[Tom Meegan]

https://www.aja.com/html/products_macintosh.html

https://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/

If you are shooting, editing and mastering on DV, then firewire through the deck to the speakers and the video monitor, is a robust solution.

Best,

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

Thank you for your replies. I appreciate you all taking the time.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Best,

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

I’ve experienced some instability on systems with AJA and BMD products installed simultaneously

[Tom Meegan]

Ebay. Search PVM 13.

pvm 1354Q is a good choice, although it they might be a bit more expensive than you want to pay. 1354Q might also be over kill for your need. Do some internet research on the different models.

https://cgi.ebay.com/SONY-PVM-1354Q-600-LINE-13-INCH-PRO-VIDEO-MONITOR_W0QQitemZ200085242576QQihZ010QQcategoryZ21517QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Expect to pay a lot for shipping. These monitors won’t be like new. Buyer beware.

Here is another solution…

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=WishList.jsp&A=details&Q=&sku=319818&is=REG

New, has the features you need. Still a bit pricy for you. But new is good.

20″ monitors are more comfortable to edit with, but not as affordable.

Best of luck,

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

For more useful feedback, provide more information about your situation.

This topic is discussed quite often on the creative cow FCP forum and the Apple discussions forum. Use the search function to narrow the focus of your question.

Here is a short list of questions you could answer to encourage helpful answers to your monitor question:

SD or HD?
Firewire output through a converter (deck or camera) or output from a card?
Who are you delivering to and in what format, ie DVD, DV tape, Beta SP, internet?
What are your long term goals for your work

[Tom Meegan]

My opinion is that 2 24″ are better than one 30″ for most edit tasks.

For your documentary work you could have a Word script and your browser window open on one monitor and the rest of FCP on the other. For your corporate work, you could leave Motion or LiveType open on the second monitor if you are going back and forth often.

If you need to get really tweaky with parameters, you can create a window arrangement where the viewer window takes up a whole monitor by itself. This has made all the difference for me using FCP keyframes.

Good luck.

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

When your DV sequence is complete, the highest quality way to get to MPEG-2 and AC3 files for your DVD delivery is using Export Using Compressor from within Final Cut Pro.

File > Export > Using Compressor

However, this method is slow and ties up Final Cut Pro while it works. Depending on your deadlines and facilities, not being able to use FCP while the compression is going on can be a bummer. You also need a working knowledge of Compressor.

A second way to go would be to export a movie that you will then bring into Compressor or DVDSP:

File > Export > Quicktime Movie

Setting : Current Settings

and Check next to Make Movie Self-Contained.

This will give you a stand alone DV movie of your final product that you can bring into Compressor or DVDSP.

If you don’t check Make Movie Self-Contained you will get a reference movie. This movie will be quite small. It works by refering to the original media. If the any of the original media is moved or deleted, this reference movie will not work. Creating a reference movie is a good choice if you lack disk space, but will can get dicey if you move projects and media between computers and drives. Use with caution.

The down side of this method is it introduces one additional compression cycle.

I suggest you find a 15 second bit of your sequence that has many elements and test different methodologies to see what you like. The additional DV compression of an export from FCP is unlikely to matter as much as really nailing the mpeg-2 settings in Compressor. Test all the way out to burning a DVD and playing it on your TV. Label the burned discs and compare and contrast.

Mpeg-2 settings, to borrow a phrase from David Bogie, is part science, part dark art. Experimentation on a little bit of video, as well as reading the manuals and anything you can find online, will help a tremendous amount.

If your are going to iDVD, you don’t have control over these mpeg-2 settings. Just export your DV movie from FCP, bring the result into iDVD and hope for the best.

Good luck.

Tom Meegan

[Tom Meegan]

Given your situation I would use an uncompressed sequence.

If the edit is going take more than several days and go through revisions, I would upconvert your DV footage, and anything else that is not uncompressed, to 10-bit or 8-bit uncompressed. Which you choose depends on whether you have enough disk space, and how sensitive you and your audience is to quality. Many people can’t see the difference between 8 and 10 bit unless they are side by side, and it will probably be irrelevant by the time your get to DVD.

Although an upconvert will not improve the quality of the DV footage, your matted graphics will hold up better after a uncompressed sequence render than they will after a render in a DV sequence. The difference between matted graphics in a DV sequence can be significant when compared to matted graphics in an uncompressed sequence.

If you exported your graphics with the animation codec, these will have to be rendered in the time line. You may have to try a few experiments to come up with the best workflow.

Your edit will be most efficient if you pre-convert your footage to the most common and highest quality format. Whether “most common” or “highest quality” takes priority depends on many factors. Like:

1. Disk space available
2. Ratio of differing amounts of footage
3. Deadline
4. Quality sensitivity
5. Delivery formats

An uncompressed sequence is the best compromise, if graphic quality is very important, and you have the disc space for a pre-edit convert, or the patience for many renders as you edit.

If there aren’t many graphics, or there is a LOT of footage and not a lot of disk space, I would recommend another path

[Tom Meegan]

One possibility if you have an old mac with OS 9:

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60366

and

https://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macos/2181

My suggestion would be to use a PC to trancode this file, as was suggested above. A little research turned up the links below.

Here is a link to some discussion:

https://forums.devshed.com/development-software-93/indeo-video-5-help-please-374483.html

Here is a link to VirtualDub:

https://www.virtualdub.org/

And here is a link to VirtualDubMod:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualdubmod/

Please be advised that I haven’t tested these solutions. Proceed at your own risk!

One other thought

[Tom Meegan]

I remember a thread on this problem in the Apple Discussions from a while ago. I just searched over there, but did not find it. I’ll try to summarize what I remember.

First the painstaking, awful way.

Step through your footage frame by frame, and see if you can identify the pattern. How many times does the footage change before the cycle starts again?

Choose a reference frame