[Larry Asbell]

You don’t say how you are generating the text but I suspect the problem is occurring at the point the text is created. Once that jaggy edge is baked in you can’t get rid of it at any later blurring or processing.

If you using Photoshop, Motion or the Boris 3D text tool they all have ways to slightly blur the edge of text before it is composited onto the background. Try doing that.

I’d also add, be sure not to scale up the text after it is formed. But looking at the smooth white text I don’t think that’s the problem.

– Larry Asbell

[Larry Asbell]

Thanks Matt for the communication about this update.

It should be mentioned that this update also fixes the problem of the BCS effects not working with only one graphics card and two monitors. That was my experience on two systems.

– Larry Asbell

[Larry Asbell]

Good to know. Thanks.
– Larry

[Larry Asbell]

Shane,

I’m wondering — when you upconvert SD to HD on capture how do you chose to frame it? I’m talking about when you plan to crop top and bottom to fit into 16:9. When I do this I’m always wanting to leave my options open to move the framing up or down later in the edit, but at the same time I want to do all the scaling at once for the best quality. It seems the choices are:

1) Capture pillar box and upscale it further during the edit to fill the full frame.

2) Up-convert with what AJA calls “Zoom Wide” which is like a reverse of the normal anamorphic. This requires that in the edit, you scale further vertically but you can control the centering.

3) Crop the top and bottom evenly which gets all the scaling done at once but locks in the cropping. If you need to adjust it, you can later recapture the clips one of the other ways.

I’m really curious what works out best for you as a default method, i.e. when you have to capture too much to decide shot by shot.

– Larry Asbell

[Larry Asbell]

Correct, no searching marker text in browser.

However marker text in timeline will be found.

In the browser, when you convert markers to subclips the marker name becomes the subclip name so you could search that. But the marker comment is not included.

[Larry Asbell]

I experienced this same problem on a system with Kona LHe card especially when editing 720 59.94 sequences. When I searched, I found lots of similar experiences with that card.

I followed lots of leads to improve this, in my case the thing that helped the most was getting the correct RAM configuration in the Mac Pro. There are a very specific directions as to how pairs of RAM are to be placed in the risers in a Mac Pro. Turns out I has misread them and was running with a less that optimum setup.

https://support.apple.com/kb/TS1957

However it would seem from the frequency of posts, that the LHe card is especially sensitive to sync playback problems. I’ve never read that a solid fix has been arrived at. I still occasionally see the problem after my RAM fix.

Typically the sync of playback will go out after doing edits in the timeline and then playing through a section that has unrendered clips. Usually pausing for an instant then playing will cause it to catch up. If it is still out, I’ll load any other sequence into the timeline, then switch back to the first one and the problem will be cured for a while. It’s as if forcing FCP to rebuild its buffers clears things up for a while.

With everything rendered I don’t experience the problem.

I’ve never experience this problem with my other system that has a Kona 3 card. Both are Mac Pros, with SATA RAIDs, 8 to 16 gigs RAM, Leopard.

Hope this helps,

Larry Asbell

[Larry Asbell]

One very important additional step to add to Mike Raff’s explanation: Before you drag the batch of clips to a timeline, make sure there are no In or Out marks on the clips! To see this, set the bin to Show In and Out columns. If any of the clips show a TC number in those columns then select all clips and right click on any In TC and select “Clear.” Do the same for the Out Column. Now all clips should show “Not Set” for Ins and Outs. If you don’t do this your sequence would contain only the marked section rather that the whole of each clip.

– Larry Asbell

[Larry Asbell]

[Andy Mees] “You can solo and mute both source and sequence audio by using the Audio Mixer tool window (Opt-6) … just set the source to Auto.

Excellent Andy! That escaped my notice but it works just great.

Too bad about lack of visible indication of the source audio channel. FCP clearly keeps track of that info internally, but no where does it let you see it.

– Larry Asbell

[Larry Asbell]

[Michael Gissing] “but the days of going to DV to save a bit of space are over.”

HELL-LLO? Aren’t we’re talking home movies from VHS here?

[Larry Asbell]

Yea, good idea to first try feeding the VHS out right into the capture card. Capture a minute from a variety of tapes and look at the stability of the frame. If any breakup was introduced then you need timebase correction.

Feeding through a DVD recorder is an excellent way to timebase correct, as is passing the video through a DV camera that has an analog input. Either method should be every bit as good as a dedicated TBC, and better than some poorer quality TBCs of yesteryear. If you’re using a DVD recorder, use the component outputs for best quality.

ProRes is great, but DV resolution is pretty good and for home movies you may like the significant space savings.

A good way to go is to capture whole tapes, then break down the events/shooting sessions with markers and extended markers. Read about these if you don’t know. Once you’ve marked all the sections, you can make subclips of all of them at one go then media manage the subclips so every event becomes a separate file.

Good Luck