Nicole Haddock
Forum Replies Created
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Another option is to export still files out of Power Point, or even better, Keynote. The iWork Suite is sold by Apple for $100 or so I think? And Keynote is worth the price of admission alone. It will auto-resize your slides for proper video dimensions. As a general rule, Power Point’s default slide sizes are not video friendly especially when you consider that Video Safe is the inner 80% of the screen.
So the first step is to really make a slide template to work with FCP’s settings (10×6.66inches for a slide dimension should work with DV size video- 720×480 pixels). Within that template, mark out title safe areas and make sure that all of your text, graphics, etc are inside of title safe, and then the next step would to be to export a movie file or graphics of your slide, then cut in FCP. Either PowerPoint or Keynote can be used, but Keynote has a reputation of being snazzier when it comes to transitions, animations and default tempaltes.
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On another Mac, you could load the discs and create disc images in Disk Utility. The other mac can then run the installs off the disc images. Added bonus, the install will take a half hour or so rather than 4 hours.
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I think you answered your own question- did not do a clean install.
I would do a clean install, which means completely wiping your hard drive. Barring that, I’d do a complete uninstall of FCP then reinstall. Digital Rebellion has a nifty gizmo that will remove FCP from your hard drive pretty easily.
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How big is your hard drive and how much free space is there on it?
And how full does the hard drive suddenly get?
The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is to clear the media cache- Encore/Prefs/Media – media cache, clean database.
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https://servicesplus.us.sony.biz/sony-software-model-PDZKP1.aspx
The top file, File Transfer 2.1.1 will install drivers for the footage and an XDCam log and transfer tool which is pretty nifty. It’s free too but it does have the disclaimer about Snow Leopard. Try to install it and see if it works.
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Did you do a clean install of the OS and FCP? And does wonkiness persist with a particular project or all?
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I never burn above 6.5mbps when it comes to SD DVDs. Playback CAN become an issue. How are you encoding the audio?
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They probably have a mini-dv to DVD deck, so they just feed the tapes and discs and out pops a DVD. Very easy for them. If they give you .AVIs then they have to ingest the material, oh the horror!
I’ve encountered much attitude from PC shops in the past over the issue of Quicktime vs. AVI and usually their lead argument is AVI is lossless! So much better than Quicktime! I always counter with, well, so is Quicktime AND what format hasn’t been updated in teh past 10 years? Hmm? Would that be… AVI?
Like I said, if you can get a test 10 second file of a .AVI from them, you’ll be alot better off knowing how to handle post on your end. They should be able to do this very easily for you. If it works, hurrah, mo middle man digitizing. If not, come back 🙂
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Did you install the XDCam Drivers?
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I would also try sucking it up via iMovie. The program is pretty robust when it comes to dealing with consumer camera formats and it will automatically make the footage into Quicktimes for you.