Jeff Carpenter
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I don’t think there’s a way to use firewire that way. Maybe there is, but I’ve never heard of it.
I have several firewire drives hooked up to one Mac with 2 other Macs connected over gigabit ethernet. They have no trouble accessing the drives and the connecetion is very fast. You just have to make sure your maintain the gigabit speed…that all the routers, hubs, and ethernet jacks are up to that standard.
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What Gunleik said is pretty much it. Do you want to run Windows or do you want to run OS X (with the option of Windows too)? For me, the ability to use OS X and Final Cut is all I need to know. It’s no choice for me.
Since you seem program ambivalent here’s what I found, hardware-wise. I raised the Macbook pro to a 200 GB hard drive and ended up with a price of $2,900. The Sony on Amazon is $2,150 after rebate. So what differences are there for that $750? I may have missed some things, but I quickly counted up 13 “pros” for the Mac, 3 “pros” for the Sony, and 2 features that are different but coudn’t really be called “pro” one way or the other.
It’s up to you to decide if these extra features are worth $750 to you.
PROs for the MAC
* Macbook Pro has a 2.33 gHz chip to the Sony’s 2.0 gHz.* Macbook Pro has a 1680 x 1050 screen to the Sony’s 1440 x 900
* Macbook Pro RAM is faster. (Mac’s 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300) to Sony’s PC2-4200 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM.)
* Macbook Pro has 256 MB Video RAM to Sony’s 128 MB. I think the Mac’s card is faster too, but I’m not sure what that means, exactly.
* The Mac’s ethernet is Gigabit 1000, the Sony’s is only 100BASE.
* Sony’s firewire port is 4-pin only, cannot power items. Mac’s is 6-pin.
* Mac has Firewire 800 port.
* Mac has backlit keyboard.
* Mac has sudden-motion sensor that stops hard drives from spinning if laptop is dropped, hopefully preserving data.
* Apple claims “up to 5.5 hours” battery life, Sony claims “1.5 – 2.5 hours.”
* Mac weighs 6.8 pounds. Sony weighs 8.4 pounds.
* Mac is 15.4″ x 10.4″ x 1″
Sony is 16.4″ x 11.8″ x 1.32″* Mac can run OS X and Windows.
PROs for the Sony
* Sony has a Modem, the Mac’s is sold seperately and external.* Sony has TV tuner
* Sony has some kind of “Electro-Static touch pad” as an input device. I’m not sure what that is, but it’s listed on the Sony site.
NEUTRAL Differences
* Both have express cards, Mac’s is a newer, smaller standard, but this means there will be more cards for sale for the Sony since it’s older.* Sony has memory card reader, but for Sony cards, of course, not other standards.
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If you want a TV tuner for a mac you should look here:
They have a couple of different products.
As for the Sony, can you link to a page with the exact model? I can’t really give advice on a computer if I don’t know exactly which one it is and what it costs. Searching the Sony VAIO website for “QR250G” doesn’t bring up anything.
Give us a link and I’d be glad to compare the pros and cons for you!
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I know iMovie has a feature that does this. It works with any firewire camera.
When you switch to the camera input there’s a selection for time lapse capture. You can work in DV or HDV and then export it as a quicktime movie and import that into Final Cut.
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I’m not sure exactly how you want to use the deck, but be aware if you get the DSR-11…it will record PAL from a PAL timeline or it will record NTSC from an NTSC timeline. It will NOT convert the video for you. If you’re trying to change it from one format to the other you need to get a plugin for Final Cut or a program that will convert it within the computer before you output it.
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Run system update and download everything it offers. Then update the Final Cut studio programs. Then run the update again.
Also, unplug any external storage during all of this.
Other than that, I can’t think of any other standard issues.
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I really don’t know anything about video in Australia but I don’t think I NEED to know anything to answer this.
If I were you I’d send him with an NTSC DVD and a PAL DVD. Simply put, it doesn’t matter if 99% of Australia uses one format or the other…if your guy ends up visiting the 1% that’s different, he’s gonna look bad.
If your company was invited because someone there really wants your product, that might be ok…they’ll go out of their way to make it work since they already want you. But it sounds to me like your rep is gonna have one shot with each of these companies to really impress them. Not having a DVD that plays right will probably sink him with that company no matter WHAT else he says or does.
So give him both. Normally I wouldn’t suggest going to so much troule for redundancy, but in this case it seems to me that the stakes are high enough to justify the extra effort.
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Got my terminology messed up…
I MEANT that VBR is supposed to be just like CBR but take up less space and look the same. For some reason I was thinking 1-pass = CBR and 2-pass = VBR but that’s not always the case.
My mistake, you are totally correct about 2-pass VBR being a better image than a 1-pass VBR. For some reason I was just thinking 1-pass means CBR when I said that.
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Then I’d go with zrb’s suggestion. FCP -> Firewire -> DV Deck -> S-video cable -> DVD Recorder
There’s a slight generation loss there, but it’s probably not very much and it will be “live.”
If quality is the MOST important thing then I’d say dub it to a DV tape and then run that off to the DVD over firewire. Takes twice the time, though. I’d go with the “live” option myself.
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If you’re making a DVD then MPEG II is your only choice.
Testing with a 5 minute clip is a good idea but we’ll use the 120 minute settings so that you can judge what the final quality is going to be.
When you export in Final Cut or drag a Quicktime into Compressor it ends up in “BATCH” window. First, go to the “PRESENTS” window, open the “APPLE” folder, go into “AUDIO FORMATS” and drag the “DOLBY 2.0” file over onto your video.
Next open the folder in “PRESETS” that’s called “DVD: Best Quality 120 minutes – 16:9.” Click on the MPEG II file in that folder and then click the “Duplicate” icon at the top of the list. (Let the mouse sit on each button and a pop-up window will tell you which is which.)
Then go to the very bottom of the list to the “CUSTOM” folder. You’ll see a copy of that MPEG file. Click on it and you’ll see the settings for it appear in the “INSPECTOR” window. Go ahead and change the name of this to the name of your project so you know what it’s for. You’re altering the copy now so it’s ok to mess with it. Click the 2nd icon in the INSPECTOR and then click on the “Quality” tab. Change the “Max Bitrate” to 7.0. Then drag THAT file over to the test video too.
NOW comes the fun part. Duplicate the duplicate settings a few times. Let’s say 3 more. Then, go into each one and alter it slightly, number them 1 to 4. So we’ll end up with 4 different video compressions that are all slightly different. Try setting the 4 like this:
1) Average 5, Max 7
2) Average 4, Max 6.5
3) Average 3, Max 5.9
4) Average 2.6, Max 7Those are just some guesses on my part, but start with that. Drag all 3 of those to your test file. Click “submit.” Then drag all of the files you get into DVD Studio Pro and burn a test disc. See how the different settings look.
That’s a start, but you really have to apply those settings to your 120 minute final video to see what size the video and audio (the compressed Dolby file) all end up as. You want to get as close to 4 GB as you can. If everything’s low, raise the settings and try again. It’s a trial-and-error thing. It’s impossible to predict exactly what you’ll get until its compressed. This is where having a fast processor can really help.