[Joe Langenfeld]

Thanks, I will try to install FCP in Rosetta using Get Info.

And no, Walter, flip4mac does not work on MacTel, yet. (they have announced a beta version).

Will these software gaps be fixed by the time the G5 replacement is announced?

[Joe Langenfeld]

I have a similar config with 8 Seagate drives, and double the speed results….it’s no fluke…

[Joe Langenfeld]

I’ve had this happen when the deck is not in input reference. Setting it to Input video ref instead of EXT may help.

[Joe Langenfeld]

I have a MacBook Pro 15″ dual 2 G. I can’t use FCP 5.1 because I use a lot of filters that are written in the Adobe Plug-In format, which is not yet Universal, so they don’t work. I have an AJA IO for SD I/O, but I can’t use it because it will use my only firewire port, which I need for an external disk. The 17″ will have a FW800 port, but it would be nice if someone would come up with an ExpressCard/34 FW800 or SATA card.

If you can wait and work around these issues, go for the Intel. If you need to work right away, the Quad G5 will be good for awhile. It may be 6-12 months for all the 3rd party software to get Universal, and hopefully maybe there will be some expansion cards by then. I want to wait myself, but I’ve got work to do, so I’m buying another Quad G5…(but I’m keeping the MacBook Pro!)

[Joe Langenfeld]

First of all, the sequence which holds the nested sequence may need to be re-rendered, even if it thinks it does not. Second, I’ve noticed that if you have the nested sequence already open, and you double-click the nested sequence within the parent sequence, FCP HD 5 may make a “copy” of that sequence which does not exist in the bin. So you may have several “ghost” nested sequences which do not relate to the original saved nested sequence. Once this happens, you will have to open the sequence by double clicking inside the parent, and then changing it.

Or just recut the nested sequence back in. Another thing I’ve noticed…if you edit a sequence into a sequence, it will update, but if you copy and paste, it won’t update later on.

[Joe Langenfeld]

Yes,I’ve seen the leading changes, but not for awhile, it could be a 4.5 thing. I am now using 10.4.6 and FCP 5.1, and it seems to be OK. But Boris Title 3D seems to be the one thing that flakes out, no matter what version! I have had to close the title 3D window by hitting Apple+W when the mouse freezes in 5.04. Now in 5.1 title 3D crashes occasionally…and it seems that Title 3D is the only thing that makes FCP 5.1 crash.

Another “feature” of 5.1 on Intel is that you loose plug-ins written in Adobe AE format, previously supported. This includes many great FCP filters.

So it’s time for someone to write a title filter in Apple’s plug-in format. (And I’m still waiting for the ADO/A57 DVE…come on guys! We can still beat Avid to it!)

[Joe Langenfeld]

I have a Macbook Pro dual 2G with 2G of ram, and I just installed and have been using FCP Universal 5.1 on OS 10.4.6 . I would not reccomend this setup yet…several filters, esp. DFT, do not work, and Boris 3D text is not stable. There is only firewire 400, USB or ethernet for external storage at this point. Also, I have had problems using a second monitor. The playback began flashing, so I disconnected it. I use several layers of effects, and I have not seen G5 type performance yet. Making an Mpeg 4 QT takes longer than a G5. Mpg 2 is missing from the QT export options, I had to use Compressor.
The DVD-R is slow, (4x).
Previously (yesterday!) I was running FCP with Rosetta, which is not officially supported, but seemed to have less bugs. However, Compressor did not work under Rosetta, but now works with Universal.

When a FW800 or sata express/34 card comes out, and a few software upgrades stabilize, plus new versions of filters, this may a nice setup.

[Joe Langenfeld]

I have 3 FCP systems, all with current software, and one of them, only one (G5 dual 2), won’t let me export from FCP as MPEG2 because of “serialization error.”

I reinstalled DVDSP from Final Cut Pro Studio, but I think I need to delete the serial number authorization and then try putting it in again. Of course, it runs fine on it’s own.

What file should I delete so I can reset the serial number?

Or, maybe one of us should call Apple!

Joe

[Joe Langenfeld]

Thanks for the tips…when I installed Tiger, I backed up the disk to FW, formatted with 1’s and 0’s, and installed fresh, software updated, then installed FCP HD 5. But I will do it again on one system to see if it helps (after adding more RAM for a total of 4 GIGS).

As for Graphics cards, the faster ATI is better than the older one, but they both performed much better under 10.3. The nVidia card, which is the slowest compared to the 2 ATI’s, seems to perform better in FCP HD 5. I understand that the new Motion requires more video ram and performance, maybe FCP HD5 has higher needs also.

But before I experiment with different cards, has anyone done this first and care to share? Is the fastest card with the most video RAM card always better? Is there a difference in FCP between ATI and nVidia?

Thanks,

[Joe Langenfeld]

I had similar problems when I first started using 5, but now it’s fine. I wish I could pinpoint what fixed it, but here are some things I changed…

I made new window layout settings and new custom keyboard settings and saved them (even though they were imported from 4.5).

I toggled easy setups and refreshed AV devices.

Overall, for what I do, it’s much faster than 4.5…