Steve Covello
Forum Replies Created
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upon startup, FCP does an analysis of the RT capabilities of the system you are using, and it changes accordingly.
The slowness or lack of realtime capability is a factor of the speed of the hard drive and the hardware of the computer, not FCP software exclusively. There are ways to get multiple layers of realtime layers with 10-bit HDCam using the same software as you have — it is merely a factor of throughput.
In this case, a FAT32 formatted drive would no doubt reduce the realtime capability of the software.
steve covello
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Another way is to mark your in/out on the original clips, then simply drag/drop the clip from the bin to the open capture window and it will take on all of the metadata attributes i.e. reel ID, name, except that the mark in/outs will become the new clip ins/outs. Clever!
But first, create a new bin and be sure to designate it a capture bin so that when you press Enter/Return, the new clip does not mix in with the original. You can do this by creating a new bin, then control + click on it and select Set Logging Bin — all your new clips will go there. But remember that if you have identical filenames as a previous capture, you will have problems resolving them on capture.
Even if you delete the original captures, then do your consolidated recapture, FCP may still bonk you with a filename conflict, which can only be corrected manually, one by one. your best bet is to take you new logging bin and drag/drop it into a brand new project.
steve covello
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PsF is interlace, but itt is not interlace as you know it in the conventional sense.
In standard def, and in “true” interlace HD, there is a temporal difference between fields. For example, if you had a baseball pitcher’s arm movement in Still mode off of a SD or interlaced HD VTR, you would see jitter between the position of the arm in the even field and the odd field. Same phenomenon would appear if you had digitized an interlace image and paused a frame on FCP where the video card is set to display both fields – which I believe is a default in the AJA cards.
PsF simply takes a progressively recorded image and divides it into even and odd fields, but there is no progression of time in the recording between the two, thus the image in the above example would simply be a single [probably blurred] image. your eye cannot discern the difference, provided you have set your playback to 24p as well.
This was done to accommodate the limitations of the display formats, and there are no TV displays that I am aware of [which doesn’t mean much compared to some of the dudes here] that is even capable of displaying a true progressively displayed 24p image versus a 48Hz PsF. This may be no longer true since I was involved in the research of it for my company some 2 years ago, so take FWIW.
So to answer your question, yes, your digitized image is indeed progressive, though it is merely displayed non-invasively, in terms of aesthetics, in interlace.
steve covello
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Try trashing Compressor .plist file:
[user]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.compressor.Compressor.plist
steve covello
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WARNING! Biased, unsubstantiated opinions to follow! Read at your own peril!
I’m going to ignorantly say that they all do by now, and if they don’t, you wouldn’t want to work there anyway.
My biased opinion is that any so-called boutique editing house that is creative oriented has abandoned Avid by now. I believe that the ideal creative dynamic right now for editing talent is a place that does both shooting and editing, or maybe editing and graphics. You will want to always be working in collaboration with another team of specialists since it will improve your editing skills in ways that working only amongst other editors won’t. And I don’t mean just editing — I mean in terms off pre-shooting conceptual stuff, workflow management, and being included in the entire process.
Not only that, but the talent pool of Avid editors is [again, ignorant statement to follow] “aging” compared to FCP editors, mainly because FCP was able to be “obtained” for many years fairly easily, spawning a new generation of talent that used it in concert with DV shooters. There were a few years where I would say that the FCP talent wasn’t quite as good as the top-end talent of Avid editors, but now that is not the case. Plus, Apple has gone out of their way to make FCP compatible with as many third party hardware and software developers as possible, which Avid eschews.
Once I saw what an FCP editor could do with AE/PSD-style transfer mode layering, I knew I had to leave the Media Composer world ASAP, even though I whole-heartedly liked the interface of Avid much better than FCP.
The only places you will find Avids these days are in broadcast facilities who have Unity systems, and editing houses leftover from the 1990’s who can’t stomach trashing their $120,000 Avid systems [each], and then forcing their staff to retrain on a new system. if you call yourself “creative”, then run away from these places.
This concludes my biased opinion.
steve covello
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Walter took the high road as far as extending kybd control to a machine room, though there are less expensive ways that will do as well.
I setup my 2 VGA monitors with 2 high quality VGA extender cables and the results were satisfactory. I would not say that the image quality was 100% perfect, but since I was not doing print production or color correction on either monitor — used only for FCP windows and Finder windows — I was OK with not spending the THOUSANDS of dollars for a 35′ DVI extender.
But again, I say, you must get THE HIGHEST QUALITY VGA cable money can buy, or else the images will simply smear on your monitor.
Also, Walter mentions Active Extension USB cables. They are also sometimes referred to as USB Repeater Cable, and you must check that the cable type is compatible with Mac. I made the mistake of buying a set of extenders only to find out, incredibly, that they were supposedly only Sun compatible., according to the documentation. turns out they worked anyway, though I have had complete USB dropout i.e. no kybd control, serial adapter deck control, USB audio conversion, UPS monitor, etc. maybe 3-4 times a year — with no apparent explanation. I cannot say if it had anything to do specifically with the brand of USB extender, and the fix was as simple as pulling all USB connections, restarting, then putting in the keybd/mouse USB in first, confirming functionality, then plugging in everything else.
Regular USB extender cable will not work beyond a few meters.
steve covello
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I want to reiterate what was said before about forming a complimentary work relationship with another specialist or producer.
This is the best policy not only for your own sanity, but for clients as well.
I ran into a problem where the same person who was the “happy face” producer to the client also happened to be the one who made the collection calls to the same persons for payment. My clients determined that they hated her method of collection so much that it superseded her “happy face”, and my client gave me an ultimatum to either leave the company I was working for, or lose them as a client. I ended up leaving.
You could apply this to other disciplines as well, since I, too, believe no one person can be Willie Mays at all the tools of production and post.
One thing I have taken as pure gold gospel is to work with people who are smarter and better than you at as many things as possible.
steve covello
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You could approach this issue a couple ways. some places engineer their Macs with to separate partitions on their primary hard drive, or perhaps a second HDD, each with identical OS and apps, etc. Once an update comes about, one of the partitions/drives gets the update while the other remains in its presumably functional state. [I am currently doing exactly this with an installation of FCS2 while the orig HDD still has 5.1.4/10.4.8.]. This way, you could test out the system with at least a fallback position in case the new systems some incompatibilities.
The wildcard in this, which makes whatever Walter does not necessarily gospel [though most of it is :-)], is to consider that your third-party content could affect your native running apps, and no two systems are identical in that respect.
The other approach is to simply wait wait wait and watch the forums and MacFixit.com and macnn.comn to see what other brave souls have encountered, and then make your move when the opportunity arises.
Back to the first option, though, even if you do FCS2 on one volume, and FCP 5.1.x on the other, you could still make your edits back compatible at a basic edit level [not necessarily in terms of effects], by exporting an XML. I cannot say, however, that the media that you digitize in FCS2 would be compatible if you are working in non-legacy formats such as ProRes or AVCHD, which are not supported in 5.1.x. Also, I did the beta test install of FCS2 without installing ANY other third party apps — no Adobe, no MS, no Automatic Duck, etc. — so that if anything fails to work properly, I can discount non-native conflicts as a reason for it.
Generally, I would make it your policy to not upgrade until you absolutely have to since, for example, you could end up having nightmarish problems like what had happened with the QY 7.2 fiasco. If an OS upgrade only fixes useless junk [for me] like some Bluetooth thing or an iWork bug, screw it. I don’t bother. The ProApps updates, however, I generally accept first after reading about it in MacFixit.
steve covello
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If you are looking for the hallowed automatic Avid function called Output to Sequence Time/In To Out, fugettabout it. It ain’t there in FCP.
Unless FCP has changed in FCS 2 and I am not aware of it, you will have to copy/paste it. Sorry. I have been whining about this shortcoming for years.
steve covello
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Good idea.
Don’t forget that you can make a pdf file of a page in the Print dialog of any document – lower left corner of Print window, select first item Save as PDF. Be sure to deselect the Hide Extension box in the Save dialog.
Save all your pdf’s, then get Combine PDF freeware from:
https://www.monkeybreadsoftware.de/
make a single multi-page pdf by drag drop, then email it.
steve covello