[Mark Raudonis]

What kind of “color correction” system are you using? I’m assuming that you can’t/won’t/not interested in using “Color” within Final Cut Studio.

Answering that question will enable us to give you accurate advice.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Have you looked at CATdv?

There’s a forum for it right here on the cow.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

[Bob Zelin] “What can you have for 40 bucks – a kick in the pants off this forum.”

Quote of the year from Mr. Z. !!!

mark

[Mark Raudonis]

I agree with Walter on this.

We burn through thousands of DVD’s a year. Cheap is good! So what if one or two make turn up as “coasters”? The difference in price from the high end to the low just doesn’t seem justified.

As far as I can tell, the biggest savings is when you buy in bulk… not so much the individual brand.

So buy a hundred at a time and you’ll be down in the “cents per gigabyte” range.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

That’s a case for the the “reshoot” plug in .

Not much else you can do with something that overexposed.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

I’m loving CatDV so far.

Here’s my next question: We’ve sent our one hour interview out for transcription, and it’s come back as a text file with TC numbers as text. I’ve copied and pasted the entire text file into the “Log NOtes” box, and it’s great.Now, I’d like to have the text “scroll” with the video as it playes. Is it possible to somehow sync up the TC references with the text files? In other words, how could I easily enter the TC references (approx one per minute) so that they lock up to the picture?

Thanks.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

In addition to Kevin’s suggestion, I’ll share a bit about how we handle this.

We have a large SAN which is shared by dozens of editors. Obviously, the kind of match framing you’re talking about becomes very problematic across multiple projects. Our approach is to treat the entire SAN as the project. In other words, you organize your media using the standard MAC OS file structure. More importantly, you do NOT rename your clips… you decide on a filename structure and stick to it. If you absolutely need to call your clip “CU Dog peeing”, then put it in the “Comments” column.

So, when you go to “matchframe” your clip, it will NOT show up in the project, however, there is a key stroke called “Reveal in Finder”. Boom! FCP will automatically take you to where the clip lives in the finder. If you are diligent about keeping your media organized, this method works quite well. We do hours and hours of reality TV per week and we’d never make our air dates if it didn’t work.

I’ve written an article about sharing projects in FCP. You can google for it: “Sharing projects with FCP”.

mark

[Mark Raudonis]

Thanks Rolf,

I just bought a full “pro” version. While we already are heavy users of “Pilotware”, I like the way that CatDV handles images, and enables a user to quickly navigate a mountain of media. The audio waveform on the bottom of the player is a nice touch!

There certainly are projects where CATDV will be the right tool for the job.

Mark

[Mark Raudonis]

I think you need a new client!

Prores is an improvement over his DV originating format. If he doesn’t understand this,
you’ve got bigger problems ahead.

mark

[Mark Raudonis]

jerry,

Your experience mirrors my experience. First Avid? Ver 4.0 on a Mac Quadra in 1993. I think it cost $60K.

You can certainly give AVID credit for “developing” the NLE, but I don’t think they’ll be around to see
the “democratization” of the NLE. That honor has to go to Apple. Harvard MBA’s will be studying this story arc in classes for years to come. Title: “How to take a world class brand and screw it up”.

I do see them morphing into a “server company” as Terry Curren suggests.

I’m thrilled that my original, simple, factual post generated such a dialogue. Meanwhile, I’ll stick with our 100+ seats of FCP and X-SAN, thank you very much.

Mark