[Jim Glickert]

(1) If the Sony HVR-A1U works for you, then go for it and don’t look back. Sony makes great equipment.

(2) It’s a no-brainer to make sure that the camera you want works well with the editing software you’ll be using. If a camera records in a format that’s going to be nothing but a hassle with which to work, forget it. I do relatively simple stuff, yet it feels like I spend more time dealing with technical and software issues than practicing the art of video production.

(3) I believe the Canon Vixia HV40 is indeed tape-based. Canon’s Vixia HF series camcorders are flash memory based.

(4) eSATA connections, like that on your WD drive, are very, very fast, and, in my opinion, the best way to go for video editing. I could very well be mistaken, but I don’t think there are any adaptors available to connect a flash memory card to an eSATA port. However, your iMacs do not have eSATA connections on them, so that makes this a non-issue for you. You’re stuck with using FireWire with external drives.

(5) The new iMacs have a card reader slot (I believe it’s for SDHC flash memory cards). I assume that footage for FCE can be ingested through the card slot, but ask others or check the specs to be sure. If that can’t be done, I guess you would transfer the footage with the camera connected to the computer via FireWire.

As discussed in many posts here on the forum, the new iMacs are very enticing for video editing. For many people, they’ll work fine. If they had eSATA connections, Apple would sell tons more of them to video editors, but that would cannibalize Apple’s sales of expensive Mac Pros. They obviously knew that when they didn’t add an eSATA connection to the new iMacs.

(6) The Canon HF-S cameras look very good. As I see it, the base model (HF-S100) records only to an external SDHC memory card, while the HF-S10 and HF-S11 also have internal memory cards (32GB and 64GB, respectively) as well, but they cost $200 and $400 more than the base model. I’d probably buy the base model and use some of the $200 or $400 saved and buy some additional SDHC cards. You’ll be able to find other or future uses for those extra external cards.

(7) By the way, if you live in a big city where there are TV stations and newspapers (most newspapers websites that offer video), you might give them a call to see if there may be opportunities for you and your students to get some help or experience in the future. Even unpaid summer internships for the students would be invaluable experience for them, even if it’s mostly grunt work. The stations might even have unneeded or outdated equipment to donate to you.

(8) Don’t forget tripods in the budget. There’s nothing more amateurish–and painful to watch–than shaky video footage. The smaller the camera, and the more you use the telephoto effect, the more you need a tripod. I say this after recently editing my family’s vacation footage from the 1960s. I nearly hurled while working on it. 🙂

Good luck!

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

Hi Katy. First, I feel for you. That is one heckuva crash course in video that you’ve undergone in the past year. It’s a wonder your head isn’t spinning. I’ve been doing hobbyist-level video work for about 5 years, and sometimes I still feel overwhelmed by how much more there is yet to learn. I’m glad I don’t have a bunch of students for which I’m responsible. I’d hate looking dumb in front of them. 🙂

I started out on Final Cut Express, but quickly outgrew it since I needed a pro-level motion graphics package, which Motion provided in Final Cut Studio.

I’ve really liked my Canon miniDV camcorders: an old Optura 100MC standard definition, and an HV20 high definition model. (The HV20 also records standard definition, and has since been replaced with models HV30 and the current HV40.) The HV20 works beautifully with my MacBook Pro, and the quality of the video is outstanding. (I also have an old iMac G5, but I don’t really use that for video anymore–the processor’s too slow and I haven’t put a lot of memory in it.) So, take a look at the Canons. By the way, I transfer my HDV footage to Final Cut Pro and use the ProRes codec. It works great.

I can’t help you on the pro-level camcorder recommendations. I’m looking to do that eventually. I’d probably go with Panasonic or Sony if I had to choose today.

Personally, I don’t want a videocamera with an internal hard drive. It means my shooting is limited to the hard drive’s capacity if I don’t have access to my editing setup. I’ve recorded events where I’ve used four or five one-hour tapes. I don’t think I’d be able to do that with an HDD camera. The tape transports on the Canons have worked flawlessly for me, though I’ve had a few nightmares from bad tapes. My next camera will probably not be tape-based; solid-state memory like that on Sony and Panasonic looks to me like the way to go. At the consumer level, tape-based camcorders are nearly extinct.

Frankly, I’d record everything in high definition. You can always downconvert to standard definition. Yes, it’ll require more storage and more time to render and compress, but someday nearly everything you do will probably be in HD, and you may regret not having recorded that old footage in HD. When I do an HD project and use some of my old SD footage from the archives, the SD footage looks so bad in comparison. Most TVs are HD, and as the Internet gets faster, more web content will be HD, so why not jump on the HD bandwagon?

I know this doesn’t come close to answering all of your questions, but I nevertheless hope it helps in some way. Good luck!

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

I don’t know if this will work for you, Dave, but you might crop your video–specifying feathered edges–and then use an unfeathered matte or mask (placed on another video track) that overlays the first layer and has the effect of cropping out just the feathering you didn’t want. (In other words, you’re doing a second stage of cropping.) I haven’t tried it, but it’s a thought in case you’ve completely run out of ideas.

I hope my suggestion makes sense. Better yet, I hope it’s easy and works. 🙂

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

Thank you, David and Phillip. Like Ben, I also noticed the “Pan -1” setting but didn’t understand it. And, like him, I was concerned that I had a problem.

At your urging, I just opened up my FCP 6 hardcopy manual (Volume III, page 119) and read all about panning audio in FCP. Now, I fully understand. I guess this thick stack of manuals is actually worth something. 🙂

Thanks, guys, for being generous with your time and knowledge.

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

Hi Roger. I can’t authoritatively say which format is best, but I know what works for me.

Most of my projects are 1080i, edited on FCP using ProRes. I export the finished timeline to a QuickTime self-contained movie, then take the resulting .mov file and compress it (using Compressor) to an H.264 file. Finally, I use Flix Standard to convert the H.264 file to Flash. (Yes, I know that simply changing the .m4v extension to .flv will work, but I like the ability in Flix to make minor adjustments, if any, to some of the video/audio parameters.) Then, I upload the .flv to my website. (If you’re planning to upload to YouTube or other sites, you’ll want to check out their requirements first.)

One thing worth mentioning is that my Flash files are much smaller in size than the H.264 files from which they’re converted (without much difference in quality, in my humble opinion). For example, a recent video of mine that started out as a 30GB QuickTime was compressed to a 300MB H.264 file, and then to a 135MB Flash. For viewers with slower Internet connections, the ultimate file size can be pretty important.

Hope this helps.

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

Hi Matt.

My MacBook Pro is also two years old, and I’m experiencing the same crash problem whenever FCP and Motion are both open. I like the portability of my MBP, but if I didn’t need that benefit, I’d be inclined to go with a Mac Pro. The new 27″ iMac is pretty interesting, but I have an external eSATA RAID that I couldn’t use with it. If I knew that an external FW800 RAID would work well (I only edit HDV footage captured using ProRes), then I’d probably go with the iMac, since an iMac plus a new FW800 RAID would probably be cheaper than a Mac Pro.

In short, if I had to make a decision today, I don’t know what I’d do. You’re on your own. 🙂

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

Hi Lucas. Here are some things to try:

(1) Make sure you haven’t made a simple mistake by patching the VCR outputs to the ADVC outputs, for example. It happens. Make sure the VCR outputs are connected to the ADVC inputs.

(2) Make sure the ADVC is set up in the correct mode–i.e. digital or analog. The LED on the front will tell you. Try it both ways.

(3) In FCP, try Easy Setup for “NTSC-DV FireWire Basic”. I see that “DV-NTSC” is available, but give this other one a shot.

(4) Is FCP “seeing” your ADVC? That is, does it indicate that there is indeed a FireWire device connected to your computer?

I’m away from home and my ADVC unit right now, so I can’t think of anything else at the moment. Sorry.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

Hi Kathy. Here are the steps I take to put my home videos on my own website.

(1) From the FCP timeline, I export the finished sequence as a self-contained QuickTime movie.

(2) I open Compressor, and compress the QuickTime movie using the “Apple Device–H.264 for iPod video and iPhone (640 x 480; 1.5 Mbps)” setting. (You may want a different setting.) Using this setting, a 17-minute long, high definition (1280 x 720; 30p) QuickTime movie, for example, that was originally 8.6 GB in size was reduced to just 194 MB.

(3) THIS IS A STEP YOU CAN SKIP. I take the resulting file and, using Flix Standard, tweak it a little more (by sometimes adjusting frame rate, audio rate, output size, etc.) to get exactly what I want. The result is a Flash (.flv) file.

(4) Using Dreamweaver CS4, I create a webpage to play the video, then upload that page and video to my web host’s servers. If you are instead planning to upload to YouTube or other public video websites, you may have to do things differently.

If you would like to see a sample of my finished product, go to https://www.gojim.tv/Videos.html and choose a video.

It wasn’t perfectly clear to me whether your wedding video was a video of a wedding that you recorded, or a video of your own actual wedding. If the latter, congratulations!

Hope this helps.

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

Hey, Chris. It could be any number of things. Here are some ideas (sorry if I repeat some you’ve tried):

(1) Do you have your camcorder in the correct mode–that is, “Record” or “Play”?

(2) Close any other applications that could conceivably be causing a conflict. I had that problem once. (You don’t have any other FireWire devices in use, do you?)

(3) The message you’re getting doesn’t suggest that it’s a settings issue somewhere in FCP (e.g. system settings, sequence settings, etc.), but double-check them.

(4) Is there a setting in System Preferences that needs to be changed?

What kind of plug is on the end of your microphone cord? Is it a 1/8″ plug that you could simply plug straight into your computer, thus negating the need to involve your camcorder in the process?

Hope this helps.

Jim

[Jim Glickert]

Hi John. I use the CalDigit FASTA card with a CalDigit S2VR DUO RAID drive and MacBook Pro, and it works great. All of my video work is in HDV. As to whether it’s the fastest card available, I don’t know, but it’s fast enough for me.

Jim