[Winston A. cely]

Bare in mind, for all the projects we do, the method we’ve come up with works, but will not work for everyone. Basic info: We work mostly with SD but some HD comes along | we don’t work on anything longer than a 30 min show | our projects are constantly being tweaked and changed even after the initial delivery.

For the very reasons Walter described, and the nightmares and all-nighters Media Manager managed to give me, we adopted buying drives for each project or client depending on the length, future projects, etc. We capture full rez from the get go and we never, ever have to worry about re-capturing. We have backup DVDs of Final Cut Studio project files, graphics, audio etc that can’t be captured from tape just in case the drive fails. I swore 3 years ago to never use Media Manager and with one exception (a project that came back from the dead previous to my declaration) I haven’t.

As far as I’m concerned, Media Manager’s relationship to me, is like Fredo to Michael at the end of The Godfather Part II.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

“If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling allusion it has been mastered.” – Stanley Kubrick

[Winston A. cely]

I hear your pain, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

That’s an awesome looking card, but it looks like I wouldn’t be able to use it. According to it’s compatibility:

* Requires Mac Pro (Early 2009 with 1066MHz DDR3 memory) or Mac Pro (Early 2008 with 800MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM memory) with PCI Express 2.0 slot
* Mac OS X v10.5.7 or later

My mac is a Dual-Core (not octo-) 3.0GHz running 667MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM. Oh well.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

[Matt King] “Could it be something to do with the video card having a hard time sending stuff to two separate monitors? I don’t have this problem when I am editing with FCP.”

Yes! The graphics card is splitting it’s own ram in order to power the two different monitors. Motion is very dependent on the graphics card’s ram, while FCP doesn’t really care about that graphics stuff.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

I’ve had similar problems to what you’ve described, but as I looked deeper, it was because I was trying to export out at a different setting than what I had setup for my project. Example: Having an HD project at 60p, but then trying to export out at SD 29.97.

Typically, what I like to do is export out at Sequence Settings (typically Animation with Alpha – even if I don’t need Alpha) and then use FCP, Compressor, or QuickTime to compress to the format I need. This has worked every time for me.

I will say that the render times in Motion are huge even on my not too shabby machine. Take for instance, the 30 min infomercial I’ve been working on since 8 am yesterday morning, non-stop for 28 hours (minus about 5 hours for renders).

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

I would look into getting an ATI card. Everything I’ve read said those were better for Apple’s Pro Apps. If it’s 2-3 years old, it’s probably time for an upgrade anyway.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

I was having a multitude of problems; other than Motion slowing to the point of uselessness, I was getting static on my monitor, and eventually, I couldn’t start or restart my computer with the monitor plugged in. I had to unplug the monitor (30″ Apple HD Cinema) wait for the computer to finish starting up and then plug in the monitor. I had to call Apple support 3 times before they sent me a new card, and the third time was actually on accident. They were trying to transfer me to someone who was going to come to my office to check the computer out, but they transfered me to expert support instead. He said right off the bat they needed to replace my card so that was awesome.

What graphics card do you have? I know there’s a new one out that ATI made that’s specifically made to run both Windows and Mac. I believe it’s the HD 3870. From what I understand it’s a great card especially for Pro-Apps. However, don’t expect to get as good a gaming performance as the Nvidia cards.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

Do you have anything else running on the same machine that Motion is running on? I’ve found that iTunes will crash Motion almost every time. I try not to even have FCP open if at all possible. The only thing I can’t turn off at the moment is Mail.

I was having really bad problems for almost a year, and as it turns out it was my graphics card (x 1900 xt). It was still under warranty, and Apple replaced it and now everything is running better than before. I can even let iTunes play in the back when working, though I still advise against it; I now let my tunes play through the PS3.

Overall, I’m disappointed in how over-the-top particular you have to be in order to have the performance that’s advertised. From what I’ve read, every time there’s a major upgrade you have to wipe your hard drive completely, and reinstall the system not to mention the programs to have the performance that’s touted by Apple. I could understand doing maybe a clean install of the programs themselves, but I rarely hear that that works.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

Check this out:

https://www.motionsmarts.com/tutorials/finger/finger.html

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Winston A. cely]

Look at him, all dressed up with his little bow tie.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Sound it out: Nu-clear, not nu-cu-lar.

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe