Nicholas Shera
Forum Replies Created
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LOL, I think I can cope with a few missing transition effects in the short term, if indeed they are actually missing at all. In the long-term, I’m sure it’s easy to get the necessary plug-ins.
The reason I’m one of “so many people jumping on the Mac bandwagon” is because I’ve had an absolute gutful of PCs and all the problems that go along with it — I’m talking REAL problems, not a missing effect here or there. I used to edit with Premiere Pro on a PC, and the problems I’d have with any large project was unacceptable. I’ve had my double quad-core Mac Pro since February this year, and I have not regretted a SINGLE thing about that in all that time — editing, for the most part, is MUCH smoother than on the PC, and doing special effects work with Adobe After Effects is ten times faster since it can utilise all 10 GB of the RAM that I have, assisted by the 8 cores.
Apart from editing, everything else has been much smoother than on the PC. Internet browsing is way faster and I don’t have to worry about spyware, viruses, malware etc. Have you ever tried working with a Mac for any length of time? I seriously doubt it. The fact that you believe the Mac to be basically a PC shows your ignorance of the matter. Nothing could be further from the truth, since it’s the operating system that is one of the MAIN aspects of a computer. Mac OS X is really quite different from Windows XP or Vista.
Overall, anything which the PC might have that the Mac lacks is FAR OUTWEIGHED by the irritations and annoyances of the PC that the Mac DOES NOT have. I’m not saying Mac is perfect (it isn’t), but it seems, from my experience at least, to be closer to perfect than a PC will ever be. And I really couldn’t care less about 64-bit capabilities at this stage. Even if 64-bit support doesn’t come to Mac until CS5 (which it well may), that’s not so long a time to affect MOST Mac users. If it gets that desperate, there’s always Final Cut Pro, which is written by Apple and is actually superior to Premiere in any case.
Anyway, I didn’t ask for people to give their “I told you so” opinions — I was asking for some ADVICE, which you seem incapable of doing. Suggesting that someone ought to go and buy a PC is NOT what I consider reasonable advice.
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Actually, a 3CCD chip is something I consider to be essential for good keying. The difference in greens between a single-CCD and 3CCD chip is quite remarkable, and will have a correspondingly remarkable difference in the quality of keying.
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I’m not sure what your problem is. If you are having problems accessing files over a network, then you need to move all files to the local disk(s).
If you are trying to open Premiere Pro CS3 projects that were previously saved on a Windows computer, there shouldn’t be any problem at all opening them up on a Mac with CS3 installed. The only reason why you won’t be able to open Windows Premiere projects is if they were saved with older versions of Premiere Pro.
Are you sure the Windows Premiere projects used CS3? I had to convert all my old Windows Premiere CS1 files into Mac-compatible CS3 files by first downloading the trial version of Premiere Pro CS3 for Windows, opening the CS1 projects with CS3, Saving As, and then opening these newly saved files on the Mac. You then simply re-link your asset files if necessary.
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Well I just tried importing as a slideshow, but the problem persists. I think I’ll have to modify every photo that’s over 1 MB in Photoshop. I have found that .psd files that are imported or dragged into Encore do not have any problems, but you can’t make these files into a slideshow.
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I find it hard to believe that it’s some kind of “inbuilt safety” thing. How could you watch a decent HD slideshow which you make in Encore itself if each photo can’t be any larger than 1 MB? It’s more likely a conflict between the OS and/or Quicktime and Encore.
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Well I’m glad I’m not the only one suffering this irritating inconvenience. The only solution I can come up with now is to drag picture files DIRECTLY onto the Encore menu page you want to use them in. Of course the limitation of this is that you still can’t do slideshows unless all images are below a certain size.
I haven’t tried downgrading my version of Quicktime, because like you I need the latest version.
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I realise that I need to clarify a few things in my post. In AE, you will also have to import the background video you intend to use for the Encore menu. The AE composition length needs to be as long as you wish the background video to play.
If your menu contains motion thumbnails, it will be trickier to do what you want. You will need to make an AE comp that runs only up to the point when all the buttons become 100% visible. You then import this comp into Encore, make a timeline for it, and set this timeline as First Play. At the end of this timeline, you need to link it to the Main Menu. But this method means that any video included in the First Play timeline has to be continuous with any video background you set in the menu, otherwise you will get a jump in the video motion.
It’s often easier to do EVERYTHING in AE, including video thumbnails. This gives you complete control.
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I’ve got Quicktime 7.4.5. I heard that Adobe advised its users not to upgrade to the latest version when it came out; however version 7.4 came bundled with my machine.
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I’ve just discovered what TYPE of photos are causing the problem. At least that’s one thing I can report to Adobe! It appears as if ALL photos, irrespective of their origin, will have a blue tint applied to them in Encore if the jpeg resolution is higher than about 1400 x 1057. I haven’t pinpointed the exact cutoff resolution just yet. All photos lower than this resolution import without incident.
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To fade buttons in, you go to Menu > Create After Effects Composition. After Effects will open.
You then have to select all the button layers in the AE composition, and ensure their opacity is set to 0 until the 10-second mark in the timeline. Then make all these layers 100% opacity shortly after the 10-second mark. Use the stopwatch to add appropriate opacity keyframes.
Save the AE composition.
Go back to Encore, and go to File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Import After Effects Composition. Select the file you just saved in AE. It will appear in the project panel.
Alt+drag the AE composition onto the Menu panel. This will set the AE composition as a video background. You will have to turn off the visibility of any static layers which may be hiding the animated video background.
It’s also important to make sure that the loop point in the Menu properties is at the time when all the buttons are completely opaque. That way the menu won’t loop from the very beginning where the buttons are invisible.
Hope all this helps.