[Kevin Hedin]

This has been one of my biggest complaints/feature requests since FCP 1.0. I use markers extensively, and it’s crazy that MOTION allows me to slide markers, but FCP won’t. I’m sorry to report that there is not an easy way to adjust the Sequence markers, however, here is a way to work around it (kind of). When clients come to view the progress of their project, they will typically have changes for me. I use the sequence markers to add notes/comments like color correct this shot, swap this shot with the previous, delete this clip, etc. Once I start making changes, I leave any ripple deletions until the very end, and take care of the other changes first. This way, I maintain the marker/clip relationship as long as possible. Then, if I do delete clips, I will LIFT the clip instead of RIPPLE delete for the same reason. Not until I have make all my changes, do I close my gaps.

Not really a solution, but it helps.

Personally, I think markers should play a double role. They should move when you want them to move, and stay when you want them to stay. Some people add markers that represent points in time that don’t change regardless of the edit. And some people use markers to make notes or chapter points like I do. If the sequence markers had some sort of TOGGLE between fixed and relational, it would be a great thing. Apple….are you listening????

[Kevin Hedin]

[gir] “Source time will show the original TC of the tape which was at 29.97 minus the pulldown frames. If you want to view a 24fps frame rate, use Clip time and that will give you what you need.”

Genius, pure genius. Thank you my friend for pointing that out to me. I hadn’t realized that difference, so now it all makes sense. Still though, my EDL’s are generating bogus TC, that are WAY WAY off. This, I think, is still a bug. AJA?

In answer to your question about editing 23.98 vs 29.97 in SD. There are several benefits, one is a 20% savings in Harddrive storage for the same media, a 20% frame rate savings for CPU intentive renders, also a 20% savings in storage bandwidth for multiple realtime layers. Creatively, and workflow wise, there are benefits as well, for instance, never accidentily cutting on an Interlaced frame as I would with Telecined footage. Also, when adding graphics in AE, I don’t need to remove my pulldown for each clip becuase that’s already been taken care of during capture. There are also benefits when you are ready to create a DVD of your project. Creating a true 24p DVD (like Hollywood movies) has the same 20% savings in storage requirements and bit rates savings. So you can maximise the quality or increase the length of your show on your DVD. Making clips for the web can also be at 24p and have the same bandwidth savings.

Hope that answers your question.

[Kevin Hedin]

So my original question still stands. Is there a problem in the way the new IO driver assigns timecode after removing pulldown from capture?

It would be nice too if someone from AJA would chime in.

[Kevin Hedin]

Jeremy,
I do see your point, especially when it comes to re-capturing. So why then does my EDL seem screwed up. Refering to my earlier post, I have footage on tape with standard pulldown (3:2) that I have captured and removed using AJA’s new IO driver. Once I have placed the resulting clips into my timeline and generate an EDL for another post house, my TC seems WAY WAY off. I will do another test, but there just seems to be something screwy going on and I don’t know if it a function of the new driver or what.

[Kevin Hedin]

Jeremy,
If what you say is correct, the how do you account for the fact that CINEMA TOOLS removes pulldown and generates a new TC that goes from 0-23, not 0-29 with missing frame numbers? If you have a clip with pulldown removed, in my book the TC should match the actual frame rate, anything else will just cause problems. What workflow do you use?

[Kevin Hedin]

Putting calibration aside, and using the default cinema display colorsync setup, my quicktime files are still washed out compared to the Motion canvas window. Only when I set my colorsync to APPLE RGB, did the quicktime file match the color of the Canvas window. In other words, the colorsync choices seem to dramatically affect the appearance of the quicktime movie, and not the motion canvas window, when you put them side by side. This did NOT happen in 10.3.9 and Motion 1. I hope I’m being clear, this is difficult to explain.

[Kevin Hedin]

Perfect, thank you. The process works extremely well. The motion project in AE has some acceleration but certainly not as much as it would be in its native MOTION app.

While motion2 is NOT an AE killer, it is sure my best plug-in. 🙂

G5 dual 2.7, 4gb ram, Nvidia 6800
OS X 10.4.1, QT 7
Final Cut Studio

[Kevin Hedin]

I’ve found that when adding Title3D text, if you only position and scale the text using the CONTROL tab, it should look fine. DO NOT adjust the text using the MOTION tab as this will most likely cause ghosting on your titles. I believe this is becuase FCP 4.5 does NOT perform sub-pixel rendering like AE does.

That being said, you can adjust your title position using the motion tab, but your vertical position has to be on an even (or odd, i forgot which) line.

I have to fix titles ALL the time when I go from OFFLINE (470 vertical resolution) to ONLINE (486 vertical resolution). Usually titles will look good one or the other have have to be adjusted up or down one pixel at a time.

[Kevin Hedin]

I’m certainly not getting my hopes up about the new driver. We’ve all heard about new drivers and new software (i.e. Control Panel) for a VERY long time. Promises shouldn’t be made by a company unless they KNOW they can deliver on time. Thier press release said the new driver would be ready when FCP 5 started shipping. FCP is ALREADY shipping, so where is the new driver? It’s happening again…

PS. I’m not trying to slam AJA, I love thier products…it’s just frustrating, that’s all.