Tim Vaughan
Forum Replies Created
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We’ve had similar problems (including the same problem as you are currently having) with the Big Disk 500GB, including some other problems. We’ve sent them off to Lacie for repair, and their service is good. But, here is what ends up happening. Your data is lost. They will fix a drive 1 time, then replace the unit the second time. We currently have an issue now where whenever a mini-DV camera is connected to either a laptop or the firewire drive, the Lacie Big disk will kick itself off the mount and shut down. Extremely unstable.
We were recently on a shoot out of town and had to run to Sam’s and pick up a couple Western Digital externals just to work. From these and similar experiences, here is our recommendation:
Do not purchase the 500gb or larger drives. Only purchase the 250 or less drives. These operate off of one physical disk, and we have rarely had a problem with them. The 500GB or more use mutliple disks, and if anything happens to one of them, you are lost. Also, something seems to happen where the communication between the 2 disks gets corrupted, and causes the situation you are currently in.
I hope you are able to gather the data, but from my experience, anything that was larger than a few megabytes was lost. –and any movie I was able to save was corrupted. Sorry for the bleak view, but I do hope this helps.Tim
Tim
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Have you tried deleting your render files?
Tim
Tim
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It is pretty easy, actually. But, without knowing all of your projects settings, I will take a shot in the dark at it. (no pun intended 🙂 )
I will usually create a “Floor” for this effect, if anything, to add a shadow in the front and enhance the effect. –Something that the object will sit on or float above. Then, position your light behind the object. Distance and height will have to be adjusted to your personal pref. Make sure your object can send shadows, and the floor can accept shadows. Make sure all lights in the front are turned off, or their brightness properties are 0%. Now it becomes a time for you to decide your placements and brightness values.
This can create a “backlit” scenario, and by adding a floor, you will have shadows coming off the object to enhance the visuals. If you want to have an actual “light” behind the object, you will have to add a plugin. I believe Trapcode has one called Lux, which is pretty neat, though I haven’t tried it. I hope this helps.
ThanksTim
Tim
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For what its worth, we purchased the G5 Quad, and the time it has saved us in rendering both FCP and AE is amazing. Compressor, burning DVD’s, and just about everything is amazingly fast. Well worth the money. Hope this helps.
Tim
Tim
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WMP is terrible, anyway. Quicktime is 100x’s far better in quality. The problem is Quicktime doesn’t always play on M$ machines (without constantly having to send clients to get QT updates), and WMV is terrible on every machine. It would be perfect in my opionion if M$ just stopped making lousy software and just added full support for Quicktime and other technology that is far better. (problem with that is they would be out of business. I think Office is the only decent thing made by them….)
Tim
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We have the Apple Raid (RAID 5 setup) with a QLogic Fibre Sanbox and XSan, and I haven’t had any trouble working with Beta SP in SD and mini-DV projects. We absolutely MUST have my projects backed up, and the overall performance has been very good. We are not editing to HD yet, and when we reach that point, we’ll most likely get another unit and dedicate that to speed, and keeping the 1st to redundancy. But the most important thing to us is backup. (I am currently rebuilding a project that was stored on an external drive, and that drive failed. While the FCP files where backed up locally, all After FX projects are having to be rebuilt watching the copy. A real pain in the ….)
But that is just my 2 cents…..Tim
Tim
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Also, it may help to remove/delete all render files and re-render.
Tim
Tim
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Tools–>Keyboard Layout
Tim
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I usually take a handful of filters (–also video and audio transitions) that I use on a very regular basis, and place them in the favorites folder. From there, assign keyboard shortcuts to the favorites. (Look for Video Filter Favorites, Audio Transition Favorites, and Video Transition Favorites)
This may or may not help you, but it saves me a TON of time just selecting