Tom Meegan
Forum Replies Created
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Import your puzzle piece and your video clip into Motion.
Place the Puzzle piece on top the video in a composition.
Select the Puzzle Piece in the Layers tab of Motion.
Then select Object > Blend Mode > Stencil Luma.
This assumes the puzzle piece itself is white and the background is black.
Tom
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I am sure that there is only one FW bus built in and that all the FW ports both 400 and 800 share this bus.
It is hard to say definitively that this is the cause of your capture problems, but it is a prime suspect.
Tom
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Apply a transition to multiple layers…
Razor blade or control-V to isolate the area. Option-C to nest first one side then the other. Move the nests onto their own layers because you will have to add handles inside the nests. Double click the nests to add handles for your transitions. Tweak their positions to re-align sync…
This is clunky, and a pain. There is likely a better way, but that mehtod got me over a tough spot once.
Pasting to different tracks involves auto-selects. The rules are a bit weird at first but I’ve gotten used them (mostly) with use.
Here is a link…
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/auto_select_fcp_4_balis.html
that goes into great detail.
Basically turn off the auto selects for all the tracks below where you want to paste. Or for audio, all the tracks visually above the one where you want to paste.
Tom
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Just by way of information, you may do yourself a favor if you install a pci-x fw800 card. The fw ports built into your computer all share one bus.
That means when you are capturing the slowest active device determines the speed of everything on the bus. The DSR-30 will hold back the speed of the drive during captures. Lot and lots of people capture with the deck and the media drive on the same firewire bus, but it is not recommended.
These cards can be had for under $100. I bought a pci fw800 card for my G4 and have been running G-Raid disks from this connection with no problems.
Tom
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What I do is turn on Image Plus Wire Frame in the canvas (third drop down menu on the top of the canvas window.) After you ease the in and out by right clicking on your start and end points, you get some handles for everything you want to do.
Look in the manual if you will be doing this a lot as you can get tricky with tools and such to do everything from this window, which is a pretty intuitive way to work.
I hope this helps.
Tom
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Effects > Video Filters > Key > Chroma Key
Dbl cick the footage you applied it to, to load it into the viewer.
Click the chroma key tab in the viewer.
Eyedropper the green to get started. Shift click with your eyedropper to add to your selection.
Play with the sliders and check boxes.
If you do a lot of this, and you are using DV footage, I understand dv Matte Pro from dv Garage is a worth while investment. I don’t own it so I do not speak from experience. Also the chroma smoother filter will help if applied to the footage first. Nattress has a better chroma smoother for a little money.
Tom
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I think it depends on what formats you are talking about, and whether you mean BEST quality, or BEST for the price.
Best quality SD to HD upconvert requires a hardware solution. You can do it with software, but you will get what you pay for.
MPEG-2 compression for DVD is the same story, although the cost-benefit for non-feature film work will likely make Compressor or Squeeze a very good option. At that point, the most likely limitation on quality is the skill and experience of the person doing the compression. There are a lot of options, and there are many variables in the footage. Compression is compromise. Skillful compromise takes practice.
Tom
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For Mini-DV capture and edit, I would just use the easy set up.
Final Cut Pro > Easy Setup…
Then on the drop down choose DV NTSC or DV PAL. There are other variables for frame rate and aspect ration, but if you need those things, just choose those option.
The easy setup will dial in all the variables for you.
Monitor Preview
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Your settings for FCP look correct. I would look to the camera settings. Get out the manual.
I’m probably telling you things you already know, but here you go.
Double check your clip settings tab in the capture window. Is the video tick mark checked?
Try a different fire wire cable.
Start a fresh project with the appropriate HDV set-up.
Try your camera on another mac. Any luck?
When the going gets weird, trash preferences. It probably won’t help, but you eliminate that as the possible culprit.
There might be a few other things to try, but after those steps, I would do one more search of the Cow, 2-Pop, and the Apple FCP Forum to see if there was something I’d over looked. Probably a few other sites to try as well.
Good luck.
Tom
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This is very helpful real world information. Thanks Walter.
Tom