[Tom Meegan]

https://www.peachpit.com/authors/bio.aspx?a=a8841f46-9516-4293-b339-9c4ae169bf15

https://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=032149704X

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Technique-Digital-Color-Correction/dp/0240809904

[Tom Meegan]

Leopard seems to be fine, however I’ve kept production machines at 10.4.11. Reliability is still too important to me.

If you have a compelling reason to upgrade, I would go for it. You have allowed plenty of time to trouble-shoot. However, if there is not a compelling reason to upgrade, I would stay with the tried and true until you are done with the current project.

eSATA will be fine for ProRes or ProRes HQ. Here is Apple’s white paper on the subject:

images.apple.com/jp/finalcutstudio/resources/white_papers/L342568A_ProRes_WP.pdf

I’d suggest buying drives with some redundancy to protect against failure.

A TB will be enough to hold your twelve hours, but depending on whether you choose HQ or not, you might not want to put much more on that drive.

Best,

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

Big questions. Here is a Cow review of a book that will help you get up to speed.

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/allen_timothy/audio_pp_rev.php

Best of luck.

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

I don’t have 4.5 loaded so I can’t test, but here is my best guess:

If the P2 files were copied to a hard drive (not imported via a more recent version of FCP) then you will be out of luck with FCP 4.5.

If the P2 files were imported with a later version of FCP, you should be able to import the resultant files to FCP 4.5 as FCP 4.5 does support DVCPro HD.

Best,

Tom Meegan

[Tom Meegan]

Are there dots on the far left an right that move quickly and other dots that change at one second intervals?

If so, the white dashed line is VITC (vertical interval time code) stored in some of the (usually) invisible lines near the top of the video signal.

If it is VITC, it was probably introduced during the down convert to DVCam. Depends though on how the down convert was done.

If you can afford to re-do the down convert go for it.

However, if you are close to deadline, and the down convert will take time from getting your color correction right, my advise would be to crop the white lines out.

Best,

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

These are some of the least expensive products that will do uncompressed HD at RAID 5:

https://www.caldigit.com/HDPro.asp

https://www.dulcesystems.com/html/pro_dq.html

https://maxxdigital.com/shop/index.php?cPath=58_78

There are other solutions, but these three companies have good reputations.

RAID 5 basically means one of the drives can fail in the set without any data loss. RAID 0 means if one drive fails, you have nothing.

If money is an issue, you might consider working with the ProRes codec in FCP. You won’t need as much storage, nor will that storage need to be so fast.

Before you start work, I highly recommend this DVD:

https://store.creativecow.net/p/63/getting_organized_in_final_cut_pro

It will save you time and money if you watch before you start post.

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

https://library.creativecow.net/tutorials/appleshake

[Tom Meegan]

I agree that log and capture as well as batch capture are very important work flows to teach.

However, the low price of drives make recapture in case of media drive loss less useful.

The price of the extra drive pays for itself many times over the first time you avoid recapturing 15 hours of footage from tape.

Additionally, more and more work flows do not use tape. In these cases, an off line back up drive, with some redundancy built in, is essential.

Best,

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

I don’t think there is anything comparable on the Cow for DVDSP.

Here is a title from Ripple Training:

https://www.rippletraining.com/dvd_authoring_in_dvd_studio_pro.html

I don’t own this title, but Ripple Training is a solid company.

Best,

Tom

[Tom Meegan]

From the manual page 71.

Saving and Using Custom Column Layouts

You can create customized column layouts and save them for easy access at any time.

To save a custom column layout:

1 Rearrange the Browser columns the way you want them to appear.

Note: The Name column always appears on the far left and cannot be moved.

2 Control-click any column heading, then choose Save Column Layout from the
shortcut menu.

3 In the Save dialog, choose where you want to save the layout, change its name if you like, then click Save.

Custom column layout files are saved by default to the following folder location:

/Users/username/Library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data/Column Layouts/

To open a custom column layout:

Control-click any column heading in the Browser except Name, then choose a custom layout from the shortcut menu.

If you have placed column layouts in a location other than the default folder mentioned above, you will need to open them using the Load Column Layout command in the shortcut menu.

To open a custom column layout that is not in the default location:

1 Control-click any column heading in the Browser except Name, then choose Load Column Layout from the shortcut menu.

2 In the Choose a File dialog, navigate to the location where the column layout is stored, select it, then click Choose.

Tip: You can also save and use custom column layouts in the Find Results window, following the same instructions you use for the Browser. Any custom column layouts created in the Browser can be used in the Find Results window, and vice versa.