[Michael Peele]

Are your sequence settings the same as the file?
Is the field ordering correct?
Make sure the canvas/viewer window has no scroll bars when playing back the video. Either increase the size of the window or reduce the scaling on the video (fit to window).

Hope these help.
mike peele

[Michael Peele]

If your incoming or outgoing clip is a stack of layers you may need to nest them to get a clean dissolve – fading 5 tracks individually is not the same as fading a nest of clips.
Some dissolves just won’t look right due to their content – a shot of a bright sunset dissolving into a dark clip comes to mind. Try other style dissolves (additive, non-additive).
Oh, if you need a stack of layers to fade to or from black, try using a black slug above the top layer and ramping it’s opacity.
Mike Peele

[Michael Peele]

I find that general errors of this sort can often be solved by trashing all relevant renders using render manager.
mike peele

[Michael Peele]

I recommend another card as well.
A quick work around would be to disconnect the FW drive and attach the Camera, capture all you need to your internal drive, disconnect your camera, quit out of FCP, reconnect your FW drive, move the captured media to the FW Drive, restart FCP and reconnect the media.
Mike Peele

[Michael Peele]

Editing DV on a PowerBook can easily be done wih firewire drives.
I suggest using FW800 drives when possible – LaCie D2’s have worked fine for me, but so have a variety of others. Just make sure the drive uses an Oxford Chipset of some type (Oxford 911 or Oxford912). Medea has an offshoot FW centric company that has some interesting offerings that seem to emphasize cooling.

http://www.g-technology.com/index.cfm

If your machine does not have FW800 ports, a FW800 PC Card (aka Cardbus, not PCI) will give you the ports you need, while also separating DV device traffic from your FW HD traffic.

I have not researched using eSATA drives connected to a PB via a SATA PC Card – I don’t even know if a SATA PC Card exists. If it does, I am sure it’s plenty fast – but all that speed comes at the cost of compatability with other machines. Hence my affinity to LaCie Triple Interface D2 drives (FW400, FW800, USB2.0).

Hope this helps

[Michael Peele]

Aloha!
Thanks everyone for your help! I’m sure as we get closer to purchase we will have more questions.
Mike Peele

[Michael Peele]

Aloha!

Thanks for the quick response and the great answers.
You have cleared up quite a few questions we had.
I am happy that it seems popular/accepted to work in the 720 and convert to 1080i.
I wish the lenses were compatible. Too bad.
I am also happy to hear that the excess frames from the DVCPRO HD stream get tossed on capture.

Mahalos,
Mike Peele

p.s. – Anyone else care to chime in?

[Michael Peele]

Have you created any nests of your audio? I’ve had this cause issues similar to what you have described, specifically when I chopped a nest and took out a chunk of it.

I was able to solve it one time by trashing all audio renders, and rerendering.

Another time I was unable to resolve it but was able to export my movie in two sections – the first ended just after the audio dropped out, the other began just before the audio dropped out. For some reason the second one had all the audio and I was able to splice the two together.

Other times I have been able to chop audio nests with no issues.

Go figure,
Mike Peele

[Michael Peele]

He should contact Panasonic in case it ever goes in for service. Also he should check local rental houses and Panasonic retailers in case the thief tries to sell it to them.
Good luck,
Mike Peele

[Michael Peele]

Make sure you are not trying to start the application by double-clicking a project file. If you are, try starting the application directly instead. If that works, you may have a problem with your project.
Mike Peele