[Jonathan Capra]

I gave this a try and still no deals… I tried creating a new project and dragging audio into it and it behaves fine.

I even tried cutting and pasting my animation tracks from the original project to a new blank (but audio-friendly) project file, but it seems to not let you cut and paste items from between two open projects.

Any further ideas?

[Jonathan Capra]

well i have noticed that dropping a DV 720×480 clip onto a ProRes (or other 40:27 aspect) 720×486 sequence causes it to automatically offset by one pixel ever since version 4 or 5. However if you have a DV clip on a 720×480 sequence, and change the sequence settings to 486 afterward, it won’t offset it, but the video will appear blurry.

As far as why I am importing DV sequences for nesting into an otherwise ProRes project? We periodcally do news package shows.. Some of the packages are edited in DV, some in ProRes… I like to import the actual sequences made on these other workstations into my overall show project, rather than exporting a single video file, so that I can make tweaks to them in the eleventh hour if need be, right from the main project.

The thing is, this really screwed me up because it ultimately meant that, in the 11th hour, I had to render long segments (some were 7 minute interviews) before I could print to tape.

[Jonathan Capra]

Now that I’ve actually gotten some experience with our first bit of footage shot on the JVC-250, I can confirm my issues with MPEG-2 as an acquisition. My mind had a hard time wrapping my mind around using any interframe codec during acquisition. And what it comes down to is, in my years of shooting/editing DVCAM I never came across a single frame that looked like this:

https://www.kb2nea.org/creativecow/HDV_peggage.tif

And I don’t really want to hear about how you just have to know how to light it right or pan correctly. The fact of the matter is that if I was recording that same moment with the same conditions and camerawork with our Sony DSR-720, it would have only 525 lines, yes, but it would not look like Q-bert took a crap on it. I am reverting to my original stance as HDV being a stopgap.

[Jonathan Capra]

Yeah they need to add this ASAP.

[Jonathan Capra]

OK I reset the PMU and I replaced the battery. Still getting a message saying the clock is mis-set upon bootup, and still getting black flashes on Firewire out during playback.

Any other thoughts?

[Jonathan Capra]

Hey awesome tip! I am going to try that today..

Come to think of it, when booting this Mac I will often get an error message saying that the date is wrong. Think both these issues could be PMU/battery related? Or just coincidence.

[Jonathan Capra]

Got those ATI Radeon 9800’s. We’ll see if they work tonight..

In the meantime, I took a followup survey for Apple on my support experience. I wrote the following:

I spoke to a sales representative in December prior to putting together a purchase proposal for upgrades to our edit suites. I saw the minimum system requirements for Final Cut Pro 6 was a 1.25 ghz G4. I had two G4’s that we wanted to keep in service, simply as cutting and tagging stations, using standard-def DV only. However it was important that project files be interoperable between workstations.

I called one of your sales reps to confirm that my G4’s would work properly with Final Cut 6 for the uses I outlined above. They confirmed it would work. I asked if there were any other factors that I was failing to take into account before purchasing copies of Final Cut Pro 6 for the G4’s. The rep said no.

We went ahead and ordered those copies along with two new MacPro workstations and associated software from a third-party vendor, for a purchase totalling $16,000 in Apple equipment and software.

When it came time to upgrading the G4’s with Leopard and Final Cut 6, I soon found the installer complaining about the video card in our machines. Nothing was mentioned about the video card during pre-sales calls, nor did I expect that it should — being that Apple and your representatives should know what video card were installed in 1.25ghz G4. One would think that if the minimum requirement is set at a 1.25ghz G4, then it would be compatible with all the hardware that shipped inside said G4.

Final Cut 6 did install, but upon attempting to run the program, it would complain about the video card again, but then crash and close upon clicking the Continue button.

When I called for assistance in the problem, the representative took a fairly apathetic attitude toward my issue. At first, he asked me if I ‘had considered purchasing another computer.’ I explained that I had purchased two brand new computers, and would have considered purchasing more if I had been warned during the pre-sales call.

He kept saying very unhelpful things like ‘I dunno.. That’s a really big upgrade…’ In the end, he reluctantly referred me to a third-party expansion card to replace the stock one that he felt might bring the machines up to minimum requirement.

But in the end, it was an online discussion group where I got the support that I needed — where other users were able to confirm that upgrading the video cards did in fact remedy the problem. But it is my strong opinion that your representative should have worked with me till the end to figure out how to resolve the issue.

I have just purchased two video card upgrades and intend to give another try at getting Final Cut Pro 6 running. Hopefully my problem will be solved, but if not I will be in touch… and hope that Apple will give me a better support experience.

[Jonathan Capra]

Im wondering which of these two cards is actually better:

1: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI%20Technologies/100435068/

2: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI%20Technologies/100435065/

The 9800 is more expensive, but it only has half the VRAM??

[Jonathan Capra]

So Warren,

Just to confirm.. You had Final Cut Pro ‘poofing’ right after opening it? Then you bought that new card and it went away? Also, are you running Tiger or Leopard on the G4?

I just want to triple-confirm that the video card is the solution.

Thanks!

[Jonathan Capra]

The thing is we went straight from Panther to Leopard on these machines. Is Tiger even still available for purchase?

Also would those of you that have FCP6 running on your G4’s mind noting what video cards you have in them?