[Tom Matthies]

Hi Bob.
Nope. Fortunately, for now, it’s Firewire for storage. I managed to find a PCI Express card (two of ’em) that will work with FW800 drives. I’m going to run it this way for a while before adding a SATA raid to the system after NAB.
I’m getting another FCP studio license and the software should show up in the next day or two. Then the fun begins, doing a clean install and changing everything over from the old machine. I currently have a number of projects going, so the changeover will be tricky. I’ll get the new G5 running with the existing drives and make everything redundant before trying any projects “for real”.
I an always in the middle of some project or another at any given time so the old “never upgrade in the middle of a project” rule won’t work. I managed to do it before on my machines at home, so wish me luck on another sucessful change over. (knocking on wood right now)
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Weird.
I just had the same thing happen last week. I tried to take a 16×9 sequence and drop it on a 4×3 timeline for an analog tape. It usually works just fine, but this time I couldn’t get it to work no matter what I did. I ended up adding a distort factor to the anamorphic sequence and rendering it. I usually don’t have any problems doing this, but this time it simply refused to work.Strange…
Any insights to this?
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

If you are trying to use a Firestore, check what control mode you are in. If it’s in synchro mode it will wait for timecode to hit before recoeding. I’m not in front of my Firestore right now (FS-3) but I have used it sucessfully to recoed longer events. Never a problem.
We also produce a half-hour talk show for a local hospital in the area. We use their small studio right within the hospital itself. I used to recoed to Mini-DV tape and then capture it into the Mac. Lately I have been using Capture Now taking the Firewire output from the DV deck while I recoed the show (for backup) Four shows and not a single burp in the process. I’m capturing to an internal serial ATA drive in the Mac itself…in the second disk slot. It’s worked like a charm so far. Your setup should be able to do it as well, depending on your hardware. We’re running a Dual 2.7 G5 with FCP 5 at the hospital. Another choice might be one of the analog to Firewire converters that Canopus sells. Very good quality at a decent price point. They take analog composite video and audio in and convert it to Firewire. I’ve used an ADVC-100 for years with good results. It’s since been replaced by an Aja Io,, but it still gets called into service every once in a while.
What you are trying to do can be done, but I would always roll a tape on it as well just for backup.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Hmmm… Not sure which version is in there. I know this machine hasn’t had any updates to the Io drivers or firmware for a year or so. When I bought a new G5 2.3 for at home and upgraded to FCP 5, I needed to update the firmware on my IoLa to work correctly. I’m just assuming that I’ll most likely need to do the same to this Io when I move over to the G5 Quad & FCP5. The Io here is a full version and not an IoLA or IoLd. We’ve had it inline for a couple of years now. How does one check which firmware version is loaded in a given Io anyway? Probably time to update it I’m guessing…
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Finally tried it tonight and it works like a charm. Thanks Walter.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Yep!

Tom

[Tom Matthies]

I keep an early version of Peak DV on my old computer just for this. It has an iption to export to Mp3. I used to use it for exporting sequence audio tracks for radio statons. It also had a nifty time compression feature that allowed me to fit those darn 31 second DJ audio tracks in under thirty. You’d thing they might invest in a stop watch some day.
Alas it only runs under OS 9. It was about the only reason I kept my old OLD G4 on line. It would be a handy feature out of FCP.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Oh, and Walter…export it as a reference movie-not a self contained Quicktime? Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Thanks Guys.
Just got the Video IPod yesterday and I’m looking forward to giving it a try. Better than emailing a thumbnail of the spot to the client.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

I’m running the Graphire on all three FCP machines. I’ve been using a tablet for so long I actually have difficulties editing with a mouse anymore. As a metter of fact I take endless ribbing around here when I drag my tablet next door into one of the Avid rooms to edit. I have a USB extension cable for the tablet that I plug into the front of the PC allowing me to reach over to the desk with the tablet. So sad…
Tom