[Tom Matthies]

I’ve been using Transmit lately. Seems to work well. No problems at all.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Just a quick nore on DVD recorders with Firewire inputs. Just because the DVD recorder has a digital input, don’t assume it will work with FCP.
I bought an Ilo DVD recorder with a built in hard drive. I figured that I could output from FCP directly onto the hard drive in the recorder and then burn DVD’s from the HD thus freeing up my computer for other tasks. Nice workflow except it doesn’t work. The DVD recorder will not recognize the Firewire output from the computer. It will “see” my camcorders, provides deck control and works fine with them, but when I try the same thing with the computer it doesn’t work. In fact, it can actually crash the DVD recorder requiring me to power cycle it to regain it’s funcionality. Perhaps it’s looking for transport control and not finding it? It works fine, manually, using the S-video output from my Aja La and the unbalanced outputs from my Beringer mixer. That’s how I’ve been using it and it looks good.

So don’t assume that you can record via Firewire just because the jack is present on the deck. If anyone knows a way around this, I’d be interested to hear about it. I too would love to be able to record to DVD straight thru the FW output from the computer.
In the mean time, the S-video method still looks very good for approval DVD’s.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

There is a free filter that will do just what you discribe. It adds contrast and noise to the video while giving it that characteristic green glow. It’s a free Eureka filter called, oddly enough, Night Vision. I don’t remember just where I found the download but try
Googleing “Eureka Free” or “FCP plugins” or some variation of that, and you should be able to find it.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

I’m running several striped pairs of Lacie 250Gb Firewire 800 drives thru an Aja La without any problems at all. I’m controlling them by Lacie FW-800 PCI cards running in a Dual G4 1Ghz. The G4 is running OS 10.3.8 with FCP 4.5. Solid as a rock. I’m giving each drive it’s own port on the cards. None of the drives are daisy chained. It works well up to 8-bit uncompressed. I’ve not tried it with 10 bit, however.
I’m just putting the finishing touches on a Dual 2.3 Ghz with the same setup running Tiger with FCP 5. I’ll see how that combination works in a couple of days.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Just repo the shot accordingly and use the bottom crop tool to bring up the bottom of the frame to match the top.Then just copy and paste the attributes to each shot for consistancy.
It’s just that easy!
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Years ago, when I found that my DV camera would not add setup, I got around it by buying a relitively inexpensive Canopus ADVC-100. I went to my Betacam deck thru the S-Video output from the Canopus. It looked OK and the ADVC-100 added the setup I needed. Now days I use an Aja Io and an Aja La for the same purpose. The old Canopus is sadly sitting in it’s box on the shelf. I still use it once in a while for converting firewire to video, but the Aja boxes are now the workhorses in the studio,
Tom
BTW, I agree with Graeme. When the closed captioning house added setup, it should not have affected your video in a way that would wash it out. It should have simply raised the entire video envelope up proportionally without affecting anything else. Get the tapes to compare or drop by the CC house and ask to see just what they are doing to your spots.
Looking forward to the article, Graeme!

[Tom Matthies]

When going from the digital world of FCP into the analog world of BetaSP, the device that you choose to output from FCP has the “responsibility” of adding the setup level to the output. The question is, can the DSR-45 add setup when being used as a pass thru device. I have an older Sony TRV-900 camcorder that I used to use as a Firewire output converter. It did not add setup to the analog outputs and I had to compensate from within FCP by adding setup levels to all my timelines, including black and color bars.
I’m now using an AJA Io and an La for outputting. These devices will add the proper setup when going to BetaSP via the component outputs.
You need to determine whether your deck has the optional menu setting to “add setup” to the output.I’m not directly familiar with this particular deck, so you might need to poke around in the menu settings to try to find out if it’s capable of adding setup. Maybe someone out in the pasture has this information first hand? Otherwise, you might want to check into another standalone device (AJA, Canopus, Decklink, etc.) to use instead of your deck.
And…my 2

[Tom Matthies]

Yea.
The “point’n shoot” variety of camcorders would probably be like that. Unfortunatly, my camera is fully manual, has 2/3-inch CCD’s, a Canon 20x lens and a 4×6 matte box attached to the front of it. Aufo focus is not even an option. Heck, it’s not even possible with my rig.
Just speaking from exparience and trying to help out a bit. 🙂
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

Also be careful where you set your focus for the different shots. It usually doesn’t work well to focus on the far shot and to then refocus for the second half of the shot which will very likely be much closer. Shoot as wide as possible to maximize your depth of field and try to refrain from setting two different focus points. It will make it more difficult to match the two shots later.
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

I’m running a dual 1Ghz with 10.3.8 FCP 4.5 and an Aja La.
Control Panel works just fine.
Haven’t tried it on the new 2.3Ghz yet, however…
Tom