[Jason Porthouse]

Benjamin,

My experience with my BM Multibridge has, so far, been fine. It’s a good, workmanlike bit of kit that ‘does exactly what it says on the tin’… IQ is excellent, downconversion fine, and so far I’m happy. Yes, the Kona is slightly better built IMHO but you’d expect that for the price.

No experience of tech or customer support as it hasn’t broken. I’ve just stuck it in, turned it on and it’s been fine ever since… I think a lot of the differences in customer support between the two are maybe more marked on the west of the pond rather than on the east side anyway…

Just my 2 cents – I think you won’t regret either.

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Raj,

Firstly – yes, the DI filter in FCP aint the best. For you, I’d talk to your graders first – they may have a good DI filter in Smoke or Quantel that will do fine.

For resizing 4:3 to 16:9 I’d use Digital Anarchy’s ReSizer. You can get some nice results – there’s also a de-interlacer included in that that’s worth trying…

JP

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Thanks Jeremy, I think I’ve figured it now – it’s laying off as we speak, keeping fingers crossed as it’s a 96 minute-er!

I had a problem with laying this off last time, and what fixed it was using the Mastering setting rather than Edit – but declining any of FCPs black/bars/title options. I think my trying to be smart by using Edit and setting an in point in the sequence was throwing it.

Best,

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Here’s another option – if the disk is going to sleep despite your best efforts, try this:

https://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/freeware/disksomnia.php

from the lovely peeps at DH. I think will be one of those ‘must-have’ apps for a lot of people, and it’s free – so kudos to Martin at DH for providing it!!

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Ed,

Dunno how old your Mac is but I regularly cut HDV on a dual 2ghz mac with the standard video card in with no problems. I’d try before going AIC, it’s not the best codec IMHO. Maybe cut native HDV and then go to ProRes for the grade etc…

Just my 2p’th

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

So far very happy with my Blackmagic Multibridge Pro. Not as sexy as AJAs offering but does exactly what it says it will, excellent image quality and FCP integration. If you’re looking to save some $$$ I’d take a look at BM.

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Hi Mustafa,

I chose the Multibridge route, and so far I’m happy with it. By buying the MBPro I saved over £1000 on a similarly specced AJA offering, and so far, for what I need, the BM product is fine. Picture quality is excellent, functional integration with FCP great and build quality, whist IMHO not quite as good as AJA, is nevertheless fine.

HTH

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Ryan,

Reading your original and subsequent posts I think you’ve got a fundamental misunderstanding going on here.

Capturing from any camera, whether DV or HDV, over firewire, uses FW400 protocol and speed. Nothing you can do will improve this, or improve picture quality as you do so.

FW800 runs at twice the speed of 400 (as the name suggests) but even if you connect a camera to an 800 port it will still be at 400 speed. There is no advantage. FW800 only comes in to it’s own when we’re talking about storage – and even then there are caveats. Most Macs, even those that have FW400 and 800, share the same bus for both 400 and 800. That means that if you connect a 400 drive and an 800, the 800 will run at 400.

Now, on your MBPro, by adding an express34 card and plugging in an external drive to that (whether SATA or FW) you’re adding another bus – so plugging your camera in to the FW400 port on the Macbook, and ingesting to the external FW or SATA drive, you’re maximising speed, keeping the ingest bus separate from the storage one (think of water going up and down the same pipe at the same time) and avoiding the cardinal sin of ANY NLE setup – storing media on your system drive.

HTH

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

Can’t remember where exactly, but I read an article about a guy who, baulking at the cost of an HD transfer of his indie film for projection, bought an Apple TV, and sent that to festivals instead. It worked a treat. Have a look on HD for Indies and see if there’s any info there.

HTH

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*

[Jason Porthouse]

[Alexander Kallas] “Exactly how did you do this part? Some of the data got lost during the render.”

I followd instructions I found here on the COW. Prefs>Qmaster, set instances to 2 (I think it is 4 for the octocore machines), named the cluster and started sharing. Then when submitting a render to Compressor you choose the cluster rather than the local machine.

I don’t think data got lost; it was still compresssing, but veeerrryyy slowly. It reminded me of what my SO thinks of my DIY; I get 90% of the job done really quickly, but the last 10% can take forever…

Jason

_________________________________

Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

*the artist formally known as Jaymags*