[Michael Sacci]

All the stuff Rafael is talking about are settings within FCP not on export. My method bypasses all those settings. But you do need to know what they are and where you change them. The best place to find that info is in the manual.

Best way to get up to speed with FCP is to get the Pro Training book. It is about $35 on Amazon and worth every penny of it. A lot of good training DVDs out there also.

https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Pro-Training-Final-Cut/dp/0321635272/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275360730&sr=8-1

[Michael Sacci]

is he sending you 44.1K instead of 48K?

[Michael Sacci]

Sorry I’m going to totally disagree with this. (also Ken Stones) For best quality especially when you are using HDV codec.

Send your unrendered sequence to Compressor via Export with Compressor (FCP6) or Send to Compressor (FCP7).

For short movies like this NEVER use VBR method, it is a wast of time and it does not have enough time to find an average. VBR is to get high quality out of lower averages, it does not give you better results on high rate rates. So use CBR and set it to 7 Mbps, you don’t get much improvement from that and there can be playback issue if you go higher with DVD-Rs. 8.3 with PCM audio is really pushing it from the safe zone.

Another key to to make sure the m2v’s field dominance is set to Upper. While the DVD is lower your source is Upper. You can test out the Frames control but normally it is not needed but doesn’t hurt to test it both ways.

Then encode the audio as ac3, unless you are working with professionally master music type programming you should use ac3. Just make sure the Dialog Normalization is set to -31dB and compression is set to NONE in the preprocessing tab.

Nice thing about mine method it should take more than 20 minutes to get the encode and if you have a really fast system it can be closer to RT.

Make sure your footage is properly color corrected and nothing is blown out.

In the end you have to do testing.

[Michael Sacci]

It is only harder if you are not charging for the time spent recapturing and there is no reason not to be charging.

In the end doing things the right way is often the quickest, even if it seems like you are wasting a lot of time.

[Michael Sacci]

Well most likely what you are trying to do is illegal, you cannot rip copyrighted material and edit it.

[Michael Sacci]

Steve your blog posts where really informative but I would suggest you pull the MBP pricing from basic kit, if someone needed it they would need it for any of the kits, and that is 1/2 the price of the kit. The recommendation is fine but I wouldn’t put in the “Adding it all up” it is not a camera accessory . Just my 2 cents.

[Michael Sacci]

The stock lens is a tough thing to use IMO. It is really slow and tough to focus and it cannot be used with a Follow focus. You want straight f-stop lenses, not variable, which the stock lens is 3.5-5.6 this not only means that the widest opening will stop down as you zoom, even at f-stops above 5.6 you will see exposure changes as the aperture changes to keep the f-stop the same. So if you plan on use the lens just keep the limitations in mind and don’t zoom while shooting.

$2400 will go pretty fast so think everything through, new (or used lens) should be high on the list. For video I always recommend getting fixed f-stop lenses and faster the better.

[Michael Sacci]

[ivan Lenong] “But the direct copy and paste into an external hard disk … “
I have never use a copy and paste command, but I have used drag and drop with no problems. You do not have to use P2CMS or other 3rd party.

One thing you should ALWAYS do it to put the cards into write protect before transferring the content. The finder can screw up the files on the card and by doing this simple step you safe guard agains that happening.

For your problem, did you copy all the folders and files from the card and not just some of them. The file structure is important to maintain.

[Michael Sacci]

I would say it depends on what you were shooting for the most part. 500 will excel in lower light situations. More lens options available for the 500 (if you need to rent, wide or stronger tele). So questions like which is better with zero info can be misleading.

So it is not a good vs bad choice it is which one fits your needs better.

[Michael Sacci]

To get Letterbox to 16:9 you do that in the Motion tab and large it about 135% (yeap that much) and apply a distort to I think 1.33 aspect. Once again I would do this in compressor so it is done and ready to use and don’t have to render every time you change and edit.

[Mark Devries] “As for importing different frame rates, I thought that Final Cut Pro “6” (the version I have) was the first version to be able to take in footage with multiple frame rates and output it to one frame rate without the use of an outside program like Compressor. As long as the initial settings (and the output settings) allow it. (That’s why I was just concerned with making sure the settings are right.) Maybe I’m mistaken!? “
It can but it doesn’t do a very nice job with it, you can test and see if you like the results. The multiple format editing with FCP was a marketing thing, it is fine if you are dropping a clip or two of something different but if you are editing a lot of different footage better to convert first to a common codec, size and frame rate or you will be rendering a lot.

Not completely sure what you are talking about in the last paragraph. You capture your tape as record, you cannot capture 29.97 as 23.98. You can print to tape using a camera but most cameras cannot record 24p so there is a pull down added. (Some HDCAM cameras can record true 23.98)