[John Ward]

Thanks for all the suggestions, folks. Indeed, I have the 1,1 version and cannot, apparently, boot into 64-bit to fully take advantage of it. We will be moving to a newer Mac Pro soon and that will not be an issue. I still need to be able to test our trial PP through our card before then, however, so I’ll start bugging the Blackmagic folks, I guess. That aside, Premiere seems much more professional than the last time I used it (circa 2000-2001, I think) and seems like the direction we want to migrate from FCP 7. Thanks again for the help and I’ll post when I discover the answer.

cheers,

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions
locomation@yahoo.com
john.ward@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[John Ward]

I must be because I’m not sure how to boot into the 64-bit.

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions
locomation@yahoo.com
john.ward@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[John Ward]

I have not. To be honest, since they recently declared they were ‘fully supporting Premiere Pro’ I took them at their word. Point taken, though. PR and engineering are definitely two different departments.

thanks,

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions
locomation@yahoo.com
john.ward@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[John Ward]

You could also use an applescript / TextEdit combo to automate this. Export an xml of a bin, use applescript and TextEdit to change the levels on each clip. You could either save to the same xml or make a new name to differentiate. Import new xml and the entire bin should be changed the same way.

For that matter, you could set the applescript up with a couple/few dialogs for input and tell the script to change all the levels and by how much, set pan, apply video and audio effects with the parameters you want already set … etc. And if you generate a new xml and import it, you never have to quit FCP. Huh … I may have just talked myself into a project.

Anyway, it’s possible to automate it but you’ll have to put some time into Applescript and TextEdit to get there.

Cheers,

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions
locomation@yahoo.com
john@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[John Ward]

We just had this happen yesterday to an HD clip with Blackmagic 8-bit codec. Same thing … no rhyme or reason – just showed black on timeline but clip came up fine in viewer. Quit FCP and came back and everything was just fine. First time it’s happened, though.

We’re running OS 10.6.2, 2 x 2.66 dual-core Xeons, 7 GB RAM, Blackmagic Multibridge Pro, FCP 7.0.1, Mostly DVCProHD with some ProRes 422

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions

john@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[John Ward]

You could also try MPEGStreamclip from Squared5 software. High quality scaler – we’ve been doing all our HD to SD scaling through it because it looks much better than either FCP or Compressor’s scalers and it runs pretty quickly. Easier to get in / out of than Motion (for us, anyway) and does batch lists. And it’s free.

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions

john@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[John Ward]

We’ve had some luck using the ESI Gigaport HD – USB interface, 8 audio outs, headphone out – and mixing in STP with reference video for timing. Not the ideal solution but it got the job done. Link for the Gigaport is here:

https://www.esi-audio.com/products/gigaporthd/

We also used it in FCP using the 5.1 monitoring to get client approval on the basic surround mix done in STP but with the nice big HD footage playing at the same time. Trying to do the same in STP with full HD video playing wasn’t smooth enough.

Since we had a 5.1 receiver sitting here we also just burned tests to a disk image and used the optical out of the workstation to check that the encode worked without wasting disc after disc.

I know there are much more technically accurate and elegant solutions but it got us where we needed to go with the budget we had. Be happy to answer any questions if you have them.

Good luck,

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions

john@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[John Ward]

No problem. If I think of anything else or we come up with a better solution I’ll let you know. In the meantime I think you’re right: Photoshop, Livetype or Motion would all work pretty easily right from the timeline but Photoshop is probably the fastest.

Good luck,

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions

john@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[John Ward]

Hi, Kimberley –

we have noticed the same problem upon occasion but I can’t say I’ve gone back to isolate it and track it down. If I remember correctly, however, ours seemed to be related to changing sequence presets after some titles were created. Or perhaps it was copying and pasting titles from one sequence to another, each with different presets.
The short workaround is to do exactly what you are doing. Before you lament the addition of another step, though, it is likely actually saving you time. With more complex timelines, different sized source material, lots of effects / titles / etc. Compressor can really slow down. Exporting a self-contained movie from the sequence using whatever the sequence is preset to and then taking that file through Compressor has made our workflow much faster despite the additional step.
The long-form solution is a little fuzzy but here it goes: we made a new bin, dragged all the title files from the sequence into it and exported an xml. We then opened the xml in a text editor and took a look at what the settings for the title files were and found that they didn’t match the sequence exactly. I don’t remember why but the size and/or scaling and/or aspect ratios were different because of changing the sequence preset after they were created or copying and pasting them into another sequence with a different preset or something like that. Anyway, we just changed the info in the xml in a text editor to match the sequence preset. We then imported the xml back into the project and replaced the old title files with the newer ones.
This method has also worked well for us fixing timecode mismatch problems and generating new title files. On bigger projects we create a title template and export an xml. Some lowly intern at the front of the building on a piece-of-crap PC can then open it, replace the character string section with new text and save it as a separate xml file. We then import the individual xml’s later and each one is the correct font/color/leading/etc. based on the template but we didn’t have to tie up an edit machine to do it.

Let me know if any of this helps.

Cheers,

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions

john@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533

[John Ward]

Hi, Simon –

we haven’t used FCP7 Share yet but we’ve done several big Blu-Ray projects using FCP / Encore / Toast. A couple of things to note: we’ve found some of the more complex navigation through Encore (i.e. using ‘stories’ to jump in and out of a single track) work well in simulation mode but not on the burned Blu-Ray. Using separate tracks for each jump point solved this … it’s less elegant but effective. We’ve also seen some compatibility issues if the encoding rate through Encore is set too high, even if we’ve used Compressor for the MPG-2 files. And, last but not least, I’m not sure if Encore still has the 25GB limit for Blu-Ray projects but you can get around it by outputting the project to an .ISO image from Encore and then using Toast to burn that to a BD-R DL. We actually fit a 3+ hour HD program onto a Blu-Ray this way.

Cheers,

John Ward

Editor / Animator,
Synergetic Productions

john@synergeticproductions.com
https://www.synergeticproductions.com
315.437.7533