Mark Maness
Forum Replies Created
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Ok, guys….
I have to get into this one.
First, Apple is a company that prides themselves on quality, not quantity. That is commendable is today’s society. Next, you are comparing and expecting the new MacPro to be the fastest and most awesome computer on the market. It was Apple desicion to release the computers before releasing OS 10.5 Leopard. Yes, the machines are 64-bit and OS 10.4 is 32-bit… So, given all that there is at the moment. You really can’t compare the new MacPros until Leopard is released and the next version of FCP is released.
If you look carefully, FCP can STILL only use 2.5 gig of RAM. Why not more? I can’t answer that BUT Apple is doing its best to compete in a market that is dominated by PC and Avids. Let’s not compare apples to oranges…. Let’s wait until leopard comes about and see what advances in technology have been made. For now, I have to purchase a new system and it would be very stupid not to get the latest and best that Apple has to offer. You have to look toward the future when you talk about these things.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Check to see if your sequence is DV. I bet its set to 8-bit, of which, would be a problem for you and you would have to render everything.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Well, that’s beacuse PhotoJPEG is not a good playout medium. DV is a good medium for offlining. No rendering unless you want.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
I think DV Rack is PC only and mixing PC and Mac stuff can be a real headache for anyone…
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Sorry, David..
Sounds like your in a real pickle with this. Sounds like it would be a great time to discuss with your company the need for the capture cards to eliminate such problems in the future. Cheap investment compared to the time involved trying to figure out what to do with this problem. DV is on its way out as a medium of choice (for serious video professionals). HD is the way now and HDV is going to be an important part for the moment.
At this point, the only solution I see is that you convert all your HDV to DV using compressor and waiting a long time for it ro render out – OR – you can just drop your HDV on your timeline, use the Motion tab to adjust your framing and size and render as you go. Either way, the processs is going to be painful and lengthy.
As for your questions… recpautring a downconverted signal is rather easy in FCP and relinking is automatically done. The thing you have to do after downconverting is changing your sequence to the settings you downconverted. Easy. As for mixing on timelines… companies like AJA and Blackmagic are very misleading in their marketing. What they are really saying is you can capture any footage in the codec of your choice to edit in a timeline. And yes…. downconverting is technically a lesser quality BUT for the capture cards, it will look much better than a tape deck’s downconvert.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Oooo… Yuk! What a predicament your in?
I hate it when producers and directors don’t see the need to stay with the same format through a project. Especially a project such as yours.
My best advice is to have a system with a AJA Kona LH and use it to downconvert your footage to DV. IF you do this through the deck, the deck will make your blacks look extremely black.
Personally, I use a Kona 2 and the AJA HD10A component video converter. My audio come thru firewire – no sync problems at all! I have purchased a couple of the AJA HD10AVA’s to replace the HD10A so that I will have video and audio. The downconverted video looks great!
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What capture card are you using?
If you have an AJA Kona series card, you can send your 16:9 timeline to tape and use the Kona control panel to select a 4:3 center punch to write to tape. This will give you the best results.
If this is going to DVD and you don’t have a Kona card, you can always blow it up to 133% in the Motion tab. BUT this is going to degrade your timeline just like taking a JPEG picture and blowing it up to 133%. But it may be acceptable for DVD if that’s your final output.
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Export to H.264 – Apple uses this for all of their movies.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Nice to see a fellow XDCAMer out there….
WOW…. That sounds completely wierd! I use the software all of the time with my SD XDCAM stuff that I still have. Works just fine for me. Just wish I could select the audio channels I want to import.
Sounds like you had a drive going down already and when using this software, it killed it.
Now, that this has happend… You obviously lost everything. SO…. what I would suggest is to format the drives individually to see if they still work. And if they do, just restripe them and chug along. But I would suggest that you look into a pre-manufactured SATA drvie unit from someone like ProMax. Sometimes, homemade stuff won’t quite work in our field.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
It all comes down to budget, John.
Those of us who have tight budgets, get AJA boxes. Those who don’t, can get more.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com