[Michael Kammes]

Wrong Forum, try the FCP forum – not FCP X.

However….

Could the difference be that the camera is monitoring on an analog scale, not a digital one? That shouldn’t change the physical volume, but may alter the way it is interpreted on the display.

Could the camera being monitoring the sum (or both tracks as center panned), whereas FCP is panning the tracks out? The volume would certainly be higher if the audio was center panned as opposed to panned outward.

FWIW, Log and Capture doesn’t change the volume level with any audio.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
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[Michael Kammes]

For baseband ingest, the 2 most popular cards are by Blackmagic and AJA. Both solutions come with BASIC capture programs. Not the most elegant, but at least it *should* be functional.

As for firewire (HDV, DV, etc.) your guess is as good as mine. If Apple makes no such provisions, it may be time to look for a 3rd party capture software.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

Sony obviously has their plug-ins – you should have those.

Media Composer 5.5 utilizes AMA plugins from avid.com instead of the pre-bundled ones in MC 5.0.x.

Download the Avid AMA plugins here: https://www.avid.com/US/products/Avid-Media-Access/plug-ins

Look on the right side of the page and there are workflow docs for various formats, including XDCAM.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

I presume when you say ‘render’, you mean rendering in FCP – i.e. adding effects? Or, is this another application? (After Effects, etc.)

FCP v.1-v.7 does not support distributed rendering. Distributed encoding, via Compressor over an ethernet network, *is* supported. You may also want to look into creating a ‘virtual cluster’ with Compressor, which will greatly speed up encodes & transcodes in Compressor on a single machine. Again, this is NOT rendering….but I wanted to spell them both out if there was any terminology confusion.

“What about FCP X – due out in June? Who knows.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

I recommend getting the eSATA card from the same company who makes the Array – that way, you KNOW it will work, and if there are issues, you only have ONE company’s throat to choke.

LaCie makes an eSata card. I’d go with that.

Sonnet is very good as well, but for me, it would introduce other variables into the mix that I would not want to troubleshoot at 1am when I have a project I need to get out.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

DCPs differ for each end client. You NEED the specs to create a DCP. No ifs, ands, or buts.

As a general rule, a complete DCP CANNOT be created directly from FCP and/or Compressor. It’s been a)get a high end facility grade system to create the DCP or b)scour the web and get a whole bunch of freeware/share apps with little or no documentation and make it manually.

Get the DCP specs, and reverse engineer from there.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

Danger Danger Danger!

Never use Gigabet Ethernet storage solution for editing unless it’s a VIDEO NAS. General NAS solutions don’t cut the mustard, usually because of sustained throughout. This is also why USB is bad for editing. Will it work? It’s a crapshoot. Read the STORAGE forum on the ‘cow to see. Does the NAS manufacturer say they support HD video editing?

I can’t recommend enough to stay away from any USB 2.0 editing solutions, and any network based editing solution without the manufacturer specifically saying it’s qualified to edit with FCP and with a decent stream count.

Go eSata (or, on the lesser end, Firewire). How many drives do you tend to throw at the Firewire800 or eSata solution? eSata won’t be that fast if you throw 1 drive at it….and this goes hand in hand with the type of footage you’re working with…what codecs are you editing? If you’re working with HDV, for example, Firewire 800 is plenty. Uncompressed? Well then, yes, you will need a RAID with many drives and an eSata or better connection.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

What codec? What’s your storage? Does the machine meet the Avid specifications? Is this AMA or native?

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

I think we’re going to need a lot more than that…codec, computer specs, MC and QT version, etc.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

Quit FCP, Delete the Thumbnail Cache, and relaunch. FCP will recreate these on the fly.

~Michael

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