[Wendell Davis]

Thanks guys. It is shooting in the Quicktime XDCam format. I do have FCP7, FCPX and Adobe Suite so if I decide to go the Avid route have those things covered.

Now the decision… do I want to? How does everyone feel about running software only Symphony on a Mac laptop, and or an Intel tower? Really don’t want to buy the Avid hardware to get needed speed.

Thanks so much!

[Wendell Davis]

It is so wonderful to have brilliant people on this site. Worked like a charm. Not going to start using it full time, on the road for FEMA since September, but will when I get home.
Thank you.
Wendell

[Wendell Davis]

Thank you. Believe at this time I’ll try converting to MP4. I’m not a Premiere Pro person yet. Just switching over. I have CS5 but the government requires C4.

Thank you.
Wendell

[Wendell Davis]

What I ended up doing is just as suggested. I make small sections render and output, then bring the sections back together from the output files. PAIN but works. I used to do huge projects for a museum in AVID MC doing major pushes/pulls into artwork. The original stills were huge. One of the things I miss in FCP.
My best.
Wendell

[Wendell Davis]

Dave; When I have a couple of days I’ll give it a try.
Thanks
Wendell

[Wendell Davis]

OH yes… the stills. I used to make my stills huge (8-10 times larger than video size) when I edited in Avid – even did a demonstration at AVID and Boris offices – Used Boris for the moves.

That way I could do huge moves – or just pull sections of a still as needed – even show the grain/texture in a painting. Didn’t have to resize each picture. FCP just doesn’t handle them very well. Now I usually make the longest side a max 4000 pixels but usually less than 3000.

It’s like all things – love hate relationship. I loved my AVID – hated AVIDs attitude and $$$$. Love FCP – but dislike some of the way it handles things. IE: stills, borders, text…… but you can say that about most things. Example: Love my iPhone hate AT&T.

Thanks
Wendell

[Wendell Davis]

I agree Ben. I’ve read most of the memory error reports. Never came up with a “great” solution until last night. Just tried my solution under frustration. It doesn’t matter how much ram you have. FCP just doesn’t use it.

I find I do not need to do a FCP restart. Just close the sequence, open the clip, then open the sequence. Little bit of a pain but better than total crash. I also make sure I save the sequence before closing…. SAVE frequently.

The project I’m working on at the moment has 6 background layers with motion – dissolves, changes in opacity- color – you name it – then 6 moving layers on top of that with all the similar effects and titles. Built the background first, saved as a clip, then layered on top of the clip. There would be no way that I know of to do it otherwise. BUT then I not a guru like some.

I do a lot with historical documentaries never knowing what I’ll get for footage, stills etc. Stills especially if you want moves on them are a memory hog/pain.
Wendell

[Wendell Davis]

No the systems is from scratch with whatever Apple upgrades have come along. New system last February 2010.

MacPro 2.26 Quad-Core
12 gig ram
ATI Radeon HD 4870 video card.
over 40 TB online storage 16TB RAID Areca SAS controller

It has always done this. No other programs running.

Thanks.
Wendell

[Wendell Davis]

Good morning Job. Thanks you so very much for your reply.. Especially so early in the morning. I will give it a try.

Wendell

[Wendell Davis]

Thank you so much. Will give it a try. DOn’t have any AVID codecs that I know of in FCP5