[Kurt Reitz]

Thanks, I have a call into him now.

Kurt Reitz
EGT Communications
Editing-Graphics-Training
Colorado Springs, CO

[Kurt Reitz]

If this were a personal purchase I would be all over it. Unfortunately this has to be a corporate purchase in the 3-4 week timeframe. I am currently specing, so I can ask for the right amount of money and then we have to purchase new. If the EX1R is end of life we will look elsewhere…. Right now we are trying to assess why they are unavailable.

Kurt Reitz
EGT Communications
Editing

[Kurt Reitz]

I learned that even in High School when I helped the teacher with an Apple II+ there are people that had the theory and then struggled with follow through. In these days of increasing edit complexity the number of people that can keep up with the details of all of the tools and still be creative are dwindling. They have a few strengths and just skim the surface of the rest.
I’ve enjoyed several cycles of consulting over the years with products from the GVG 200 and D2 based editing to the Stratasphere and the Affinity to currently explaining what format my customers might use in a particular FCP edit and why 4×3 looks funny in an anamorphic timeline. I do enjoy it, sometimes it is frustrating, but when they are succesful with their small window of understanding it is satisfying.
I do agree about the limited skillset though. I had a recent college graduate the other day all hot to edit with his new FCP “skills” and called asking why his SD video was blown out. I asked him what the scope in his edit bay said….. uhhhh scope? Yeah the thing with the green lines…. Uhhhh….
We didn’t even get into the fact that his video was likely overexposed in the camera and all detail was lost….
I saw the project later…his fields were inverted in an AE project, he had flash frames of black, he was blowing up 120×120 gif graphics to fill the screen and he didn’t even know what an alpha channel was much less what might happen if it was a pre-multiplied or straight key.
His parting comment to me was “High five, it’s a good thing we know what we’re doing!”
Uhhh….Right…
What are they teaching these days….?

Kurt Reitz
EGT Communications
Editing

[Kurt Reitz]

It looks like the first shoot I had with our HVX out of the box. Note that all of the settings start out on automatic, including the white balance and the iris. I had nicely lit and shot a guy with a grey shirt after setting the white balance then I shot a guy with a blue shirt very close to chroma key blue under the same lighting and he turned out rather orange…go figure. My experience is that the iris will also run dark in it’s auto mode.
It seems very unlikely that the import darkened and changed the hue of the footage. If it really did so there are larger problems looming.
Good thing that color correction is a lot easier these days.
Cheers!

[Kurt Reitz]

The fastest shut down is to hit control-option-command-eject at the same time. It will do an immediate close verything and shut down. This was one of the best kept secrets of OS 9 as well.

[Kurt Reitz]

22 years as an editor, AJA IO, 10bit to component to PVM-20M4U good enough for you monitor wise?
Now that we have the little questions out of the way….
Let me suggest to you that adding a motion alpha graphic generated externally from FCP to a timeline and then adding shadow to it from the motion tab will cause a field reversal in the render. Try it with any pre-rendered motion graphic with alpha that has a short move (about 2 sec). The alpha has to have internal movement and the video frame has to stay stable to make this apparent. I just saw it again five minutes ago.

Kurt Reitz
EGT Communications
Editing

[Kurt Reitz]

I too second the motion for a bug with the drop shadows. Here’s what I see on revisions of work that was perfect in 4.5 and opened in 5. When I have an aftereffects piece or a livetype render with a premultiplied alpha(the cat eyes effect comes to mind) and then I add a drop shadow it appears that the fields have reversed on that piece when rendered. I have chased that for 2 solid days before I gave up and went to plan B and generated my shadows elsewhere. I can repeat this on command to this day. Now I see it in work that was completely generated in 5.
My second pet peeve bug is the fact that a Livetype motion render is premultiplied over black and FCP recognizes it as a straight key. A single exported frame of the same piece is recognized properly with a black premultiplied alpha.
Now having gotten that off of my chest I happily work around it all and get the same results even though the software is WRONG!

Kurt Reitz
EGT Communications
Editing

[Kurt Reitz]

I’m not offering legal advice here, but ask yourself have you EVER seen anyone actually drink alcohol on a national level commercial in the states? Do you think there might be a reason?
Contact a savvy media lawyer please.

[Kurt Reitz]

AE defaults to premultiplied black on it’s builds with alpha. FCP always looks for the straight key signal as a default. This can be fixed on either end with the correct settings. FCP has the settings for alpha key under Modify>Alpha Type. There are options for None/Ignore, Straight, Black, White. Depending upon what the background of your key is use the approriate one.
You may also be creating some issues in Photoshop and how AE recognizes the key. If you are importing graphics always know your background and how your key signal is derived.

Kurt Reitz
EGT Communications

[Kurt Reitz]

I can confirm the instability with 22-27 firmware on my system. Yesterday I had to cycle power 2 times on the IO due to the component outputs essentially shutting off. The S-VHS & composite outs worked and I didn’t check the SDI outs. One time was switching from FCP to Entourage and the second time was just while pausing during an edit.
I must say that before this I had 1 power cycle in two months.
Cheers to a great tool! I have been very happy with the IO.
Kurt Reitz

Dual 2.0 Ghz G5
10.3.8
2.5GB ram
FCP 4.5HD
ATTO UL4D/Huge 1.2TB Mediavault