Sean Oneil
Forum Replies Created
-
[todd reid] “When you say
Now, try converting it to MPEG1 using “current” size
what program are you referring to?I downloaded MPEG Streamclip, but the mpeg function is greyed out.
Have you used this before? Can you help guide me due to deadline?”Sorry I didn’t follow up with you in time.
In QT Pro Export or Compressor, when you pick frame size, often you can choose “current size” rather than manually type it in.
Like these guys said, Sqeeze and Cleaner can probably do this, but those are not free programs – which is why I reccomended the free demo of TMPGEnc for Windows – in case MPEG Streamclip doesn’t work (which it looks like it didn’t).
-
First of all, copy and paste everything to a new sequence and make sure the settings are square pixels, 640×480, non-interlaced. Use the deinterlace filter if you must. Not the best way to deinterlace, but since we’re talking MPEG1 it’s fine in this scenario. Then export a self contained file. Now you’ve gotten that out of the way.
Now, try converting it to MPEG1 using “current” size. If it still doesn’t work, try MPEG Streamclip (google it and you’ll find it).
If that doesn’t work, copy it to a Windows PC and go to “Doom9 dot org”. It has a bunch of free MPEG encoders in the download section. One of them is bound to work. Try TMPGEnc, and install the plugin that lets you use Quicktime movies as a source. You can also try the other programs, but you probably have to convert it to AVI first.
Sean
-
[gary adcock] “Not true, that gains you “uncompressed” but really nothing more. All of the connections are the same and the IoHD handles all of rest of the Kona 3 Functionality, including all of the REALTIME HARDWARE functionality (like VFR capture, cross, up and down conversion)rather than passing those processes of to a CPU.”
Right, but you can do all that with a Kona 3. So if that’s what you need get that instead. And if you need a ton of I/O connections, get a Multibridge. Or get both. That’s a much better option than the AJA IO IMO.
-
[CharlieX] ”
Color? I get all excited about decent color tools in FCP6, only to find out it a “round trip” application. And then “round trip” to Motion for compositing tools.Nothing has changed. Might as well stick to FCP 5, After Effects, and Combustion at this rate.”
Charlie, I love all your posts on this board. But I think you’re nuts on this topic.
“Nothing has changed”!?! Maybe it’s just not relavant to the work you do, but they had me at Mixed Formats. That alone is huge.
Then there’s ProRes. This is a KILLER feature. A near-lossless codec. I’ve been geri-rigging Final Cut to use Photo-JPEG for a long time. That’s how important it is to have virtually Uncompressed quality at 1/20th the size. Not only does this have major benefits to the size and speed requirements of your storage, this means you can have full quality HD running over a SAN. Even an ethernet based SAN like what I use.
As far as the round trip thing, you do have the option to leave these applications open at all times if you want to waste the RAM resources. When they’re already open, it’s not really much different than opening up the 3-way.
Sean
-
[Kevin Wild] ”
Have you had a need for it before? It’s horrible. Try telling it to delete all unused media except for what you have in a sequence. I cannot believe they didn’t change this…it’s the #1 complaint for the past 5 years.”What are you talking about? There was a bug where it wouldn’t work if the media was already offline. But they fixed that a long time ago. I use “Delete Unused Media” constantly. It works. End of story.
Sean
-
I’m pretty sure FCP cannot do this on it’s own.
Qmaster has the ablity to do this. If FCP could do background rendering using Qmaster, that would be really cool and would no-doubt use as many cores as you want. But obviously background rendering would be a huge new feature (like what Smoke has) and they would have mentioned it if it was there.
Sean
-
I believe you can still buy some of the higher-end ATI cards in AGP, in case you have an older G5 like I do.
Sean
-
I drilled two people pretty hard on this at the Apple booth. They swore to me that on my dual G5, I could do RT mixed format for all NON-MPEG based codecs (meaning HDV, XDcam, etc.). I would not get an orange bar or anything like that mixing ProRes, Uncompressed, DVCProHD, etc.
Hopefully they were telling the truth. But I honestly think they are. If you look at product page, this is a listed feature, and there is no mention of certain requirements in the tech specs. They breakdown different things like (you need xxx graphics card for Color and Motion) but there is no mention of any minimum requirements for mixed format.
Sean
-
I just got home from Vegas. Before rushing to do anything, you should make sure you fully understand what the ioHD is and isn’t.
When you say “hardware accelerator”, this is not like what Cinewave used to be. You’re not going to get a bunch of RT effects and such that otherwise weren’t there. My understanding is that the acceleration only does two things. Encode and decode ProRes.
If your Mac is fast enough to encode (people at the Apple booth told me my dual G5 is more than enough), then you don’t need it for that. It’s pointless for capturing. You don’t need CPU resources available while capturing. It’s not like you can edit while capturing.
And as far as decoding, I read the PDF at the Apple booth explaining how the decoding process for ProRes is far less intensive than encoding. So I don’t think offloading this process to the IO is going to do a whole lot for you. Sure, it could help a little. Maybe you can get 7 layers RT vs. 6 layers. I really don’t know exactly how much (or little) performance you get, but what I do know is that the money could be put to better use if that’s the only reason you want it.
The new IO’s main thing is what you can now do on a laptop. You can essentially do DI in the field, which is amazing. This is because the external encoder for this new codec allows incredible quality to be pushed down a Firewire 800 pipe.
If that’s something you need, great. I’d pre-order one right now. But you’re talking about a desktop Mac Pro. I think is totally the wrong product for this application. You’re much better served with a Kona or Decklink. And if you need all those IO ports, you’re much better off getting a Multibridge which costs a lot less and gives you the option of using Uncompressed HD. And you’re not maxing out your Firewire bus.
Sean
-
I can’t find anywhere what the hardware requirements are for the key new features for FCP 6.
What kind of hardware do you need for “Open Timeline” and “Pro Res” to work?
Sean