[Smallfry]

Patch bay is a great idea. Thanks. Unfortunately, while I am not satisfied with composite video, clients don’t get the concept and could care less about resolution. They are watching their projects on a low res TV and if it looks good, they are satisfied. Until I can afford a better capture system, composite is the way I have to go. Thanks for all the input. I appreciate it.

[Smallfry]

I have also used diffused flourescent tubes to flatly light the “key”. This works as well. Chromakey is easier than people think as long as you separate your subject from the background.

[Smallfry]

I’m waiting for 6.5 to be available on ebay. I can’t swing a full version quite yet.

[Smallfry]

Thanks for responding. Yes, I know about the composite vs. component issues. However, budgetwise, I have no choice at the moment. I was wondering if this switcher will work at all.

[Smallfry]

I am in the same budget boat you are and have gotten great chromakey results using a green fabric and, believe this or not, going to Home Depot and getting these 250 watt quartz halogen worklights for about $15-20 each. I bought 4. Use some diffusion and make sure the lighting is very even. Get separation and use a backlight.

[Smallfry]

I finally got the thing up and running. I just basically re-routed the whole system, running the Beta deck into the DVC deck and to the BOB on the RT Mac. It seems to be working. The Pyro wasn’t working at all. One of the advantages of the RT Mac is that it has the RT effects and doesn’t require rendering to view transitions and such. Maybe not a perfect solution, but until I can afford a bigger, beefier BOB using the firewire, this will have to do.

Thanks for all the help you all gave me!!!

[Smallfry]

Unfortunately, the DVC pro deck is not equipped with the firewire output. Yesterday I bought the ADS Pyro AV link hoping it would be better to input using the firewire, but am having sync issues with the Beta deck. This is a nightmare as I come from the world of Media 100 that had a BOB with multiple ins and outs. Now with FCP and little money, I have to be more creative and its not easy.

[Smallfry]

OK, what is a reasonable solution within a tight budget to get the job done??

[Smallfry]

Thanks for the tip and I will read the tutorial. However, my question is do I need another piece of hardware to capture from my Beta deck and DVC pro deck. The options are not extensive in version 4.

[Smallfry]

Thanks for the tips. let me elaborate the scenario. I was running version 2.6.2 on a Mac 8100 for 7 years. I bought a G4 for Aftereffects and had the 2 computers networked together for file transfers.

2 weeks ago I bought a G3 with version 6 as I got a smoking deal (I thought!). There was alot of software that came with this purchase, including version 8. My thought was that all the software belonged to the same owner, I could pull the card and install it in my G4 along with the software. I did so, but after much hand wringing, realized that the card’s serial number did not match the version 8 software Former owner had more than one system and sold each system to different buyers). Media 100 wants $600 to sync this up. That is not a reality now. So, my other thought was to just install version 6 on my G4, remove the version 8 software and be back in business. Unfortunately, thats when this new problem started. I tried to uninstall to no avail. One more little issue is that I don’t have the original CD for version 6. Any help? Please????