[Redford Givens]

[Daniel Low] “Re: Time Problem with Mac Compressor 3.0.4 for FCP
by Daniel Low on Nov 26, 2008 at 11:51:02 am

….. the best method is NOT to use Export to compressor but to export to a Quicktime movie instead (using the same settings as the sequence, so there is no loss in quality). “

How do I do it?

How do I find the settings etc to export it without quality loss?

Does the Quicktime movie retain the chapter markers so I can do the menu?

Kill all robots

Redford Givens

[Redford Givens]

[Daniel Low] “Re: Time Problem with Mac Compressor 3.0.4 for FCP
by Daniel Low on Nov 26, 2008 at 11:51:02 am

I actually gave up using compressor after getting fed up with its strange behavior. That said, the best method is NOT to use Export to compressor but to export to a Quicktime movie instead (using the same settings as the sequence, so there is no loss in quality).

While you’re at it you might want to grab this:
https://www.digitalrebellion.com/compressor_repair.htm

And have a look at Ken Stones site:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_homepage_index.html#dvd

Lastly, invest in this for the best in Compressor tutorials:
https://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modListing.asp?pid=188
“

Thanks for the info sources. I’ll see what they can do for me.

Compressor is the worst Apple program I’ve encountered. It simply doesn’t work right.

When it takes eight or ten hours to compress a 90 minute timeline, the program is essentially worthless, since I need to use FCP for other things than watching a counter go into slow motion and freeze after a while. (right now the slo-mo compressing is going at LESS than a frame a second)

I went to an Apple One on One and the help didn’t solve the problems. The instructor at Apple (who is very good) could only shake his head and agree that Compressor is a seriously flawed program.

If I wasn’t under so much time pressure, I’d dump Compressor in the trash right now.

As it is I need to get this balky clunker to work a couple more times to meet the deadline.

I cannot take any more of this BS. If the programmers who put this together worked for me— they’d all be looking for new jobs!

Can you recommend a RELIABLE compression program compatible with DVD SP? Something that does a job the same way every time like a good robot should. Something that gets the work done quickly and accurately.

Kill all robots

Redford Givens

[Redford Givens]

Re: Time Problem with Mac Compressor 3.0.4 for FCP
by Daniel Low on Nov 25, 2008 at 12:03:16 am

You didn’t say how you were going from FCP to compressor?

I send it to Compressor using the “Export to compressor” option under the File menu in FCP.

I’ve been doing a 2 Pass with Average Bit Rate 5.0 mbps and Maximum Bit Rate 6.0. Two pass VBR Best. MPEG – 2.

If time is tight you could take the exported sequence (as a Quicktime movie) directly into DVD SP and encode it there.

Is there any loss of quality? How do I do this? How long does it take? Does Quicktime preserve the Chapter markers in DVD Studio Pro?

At this point Compressor is a deep mystery. The problem is that two nearly identical timelines have a 4+ to 1 difference in compression time. One file compresses in about 2:20 the other takes 8+ hours.

Every scene in both timelines has virtually identical Motion effects consisting of lines and simple imported Photoshop images (no layers) laid over the video. None of the Particle Emitters, tracking or any of that is involved.

Both are 90 minutes (within a couple of minutes of being the same). One takes 2:20 hours and the other takes 8+ hours and sometimes bogs down and gives estimated finish times of 40-60+ hours (after an hour or two of steadily RISING estimated finish times, I shut it off and try again).

I cannot figure what the significant difference between the timelines is. Being a 30 wpm typist, I cannot help wondering if I accidentally hit some self-destruct option. Being a poor typist has lead to the discovery of many “UNDOCUMENTED” features, but this time I just want to get the job finished.

Any help in saving my sanity will be appreciated.

My deadline is nearing and we only need one or two more edits to get this finished and this damned Compressor is not helping. (I have to burn discs so my checker can verify the editing.)

When the Compressor frame rate to drops to 1 frame at an interval, the game is over!

Kill all robots

Redford Givens

[Redford Givens]

[david bogie] ”
Re: Ducking— How Do I do It?
by david bogie (bogiesan) on Oct 13, 2008 at 8:18:36 am

but we also allowed that ducking music under voice is best done manually anyway.

That’s the conclusion I came to. By the time I figure out how to make STP do it, we’ll miss every deadline. It’s likely that whatever method is needed to make STP do the ducking is inferior to simply listening to the clips.

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.””

For crying out loud, the manual was written by robots and is total gibberish to humans.

Kill all robots

Redford Givens

[Redford Givens]

[Tom Wolsky] “Re: Ducking— How Do I do It?
by Tom Wolsky on Oct 11, 2008 at 9:55:05 am

Why wouldn’t you ask this on the Soundtrack forum?

All the best,

Tom

I did post on Soundtrack forum, but no response so far.

If anyone can point us to where info about “ducking” in FCP or SoundTrack is available we will be grateful.

Kill all robots

Redford Givens

[Redford Givens]

Audio Drift
by Paul Turlick (Paul) on Oct 10, 2008 at 4:01:25 pm

Hello all-

Here’s the scenario. I’m digitizing DVCPro HD footage on set with a Mac Book Pro to a 1TB GRaid. All went fine on set. (Digitizing via FW I might add from a 1400 deck). Brought the footage back to the studio and and copied to my mac Pro and some of the audio was drifting. Set the capture offset for 6 frames and that seemed to help.

Things were then transferring fine (from laptop to tower) but now at the end of the day it’s drifting again. The scary thing is, as you all know, there is no consistency. It works fine and then all of the sudden a clip will drift. Now I even saw the audio drifitng on the laptop and not on the copy.

Any thoughts?

Both machines running the the same version (6.04)

TIA-
Paul

This might help. We had a lot of sound sync problems. The out of sync condition had the sound in front of the video and then behind it in the same clip. It was impossible to re-sync the clips.

The problem was apparently caused by capturing long segments.

When we switched to doing batch captures, the sound sync problems ended.

One thing we discovered was that the sound sync problem did NOT come from the camera. When we played the bad clips in the camera there was never one iota of drift etc.

This might correspond to the “deck” you are using providing good sound on the set and then having things go bad when put into FCP.

I’m hardly an expert, but Dave LaRonde’s suggestions below worked perfectly. We’ve never had a sound problem since.

We went back and recaptured the bad segments using the batch capture method. Voila! No more sound troubles.

Recapturing is far less brain damaging than trying to reposition a sound track that varies in how far out of sync it is from minute to minute. Attempting this risks severe brain damage!

Capturing long segments also causes Time code problems, but batch capturing cures that too. (Just note where the TC break occurs and recapture a few seconds earlier or later.)

The inability to reliably capture long clips is a flaw in the FCP system and should be addressed by Apple.

Maybe this will work for you.

Re: audio sync problem with DVX100B
by Dave LaRonde on Aug 18, 2008 at 11:09:28 am

On those very rare occasions when I have to deal with 24pa, I’ll stick with the tried and true: DON’T capture entire tapes. DON’T capture groups of takes. Log individual shots only.

Yes, it takes longer, but the batch capture is a breeze, and it always comes out right.

Dave LaRonde

Thanks Dave. You are exactly right about batch capturing.

Now that we figured out how to do batch captures, the sound and TC problems have vanished.

Batch capturing saves us time because there are many bad takes that have to be removed. With an accurate video log we just capture the good stuff and it saves time.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. We went round the bend with sound-sync and TC breaks, but due to you folks we now know more about TC breaks and sound-sync problems than we ever wanted to learn.

Kill all robots

Redford Givens

[Redford Givens]

Re: Red Color Appears Fuzzy
by Christoph Vonrhein on Sep 3, 2008 at 9:28:58 am

If you are using a DV codec then this effect is normal, as the color information is not encoded in the stream in each and every pixel. In simple terms: Colored pixels have a lower resolution than black and white pixels.

—
Christoph

We capture straight from a Panasonic AG-DVX100B. 24P Advanced Pulldown.

Why doesn’t BLUE have fringing???

and

by Jeff Carpenter on Sep 3, 2008 at 10:29:07 am

Red is a particularly problematic color. Always has been for video.

Now you tell me. Seriously, I always run head on into the problem areas.

Try the ‘RGB Balance’ filter and tap down the red saturation slightly. It might help a little without giving up too much red.

Perhaps not, but it’s worth a try.

I’ll do that when I get a chance.

Thanks to both of you for the info.

Kill all robots

Redford Givens

[Redford Givens]

It’s also why it’s always good practice to let the camera roll for five seconds before any significant action begins and five seconds after the action ends in any shoot where you work off a script.

If you shoot events this practice may not not always be possible, but even then you can still do it most of the time.

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA

We are learning. The batch capture is definitely an improvement over trying to get the entire reel. It saves time by eliminating shots that were bad for other reasons. By capturing a few seconds on both ends of clips, there isn’t much cutting to do.

If I were younger, the thought of going pro in this business would appeal. As it is I’m an old codger who takes One on One lessons from Apple and comes to forums like this to solve specific problems.

Manuals sometimes help, but they can drive one to madness trying to find the specific solution you want.

The people who write manuals could do the world a service by inserting a comprehensive GLOSSARY at the BEGINNING of the book. Manuals often use hard to understand Hollywood terms or professional definitions without much explanation.

Kill All Robots
Redford Givens

[Redford Givens]

On those very rare occasions when I have to deal with 24pa, I’ll stick with the tried and true: DON’T capture entire tapes. DON’T capture groups of takes. Log individual shots only.

Yes, it takes longer, but the batch capture is a breeze, and it always comes out right.

Dave LaRonde

We are using the batch capture method and it works pretty good, but not perfectly. To wit: We are no longer getting timecode errors. However, FCP claims to be detecting “cadence breaks” and refuses to capture the clip.

By resetting the in out points, we have captured these clips WITHOUT the cadence break.

Logically this tells me there was no cadence break in the first place because we extended the capture on both ends and got the clip.

This is why I hate robots.

Kill All Robots
Redford Givens

[Redford Givens]

final cut pro launch unexpectedly quit
by Evaristo Salgadet on Aug 19, 2008 at 12:12:07 am

I installed the FCS2 (academic version) but i have a problem with the FCP when i going to open the program crash and give me a /unexpectedly quit / error, the other programs like motion color ect are ok but the FCP and crash, i give it the update, trashed the preferences, repaired disk permissions, reinstalled but still have the problem,

i have a imac with leopard and dont have a previous version of fcp

Just wondering if your system is compatible with FCS 2.

Minimum Requirements for Installation
Computer: 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo or Intel Xeon
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4.9
Memory: 1 GB
Hard Drive: 4 GB for applications; Additional 55 GB for optional templates, content and tutorials (9 GB for DVD Studio Pro content, 8 GB for Motion templates and tutorial media, 24 GB for Soundtrack Pro audio content, 12 GB for LiveFonts and LiveType animated elements and templates, 2 GB for Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio Tutorials media)
Graphics: AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card; Final Cut Studio is not compatible with Intel graphics processors
Display: 1024 x 768
Software: QuickTime 7.1.6
Hardware: DVD-ROM drive for installation

Kill All Robots
Redford Givens