Walter Biscardi
Forum Replies Created
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In our tests so far, we’ve seen how the ingest of Firewire vs HD-SDI shows identical quality. It’s on the rendering and output that you need to maintain the highest quality workflow, which generally means rendering all your effects in High Precision YUV in FCP and I like the look of the HD-SDI output back to the 1200A vs. Firewire.
As for the phantom TC breaks you’re seeing during capture, Firewire vs. RS-422 doesn’t really seem to matter here. I get them both ways. What I find is that anytime I have a Batch Capture of 5 clips or more, I’ll get the phantom TC break or “FCP Cannot locate timecode” error. Generally I’ll capture that one clip, then move on and start another Batch Capture.
Machine control is definitely not as good as we have all come to expect from professional machines, but Panasonic has really really dumbed down this machine to get it into the price point that it’s at. I guess when you save $40,000+ over it’s bigger brother, you’re going to lose a lot of functionality. Kind of disappointing that RS-422 does not work on output, but what are you going to do. Firewire control for Edit To Tape works quite well actually and I haven’t really had any issues editing to tape at all.
Kona 2 is also accelerating HDV, though I don’t really like that format much compared to DVCPro HD.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Connect the drive to the PB, connect the camera to the drive. Should work ok as long as it’s only one drive.
Alternatively, connect the drive using the FW800 port and the camera using the FW400 port.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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there’s a pretty good description of video levels and what the scopes show you in the FCP Help menu. Just type in Vectorscope and Waveform in the Search area.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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I picked up the Samsung 712N to work with my old Dual 533 and it’s ok, not something I’d edit with, but certainly good enough for clients to surf the internet and type scripts. Colors are not great and the contrast is too sharp, it’s pretty much white or black, there’s not much gradient in between. It was $349 so I’m thinking it’s probably the 17″ version of what you’re looking at.
A very slick 17″ model is the Sony MFM-HT75W which I picked up at Fry’s electronics for $599. It’s a 17″ HDTV monitor with 2 computer inputs (DVI and RGB), Component, S-Video and Composite video inputs that’s just fantastic for both the suites and field production. I take it with me whenenver I go in the field with either my Kona 2 or my AJ-HD1200A deck and feed the component to the monitor. Edit with the DVI port, then switch over to the Component feed to watch the video in full color.
I was trying to find a 21″ version of it, but Fry’s didn’t think Sony was making one yet. This is the best computer monitor I’ve seen that compares to the Apple brand. It’s currently in my second suite with a 20″ Apple Display and they go great together.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Another way to do this to maintain some individual control over the clips is to apply the filter to the first clip, then “Copy”, then select the rest of the clips and “Paste Attributes – Filters.” This will apply the filter to every single clip selected and you can go into any of the clips individually and make adjustments to the filter.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Fonts need to be TrueType to work in FCP. PostScript fonts don’t work.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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RS-232 or RS-422? 422 is generally the machine control.
I use the Keyspan Serial Adapter in my second edit suite and it runs without any issues. Picked up the Apple Serial – RS-422 Cable from ProMax for around $25 at the time (two years ago). This has run on a G4 Dual 1.25 and is currently running on a G5 Dual 2.0 with the Aurora PipePro.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[Bob Zelin] “But as you so correctly pointed out, if you keep going in the site, and pass thru all the “buy full version” or “upgrade for $$$”, you see where the free expander is.”
As John noted above, it is one of the worst designed websites as it’s pretty easy to assume you have to pay for the software. Or I guess, maybe that makes it’s on of the best designed sites out there, tricking you into thinking you need to spend your money. Either way, not a very friendly site and at least we don’t need to go to it very often.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[Piper] “I’m open to any suggestions before I replace my trusty 1 Ghz dual G-4. “
Pick up one of the original G5 Dual 2.0’s for about $1,899 before they’re gone, put at least 3GB RAM in it and you’ll have a very fast, very capable system. Then when the next generation G5’s come out, you can step up to the latest and greatest.
I’m running the Kona 2 and the Aurora PipePro on my two G5 systems.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Heck, you can run uncompressed HD with a G4. I did it with my old CineWave and a Dual 1.25 machine. I think a Dual 800 was the base requirement for uncompressed HD.
Anyway, as Marco says, just look for an offering from those companies and be sure to check their websites for minimum requirements for their cards.
Then get yourself at least a FW800 RAID for the speed to handle the footage.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters