[John Fishback]

Have you trashed prefs & repaired permissions? Run Disk Warrior, too. Those are the first things I do whenever something odd happens with FCP. It’d also help if you tell folks about your system – software and hardware.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[John Fishback]

I’d export with 8 or 10-bit uncompressed or ProRes. You want it in the highest-quality SD codec the other edit house can use. DV will look awful compared to HD.

It’s important that in Compressor in the Encoder tab in the Inspector you set all the quality settings to Best.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[John Fishback]

The other option is also to change the pitch up or down depending on whether you slow or speed up the footage. I know Pro Tools will do that. My guess is you can also do it in Soundtrack Pro, too. Try a search in the Apple Soundtrack forum and see what pops up.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[John Fishback]

You could use the DV PAL codec and IMHO not lose any visual quality. However, if you are adding graphics you might want to use DVCPro50 or ProRes which will maintain their quality at a much higher level than DV.

Do the conversion with Compressor and make sure all the quality settings in the Encoder tab of the Inspector are set to Best. The conversion will take a while.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[John Fishback]

What you are seeing with 24p is normal. If you search the forums on jitter, judder, stutter you’ll find many posts. If you get a copy of the American Cinematographers Manual there’s a table of recommended pan rates for different frame rates and f stops. Speed of pan and depth of field have a lot to do with how much stutter you see. With a shallow depth of field with the bkg out of focus the effect is less. The sensor size of your camera has a lot to do with it as smaller sensors (1/3″, 1/2″) sensors have less depth of field than larger sensors – 2/3″ and up. Some cameras add the proper shutter for a given setup or scene file so make sure of how your camera operates before adding manual shutter settings as you can make things worse. In film terms the shutter is 1/2 the reciprocal of the frame rate, so for 24fps your shutter is 1/48. In video terms that would be 180 degrees. If you don’t have an aethestic/emotional reason to shoot 24P I’d suggest shooting 30P as it’s much easier to put it into a 29.97 editing timeline. 24P or 30P records the signal in a 60i (59.94 or 29.97) timebase by adding pulldown. 24PN or 30PN records exactly 24 or 30 fps. If you shoot with P2 cards you get much more footage on a card shooting PN vs. P. However, it might complicate your life editing depending on your delivery specs. You can read discussions about this for days there’s so much info about it on the Cow.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[John Fishback]

How are you monitoring your edit prior to exporting.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[John Fishback]

I agree with Dennis. I think HQ is overkill. Try regular ProRes (SQ). You won’t lose anything with an HDV source.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[John Fishback]

You need and I/O card or box. For viewing only a MXO would work. https://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo/

A Kona card or box (there are many choices) would allow you to both view and output as well as capture from tape or other sources. https://www.aja.com/products/kona/ There’s also a MXO 2 which gives you in and out.

If you simply hooked your monitor to the second DVI output what you’d see is more desktop. It would not allow you to see high-quality HD as you would with one of the other solutions.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[John Fishback]

I tried using Compressor starting with a flv ending with 8-bit uncompressed. While the quality wasn’t great (started with a 320×240 400kb/sec flv) the final file had video and audio.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[John Fishback]

I’ve found rebuilding the system drive solves many of these kinds of issues for me. However, unless you can get the disk image to a CD that works as a startup disk, you won’t be able to do that. Both of Steve’s suggestions make sense. Hopefully, they will help you get going.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN