Troy Murison
Forum Replies Created
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I realize that it is compressed, but what we see (across multiple systems) is much
worse looking than ‘regular’ DV output. Even just looking at the same footage you can
look at in PPro/Avid on the same FW based monitoring system looks very bad in comparison.
Once it’s rendered and then played back on Avid/PPro, it looks fine. It’s just the
FW preview in AE that’s bad. Doesn’t matter if your settings/quality switches are all
in their ‘best’ mode either. It isn’t unusable or anything, just not as good as it
should be, IMO.Troy Murison
Flying Spot
Seattle -
I use the FW output on my laptop for previews with clients when I go to them
but I caveat them as to the output not being what they’ll see on final render
because we see not-so-good quality on the FW previews. My clients don’t seem to
mind in my case as they understand it’s miraculous that I can bring the
power to bear that I can to their site. I do wish the FW preview output
quality was a little better though! Doesn’t seem to matter what I’m
working on (footage, text only, etc.) or what machine (desktop/laptop)
FW output is all kinda lousy looking. Not sure how else to explain it or
if there’s a solution we haven’t found. ??Troy Murison
Flying Spot
Seattle -
I am not a Axio user but have been researching/considering it seriously. I am informed by
Matrox and also Larry Sherwood that in 1.0 or 1.5 (Axio software revs) AE WYSIWYG to the
monitor output of the Axio is NOT supported. They plan it for a future Axio sw release.
There was a mention of using the Matrox Perherla (sp?) card for that capability along
with the Axio but I have not researched that with Matrox to determine it’s feasibility.
Hope this helps… -
It works fine IF you don’t have mixed TC formats in your PPro timeline.
IE: if there are both NDF and DF source codes in your cut, then PPro
screws-up the EDL in our experience. If all DF or all NDF, no problem.
You only get one choice of EDL (CMX 3600) with no options for sorting,
audio layout, etc., but we’ve had it work before. Good luck!Troy Murison
Flying Spot
Seattle -
You mentioned FCP v3.0, I would recommend upgrading to the latest version (v.5) if you can swing it, although depending on your G4’s speed, maybe that’s not a good idea (I don’t have the tech requirements in front of me). Premiere Pro 1.5 and FCP 3 are on much the same playing field as far as features, stability, etc. IMO except for a couple of key areas where PPro falls a little short. Mainly media managment (even FCP 3 could use and got improvements there) and timecode/edl managment. You don’t mention if you intend to finish on the system you start on, but if you do, then this may not be a big issue. I have found that PPro is just too hard to get good information out of regarding clips and timecodes (compared to FCP) especially for long format stuff. And getting good edls for finishing out of PPro is sometimes challenging in my experience. Also the project window in PPro falls woefully short if you have tons of clips and bins- it’s enough to drive a person to drink! Not allowing multiple bins to be open at the same time is ridiculous. And, in my experience, PPro tends to get slugish sooner in long timelines/multiple nested timelines than FCP, but they both slow down a bit with longer form timelines/projects and this could very well be attributed to differences in machines.
I don’t mean to slam PPro here, I use it a lot and it’s great. It’s just that FCP has had many more revisions and refinements made to it and for certain types of projects, those little things add up, especially if you’re cutting a feature IMO. It’s really a user preference thing more than anything else and if you’re more comfortable on PPro and a PC, then maybe that’s the best path for you. PPro is certainly capable of doing the job, I’m sure. But if it were me, I’d go with FCP (even if it’s v3.0) because of the reasons I listed above.
I agree with the other post too that, in general, a desktop machine might be more friendly to work on in the long haul than even a well equiped laptop.
My 2 cents.
PS: I have also experienced the occasional corrupted project file with PPro although it usually has been able to ‘recover’ itself and then uses the recovered copy going forward. For the record, on hundreds of FCP projects of all lengths, I have never had a corrupted project file (I’m sure now, I will!) but I have always made backups as I go along just in case. I make a point of backing up PPro project files more often as this is a very upsetting experience to go through, especially if you’ve invested tens or hundreds of hours on the project!!
-Troy.
Editor
Flying Spot, Seattle -
I know what you mean, I was remembering that too. I know the mixer
was introduced in v6.0 but I don’t have it installed nor do I have
the manual handy. Anyone?