[Tom Brooks]

I keep sayin’, “We’re in the wrong business.”

[Tom Brooks]

I may not have answers for you, but if you play in WM Player on a PC, and choose File/Properties, you get the actual codec in use by the file. For example:

Windows Media Video V9
960 x 540, 29.96 fps, Q=20 (VBR)

or…

Windows Media Video 9
Professional

It’s just good to know info to get started. I’m not sure if Flip4Mac’s player will play WM Professional properly on a Mac in that version, for instance. Current version is 2.2.0.49 but current isn’t always better with that plug-in. If you have a PC to use, perhaps the Windows version of MPEG Streamclip could help you. At least it would not rely on the Flip4Mac plug-in to play the Win Media.

[Tom Brooks]

Could you report the “properties” of the wmv files for us as reported on the PC? It may make a difference as to the exact WM codec that was used and what version of Flip4Mac you have. I would guess that the best shot at an answer on this issue would be the Flip4Mac knowlege base and discussion forums. If you could play these in MPEGStreamclip correctly, the best bet would be to do as you have tried and immediately get them into a standard FCP codec. I have also seen mysterious oddities in bringing ripped DVD files from MPEGStreamclip to FCP in which a restart fixed sync issues with the converted files.

[Tom Brooks]

Thank you for your thoughtful pursuit of the problem. Your contributions are appreciated.

Final Cut Studio 2, FCP 6.0.3, Mac OS-X 10.4.11, Quicktime 7.4.5, After Effects 6.5 Pro, G5 Quad 2.5, Kona-LHe V5.1, 4.5GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 7800-GT 256MB, G-RAID 2x1TB FW800, 6TB RAID-5 (Enhance E8-ML, Highpoint 2322), Panasonic HVX-200P P2.

[Tom Brooks]

RAID-5. Spares on the shelf. Works for my level of risk.

[Tom Brooks]

How does Apple suggest you use HD material in an SD sequence?Probably copy and paste your HD clips into an SD sequence or nest HD seq in SD seq, then export from that. This would let FCP do the scaling instead of Quicktime or Compressor. What exactly is wrong with the quality in the Compressor method you have tried?

[Tom Brooks]

Thanks for the input guys. I’ve found a couple workarounds but I’d just like to see that chroma keyer work the way it’s s’pose to. If I can’t apply multiple instances, the settings with just one get pretty aggressive.

Is the Kona LHe driver likely to have any impact on this trouble? I have not tried uninstalling/reinstalling that yet.

[Tom Brooks]

[Sabreena Peters] “if my hard drive isn’t formatted to mac OS Extended, is there a way to make change part of the format without losing all the data on the hard drive? Will partitioning do that?”

It depends. If it’s formatted in NTFS or maybe FAT32, there may be a way to partition it with a Windows program like Partition Magic. But generally, the answer is that it’s not going to be cheap or easy. I don’t believe Apple Disk Utility can do this. An alternative is to copy the data to another drive temporarily and then reformat the first drive and copy the data back.

Regarding the P2, you should be able to transfer spanned files from proper P2 folders using Log and Transfer. Are you following the P2 guidelines in FCP6 HD and Broadcast Formats found in FCP Help? Within a P2 folder you should have a Contents folder and the Lastclip.txt file.

[Tom Brooks]

You highlight a disk icon in the left panel, then read the information about it at the bottom of the window or you click the “i” for info button. When a disk is formatted, there will be one disk icon for the physical disk itself and at least one below it which is a “volume.” The volume is the one that will be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or DOS, or whatever.

[Tom Brooks]

Use Disk Utility in your Applications/Utilities folder.