Jerry Alto
Forum Replies Created
-
Jeff- I was having problems also. Check your system (Mac HD>System>Library>Quicktime) and be sure you have the ‘Quicktime MPEG2 component’ (not just MPEG component) plug-in loaded there. I Recently loaded Tiger, FCP Studio and Quictime 7. I no longer could open mpeg2 files in Quicktime. Apple tech support stepped me through the fix. Kind of confusing but you need to go to:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/download/.Strange thing about it is that it says its for Quicktime 6.5 and you’ll need to load in your software serial number for your original FCP software (starts with a C) not the FCP Studio serial number. The downloaded dmg installer runs and places the Quicktime MPEG2.component in the proper place
(Mac HD>System>Library>Quicktime).I am sure that this has something to do with MPEG2 licensing and Apple is selling the MPEG2 component for $20 for quicktime purchasers.
Hope this helps.
Jerry -
Robert- Another option you might consider is hot swappable Sata drives. We just setup an external Sata array (dual
300s- 600 GB) and the cost was about $650 including drives, controller card, external enclosure and hot-swap trays.
We shoot for drive prices at $.50 a GB (just about the price of Beta SP video tape at 8-bit uncompressed). Ours is set up as a raid system and is super fast, but I’m sure a single Sata will knock the socks off a firewire drive speed wise. The external enclosure will hold 4 drives but we are only using two drives and swap them out when we switch projects. We have an old PCI controller card that only has two channels. Seritek now makes one with 8 external channels! Our plan is to buy extra trays at $20 ea and put drives on the shelves when they are full. We have firewire drives also but they are slow transfering big loads. Hope this helps.
Jerry -
Jake- You didn’t give an explanation of your system so its tough to say. But lets say your working with DV and you have a DV deck and you monitor your work on a NTSC monitor that is looped off of your DV deck firewire connection. Just loop another composite video stream (and audio) from the DV deck to the vhs deck.
Jerry -
Bill- I think I understand your question (I visited your website). You have client/producers who would like to deliver their projects to you as a FCP project/movie and then you would go off to digital tape. We have done this a couple of times now and it works really well. We work in 8-bit uncompressed 1/2 hour shows. We export the final show as an 8-bit uncompressed quicktime movie to our SATA raid. It takes about 20 minutes and the file size is about 30 GB. We then dump the self-contained movie to a firewire drive and take it to our dub house.
They copy the movie from the firewire drive onto their G-5 (w/FCP) internal SATA drive then launch a FCP project with the movie as the only asset and go out SDI (AJA io) to any tape format we want. Bingo- no digital/analog conversions and no codec compression issues and we have a digital uncompressed copy of our show!
The key is that your clients provide you with a self-contained movie (you don’t want to start dealing with timelines and individual media files) in the format they want to go to tape with and that you have the matching codec loaded in your FCP system ( I believe Black magic provides all the major codecs). I hope this answers some of your questions.
Jerry -
Daniel- It doesn’t matter that you have no audio on other tracks at your trim point. The double arrow selects ALL material on ALL tracks in the direction of the arrows and when you move them they ALL (tracks) stay in sync.
-
Daniel- If I have read your question correctly; place play head at trim point>Apple a (select all)>razor blade at cut point> razor blade at end of material to be trimmed> select and delete unwanted material>
tool menu select tracks downstream (double arrows pointing right) to select ALL tracks> right click in gap created and choose close gap. Done deal. Hope this helps. -
Rob G.- From FCP export>compressor>select the quality (60 minute High Quality)>also select destination of the files (I like to use my 2nd internal drive rather that MacHD). No worry about size restrictions until your timeline gets to over 60 minutes.
-
Jonathan- From your info I see no EXTERNAL drives. You say your 150 GB drive is almost full and you are going to your other drive. Does this mean you are trying to capture video and audio to your SYSTEM drive!? If so its a major no no. FCP rule #1: Never digitize media to your system drive.
Your solutions are; 1. dump old media off your 150 drive to clear out space and re-set it as your scratch drive. 2. Plug in a fast external firewire drive (if you are doing DV). 3. Install a pci card and build an external raid.
Hope this helps.
Jerry -
Amy- Don’t know if I can help but that ‘560 gb junk capture file’ intrigues the hell out of me. We edit Beta SP 8-bit Uncompressed and 30 gigs is right at 1/2 hour. That makes that one file more than 9 hours of 8-bit uncompressed. Wow…. that means Hugh probably choked on a side of beef and needs a heimlich!
I recomend that the disk be erased and re-formated mac os extended (not journaled). But first empty the trash.
Hope this helps.
jerry -
Juggs- There are three areas of a project; FCP project file, graphic/audio files to help build graphics/audio within FCP and media files (digitized footage). Typically the FCP project file is very small 1-4 mb. The graphic files are also relatively small depending on how much of the project came from photoshop, graphic stills, etc. The media files are huge.
When we back-up we obviously save the FCP project file and the imported graphics that were used in the project to a CD. We dump the media files (if we have the original video tapes). If we have to re-open the project we re-load the graphics files on a hard drive then launch the FCP project file, then re-link the loaded graphics files. Then we batch digitize the missing video files from the original tapes. The project is re-loaded and ready for changes.
In your case on this project where you are continuing to use the browser/bins from the previous project you want to archive, I would do a ‘save project as’ from the file menu and name it with the new project name. You’ll now have two projects open in FCP; old & new. I would close that new project then I would delete all the unrelated items from the old project so that it is a clean stand alone project file you want to archive. Then copy that FCP project file and graphic/audio files to a CD.