[Randall Kowalik]

I guess my big lesson in this is that I can often find what I need; it’s just hidden someplace different than where I’m used to finding it. I’ll try to remember to look a little more next time.

Thank you for all the wonderful, accurate suggestions and recommendations. 🙂

–Randall

[Randall Kowalik]

Thanks for your reply. My AI artboard is actually substantially larger (2100 squared, I think) than my AE (1280×720). However, now I’m thinking that when I created the AE composition, I accidentally told it to anchor everything in the center… via the composition settings.

Gonna go test that theory. Thanks again! 🙂

–R

[Randall Kowalik]

Schureman, I feel your pain!

I’m not a filmmaker–I’m a news producer. My background is mostly in radio, and I’ve spent much of my career using tools like Sonic Solutions, Deck II, and CoolEdit Pro–now known today as Adobe Audition.

Call it a “crutch” if you will, but I have to see the sound! Maybe I’m missing something, but last time I checked, Quicktime doesn’t draw waveforms. I really use those waveforms, as the means to jump around between different soundbites within an interview. This becomes quite helpful when you’re working with 15 minutes of audio, and you want two or three good bites.

All the other programs I listed above will continue playing once you’ve put ’em in the background… while you transcribe in Word, Notepad, Textedit etc. FCP is the only A/V program I’ve ever run across that automatically shuts off when you background/hide it. It’s a gigantic “PITA” and Apple needs to fix it.

I came here looking for help with an Apple Utility called Transcriptions–I can’t get the keyboard shortcuts to work properly. So I’m going to ditch it for now, and try that ExpressScribe freebie that somebody else recommended.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect FCP to adopt a functionality that is very, very standard in many other A/V programs.

–Randall

[Randall Kowalik]

Thanks for the info, Walter. The problem has disappeared for the time being, but there were three things we did over here:

1) Changed “Frame Offset” from 4 to 0 in “System Settings”

2) Reduced “Real-time Audio Mixing” from 8 to 4 in “User Preferences”

3) Updated Quicktime… currently Version 7.1.0, Player Version 7.1 (7.1)

We tinkered with both of the first two settings above (our engineer had heard that having the audio mixing setting too high could cause problems), and even after leaving Frame Offset at 4 and Audio Mixing at 8–returning them back to their original settings–playback is still greatly improved.

So… now wondering if maybe the QT upgrade was just what the doctor ordered…?

In any case, I’ll set Frame Offset to zero again, per your recommendations. Can’t argue with anyone who works with one of my favorite shows, “Good Eats.” :p

Thanks!