[Jeff Carpenter]

What he means is that auto-focus can be unreliable and so professional shooters don’t like to use it.

But you’re right, whenever someone mentions “auto-focus” around here they shoulnd’t get a terse respons implying that they’re an idiot for even thinking about using it.

If everything goes perfectly, I’d never use auto-focus either. But the people with that attitude fail to account for the fact that as event shooters, we don’t always have the benefit of having everything going perfectly. Sometimes things pop up quickly that I have to shoot. Like the bride may suddenly come out of her dressing room into a backlit hallway and I try to shoot her walking backwards while turning on my light and adjusting the manual iris and zoom. In that situation I will CERTAINLY turn on auto-focus right away. Once I get the other factors taken care of I’ll come back to the focus and attend to it manually.

I have also used the AF when I’m doing a pre-focus. If I’m doing a tripod shoot of a table setting, I’ll zoom in on the flowers, hit AF, turn it off and then zoom out. After years of shooting I have yet to see that technique fail. The problem with AF is that it can become confused. If you use it in a situation where it has no chance of being confused then it’s absolutly safe to use it.

It’s a tool, just like any other. You could easily compare it to auto-audio-levels. Yes, I’ll adjust them manually with headphones when I have a wireless mic plugged in, but for the camera mic gettnig natural sound at a reception I’ll switch it to auto. AF is the same way, you just have to know when and how it’s ok to use it. You don’t want to use it all the time, but never using it is a bit silly too.

I always want to ask the “never use it” people what they’d do in my walking-backwards example above. There are more jobs there than I have hands, something has to be put off for a second, I think that AF is a good tool to tide me over for a few seconds in that situation.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I would start by erasing each drive and formatting it as an individual drive. Perhaps there’s something on it that’s messing it up? I don’t know, but it’s something to try. I forget, does Panther have the ability to write zeros to the entire disk? If so, select that option.

[Jeff Carpenter]

1) Hmmm, the firewire out looks exactly that same as it did on my G4, but I thought that was just fine! I’m thinking you have a problem somewhere along the line. Hopefully the problem is in your G4, and not your DSR-11. It should look fine, is there a camcorder you can put in place of the deck to test it? That might help let you know if the deck or the computer is the problem.

2) Does your VCR have an S-video input? Can you get one? Plug the DSR-11 into the VCR and then pulug the VCR into the monitor. If you’re not running a tape these machines usually just pass the signal straight through without touching it. This means the quality won’t be altered when you’re just editing and not dubbing.

3) So far Tiger’s been great. My FCP5 is still in the mail so I can’t comment on that yet.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I’ve got one of these and I love it:

https://www.primera.com/bravoII_disc_publisher.html

It comes down to how much you’d use it to know if it’s worth the price to you. The BEST thing about it is that it prints on the labels. When I have to make 100 copies the printing is a bigger time saver than the burning itself. I didn’t even get the extra tray attachment, so I can only do 25 in one batch, and that’s still fine for me. It can do about that many overnight. It could go even faster but I like to burn at less-than-the-fastest speed just to be safe.

The suggested reatil price on that page is much higher than they actually sell for. You can find them for about $1,800 if you look around the ‘net.

You may not need something like this, but it’s worth considering.

[Jeff Carpenter]

You should use your G5 and be happy with it. By the time Intel chips come to Pro Mac computers it will be 2007. I would certaily think you’d want to be replacing your compuer by then no matter WHAT.

At that time, buy whatever’s new and sell your G5. You’ll still be able to get money for it, I’m sure, because it will still be a good machine for anyone who’s not a pro user.

You don’t have to take my advice, but you should know I’m basing it on my own plans, so I do believe in it.

[Jeff Carpenter]

But existing software will not work. You will have to buy new software.
========

What do you base that on? The transcript I read said exactly the opposite.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I dont really care whats inside as long as it acts liek a mac
===

I agree, and it looks like they’ve planned well for that. I’m not nearly as worried as I was this morning. It looks like this will be just another processor upgrade, just like any other as far as the user is concerned.

Here’s some info for those who don’t know:

https://live.macobserver.com/article/2005/06/wwdc2005_keynote.shtml

[Jeff Carpenter]

So, what does it all mean, pros? How is this going to change our day to day lives?

====

Not that much, it seems. I obviously don’t know everything yet, but I think it’s fair to think of this Intel chip as the “G6” no matter what they actually end up calling it.

It looks like they’ve been planning for a long time to make this pretty pain-free.

Whether or not it will be easier to run Windows programs on a Mac now…I don’t know…but that’s not really an issue for us. We care if Final Cut will keep working without having to re-buy everything and for now it looks like the answer is “yes.”

[Jeff Carpenter]

Here it is, as it happens:

https://live.macobserver.com/article/2005/06/wwdc2005_keynote.shtml

But no, I hadn’t heard anything about monitors before now.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Use Disk Utility to repair the permissions on both computers first.

Then hook them up with a firewire, then on the laptop go to: APPLICATIONS/UTILITIES/Migration Assistant

You should be able to figure it out from there!