[Todd Gillespie]

Hi there,
Tom has a good idea.
There are a lot of options.
We have an Xserver for our 5 FCP stations. We set it up a couple years ago and haven’t used it as much as we thought we might.
Even with a Gigabit ethernet you can’t capture/master from the server. Plus servers don’t have a lot of HD space, so you’ll fill it up quickly.

FWIW.

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Tom,
Not to go against a good poster like Dave, but I’ve heard the EXACT opposite from our Apple gurus.
When your Mac boots, (since OSX) does a partial defrag everytime-on the local HD. It goes beyond my understanding but, it can really screw up how Mac finds the files. Plus you want a certain amount of fragmentation for your media files, it actual helps. (you shouldn’t be storing any media on your local HD) If your drives get really bad, then you need to either reformat the drives or clean install for a local HD. This is also why you don’t see any software that defrags for a Mac, it’s not a good thing.
But like a lot of things, different users have different beliefs. Kind of like Bigfoot. 😛

FWIW

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Welcome to the Calf!

As for the sound issue, did you make sure that the audio box was check in your ‘make movie’ window. It usually defaults to no audio, so you need to check it before it will include audio on your rendering.

Let us know if it helped.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Keenast,
I’ve been trying to answer your post for 2 days! Short story is it takes a while to get my laptop up and running.

I was reminded of the same situation a couple months back. I don’t have AE install on my laptop yet, so I can’t double check, but (I believe) you need to go to the ‘interpret footage’ under file and choose the 16×9 option. You also need to have a ‘widescreen’ comp under the settings. It took me a couple of times before I got the correct combo, but it’s there.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Doug,
sorry for the delay. I reinstall OSX on my laptop and I couldn’t get the cookies to recognize me until today. 🙂

[Doug Buckser] “is this the following process to use?

1. Trash the preferences

(and if that doesn’t work)

2. Reinstall the program”

Not exactly, it all depends on the situation. But before you call anyone, post anything, or freak out; you should always trash your prefs and restart your Mac (and deck if needed). From there it all depends on what the problem might be. if it’s a drive issue, software issue, corrupted file, corrupted media, etc; all require a different troubleshooting path. But as a general (troubleshooting) rule you want to elimate the variables; i.e. unmount the drive-see if that fixed it or open a different project-does it still work? etc. So I wouldn’t say a reinstall would be a #2 fix or even #3, it just depends on how many variables you can elimate. But I WOULD difinatly reinstall the program BEFORE I called tech support.

[Doug Buckser] “Are there recommended on-line user groups for Final Cut Pro (in addition to the Creative Calf community)?”
None as good as the Calf/Cow community. About six months after I started posting at the Cow (2002) I stopped going to other user groups because I could get everything I needed here. Between your own posts and looking through archives, you’ll get just about anything you need.

[Doug Buckser] “I’m not aware of one here in Melbourne Australia”
Enzo? Anything in Melbourne?

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Doug,
Try some breathing exercises and relax.

By comparison, FCP is incredibly stable. I’ve worked on many different editing systems and setups, and at some point, they will all have their problems. Usually trashing the prefs, will fix most problems, but in some cases, reinstalling is needed. I just had to reinstall my Media 100 844xi editing system Friday, so it happens.

Apple makes the install process for FCP quite simple and fast, so when we decide that we need to reinstall, it’s no big deal. Some editing systems/setups can take you down for half a day, just with a reinstall. I’ve been using FCP since version 2, and FCP has gotten more and more stable with every release. Back with 3.5, we would be reinstalling the software around once every couple of months, with 5, I haven’t had to do it yet.

[Doug Buckser] “Do you think this could be an issue? Is using sub-clips a better way to go?”
No.
Although, it would probably be a good idea to make several backups of your project file (saving it to different media locations)
I’m finishing up a documentary that’s an hour with 10 LiveType projects, tons of CG, moving graphics, etc and the whole program is ‘precomped’ into another program. So I’m really pushing the system, and it works like a champ. (knock on wood) So I don’t think you’re taxing FCP too much. I

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi,
I’m not sure what you’re asking:

A. if an FCP ‘project’ file can be open with AE, Combustion, etc
OR
B. if the ‘media’ file (footage) can be imported into AE, Combustion, etc.

Answer to A, no. But the intergration between Motion, LiveType, and SoundTracks is amazing.

Answer to b, yes the media can be opened with any program that can read the QT codec.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

[Burns S] “What is the best way to rip a dvd so that part of it can be edited.”

MIraizon’s Cinematize would be a great choice for this situation.
[Burns” target=”_blank”>https://www.miraizon.com/index.html[Burns S]

“I have a Sp Beta tape, I need to covert to some usable format I don

[Todd Gillespie]

I’ve never used that setup, but my understanding is that you can’t use FCP with a Firewire card. It needs to connect to the 2 that come on the G4.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Rumi,
Your “Home” directory/Library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data/Final Cur Pro 5.0 Perfs
I also trash the ‘cache’ files as well.

PS If you need to post again, make a new post, otherwise we (I) might not see it.

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production