Tim Kolb
Forum Replies Created
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I don’t have any experience with the Matrox product…so no meaningful advice there. I have experience with AJA equipment.
(Don’t get an IO HD without checking on whether or not the drivers are out for the latest version of Final Cut…right now the IO HD works with FCS 2)
As far as greenscreen…I’m not saying that either format is better than the other…what I’m saying is that you can use compressed options like ProRes, or even 100 Mbit 4:2:2 MPEG to do that sort of work. What I meant by my remark was that I hear of all kinds of people who say “format X is no good for greenscreen” and when you do some follow up you find out that they took a shot of an African person in front of a roll of green construction paper with no lights…obviously in those cases, the format has nothing to do with the failure to pull a solid key.
If you got a Kona card and had the Mac cabled via SDI to the camera, you wouldn’t need anything else…just a serial digital capable BNC cable.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
If you want to skip compression, you wouldn’t bring in footage as XDcam, you’d bring it in uncompressed and then write the file (and compress) to ProRes.
If you ingest directly to your Mac, the IO HD would work if you want a portable external solution, but an internal Kona card would be less expensive. You’d want a camera that outputs HDSDI (I think the Sony EX1-now discontinued for newer models, and the Panasonic HVX170 may be the most cost-effective options…someone else might have knowledge of something else).
For Green screen work, ProRes should be fine as long as you have the chops to shoot with the proper lighting, etc. I’ve also used 100 Mbit MPEG from Convergent Design’s NanoFlash (from an EX-1) and that works pretty well.
If you prefer uncompressed, you’ll need a pretty good RAID system to keep up with the recording…
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
[Maarten Mylemans] “Well, Tim, your positivity about Premiere encouraged me to take another look at my software issues and see if they aren’t indeed just my view filtered through a good bit of “rage view”.”
Well…I’m making no apologies for any manufacturer or product here…they all have areas where they shine and stumble. I just hate to see people throw money at the wrong problem…
Hopefully you find a way to reduce the headaches and get on with it…I know that it is very frustrating when you’re spending all your time troubleshooting.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
[Maarten Mylemans] “Hmm, so I’ve been reading up on user’s experiences with FCP, and seems there are quite some gripes with that program as well. Like Apple changing the way something works and it’s apparently very picky about the version of OS and Quicktime you’re using.”
Yes…isn’t it interesting how even when one company makes the computer, the OS, AND the NLE software…there are still issues.
As far as CS4 growing up…(by all means try Vegas, but…) once you get an updated 64 bit, 8 core, 16 GB machine, I’d guess you’ll find that CS4’s puberty will largely be in the past…
(I run CS4 on my T7400 Centrino with 2 GB of RAM and XP Pro and I only have real issues bogging down when I dynamic link.)
Vegas is an amazing software program in a lot of ways (I have Vegas as well as Adobe), but it has limitations like everything else.
It’s all a matter of what works the way you think.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
[Maarten Mylemans] “Now I’ve discovered that you can run Windows on the new Mac Pro’s? So actually I can have the best of both worlds now…”
I know many who have done just that and are quite happy.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
That may be one of the features that was left out in the initial release if i remember correctly.
You’re several updates behind…v4.2 is current. I think if you update (not upgrade…no charge) your Adobe software, you’ll be in business.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
“Registering” as in providing a ton of info isn’t required, but the machine with the software has to be on the internet and ‘activate’ the serial number…then the codecs should download and install.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
The length of the edited program makes no difference…how much footage is loaded into the machine and what formats are they? Certain filetypes need to be handled differently…also if the audio settings are different for your timeline than they were in your footage, every clip will have to have a duplicate audio track cached that is correct for the settings in the sequence(s).
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
It sounds like you’re running the software in demo mode…as soon as you put in a serial number it will add the codecs.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
[bastien francois] “I still struggle with h264 on the timeline, the only way to work with it is to convert to ful res, which can be a very lenghly process even with a fast machine, only down side of those DSLRs.”
There is no question that DSLRs make fantastic pictures, but the post process is painful at this point in time.
Recently I was involved in a project where the editor used MPEG Streamclip to convert the DSLR footage into a format that worked better for him…in that case he changed it to XDcam. Seemed to work very well…
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,