[Samuel Frazier]

What I just read was leaning towards dual core at those speeds. That would make more sense as Intel and AMD are soon to announce dual core as well.
I hope Apple loses its suit against these rumor sites. I hate to admit it, but the rumors do catch my attention, peak my interest, and make me pay more attention to Mac products. But, I may not know the whole story behind this suit.
I agree about the graphics card though. The PCIe cards in PC land seem really nice.

[Samuel Frazier]

Well, here are the reasons I originally wanted to work from a 24p (really 23.98) timeline:
1- My understanding is that progressive is better for rendering to mpeg2 for dvds, ie yields better looking results. Apparently mpeg2 was designed for this purpose and with use on Hollywood films.
2- A 24p dvd would have more room than a 29.97 interlaced dvd.
3- A 24p dvd could be shown in its true progressive form on non-CRT monitors, such as LCD and DLP big screen TVs. As these types of TVs are becoming more popular and CRT is phased out, This might be a nice benefit to have. I have a friend who just made a feature on super 16mm and he claims his dvd (made from a 24p timeline) looks much better on his progressive TV than dvds from interlaced timelines.

For me, I thought I’d like to edit on a 24p timeline so I can make 24p dvds to send to festivals. If I actually got accepted into one, I would add the pulldown for the print to tape. So the workflow would be to use CT on both the DVCAM and digibeta tapes, edit from the DVCAM, then online directing the project towards the digibeta files.
Now obviously I’m nowhere near the understanding of you guys, but it seems to me that this route adds a couple steps (running CT on both sets of tapes), but also adds possibilites as far as DVDs are concerned.
Again, I could be wrong about any number of things here, so please tell me if I am. But thank you for all the discussion. It’s been very educational.

[Samuel Frazier]

Thank you both for the help, I appreciate it. Yes, I definitely want to learn Cinema Tools. I’m not very good at going half way with things, so if I commit to FCP I want to know everything it has has to offer. However, this whole project is short on time (stupid leading actor moving to LA) so I’m having to rush things more than I would want. I’m a big believer in prep work and knowing what you’re doing before you get in the middle of it, but I can’t do that as much as I’d like here.
I believe I know enough now to tell the lab how I want things transferred. Thanks for the help with that. The possessed frame thing does make sense to me, and is another reason I’d like to work on a 24p timeline. So I was wondering if using Cinema Tools to make the DVCAM tapes 24p would mess things up when I try to do the online with the digibeta tapes. Perhaps it would work if I used Cinema Tools on the DVCAM tapes, did my edit, used Cinema Tools on the digibeta tapes. This way would use more hard drive space, but the timecodes should match up, right?
Again, any help is greatly appreciated!

[Samuel Frazier]

My understanding is progressive is better for rendering to mpeg2 for dvds, ie you get better looking results. Apparently mpeg2 was designed for this purpose and with use on Hollywood films. Plus, it saves space on the disk to have it rendered as 24p.
I believe 24pa has true distinct frames where as 24pn has a blended frame in the mix somewhere. There was an article on this a while ago, but I have no idea where I read it. Maybe an older Dv magazine. Therefore, I believe 24pa is better for film out. 24pn is supposed to be a better option if you are not going to remove pulldown at all.
I believe then it is generally considered a better option for most NLEs if you have any plans on removing pulldown to shoot 24pa.
Now, I could be wrong about some or all of this, but I believe these were the rules. Hope that helps.

[Samuel Frazier]

Great, my response just got lost. But I realize the origin of my misunderstanding in a faq on the apple fcp site. It was a discussion about agp vs pci graphics cards so I got confused.
But I just bought the “Inside Apple’s Production Suite” so hopefully I won’t be as green as I am for very long.
But I appreciate you’re setting me straight. Thanks!