[Jeff Carpenter]

Running two OSes at the same time may very well be a part of Leopard. No official word on that yet but it’s something many computer people are looking at for the future and, well, if there’s one company that likes to advance technology, it’s Apple. So it’s very possible.

This is something chip-makers like Intel are trying to design chips for, in fact. What this COULD mean is that the current Intel Macs will continue to be dual-boot machines while future Intel-Macs would have the hardware to allow simultaneous running of two OSes. Kind of like how current Macs use Core Video technology if the video card is good enough and skip it if they aren’t good enough.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Walter knows what he’s talking about, but even if you’re happy without using slugs there is ONE time where it’s more important than other places.

If you end your show with a dissolve, the playhead tends to stop right on the last, faintest, part of the dissolve. If you use “Print to Tape” then it puts black at the end and you’re fine, but if you export to DVD it’s possible that the DVD player might freeze on that last frame for a second before jumping to the next track. It looks messy.

So you should either put 1 or 2 frames of slug at the end of your program OR extend the audio track out 1 frame past the dissolve. Either way you get one last “clean” frame of black that could be important later on.

[Jeff Carpenter]

You don’t need to worry about that.

Being a creative person can sometimes be more trouble than it’s worth, I know. Letting your mind wander can be a great asset in this business but sometimes thinking TOO hard about computers will lead to worries that no engineer would have ever thought of. I’m laughing here because this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I would think of…the sort of thing that causes my computer-knowledgable friends to give me weird looks when I ask them about it.

The short answer is that Final Cut only cares about what it has to play. It’s very selfish that way, but that’s a good thing since, as you pointed out, it would only waste resources to do otherwise.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I wonder what the strategy is for Apple to run an OS that even Windows is trying(badly) to replace
================

Simple. They want to give people who want to switch but are afraid a crutch.

Apple is betting that Windows users will make a dual-boot Mac their next computer, they’ll like OS X more than Windows, and when it comes time to upgrade again in a few years they’ll say “hey, I hardly ever flip over to Windows that much…I probably won’t even bother putting it on my Mac this time.”

This may LOOK like they’re trying to “play nice” with Windows, but this is actually the first shot in a war on Windows.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I googled “iPhoto for Video” and came up with a few programs that are trying to be like…well…iPhoto for video!

Not quite perfect ’cause it would be the video without the photos, but maybe you could use one of those AND iPhoto and switch back and forth? (Apple-Tab key will save you!)

This one seemed to get good reviews:

https://www.waterfallsw.com/ivideo/

…although you should do the same google search and check out some of the others, too. They seem to range from $20 to $80 on average.

[Jeff Carpenter]

And while you’ve booted off the OS X CD like Simon said (hold C while restarting with the CD in) you should try repairing permissions from the software on the CD itself.

Might work then.

[Jeff Carpenter]

as far as the USB being bad for video,? Do you think it can handle dv25?
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No. It’s not a matter of the data rate…USB2 is certainly FAST enough for DV. It just wasn’t designed for it. It may achieve very high speeds for a moment and then drop to nearly nothing at the next moment. Firewire was built to sustain a constant rate.

So if you’re measuring the copying of files from one drive to another they’ll end up being about the same, but if you’re trying to capture video from a deck you’ll end up being unhappy with USB.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I don’t work with HD but I can offer these two facts:

1) I’ve gotten good results going directly from and SD project
2) I’ve heard that it works just as well with HD

So no, I don’t have any experience with it but I think it’s worth your time to try it!

At that lenght I’d suggest a CBR compression around 6.0 (just a guess, I don’t know your content…be prepared to try it again if it’s too big or too small).

You should open up the “90-MIN Best 16×9” preset that’s in there and duplicate it. Look at the settings and see what they are (I can’t check where I am). I’d start with that one and modify it. Be sure to watch for any of the widescreen or anamorphic checkboxes. (That may all be taken care of in DVD Studio Pro…but check here, just in case.)

You can also make your AC3 audio files from here too. The “Dolby 2.0” setting does that.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Yes, try Compressor but be sure to export directly from the Final Cut timeline. In other words, don’t use a reference file. Use EXPORT>COMPRESSOR in the menu.

What is the total length of your project?

[Jeff Carpenter]

Hey, I didn’t know what an AAF file was until today either! It seems like there’s a new one every day. I certainly don’t know them all either.