[Zak Mussig]

Randy,

What format is your graphic, and where did it come from (AE, Motion,etc.)? Try scrolling over in the browser and setting the alpha setting for your clip to black.

I used to have a lot of trouble getting alpha channels handled properly in FCP. You just have to give it what it wants. For instance, I don’t believe FCP likes / recognizes pre-multiplied alpha channels (I could be wrong). When I export from motion with alpha, I uncheck the pre-multiply alpha box on the output tab of the export options dialog. Like buttah.

I think a little more information will help people narrow down your problem. Troubleshooting is all about narrowing down the possibilities.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Eric,
I worked in the editing lab of my college, and my first job was teaching FCP to high schoolers… I definitely feel your pain about guarding your system settings. That said, I don’t know what there’s a way to do it. I think there’s definitely a market in extending FCP to give lab supervisors more strict control over their editing systems.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about these JVC DV / SVHS decks. Here’s my experience…

Yes, they suck. It’s a low grade JVC deck. JVC decks and FCP get into fights, and stop speaking to each other, just like the students who use these decks. It’s a deck for the education market, and it’s cheap.

Dubbing to DV would be ideal for the reasons others have mentioned… timecode, deck control, and capture now is a sloppy /bad practice to teach. That said, yes, you can capture directly from VHS using these decks. Set your FCP device control to “non-controllable device”. On the deck, make sure the dub direction is set to go from VHS to DV (the arrow is pointing left). I believe there can’t be a tape in the DV deck during this. You have no device control, but at least the remote has a jog / shuttle wheel on it, right?

Unfortunately you can’t use the opposite method to export directly to VHS. I’ve always theorized that you could change the dub direction to DV to VHS, and record both formats at once to get a VHS copy without waiting double your run-time, but I’ve never tried it. Make sure to hook up a TV to the video outs on the deck, so you can see what’s happening. A real NTSC monitor would be infinitely better, but the high school that has those in their budget is rare.

Hope that helps,
Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Warren,
You can do essentially what John suggested without having to export out of and import back into Final Cut. Nest your 16×9 sequence in a new 4×3 sequence with whatever settings you like (as Borjis suggested). You’ll have to render before exporting to tape, but you never have to leave FCP, and everything is contained within your project file with no QT files to keep track of later.
This technique can be used any time you want to change your output format. I will mention though, that if your project si going to DVD, you should just export your m2v file in 16×9, and set its display mode in DVDSP to letterbox.

Hope that helps,
Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Joe,
That’s basically what I’ve ended up doing, but I wanted to suggest something to you.
Turning on clip keyframes in the timeline (two parallel lines button at bottom left of timeline) will show your keyframes in the timeline. You can’t change the values, but you can easily change the point in time for your keyframes. I control-click (right click doesn’t do it) the button and select show none, then go back and show just the set I want to avoid timeline clutter. This sped me up a lot in altering keyframe positions in time. Turn of snapping for more control.

Thanks for the response,
Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Reinstalled? Did you change versions? What version are you using?
A .m2v file is video only. Assuming you have a version of FCP that includes Compressor, you should export your sequence to Compressor, and give it both an MPEG 2 Setting (I’ll leave the particulars to you), and and AC3 (Dolby) setting. Import both of these files into your DVD authoring program (presumably DVD Studio Pro), and put them in the same track. They won’t be merged into one file until the DVD is compiled.
Hope that helps,
Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Seems I was a little too quick to respond… Now that I’ve read the second part of your post, I don’t know of a tool that does exactly what you’re asking. The method I suggested may be time and effort prohibitive if you have a lot of clips to find and mark.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Bob,
Just select the clip / clips you’re trying to find in your timeline, control-click (or right click) them, and go to label at the bottom of the menu. Pick whichever color you like. They have marked meanings in FCP, but they really just mean whatever you make them mean.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

If you’re just doing DV, I’ll second what Jeff said. The only caveat I’d make is if you’re planning (or interested in) doing a lot of work in Apple’s Motion program, you may want to double-check the graphics card in the model Jeff recommended. Motion unloads a lot of work on the GPU, so the faster it is, the faster Motion is. May or may not be a huge deal for DV, and I’m pretty sure you’ll be fine. Just wanted to give you something else to consider.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

I’ll buy that… was just curious. Honestly, I was hitting the post button right as I remembered that both machines use the same processor. Happens to the best of us I suppose… so I’m in the same boat with the best of us.

Enjoy your new machine,
Zak

[Zak Mussig]

I’d check the website of all your various plug-in providers to check for universal updates to your plug-ins, or to see if they are already universal.
Out of curiosity… why the iMac for portable editing vs a Mac Book Pro? I would think price, and maybe screen size, but was wondering what your thinking is / was.

Thanks,
Zak