Joe Murray
Forum Replies Created
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also, tried the Macintosh Desktop display but it requires me to also use the client monitor – bit of neck strain to look up at it so I’m trying to figure a way to keep the Adobe Bridge interface on my monitor AND display it on the client monitor-
Joe Murray
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Charlotte, NC -
What Bob’s getting at is that what’s legal is whatever you can get away with, and this is going to be different from one network to another. PBS and Discovery have tighter standards than others, but if you want to be safe you’ll continue to stay in spec. If you plan to deliver to networks that value quality, you should learn to work within the specs they require, and then you’ll still be safe delivering to anyone else.
Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC -
I’m actually considering downgrading to 10.4.11 – I bought a new system that had Leopard installed, but there are so many things about it that are slower, I really miss the stability and speed of 10.4.11. I think Jeremy agreed with me on this in another thread, that Leopard at the finder level is sluggish, and it’s also slower at logging on to our internal web server which is on a PC. This login was instant on 10.4.11.
On a final Cut station, is there any good reason to run Leopard over 10.4.11?
Apologies if this is a thread-jack…seems relevant enough since we’re all talking about whether or not to install an Apple update.
Joe Murray
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Charlotte, NC -
The comments about ordering from out of state to avoid sales tax always puzzle me, because if you’re in business and want to write off the cost of the computer, you have to keep a record of what you’re writing off and its value. And most states require businesses to pay sales tax on items they purchase for their own use (officially it’s called Sales and Use tax), whether they purchase the items in state or not. Once you create the initial paper trail of taking the write-off, which is worth much more than the couple hundred dollars sales tax, you’ve created a trail of business assets that can be easily viewed if you ever are audited by your state dept. of revenue (which I was this year). If you haven’t paid sales tax on those items, you’ll pay a lot more in penalties than the amount you saved by not paying the tax.
I have no idea if you’re purchasing this for business or personal use, but since you’re in the video business I’m sure you can easily justify writing off the entire expense in one year even if it’s just for your own educational purposes. And maybe New York doesn’t have the same sales tax requirements for business that NC does, but New York is not especially known as a tax haven.
Having been audited recently, I was very relieved that we had followed the law, and had nothing to worry about except having to locate all the right paperwork.
Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC -
One thing you may want to try is to create your shows in a progressive instead of interlaced format. Graphics and footage that are interlaced typically look much worse on computer monitors and plasma displays because they are best at displaying progressive frame rates…they’re progressive scan monitors, not interlaced, and interlaced formats produce lots of artifacts when displayed on them.
For any DVDs we make where we have control of the frame rate from start to finish, we try to stay progressive rather than interlaced, usually at 24 frames per second. You’ll have to render your comps at the same frame rate, edit in a timeline of the same framerate in FCP, and then encode for DVD, not just take your existing 29.97 material and encode it to 24. Try a test with Compressor and DVD Studio Pro and see if this improves your quality.
Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC -
I have had this problem as well, and it was trying to update a 6.0.2 project to 6.0.3. We were able to fix it by trashing preferences and restarting, but it was pretty annoying given that the .3 update is buried inside the Pro Apps update, with no warning that it will be installed.
Joe Murray
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Charlotte, NC -
The weakness in FCP’s media management, in addition to the problems with speed changes and stills, is that FCP primarily links to media based on filenames rather than reel number and timecode. It will tell you if a clip you’re trying to reconnect is different than it expected, but because the filenames can be very short and simple and are created by the user rather than the software, it’s possible to have a duplicate filename and cause confusion about which clip should be reconnected. If you happen to have two instances of a shot on your drives, with the same filename, FCP is not smart enough to sort out which one goes with your project. Reconnect searches the drives, shows you the first option it finds and doesn’t look any further.
Avid’s underlying database is better. Not sure all the metadata it tracks, but it is a whole lot easier to do an offline/online workflow with Avid. At a very basic level, the filenames are much longer and are created by the software, not the user, which makes it more difficult to screw things up because the software will not create two files of the same name. I’m not as current on Avid as I used to be but this is my understanding of how it works.
Autodesk products have an even better media management/archiving system than Avid…best I’ve ever used, but it comes at a huge premium.
Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC -
I’ll second that one…LTO-3’s price per gig and long term reliability is hard to beat. Not a great mobile solution though. I have the LTO-3A but I wouldn’t try to travel with it.
Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC -
We charge an archiving fee of $150 and back up each project to a Quantum LTO-3A tape drive. The cartridges are about $50 for a 400 gig cartridge and they’re much more reliable long term than hard drives. Downside is the tape drive costs about $7,500, hence the archiving fee. I can’t remember any time I’ve offered a client the option of an archive that they’ve turned it down, even with the cost.
As far as liability, I make it clear to clients that we recommend they keep a copy of each project master, and that anything we store for them is purely out of convenience to them, and that we’re only liable for replacement cost of the physical media. You can also include a page of terms with estimates or invoices that says as much in writing.
Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC -
Hi Del-
Hope things are going well on your side of town. I have the HVX200 and a Wiebetech RTX enclosure that allows me to buy bare hard drives and use them for backups of P2 media. They have a variety of interfaces – USB, firewire, eSata – you just insert a drive and fill it up, then eject it and start on a new one.
I tend to prefer separate drives rather than a RAID 1, because if both drives are in the same enclosure and it takes a hard hit or is dropped, both drives can be damaged. Not likely, but if he’s going all the way to Darfur to shoot, playing it safe is a good idea. Separate drives mean they can be stored separately in case of theft.
Wiebetech also has protective cases for bare hard drives.
Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC