Jamie Kehoe
Forum Replies Created
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I have a new Mac Pro 2009 and needed to interface with fast external storage. I have an Apple Raid Card internally which is currently supporting 4x1TB HDDs. I bought a 4 port HighPoint RocketRaid 2314 card and it has never worked correctly. I even upgraded the drivers and from what I can gather, I think there is a definite problem with the way HighPoint program their drivers. I am now sending my card back to the store and purchasing a 4 port eSata Stardom card which is apparently much faster, but will not allow me to set up a raid storage unit. This is fine as the external boxes I have now have their own Raid built in. The Rocket Raid is really flakey, the drives drop off for no reason and I have experienced lock ups in the finder and Final Cut Pro version 6.06 with Leopard 10.5.7. I have now uninstalled the drivers and the system seems stable again. I will rip out the card once the new one arrives. I think this card would work fine in a PC, but the drivers are flakey in a Mac and it seems others are having problems with 2000 series cards from HighPoint as well. The card I am buying is this one, if anyone has had any experience with this, please let me know. https://www.epowermac.com.au/shop/pc/Stardom-SJ20-x8-eSATA-4-Port-PCI-e-Host-Adapter-189p1550.htm
Cheers.G5 Dual 2.3GHZ
2.5GB DDR SDRAM 400MHZ
Mac OS 10.5.1
2 x 20″ Apple Cinema Display
128MB ATI Graphics -
What bothers me is that it has taken a while for Apple to upgrade Final Cut Pro and the Mac Pro. I am wondering if Apple is going to do away with all the corporate sector and only concentrate on the home users again. Effectively stop development on Final Cut Studio Applications and forget about the Mac Pro altogether. I sincerely hope not, because I am hanging out for a New Mac Pro, but I am waiting until June 2009, hopefully it won’t be that long. I have an older G5.
G5 Dual 2.3GHZ
2.5GB DDR SDRAM 400MHZ
Mac OS 10.5.1
2 x 20″ Apple Cinema Display
128MB ATI Graphics -
Depending on the machine you have or if you have a very fast network available you can try this technique for compressor. Rendering can also be sped up in a similar fashion distributing it on a network. If you go to your System Preferences and select Apple Qmaster, under the ‘Setup’ tab, if you click on Compressor service, then select the ‘Options for selected service…’ button you can select the number of instances to push through compressor. Also make sure if you have say a quad core machine, or rather 8 cores in total, you only push the number of instances to 6. If you push it any higher, you risk making your machine unstable or compressor crapping out on you. What you are effectively telling Qmaster to do, is render utilising those 6 cores to the max and it will push it along a lot faster. If you do this kick it off the network by selecting Services and cluster controller. If you select ‘Quickcluster with services’, it is looking for another computer but in reality you need to be on a fibre channel network to get maximum benefit. Also click the Start Sharing, so it thinks it is on a network, but it is really only using it’s internal cores to compress the footage.
G5 Dual 2.3GHZ
2.5GB DDR SDRAM 400MHZ
Mac OS 10.5.1
2 x 20″ Apple Cinema Display
128MB ATI Graphics -
Yes, but if using compressor, you need to ensure that the aspect ratio is 16:9 in the video format of the compressor Inspector window. If that is checked, then you only need to place your movie in a new track and ensure that the track in the display mode of the General Tab indicates that it is 16:9 Letterbox. I prefer to use Pan-Scan and Letterboxing, that way it will appear correctly and not force letterboxing on a 16:9 TV. It will fill the screen on a proper widescreen TV and letterbox on a 3:4 TV.
G5 Dual 2.3GHZ
2.5GB DDR SDRAM 400MHZ
Mac OS 10.5.1
2 x 20″ Apple Cinema Display
128MB ATI Graphics -
I was certain that P2 provides metadata on the card, can’t you somehow write information into this metadata? I would think this could be opened in something like a text editor?
G5 Dual 2.3GHZ
2.5GB DDR SDRAM 400MHZ
Mac OS 10.5.1
2 x 20″ Apple Cinema Display
128MB ATI Graphics -
To slow down footage, there are numerous ways using a multitude of plugins or techniques, but in Motion, you do that through the Timing section. For blending choose Optical Flow and then set your percentage at anything slower than 100%. Depending on if you want to have a Matrix effect, slow down and speed up, you will need to play around with keyframes and timing of each section. Keep in mind you need to work on smaller sections of video as it is very slow to render unless you have a really fast Mac Pro Workstation.
G5 Dual 2.3GHZ
2.5GB DDR SDRAM 400MHZ
Mac OS 10.5.1
2 x 20″ Apple Cinema Display
128MB ATI Graphics -
Yes, I agree with trying Tiger, if you don’t need the little extras that you get with Leopard, why bother. Switch the G4 back to Tiger, FCP 6 will run just fine on that. I have a dual 2.3GHZ G5 and I am thinking of switching back, it feels like molasses when editing now.
G5 Dual 2.3GHZ
2.5GB DDR SDRAM 400MHZ
Mac OS 10.5.1
2 x 20″ Apple Cinema Display
128MB ATI Graphics -
I would recommend the Sony XD Cam EX. It has a great lens, 1/2″ chips and everything is solid state recording, with a lot more time that can be recorded to card than a Panasonic. They use the SxS cards. I think Sony has a far better product than the Panasonic at the moment, only thing is you don’t have tape backup to shoot to.
G5 Dual 2.3GHZ
2.5GB DDR SDRAM 400MHZ
Mac OS 10.5.1
2 x 20″ Apple Cinema Display
128MB ATI Graphics -
I run a wedding video business and I shoot every production with two cameras and I edit it all myself, except at busy periods when I have had some sub-contractors edit for me for a flat rate. That way it doesn’t matter how long they spend on it. Had a few of them that sucked at editing, however and I had to clean up their work so to speak.
I shoot with my wife, I trained her to use the camera, she shoots better that a pro now, I had a tv camera guy shoot for me once, terrible. With my wife, I know what I get in the edit room, albeit some surprises, but generally pretty good. If it is a partner and not close kin, you can work it where you both shoot and take turns at editing, that way you don’t get bored and you deliver a far better product to the client and then split the profits 50/50. If one of you is doing the calling, chasing and viewing with clients, then you need to add a percentage for every wedding for that.
Don’t know if this can help you, but hopefully that is a start, I have shot over 100 weddings professionally.
G5 Dual 2.3GHZ
2.5GB DDR SDRAM 400MHZ
Mac OS 10.5.1
2 x 20″ Apple Cinema Display
128MB ATI Graphics -
I know and understand that it concerns a great deal of event videographers, as I said I carry a licence in Australia to use any music I want – including international artists, but I know of a lot of videographers in the local industry that don’t bother to carry this licence at all.
So I guess you just use whatever you can on a wedding (fingers crossed) and if it is for commercial release, as in a corporate production, I usually either have someone score the video, (costly for client) or buy a royalty free track and splice it up or loop it for use. A great source of royalty free tracks is http://www.freeplaymusic.com, I have used a number of their tracks in several productions and haven’t paid a cent other than the time it took to search, listen and download a track.G5 Dual 2.3GHZ
2.5GB DDR SDRAM 400MHZ
Mac OS 10.5.1
2 x 20″ Apple Cinema Display
128MB ATI Graphics