognizing it’s own tape backup when trying to verify. I ran a backup of the entire CalDigit HDPro. It estimated 5 tapes. It ran three before beginning a verification process. It then asked for the first media set, but then stated it was either an empty tape, or non-BRU data. – I’m attempting the same backup, and selected to “overwrite” all existing data.

It’s possible I grabbed a tape I thought was empty, but was from my first go-round when I used Retrospect. I found that software to no longer be supported, so I switched to BRU-PE. Now I’m working to back everything up using it.

Thanks,

Ian

Ian Smith

[Ian Smith]

Thank you for your assistance!

I am backing up the CalDigit HDPro as I write. I have selected the HDPro array, and using BRU PE, I now have it backing up.

This will take up about 5 1.5T tapes in all. As I make changes to projects currently being backed up, what do I need to do to reassure these changes are also backed up? Will I select the “append” option, and tell it to backup? I assume BRU PE will ask me for specific tapes in order to update these changes? Or am I completely misunderstanding how this should work?

Thanks,

Ian

Ian Smith

[Ian Smith]

More information regarding troubleshooting this issue: No solution yet…

I have the footage on a separate machine, and it exports just fine as still images. No gray bars.

Sounds like a software re-install is my next step sense no one seems to have another troubleshooting idea.

I’ll post it on here in the near future if that corrects the gray bars issue.

Ian Smith

[Ian Smith]

I’ve still not found a solution. I’m wondering if reinstalling Final Cut Pro would resolve anything or maybe cause another problem somewhere that currently works fine.

I am now using tapeless media via SxS card, shot on the Sony EX3. The footage was captured using the Final Cut Pro log and transfer tool.

If I wasn’t having this issue before, I would wonder if it were caused from the plug-in I installed in order to read the SxS cards. Like I said though, I was having the problem before I installed the plug-in.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Ian