[Pat Defilippo]

Hi Matt,

The limitation that Wherewolf explained, and I fully support him on this, is I guess best explained by an example.

Let’s say you’re watching a timeline – any timeline. You see the playhead as you’re reviewing and it goes off the right edge of the timeline and completely disappears, until you press the universal panic button (the space bar).

What the Immix/Accom software did way back in ’95 was scroll to the next page to the right while the playhead moves. This way, you can watch an entire timeline and see what clips you have coming up. FCP does not do this.

I hope that makes sense now.

Thank you,
-Pat

G5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~~~

P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
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[Pat Defilippo]

Hi Wherewolf and Tom,

Wherewolf, I fully agree with you. I finally switched over from my Accom StrataSphere non-linear editing system about 1.5 years ago to FCS1 (now FCS2 on one of my two machines), and although I like FCS a lot better, there are some things that the Strat (software circa 1995) does better.

Centering the timeline to the playhead while it plays is one of a few things I can think of right away. Also, it’s very annoying to, in a timeline, press Apple/+ and have it zoom in to nowhere near the playhead as well. The Strat (again, circa 1995) zooms in to where the playhead is and the playhead, as it moves to the right, pops to the new “page” of edits in the timeline (so that you can see what’s coming up and not have to manually scroll right).

It seems to me that this should be the standard behavior in FCP and that the current tracksheet-stay-where-you-started & zoom-in-to-nowhere should be the alternate preference!

Regarding your other question, I don’t know where you can make suggestions directly to Apple. I know at NAB, at the FCPUG meeting on Wednesday night, they set up a camera and invite anyone with suggestions to go in and tell them right to Apple. I did this at NAB 2006 (didn’t do it this year) and these were one of a few suggestions that I gave.
-Pat

G5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~~~

P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
TV~DVD~VHS~CD~WEB
for Corporate Communications, Commercials, Infomercials, Television Programs, Family Occasions since 1983 ~
E-mail PD@PDPost.com ~
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Business/Cell Phone (847) 275-5671

[Pat Defilippo]

Hi again and thanks for the info!

I was just thinking this out. Now knowing that FCS2 lets you send Motion, STP and DVDSP templates and effects onto different drives, would it make sense that something like a FW800/FW400/USB2.0 100GB Lacie Rugged external hard drive (7200 rpm, bus powered and fits into a MacBook Pro bag easily) be hooked up while editing, in reality, via the MBP’s USB port?

My thinking is that, most of the time during editing with the MacBook Pro, the FW400 port is hooked up to a DV camera or deck (rendering the MBP’s FW800 port useless becuase it’s on the same bus will cause dropped frames if both are used simultaneously) and the Express 34 port is used with either a FW800 card or SATA card hooked up to a storage drive.

So, the only port available to hook up the Rugged with is the MacBook Pro’s USB port, right? Or, could it be daisey-chained with the external storage drive via the Express 34 port?

I know, with the triple-interface Lacie 100GB Rugged drive, if you use the USB 2.0 connection, you need to use a second USB port for power (which they supply).

Does this make sense? Does anyone have another portable drive in mind (perhaps one less expensive – the street price on the 100GB Lacie Rugged is $180-$200 – or with more features). Ideally, it is a hard drive that is 7200rpm (for possible editing with on occaision via anything but USB 2.0), bus powered and fits in a MacBook Pro bag easily?

I’m going to do this for the FCS2 install because not only am I running out of room on my MacBook Pro, my Quad is getting low on space as well!

Thanks again in advance,
-Pat

G5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~~~

P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
TV~DVD~VHS~CD~WEB
for Corporate Communications, Commercials, Infomercials, Television Programs, Family Occasions since 1983 ~
E-mail PD@PDPost.com ~
Website http://www.PDPost.com ~
Business/Cell Phone (847) 275-5671

[Pat Defilippo]

Thanks for the help (again!) Steve!

How about this – what if we did full installs on our desktop machines, and then copied the content in the folders that Steve identified to a FW800 drive? The same FW800 drive can be used as needed on both the desktop and the MBP, saving valuable HD space on both machines.

This way, we’ve still got access to every template and effect that FCS2 (and even other programs, like SonicFire music, etc.) has to offer instead of not installing it at all. Could this be an option, unless during install these template and effects files be separately installed somewhere else (instead of the main hard drive)?

Thanks again!
-Pat

G5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~~~

P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
TV~DVD~VHS~CD~WEB
for Corporate Communications, Commercials, Infomercials, Television Programs, Family Occasions since 1983 ~
E-mail PD@PDPost.com ~
Website http://www.PDPost.com ~
Business/Cell Phone (847) 275-5671

[Pat Defilippo]

Hello,

I’ve been thinking about this issue as well as my FCS2 is “in the mail”.

Does anyone know if it’s possible and how feasible it would be to install all of the “necessary” FCS2 files onto the MacBook and all of the Motion and DVDSP templates, SoundTrack sound effects, etc., onto some type of FW800 drive or something?

I have a 80GB Lacie “Rugged” drive in mind, which is powered by the bus as an upside but is only 5400 rpm as a downside (although that’s all the 160GB MacBook HD is, though). Lacie has a 100GB model, however, that is 7200 rpm.

Would something like this work, which can just be plugged in as needed?
-Pat

G5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~~~

P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
TV~DVD~VHS~CD~WEB
for Corporate Communications, Commercials, Infomercials, Television Programs, Family Occasions since 1983 ~
E-mail PD@PDPost.com ~
Website http://www.PDPost.com ~
Business/Cell Phone (847) 275-5671

[Pat Defilippo]

Hello,

I’ve been thinking about this issue as well as my FCS2 is “in the mail”.

Does anyone know if it’s possible and how feasible it would be to install all of the “necessary” FCS2 files onto the MacBook and all of the Motion and DVDSP templates, SoundTrack sound effects, etc., onto some type of FW800 drive or something?

I have a 80GB Lacie “Rugged” drive in mind, which is powered by the bus as an upside but is only 5400 rpm as a downside (although that’s all the 160GB MacBook HD is, though). Lacie has a 100GB model, however, that is 7200 rpm.

Would something like this work, which can just be plugged in as needed?
-Pat

G5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~~~

P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
TV~DVD~VHS~CD~WEB
for Corporate Communications, Commercials, Infomercials, Television Programs, Family Occasions since 1983 ~
E-mail PD@PDPost.com ~
Website http://www.PDPost.com ~
Business/Cell Phone (847) 275-5671

[Pat Defilippo]

Hi Walter!

Luckily, I’ve got a 500GB Lacie FW800 drive that is definitely 7200 RPM and works well. So, I’ll go with that. I was going to pre-edit a few things on the plane, but I’d rather watch the movie or get some pre-sleep anyway!

Thanks very much yet again for your help, and so quickly, too! You’ve helped me out quite a bit in the last 16 months or so, when I switched over to FCS from the Accom StrataSphere.

It was nice to meet you at the Creative Cow booth a few weeks ago at NAB and your new “All Things Apple” Podcasts are great and informative, too.

Thanks again,
-Pat

G5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~~~

P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
TV~DVD~VHS~CD~WEB
for Corporate Communications, Commercials, Infomercials, Television Programs, Family Occasions since 1983 ~
E-mail PD@PDPost.com ~
Website http://www.PDPost.com ~
Business/Cell Phone (847) 275-5671

[Pat Defilippo]

Hi John Pale and Danrnw,

Thanks for the info! I didn’t even think to click on “buy now” and figured LiveType just wasn’t there any more because it wasn’t on the main features page.

I agree, John, that Motion’s integraton with FCP6 will now start to make LiveType obsolete anyway as editors like me, who do a lot of layering of elements including graphics the old fashioned way (on timelines), will start using Motion plugs and templates to speed things up and improve the look of the video. I’ll have to see how much longer I end up using LiveType after FCS2 is installed, but it’s good to know that it’s still there for now and even for the distant future since I’ve got several projects saved with LiveType in them and I’d be screwed if revisions came in down the road and I’d have to completely re-build them from nothing!

Thanks again to both of you,
-Pat

G5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~~~

P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
TV~DVD~VHS~CD~WEB
for Corporate Communications, Commercials, Infomercials, Television Programs, Family Occasions since 1983 ~
E-mail PD@PDPost.com ~
Website http://www.PDPost.com ~
Business/Cell Phone (847) 275-5671

[Pat Defilippo]

Hello,

I have noticed that, for some reason, FCP will ocasionally not output any frames to my AJA Io LA. It kind of sounds like the problem that you had, tmorris6936 – all of the sudden, there’s just black (not the typical blue when the AJA isn’t getting a signal from the Mac) coming out of the AJA.

tmorris6936, when this happened, did you by chance check under View > External Video to see if something (perhaps CGM DVE caused it) switched you to “Off” instead of “All Frames”? If you hit Apple/F12 at the same time if this happens again (the black screen that you got through the AJA), “All Frames” will be output through the AJA and it just might work for you. This has happened to me a couple of times and I’m starting to remember to do it!

Perhaps you already tried this, tmorris6936, but I just thought I’d mention it because it sounds like “Off” might have been inadvertantly selected on your system, given the description you provided.

Please let me know if this helped or not,
-Pat

G5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~~~

P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
TV~DVD~VHS~CD~WEB
for Corporate Communications, Commercials, Infomercials, Television Programs, Family Occasions since 1983 ~
E-mail PD@PDPost.com ~
Website http://www.PDPost.com ~
Business/Cell Phone (847) 275-5671

[Pat Defilippo]

Hello!

I’ve got a similar question using the Sony DSR-40 DVCam deck. It always starts timecode at 00:00:00:00, but I’d like to do the same with FCP as my UWV-1800 Beta-SP deck will let me black from 00:58:50:00 so that I can assemble edit 30 seconds of bars starting at 00:59:00:00, 10 seconds of slate starting at 00:59:30:00 and 20 seconds of black starting at 00:59:40:00 before the program starts at 01:00:00:00.

With the Sony DSR-40, I’ve been forced to start black at 00:00:00:00 (since I can’t start at 00:58:50:00 via either FCP nor the deck itself), lay down 60 seconds of bars starting at 00:00:30:00, 10 seconds of slate starting at 00:01:30:00 and 20 seconds of black starting at 00:01:40:00 before the program starts at a strange point of 00:02:00:00.

Obviously, it would be great to start at 01:00:00:00 instead of 00:02:00:00 on the Sony DSR-40. Has anyone ever found a way to do that?

Thanks in advance,
-Pat

G5 Quad 2.5 Desktop with 4GB Ram, 500GB HD & Fiber Card ~
30″ Cinema Display & 17″ Sony SVGA ~
Swift Data 200 Internal 1.6TB SATA II RAID 0 ~
AJA Io LA ~
Final Cut Studio ~
Sony UVW-1800 Beta-SP ~~~

P D Post Productions, Inc. ~
TV~DVD~VHS~CD~WEB
for Corporate Communications, Commercials, Infomercials, Television Programs, Family Occasions since 1983 ~
E-mail PD@PDPost.com ~
Website http://www.PDPost.com ~
Business/Cell Phone (847) 275-5671