[Jeff Carpenter]

Yeah, storage is fine. The drives are perfectly fine, it’s just that you’ll get dropped frames when playing video long enough.

So capuring and printing to tape is impossible and editing (although possible) can be very annoying.

But as for just copying files onto them? Everything will be fine!

[Jeff Carpenter]

I’m pretty sure there’s an easy-setup with that framerate. If not, you can create your own preset to use. You should try to make everything but the frame size match the current settigns you are using so that nothing else has to be rendered or changed.

[Jeff Carpenter]

It is not recommended. Here’s why:

Let’s say you copy a 1 GB file from your computer to 2 external hard drives. One is USB 2 and one is firewire.

Both copies will take about the same amount of time, but the way it is done is different. The firewire drive will transfer the data at a nice, even rate. The USB drive will sometimes go much faster, but sometimes much slower. Over time, it all evens out and the transfer time ends up being very similar.

So for normal computer use, either type of drive is fine. Lots of people use USB 2 drives and are perfectly happy with them.

But for video, it’s a different story. We’re not concerned with “average over time” when it comes to copying video off of a tape. We’re concerned with x frames per second and maintaining that number no matter what. USB 2 is a bad choice because those dips in the transfer rate lead to dropped frames. Firewire might not hit the same peak rates as USB does, but it will maintain a usable data rate at all times which is what matters most when you’re editing.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Change the easy-setup settings to something that’s 4×3. Let’s say DV-NTSC for example. Then create a new sequence in your project.

Then drag your orginal widescreen sequence onto that new timeline. It should automatically letterbox itself since Final Cut knows it’s a widescreen sequence.

Then simply export from there as the web-settings you’ve chosen.

[Jeff Carpenter]

This is a serious issue and should be investigated stopped at any company it is found at.

I do think, however, that it’s rather disingenuous of Mr. Stein to write that Steve Jobs benefited from this as if that’s a true statement. He was given stock options but they were never cashed and he’s since given them back. He never made anything off of them.

Which is not to excuse the behavior. It WAS wrong and hopefully there will be some sort of punishment rendered for the actions. Attempted wrongdoings should still be punished even if they don’t work out for the perpetrator.

But to write that he benefited when there was actually only the potential for benefit is pretty sloppy even if you are just a commentator and not a reporter.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Your best bet is to try and capture playing it from the exact same camera that it was recorded in. Most problems with LP go away if you return to the original camera.

If that’s also not working I suggest hooking the camera up to the deck with firewire and make a tape dub onto an SP tape on the deck. Sometimes things play a little better when you’re just playing straight through and not trying to search for in-points and stuff like that. Once you get a copy (the video quality will be identical) you can log and capture the copy.

Good luck!

[Jeff Carpenter]

So Safari doesn’t support some “obnoxious IM thing.” I hardly think that proves that Apple has given up on Safari. Remember that they tend to upgrade the program along with the OS which means a new version will be included with Leopard in the Spring.

Also, suggest Skype to your friend. It’s a cross-platform IM program that probably works better than anything web-based.

[Jeff Carpenter]

What kind of footage?

If it’s DV or HDV and you get an external firewire drive you should be fine. (Or firewire 800 if you’re getting the 24″ model.)

If it’s something other than those formats, well digitizing will be your biggest problem. Let us know if you’re trying to do something else, but for DV work I haven’t had any problems. (2 gigs of system RAM is not a bad idea either!)

[Jeff Carpenter]

AND…to save you the follow-up question:

The option you saw ALSO appears as a demo even if your friend had just installed the free Flip4Mac player. (Not the paid exporter.) So if you ask him and he doesn’t remember paying for anything it means that the WMV export option you saw will only export 30 seconds of video. When you pay for the real version it unlocks that.

[Jeff Carpenter]

This should help:

https://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/recommendations.html

The current Mac Minis should both be fine for what you want to do, but looking at that chart it’s easy to see how the first Intel SOLO Core Minis or the G4 minis didn’t have much of a chance.

But both mini models are quite a bit better now. They’ll still have trouble with 1080p material, but it doesn’t sound like you’ll be doing that so I think you’ll be fine. Based on the chart I am kind of thinking you’d want to get the 1.83 version rather than the 1.66, but that’s more of an opinion than a fact.