[Todd Gillespie]

Great info Tim!
Thanks for sharing in your findings.

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Marshall,

Because Macs are…well…Macs, it’s usually never hurts the system to try a program. I too have read that the Mac Mini’s are way under powered to run FCP/Studio. But one of my collegues has install it on his Mini and says it works fine. He usually just does basic logging and cutting with a few graphics, but doesn’t have any problems.
If your Mini starts ‘hanging’ a lot in FCP or crashing, then you know that it’s not going to work. You can probably get away with running most everything on your Mini, accept Motion. It wants a lot of graphics power, RAM, etc.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Tom,

Yes, i’m using the multiclip keyboard layout. I customize my number keys for the angles (4) and it worked fine.

Everytime I ‘do’ whatever it is that makes it stop working, I am able to copy and paste into a new timeline and it will work again.
So it’s either something goofy with FCP or I’m executing some keyboard command that I can figure out.
I was a little more careful after it happen twice and I finished the show. But I still need to know what’s going on…

Cheers,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

FCE will resize your graphics usually depending on the size and ratio, you can check in the motion tab under scale.
For a lot of graphics you might need to apply Video-flicker filter. Sometimes it’s an interlacing issue.
You might need to explain your issue with a little more detail and better discription than ‘mush’

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Ken is correct, but you may have missed the point that you need to pre-comp the image- THEN add the effect. ex: add your image to a comp, precomp that comp, then add your effect to the comp/layer.

Make sure that you tried it this way, because it always corrects the problem you’re having.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

You ever heard the pharse:
“If you have to ask, then you can’t afford it”
This is true in your case. I’m not intimately fimiliar with the Da Vinci setups, but they usually work in conjunction with film scanners, giant HD arrays, etc. If you were to pay for a Da Vinci edit session it would be going for 2k-5k per hour. Usually Da Vinci setups go from 100k-300k depending on the configuration.

Someone recomended Color Finesse (good choice)
If you are really interested in A LOT of color control, then the next step would be Final Touch
https://www.siliconcolor.com/products/ftsd/ftsd.html
The HD version runs 5k and needs a beefy setup and screaming drives (FibreChannel Array). (not including the rendering manager) I’m taking a guess that this is already might be out of your price range?

Try small, and work your way up as needed.

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

HI Jon,
I don’t think you’ll find much luck in what you are looking for.
Actually it doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
You want to learn more about FCP (which is design from the ground up as an editing program), but you don’t want to learn the ‘editing’ for FCP? 😛
I can tell you that the Apple Certification Program teaches you a lot about FCP, without teaching you much about editing. It uses examples and tutorials that are based on editing situations so you can understand the functions, but it’s not an editing class.

It sounds like you interact with FCP more as a motion graphics tool? if so, then some tutorials on Livetype and Motion might be closer to what you are looking for. Also there are a couple of tutorials on moving images with FCP that would probably help with what you want to know.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Yes that is a problem. I can do it on my machine.
Maybe you can try to ‘paste’ into the ‘basic text’ effect window to see if works from there.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi,
I believe the problem is that iMovie runs the audio at 32 khz, not 48 khz in FCE. I don’t believe that there is a way to get iMovie to export a 48 khz.

You are using the same process that I would do if I had to change the settings. I’ve never use FCE, but if it has the ‘batch render’ then you could bulk render out the files.

FWIW

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Joseph,
It took me a while to get back to this post.
From what I can tell, it looks like DVDSP App. Support will work fine running off of your external HD. I couldn’t take the time to load LiveType, so I’m not sure it’s possible. I just got done reformatting my PowerBook, and I left off Livetype, Sountracks, and Motion App. Support. I wouldn’t really use Motion on my laptop and I don’t really need the bulk of the Livetype animations. It’s definately a compromise though.

I wouldn’t really worry about a performance hit when your HD fills up, I’ve never noticed any slowing until it runs out of space. Since most apps don’t use a lot of space, it’s usually the animations, picts, etc that you need to worry about taking up space.
I run A LOT of apps on my laptop Office, FCP Studio, iLife, Adobe Creative Suite, AE, and about a dozen misc. apps.- I just loaded them all (minus the App. Support mentioned above) and I still have half my HD open.

FWIW

Todd at UCSB
Television Production