[Todd Gillespie]

Hi,

So FCP says there is no room on the capture scratch?
Obviously reset the capture scratch to see if it changes. If not, change the capture scratch to another HD to see if more space comes up.

If FCP still can’t capture to the HD, it’s probably an OS problem with the HD. Empty trash. Check the HD in the finder to see how much space is left?
Trash FCP preferences and reboot.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

It didn’t sound like you’ve restarted FCP or your Mac?

The first step in Troubleshooting anything with computers is to quit and restart the computer. Once you do this, and restart FCP, everything should behave correctly.
FCP may need to relink the media during start up; just browse to the location of the capture footage and FCP should relink the rest of the project-if needed.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Anand,

It’s not that[Anand Shankar] “will FCP6 slow down the mac”
It’s more like FCP6 will not run as fast on your Mac.

If you’re just editing DV, you can hardly tell the difference in speed on a Dual or a newer Mac. (Obviously a new Mac is going to compress, render, import/export much faster)

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

You can upgrade to Final Cut Studio (FCP6) only. FCP7 is Intel Macs only.
That machine is fine for doing SD DV work. Motion and Color will bog down, but the other apps will run fine.
There are additional 3D templates with FCS and the integration is good-plus the new ProRes codecs, but not much difference beyond that for DV work.
You are very limited in the hardware upgrading; graphics cards, more RAM and faster HD are all you can do. Keep in mind though that it’s getting harder to find good graphics cards since the hardware design is older.

The big issue with that system is that’s it’s NOT Intel based. We finally just recently upgraded our Macs to Intels, so I know it will start to become an issue if you need to buy additional software. Adobe can’t install and a lot of other programs are now starting to write to Intel Macs only.
So if you buy the system, you kind of need to be happy with where it’s at NOW, because you’ll have few options to add hardware and software.

FWIW,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

It really depends on your needs and your project.

As Dennis mentioned, you can manipulate the layers if you use a Photoshop file, but FCP creates a sequence for each psd file, so it can get cumbersome for some editors.

tif is a great format, very little compression-but large file sizes.

My standard practice is to create the images within PS, then save the graphics out as .pict files with alpha channels-leaving a ‘Master’ psd file, if I ever need to change things. But if I were doing print work, I would probably just stay with tiff.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

For VARs, it can be a very personal.
Through the years, I’ve purchase equipment from just about everyone.-it’s not a good thing. BH does have the best pricing, but unless your happy with what you receive (as you’ve experienced) it can be hard to live with.

For you, it would probably be best to find a VAR that you can go to and actually hold, touch, shake, etc the equipment before you buy it. Since you don’t know a lot about equipment it’s going to be important that the VAR understands you’re needs and that you understand what you’re getting. A good VAR, even if they don’t stock an item you might be interest in, sometimes can get a sales rep to stop by with a demo that you can look at. As Walter mentioned, once you find a VAR that you like, it can be a great relationship for you both. They get all of your business, and you get someone who can answer your questions and will have your back if you need a return.
Hint, usually good VARs are NOT going to have the best pricing on every piece of equipment-it’s a trade off for having quality staff.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

HI Matt,

Thanks for the follow up.
Sometimes I surprise myself on how stupid I can be. Of course as soon as I posted the thread, I went back to AE and immediately figured it out.
I was so focused on the 3D layers that I didn’t think about layer order!! It’s scary how easy it was. It was one of those “I couldn’t see the trees through the forest.”

Cheers,
Todd

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Joseph,

Yes, you can use Compressor to transcode the HDV footage. There are a bunch of different ways people deal with changing the codec of their footage. You can’t transcode while you’re capturing via HDV. The fastest and easiest way to get out of HDV is to use a capture device/card. So rather than using capture HDV through the Firewire, you’d connect your deck/camera to a AJA, Blackmagic, etc., and play through that capture the footage to a ‘better’ codec in the process.

FWIW,

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Joseph,

I’ve avoided editing with HDV, but do keep in mind that FCP (or most editing apps) have to ‘conform’ the HDV codec to edit. It can be a VERY processor intensive process. Your best bet is to get the footage into a format like ProRes, DVCPro, or AIC to edit with, then I’m sure you’ll see FCP speed up a lot.
I once saw a demo between DVCPro codec and HDV, and FCP render the DVCPro transition in less than a minute, and the HDV codec in 20 minutes! -it’s a very slow codec to edit with.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi
I don’t know what you mean by QuickTime jumps around?
If your hardware can’t keep up with HD footage, then you may not have a choice.

what hardware are you using? Drives, OS, etc.
Again, AIC should work better, even with SD res.

Todd at UCSB
Television Production