Matthew Brunn
Forum Replies Created
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The current line of laptops at Apple.com will do what you need with HDV. The nice thing about the Mac laptops is you can run Mac and PC operating systems on one machine, the best of both, I feel.
As for longevity of the computer, that is a personal issue. I plan for 5 years of use. I max out RAM, Harddrive and get top of the line unit. Then by the 3 year mark, I’m way behind. Define your needs for the next five years and buy. You will ALWAYS be out of date with computers.
Hope this helps-
Matthew
Quad 2.5 G5
OSX 10.4.X
Ram 4GB
FCP 5.1/AE 6.5/DVDSP4 -
You are correct, partly. The parts of your edit that don’t have titles or have any filters will be identical to the original footage all the way through the edit and on final DV tape master. Any titles effects or re-compressing from other programs such as AE will hurt the image quality.This being said, the hit is not as bad as some tape formats. Some people composite DV footage in AE at 10bit uncompressed to lessen the noticeable effects of re-compression. Graphics mainly take the biggest hit, in my experience. Workflow will depend on your clients quality needs. We used to be a BetaSP shop, now we shoot and edit HDV/DV and our clients don’t see any difference. We don’t do broadcast so if that is your client base maybe someone with that client set can commit how to maintain quality.
As for working in AE and re-compressing this is what gets re-compressed. Footage imported from capture scratch is original and not affected. Once you export out of AE it will re-compress. Importing the file into FCP from AE will not affect it, given that it matches your timeline settings for DV. Add any titles, filters or effects on the timeline the AE import will be re-comressed again. That could be 2 re-compressions but I still think it looks good. Some have higher standards needs. We just go to DVD for our clients and they love it.
Hope this helps-
Matthew
Quad 2.5 G5
OSX 10.4.X
Ram 4GB
FCP 5.1/AE 6.5/DVDSP4 -
You can give the cable or TV stations any format and they will slaughter it. First they don’t air your file. It is typically loaded onto their spot real that being a tape or server. Either way it is out of your hands.
Hope this helps-
Matthew
Quad 2.5 G5
OSX 10.4.X
Ram 4GB
FCP 5.1/AE 6.5/DVDSP4 -
That is possible about the OSX but others have that deck and are not experiencing the same issues. Just a good idea to have the deck checked out because you with no options as is.
Hope this helps-
Matthew
Quad 2.5 G5
OSX 10.4.X
Ram 4GB
FCP 5.1/AE 6.5/DVDSP4 -
If you tried another computer and the you get the same I would blame the deck.
Hope this helps-
Matthew
Quad 2.5 G5
OSX 10.4.X
Ram 4GB
FCP 5.1/AE 6.5/DVDSP4 -
Well it starting to sound like a hardware trouble. Do you have another suite to take the deck to for testing?
Did you try another firewire cable?
Hope this helps-
Matthew
Quad 2.5 G5
OSX 10.4.X
Ram 4GB
FCP 5.1/AE 6.5/DVDSP4 -
Possibility is a bad Firewire cable.
Try digitizing in another user. Just create one for the test and try to capture a few seconds. If it works you know that the user prefs are corrupt. If it still crashes try…
If this is the case then go into Mac HD>Users>Your user>Library> and take the entire preference folder out to the desktop. Then I restart FCP and see if it crashes. I add back some of the old prefs into the newly created Pref folder and restart FCP. Repeat until FCP crashes and you found your corrupt Pref file.
Hope this helps-
Matthew
Quad 2.5 G5
OSX 10.4.X
Ram 4GB
FCP 5.1/AE 6.5/DVDSP4 -
Dealing with clients can be a real challenge. PC or Mac you can still work with your client. I FTP things for client approval freqently. You need to understand their needs first. The approach I go for is, define the requirements of each client then exceed them. Some clients will never be satisfied but knowing which are which come with time.
Time: Why do they need to see it? Can he wait for a day to see the footage? I would DVD it and FedEx it to them. If not then on to>
Quality: This can be subjective. Image size, codec, compression amount. Is this for reference? Proxies for effects? What are their minimum requirements for viewing?
Cost: Is it worth a faster connection? If you have cable you can get (typically) a business package that has faster upload. Is it worth FedExing daily? Will this fit in your bid? Price it out. Will the client pick up the cost? What is it worth to THEM to have “high” quality footage daily?
Work with your client and define their needs then kick in a little better service to keep them. If it is not making you money, it will eventually cost you big in the long run with that client. They need to understand your limits and you need to respect their budgetary concerns. Tell them strait what can be done for what price. The respect needs to run both ways. Good luck with the project.
Hope this helps-
Matthew
Quad 2.5 G5
OSX 10.4.X
Ram 4GB
FCP 5.1/AE 6.5/DVDSP4 -
Cable is faster than your DSL. DSL is maxed out around 1.5 Mb per sec when cable typically goes to 6 Mb. If you can get cable, check to see what speed they offer before switching. It is more expensive but if you need the speed it is worth it. Higher bandwidth will help with downloading from the web but not really speed up your wireless connection. The wireless is the weak link in the chain here.
You don’t have to change internet services to create a wired home network. Setting up a home network is simple. Gigabit is a little overkill for the internet at this point. A simple 10/100 base-T router ($50 bucks) will give you all the bandwidth your three computers can handle with DSL or cable. You may already have the router you need. If it has either jacks on the back of the router you got it. Just run cables to your computers.
Hope this helps-
Matthew
Quad 2.5 G5
OSX 10.4.X
Ram 4GB
FCP 5.1/AE 6.5/DVDSP4 -
To trash prefs use this little gem.
https://pistolerapost2.com/fcprescue/
As for Disk Utility go to Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility
Select your drive and click on the button that says “Repair Permissions”Hope this helps-
Matthew
Quad 2.5 G5
OSX 10.4.X
Ram 4GB
FCP 5.1/AE 6.5/DVDSP4