[Lars Fuchs]

Just had the same “white frame in pause” problem, and found that the dropdown was set to ALPHA instead of RGB.

[Andy Wood] “my settings but all correct. (ie it IS set to Alpha)”

When I set it to RGB everything went back to normal. I’m using FCP 7 too. Don’t really know how this got changed, but happy it was an easy fix. Glad I thought to search the forum before undertaking any more radical repair measures!

[Lars Fuchs]

[Lu Nelson] “With still images, if you start loading a lot of them in to the timeline it slows you down”

As soon as I read this I cranked up the still image cache in the system settings to %75 (I have 10Gb in my MacPro), and I think that’s helped a lot. (goto the Final Cut Pro menu, then ‘system settings’ shortcut=shift-Q, then go to the ‘memory & cache’ tab and crank up the still cache a ways. Of course you need loads of RAM in your system, but seriously you can never have too much ram).

[Lars Fuchs]

[Rafael Amador] “With two HDs, one reads while the other writes.”

That’s what I was thinking. I had forgotten of course that the eSata is faster than FW800, so when the render is done, playback performance would be better from the CalDigit. But the actual rendering process should theoretically go faster to separate drives. And when the render is a big one, might that add up to a meaningful savings?

What about for Compressor? would the same apply, rendering to a different drive than the source file?

-LF

[Lars Fuchs]

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Keep it comin’, folks!

I have no need to capture analogue audio, and for those rare cases my M-Audio Transit works just fine. I never have to capture from analogue decks like beta SP’s or the like. I also don’t master to tape – I send harddrives to a mastering faciity for that.

That’s why I too feel that a mixer is overkill – unless of course its a Euphonix or other control surface that interfaces with FCP. But a ‘dumb’ mixer whose faders don’t talk to FCP is a waste IMHO. All those high quality eq pots and effects sends just go a-wastin’.

On the other hand a control surface that can double as monitor mixer/source selector? Does the Euphonix or Tascams do that? Or are they just for mixing within apps like FCP or Logic? My budget doesn’t really stretch so far. But if they can handle the monitoring requirements then I might consider holding out. If I don’t spend 300 bucks now on a monitoring solution I’ll be able to afford the Euphonix that much sooner.

Again, thanks for all the helpful feedback! Keep it up!

[Lars Fuchs]

Follow-up: on page 7 of the Using FxScript pdf, I found this

Tip:
It’s possible to create filters of your own that work in real time. You must make sure that the Realtime According To Budget option in the Real-Time Effects (RT) pop-up menu in the Timeline is not selected. This allows your own FXScript filters, transitions, and generators
to run in real time.

So setting my RT options to “Unlimited” (obviously the FXScript pdf I’m reading is a bit out of date!) gave me an orange render bar rather than red. Joy! Now, just need to figure out the DropShadow. Can anyone help there?

Thanks

[Lars Fuchs]

Thanks! Can you recommend a codec? I’m editing captured video game footage at 1440×900, 24fps. (I’m using 24fps mainly to keep file sizes down, as temporal resolution isn’t an important factor to me.) All my experience is with Avid (proprietary codecs) and FCP (ProRes, DV, and DVCProHD, mainly), so I’m grateful for your input.

-LF

[Lars Fuchs]

Spotted a typo in my response:

[Lars Fuchs] “then either press Ctrl+= (win) or Cmd+= (mac), Right-click, or Ctrl-click in the timeline window.”

Should read:

then either press Ctrl+= (win) or Cmd+= (mac), Right-click, or Ctrl-click in the Composer window.

[Lars Fuchs]

You can change this behavior in the ‘Composer Settings’ panel. Open the panel by clicking in the Composer window to make it the active window, then either press Ctrl+= (win) or Cmd+= (mac), Right-click, or Ctrl-click in the timeline window.

The Composer settings panel has several tabs. Select the ‘Edit’ tab, and look for the checkbox called ‘Auto-create New Tracks’. Turn it off. This will prevent avid from automatically creating new tracks to accommodate whatever you’re adding to the sequence.

In the settings tab of the project window, you can duplicate your composer settings file, and switch between them simply by clicking in the space to the left of it. You can also use workspaces to automatically switch between groups of settings, so that if you find you like things set in different ways depending on the editing task at hand, you can use keyboard shortcuts to swap your settings instantly.

[Lars Fuchs]

No, D1 won’t play in a D2 machine. The D2 format is throroughly composite; it basically samples the composite signal (y & q separately, if I remember correctly) and records those samples to tape.

There was talk at one point of sony providing an add-in card which did allow you to record d1 component on a D2 tape using the D2 recorder. I believe that the card had all of the D1 circuitry and it simply bypassed all the original video-processing hardware of the D2 and went straight to the tape, essentially using the D2 transport as a data-drive. That would have been cool; I know a facility I worked at really wanted something like that, but I don’t know if was just vaporware or a real product.

The D2’s were very popular not simply because they were cheaper than the D5’s and Sony’s D1’s, but because facility owners could ‘go digital’ without having to replace existing composite gear. D2 switchers, routers, dve’s etc were available, though I don’t think they were very popular. DigiBeta came along together with SDI and made the switch to digital component relatively painless.

I think the theory behind the SDI card for the D2 machines was to allow facilities that had switched to component digital to integrate their legacy d2 machines.

[Lars Fuchs]

Thanks… It never occurred to me to try Particle Playground! Excellent idea.

And thanks for cluing me in about the expressions forum – i’ll repost there. I didn’t realize that it existed.