[Matt James]

Hi! Yes times have changed but there are some work arounds for technology that’s evolved. I’ve recently built a system to digitize and uprez vhs tapes into 1080HD ProRes. There are some questions first to help determine the best solution. First is who is burning the physical Blu-ray discs and with what? Do you yourself only have CS5 and therefor 2010 computer hardware or do you also have access to newer Adobe software and hardware? Is the expected output for the upcoming project only Blu-ray or are they open to other options? I’ll keep watch for your reply.

[Matt James]

https://www.aja.com/support/proreshttps://www.aja.com/support/prores

[Matt James]

Actually it is indeed supported natively. Here is a website that shows you. My guess would be that your computer or the software you’re using can’t see it somehow.

[Matt James]

Thanks for the reply. However your suggestion doesn’t fix the problem. In addition to your suggestion, I can also change the aspect ratio in the FCP bin, but all text still looks out of focus and the graphics of my Motion file fuzzy. These changes never make it look right.

However, try my workaround yourself. Try taking an SD anamorphic Motion project and save it as a Master Template to see how it imports into FCP incorrectly.

Then try taking the exact same Motion file, copy it to any other folder on your local hard drive and then import that copy into FCP. It then imports correctly and everything looks sharp like it’s supposed to be.

Interesting huh… I think it’s a software bug that nobody ever caught because there probably isn’t that many people working in anamorphic HD. I believe that FCP brings in all Motion Master Template as square aspect ratio because my 1920×1080 HD motion templates import just fine like you would expect.

Thanks,

Matt James
Freelance FCP Editor
Denver, CO

[Matt James]

UPDATE:
Thanks again for all your help! I really love the Cow community!

Just wanted to let you all know that my clients Ocatcore computer is working better than ever now. I switched the Kona card to slot #2 and it does indeed play HD just great.

Also I put in a new Nvidia 8800 GT video card and it fixed the crashing problem! Plus I have a nice new fresh system to make a drive image from.

Thanks again,
Matt James

Matt James
Freelance FCP Editor
Denver, CO

[Matt James]

Thank you for all your help guys! As it turns out, I switched the Kona LHe card to Slot 2 on the Octacore machine and it does indeed now play HD and keep up like it should!

Bob, I do have this clients older Duo Core MacPro’s set the way you said. Using the Expansion Slot Utility and keeping the Kona LHe Card in Slot 3. We actually have the Fiber card in Slot 4 on both the Duo-core and the Quad (Octacore) machines.

However I’ve been having fun dealing one of the Octacores that took a big poop today. And it happened before I switched the Kona card to the new slot. After troubleshooting all day, I think I’ve narrowed it down to the video card. There has been weird colorization and distortion on the main monitor, but only when it’s running from a DVD, not hard drive. When it did startup from the hard drive, the monitor looked fine. Then the main monitor completely quit during my clean re-installation of the OS, FCP and everything.

Have any of you guys had issues with a video card? Will it cause the system to crash and give you the Dark Window? I ran the Apple Hardware Test and after 2 plus hours it said there were no errors. I know I should have TechToolPlus, but I don’t yet and the local store didn’t have it today.

Thanks again for your help,
Matt James

[Matt James]

You will not be able to open the FCP 6 project in 5.0.4 however. Therefor if you need to have the project info, like the bins or any sequences, you can have the FCP6 Project exported out as an XML file (version3 or 2) and import that into FCP5.0.4 no problem.

The media will be just quicktimes that you can use in any FCP version, that your Quicktime version will support. I.E.: older versions of QuickTime will not play the newer codecs.

Matt James
Freelance FCP Editor
Denver, CO

[Matt James]

Also try deleting your Thumbnail Cache and the Waveform Cache folders. This will speed things along for sure. I have done this a lot in the past on different client’s computers that don’t start FCP very fast and it works! Make sure not to delete the Autosaves too, just the two cache folders.

Matt James
Freelance FCP Editor
Denver, CO

[Matt James]

Thank you very much Jerry! Check out our Denver FCPUG forum and you can see a little more about it. None of the “fixes” I found on the google search worked. Looks like a huge problem, just from the new version of QT 7.2. If anyone has not yet upgraded, DO NOT GET QUICKTIME 7.2!

Thanks again,
Matt James

[Matt James]

Good News! Thank God for OSX!

When I shut down for the night and came back the next day, the problem files showed up in my trash as Recovered Files. I love it!!! OSX didn’t want them hanging around either. SO that fixed my Internal drive problem.

However, we do still have the Xraid issue. I have been freeing up as much space as possible and it’s been running fine. I was able to copy 100gigs to it a little earlier today! There is something wrong with either the Xraid Admin or the Xsan software because it does not even let me see the affinities. I’ve got my “guy” coming next week to help me figure this one out.

Thank you guy’s for the help. Please check out my newest problem in a new post about corrupt QT files.

Matt James
Freelance FCP Editor
Denver, CO