[Ryan Holmes]

[Mark Anderson] ” I used a Sandisk Extreme, 128 gig, 80MB card. “

Mark – you’re card does have a “10” with a circle around it, right? That would be a Class 10 card which you should have for shooting video. I think the 128GB card only comes in Class 10, but I thought I would bring it up so you double check.

It may just have been an isolated incident. If you have access to other cards, you may try running some tests to see how it goes. But shooting outside can be tough on DSLR’s since they aren’t good at dissipating heat (no fans). So while you’re air temp may be warm, it’s even hotter inside the camera and the outside air that should be cooling it off is hot as well so the components never really cool. Add in the sun on top of that and you have a good recipe for a hot camera.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

This was a really common problem back in 2008/2009 when the DSLR revolution started. My 7D would do it if we were in hot environments. I remember people actually carrying ice packs or bags of ice and then laying them on top of the camera in-between takes! 🙂

For the most those problems are gone, but as you experienced they still crop up. One thing I noticed was related to the type of memory cards I used. The cheaper the memory card (KomputerBay, Kingston), the less consistent the write speed and therefore the buffer in the camera would have to work harder to manage the data being written to the card. If the environment was already warm (especially shooting outside in direct sunlight) then that would trigger it. When I moved up to Sandisk Extreme and Extreme Pro cards I never saw the overheating symbol again. Not sure what cards you’re shooting, but I’d look into that. Also if you have a reputable card, but it’s not capable of write speeds of at least 50mbps then you should upgrade your cards.

If you’re shooting outside in direct sunlight you may think about shading the camera to block it from direct sunlight. While it may be 80 outside air temp, the camera is much warmer being in direct sunlight and in use.

If you’re camera is running hot, expect to go through batteries much, much faster. And if the camera buffer was working harder (as mentioned above) it’ll chew threw batteries much faster. Ultimately, you should be alright overall. If it happens again it’s a good idea to let the camera cool down if possible. Under severe circumstances there can be camera damage from running an overheated camera for a sustained period of time. Or pack some ice on your next outdoor shoot! 🙂

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[Steve Connor] “It’s nice that we’re back here again, I miss the “it’s not Pro” debates.”

I just commented today in the Adobe Creative Cloud: The Debate forum how I thought this forum pivoted after about a year away from all the petition signing, my life is over, the sky is falling, this isn’t pro software to a debate more about the uses of the software and the nature of Apple itself. Apparently, I spoke too soon…. 🙂

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[Marcus Moore] “So let’s spitball for the last 12 months (and yes I’ll be generous)

500,000 FCPX = $150 mil
400,000 Logic = $80 mil
300,000 Aperture = $24 mil
150,000 Compressor = 7.5mil
150,000 Motion = 7.5mil

TOTAL: $269million”

Even if you sold all 1 million seats this past year, that still wouldn’t get you to $2 billion. However, I’m assuming that what we’re talking about with the $2 billion is the entire app ecosystem, of which FCPX is a part. I don’t know that the pro apps really generate or detract much from Apple’s bottom line either way.

Bill Davis and I were discussing this same thing a few weeks ago in regards to Aperture:

[Ryan Holmes] “[Bill Davis] “What business or structural negative should Apple be worried in the ProApps business model?”

I don’t know that there is a structural negative yet for Apple. At some point, they may deem the cost of R&D, programming, testing, etc. as a waste of talented programmers that could be better utilized on iOS or Mac OS. Any reports that I can find don’t breakout Pro Apps downloads as their own line. So we can’t really be sure. But even if we grant 1 million seats of FCP X, and we grant that they sold all those seats last quarter in 2014 (which they didn’t, they’re spread out over 3 years) that’s still only $300 million in revenue (not profit) from FCP X. Q2 2014 Apple posted $45.6 billion in revenue. So the FCP X aspect is really inconsequential in Apple’s ecosystem, especially once you spread that revenue out over 3+ years.”

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

How much storage space do you have to work with? What codec/format are you compressing down to now? Are you saving the stills or deleting them after you’ve made the 3 minute image sequence?

I’m working on an 18 month construction site time lapse right now. We decided for space considerations to shoot JPEG at 1920×1080. We generate 1 still per minute (1,440 per day). Since they are JPEG’s they are considerably easier to deal with. From those stills we can generate time lapses in a variety of formats (ProRes, h.264, DNxHD, etc.) depending on what the project demands. I’ve allotted about 500GB for the project since the JPEG’s are pretty small that we chose to shoot.

You have a couple of options:
(1) Increase your storage capacity
(2) Change the size of the still you capture
(3) Create an image sequence using a lower data rate codec – ProRes (Proxy), h.264, JPEG2000, etc.
(4) Don’t take as many stills as you are taking now (maybe just 1 per hour?)

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[Sascha Haber] “Resolve 10.1.4 – Smoke 2015”

I can also guarantee that Smoke won’t be certified for Yoesmite until months after it’s official release. Autodesk typically waits for 1 dot release (sometimes 2) before certifying it’s software as stable on an OS.

But if you’re willing to deal with the inevitable downtime, reinstall, plugin failures, and program failures then who are we to argue….?

[Paul Provost] “Well, as long as you’re in the middle of a big important project”

+1 for this. I laughed out loud…! 🙂

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[Richard Angle] “Do you happen to know what is needed to do the conversion to Premiere? And is it an XML file from FCP7 that is needed as the source?”

It’s just a XML file. Premiere Pro reads FCP7 XML….nothing special about it. In FCP7 just use a File/Export/XML and then import that XML into Premiere. It’s really that easy! 🙂

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[Joni Church] “**Update: I’ve been reading about the issues between FCP7 and the most recent Mavericks iterations and am a bit horrified to think about the can of worms I could be opening with a new Mac Pro. I can’t switch to FCPX currently because I work back and forth with a bunch of other FCP7 users on a series I’m currently on. Yikes.**”

The last stable release for FCP 7 was 10.6.8. Anything after that can and will break. Some users have been fine running FCP 7 on 10.7, 10.8, or 10.9. However, if your bread and butter is FCP7 then there’s no way I upgrade that machine. I figure FCP7 is only 1 or 2 versions away from being unusable on a current OSX platform (10.10 may break it…we’ll probably find out Thursday when the public beta releases).

For all the money you’re going to spend on any new Mac Pro (6, 8, or 12-core) you’re not going to find any substantial speed boost in it. Not that justifies $3500-$6500 for a new machine. If anything I would look at upgrading your video card on your 2009 Mac Pro….that may help more than anything. But as David and Shane both point out, FCP7 is unsupported so you likely won’t gain much from a newer machine since the code of FCP7 can’t take advantage of most modern architecture.

I would recommend looking at Adobe CC and a new iMac. You could cut in Premiere and then send a XML over for those working in FCP7. Premiere Pro and iMacs go great together (and it keeps more coin in your pocket!). And depending on how complicated your edits are something like Resolve Lite on an iMac may solve many of your problems. Resolve can output to FCP7/Premiere XML or to FCPXML for FCPX.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

Running a beta OS with beta Resolve 11 on a production machine….and you’re wondering if it’s safe….?

I’m assuming you’re working on your standup comedy routine here….

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

What are your system specs? Do you have CS6 and/or CC installed (along with CC 2014)?

Have you uninstalled and reinstalled CC 2014? Or used the Adobe CC Cleaner Tool:
https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/cs5-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost