May 15th, 2010
From article “NAB 2010: AVID MEDIA COMPOSER 5.0” of 2010-04-25 at [lfhd.net], as of 2010-05-15:
- Avid Media Composer 5.0 now works with the Matrox MXO2 Mini (not main or LE), not for capture, but for monitoring on a large monitor.
- New advanced Avid Media Access (AMA).
- This new version of AMA now allows Avid MC to access Quicktime files directly, and allows MC to EDIT those QTs without converting or transcoding them. So things like ProRes, the new Canon XF codec
they are directly accessed via AMA and you can just start editing them right away. For example from files recorded on a KiPro unit or a QuickTime-based camera.
- But move the files, and the connection is broken. So, if you want to work with the footage natively, then move it to the folder you want it to reside in on your media drive, then import.
- A possible FCP+AVid workflow: Utilize FCP to capture the footage (ProRes), use AMA to import that footage into AVID MC 5.0
edit (e.g. by Avid-only editing people)
then send that sequence back to FCP (via Automatic Duck) linking to the original media
send to Color to color correct, then output from FCP?
- This also includes native RED files. Media Composer can edit them without the need to transcode.
- You can adjust the color of the footage before you bring it over
apply a general look while you edit.
- A FCP look&feel approximating mode called Smart Tools mode. Can toggle between this and Classic mode.
- AVCHD import. Before now you had to use third party applications to convert the footage to DNxHD, like ClipWrap. Not anymore. Now you can import the AVCHD footage directly into Avid MC via the IMPORT feature. (But) there are multiple types of AVCHD (can it cope with them?).
- Audio improvements:
- You can now SOLO and MUTE on the timeline.
- You can now access the Audio Suite plugins directly from the timeline.
- And (for screen update speed) you can turn on Audio Waveforms on SELECT TRACKS ONLY.
- You can now make a stereo pair appear as only ONE TRACK on the timeline. This works for stereo sound effects too.
- Direct access to many audio suite plugins directly on the timeline. No need to go digging in the Audio Tool for them.
The [lfhd.net] article also reported something about Avid remote editing using cloud computing, but that sounds to me like a whole other topic.
Posted in Avid, cloud computing, Media Composer, QuickTime | No Comments »
May 15th, 2010
What’s a good folder structure for FCP? I read and heard lots of tips from great sources, but some of them (e.g. keep [.fcp] files on local drive not Media drive) sounded questionable, at least from my context, and anyway I always want to know the underlying reason for anything. So it’s research-time again…
There are several aspects:
Context
- Participants
- Individual, small team or large team
- Standards-based, methodical or haphazard
- Application(s)
- Apple (FCS etc.) -centric?
- Combination of several apps e.g. several makes of NLE
- Media
- Storage system(s)?
- Local
- Normal or (relatively) slow drive
- Fast drive e.g. RAID
- Remote (probably shared).
- Exceedingly Slow (e.g. web via standard broadband)
- Slow (e.g. NAS such as WD MyBook)
- Fast but with possible latency (e.g. “Fibre Channel” / SAN)
- Integrated
- Final Cut Server giving seamless access to all storage including near-line (easily-retrievable archive)?
Requirements
- Tidy organization
- Easy to find stuff, including serendipitously.
- Easy to manage stuff, e.g. archiving / shelving and reinstating.
- Performance
- Security
My Conclusions (so far):
- The typical professional situation involves multiple users on a SAN. In this case:
- Each user should configure their apps (e.g. FCP) to save small and transient files to local disk.
- Local disk has less latency and minimization of small-file traffic on SAN improves its performance to all users.
- An individual (or item) -specific project file, which counts as a “small and transient file”, should not be saved routinely or automatically to shared media server but only saved there on an occasional basis (e.g. at end of day or project).
- Restricting this operation to end-of-project might “discourage” users from corrupting each other’s files, though really that’s what Permissions are for (in Mac OS X / unix).
- Much advice relates to the “typical professional situation”, not all of it is appropriate to other situations.
- .
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in backup, Final Cut, folder structures, Mac, near-line, storage, tidy | No Comments »
May 15th, 2010
From [http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/working-with-aliases-in-mac-os-x.html] as of 2010-05-15]:
- Aliases in Mac OS are like Shortcuts in Windows but better. Aliases usually don’t break when you move or rename the original file; shortcuts do.
- Alias feature has been on the Mac since at least OS 7 circa 1992. Shortcuts first appeared with Windows 95 in 1995.
Posted in file mgt, Mac, microsoft, Windows | No Comments »
May 15th, 2010
Based on [http://www.bresink.com/osx/sha1.html] as of 2010-05-15:
- Apple recommends the use of the so-called SHA1 standard (Secure Hash Algorithm Version 1). Apple is using this method for their own security updates as well. For more information please also refer to Apple Support Article HT1652.
- Perform the following steps:
- Make sure you have the downloaded file displayed somewhere in the Finder.
- Open the Terminal application.
- Enter the command: [/usr/bin/openssl sha1 ] with a space at the end (not a Return).
- Note the last character of ‘openssl’ is a small ‘L’ not a ‘1’
- Drag the target file from the Finder window into the Terminal window. A path specification will appear in the Terminal window.
- Now press the Return key (Enter).
- You will see output similar to the following example:
- SHA1(path specification)= 2eb722f340d4e57aa79bb5422b94d556888cbf38.
Posted in file mgt, Mac, storage, tidy, util | No Comments »
May 15th, 2010
Reading book “Final Cut Pro Workflows” by Osder & Carman, 2008. On page 284 it relays advice that it is best to put Project Files [.fcp] on a separate drive to the Media Drive (e.g. Media Drive= XSAN), due to:
- Safety – not all on one drive
- Avoid fragmenting the media drive (project files, cache and to a lesser extent render files) are written often (transient files?)
I’m not immediately convinced by these arguments:
- Media drive should be backed-up in any case. I use (slower) USB drives and file-synch.
- Fragmentation may be an old-school issue, less of an issue on Mac’s HFS +.
How to view degree of fragmentation on an HFS volume:
- [http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter12/hfsdebug/fragmentation.html]
- Command-line app to report a variety of storage-volume statistics, including fragmentation.
- After download, can check the sha1 checksum, but this is of the executable, not the download itself ([.dmg] file). The ‘sha1’ command is inbuilt to Mac OS, as: [/usr/bin/openssl sha1]. Note the last character of ‘openssl’ is a small ‘L’ niot a ‘1’.
Posted in file mgt, Final Cut, folder structures, Mac, storage, tidy, Video Computer Technology | No Comments »
May 3rd, 2010
On MacBook Pro, used Sony Clip Browser (ClipBrowser) to import footage from a Sony XDCAM-EX to Mac OS HFS+. This machine had MacDrive installed, enabling Windows apps to directly access files on the HFS+ file system. On same machine, under Boot Camp (BootCamp) and Windows 7, ran Sony Vegas NLE. Successfully imported and used footage by both of the following methods:
- Sony Vegas’s Device Explorer [View > Device Explorer].
- This took several minutes to import.
- Importing resulted in copying the [.mp4] file (and other files) to the NTFS partition.
- Direct use of [.mp4] on the HFS+ partition.
- No need to import as such, just constructed waveforms etc.
- This completed in seconds.
- Only downside is that it ewas unable to save the waveform files etc., due to my config of MacDrive (read-only), so it would have to do this every time I opened the project.
- Have yet to try the same thing when MacDrive has config for full read/write access.
Posted in Boot Camp, file mgt, Mac, MacBook Pro, MacDrive, microsoft, Sony EX XDCAM, Sony Vegas, Windows, Windows 7, XDCAM EX | No Comments »
May 3rd, 2010
GRAID mini was initially a single partition formatted HFS+ under GPT partitioning-scheme.
Repartitioned it as MBR partitioning-scheme where the HFS+partition (existing but reduced) was followed by an NTFS partition. The repartitioning of the disk and the formatting of the NTFS partition was accomplished from Mac OS, using the iPartition application.
When I first connected the resulting disk to a MacBook Pro, the HFS+ partition was seen OK under Mac OS. However the NTFS partition seen from Boot Camp / Windows 7 caused Windows Explorer to crash, whenever it was selected or right-clicked in that applications left-hand pane. On the other hand if the thing selected in the left-hand pane was the computer itself then the NTFS partition (among other volumes) was listed in the right-hand pane, and it was possible to right-click that without the application crashing. Also, no problems were experienced when accessing it from commandline, or when using Windows Explorer to look inside its folders (as opposed to teh top-level).
By right-clicking the NTFS partition in the right-hand pane, selected options to:
- Define it as a mainly-videos drive. Presumably alters the block size or something.
- Change that volume’s name, from “GRD mini NTFS” to “GRm HTFS. Not sure if relevant.
Subsequently was accessed OK in both left and right hand panes.
Posted in Boot Camp, Mac, MacBook Pro, microsoft, Windows, Windows 7 | No Comments »
May 2nd, 2010
- General
- Show advanced tools [No] -> Yes
- Video
- Import HD video as: [Large 960×540] -> Full – Original Size
No way I can see to define the iMovie work-area folder, where media gets imported to for example. Maybe there’s no choice over this, which would be a shame (don’t want movies filling up my system drive). In my case the iMovie work-area was:
- /Users/davidesp/Movies
- iMovie Events.localized/
- New Event/
- iMovie Data
- iMovie Cache/
- iMovie Thumbnails/
- <a source media file>
- iMovie Projects/
- My First Project.rcproject
Posted in iMovie, Mac, Video Computer Technology | No Comments »
May 2nd, 2010
Sometimes the media files for a project are stored in several folders on one or more scratch disks. This happens if you selected a different scratch disk each time you captured media files, or when the name of the project file changes (this often happens when you save often to different filenames). It would be tidier to consolidate all the media files for a project into one folder.Of course it may be better to avoid making a mess in the first place, as per this person’s advice: <<<I set up each project in its own folder so and then set up capture scratch render files and everything else. This way if I need to move anything you can move the folder onto the hard drive and you dont have to worry about what stuff to move. >>>There are two approaches (I am aware of):
- Manually copy/move the relevant files (project, source media, renders) then Reconnect the consequently offline media.
- May only have to reconnect one file, provided the reconnect all files in this relative path option is checked.
- Use Media Manager. This is more efficient, because all of your clips are reconnected automatically after the media files are moved.
The Manual Approach:
- The Project file.
- This is the most important file.
- If all the media in your project came from external media or generated media like titles or color mattes, this is the only file you actually need to move to another computer. Everything else can be re-imported (e.g. batch-captured) or re-created (e.g. re-rendered).
- But usually youll want to bring other files with you, as below.
- Source Media files.
- Recordings e.g. captured video and audio clips. These are usually stored in your Capture Scratch folder in a folder with your project name (unless you saved them elsewhere or moved them). If you move these to another computer, you should only have to reconnect one file, if you have the reconnect all files in this relative path option checked.
- Other media/project files – you might have Motion or LiveType projects, Photoshop graphics, After Effects animations, or any number of other media files for your project- obviously youll want to move these over to the new system, and you might want the original project files also.
- Render-files.
- There are exceptions, but it is best not to move render files – this can lead to problems.
- Its better to rerender on the new system. If you must move them, they are in the Render Files folder.
The Media Manager Approach:
- OS X:
- Ensure there is a destination folder for the project.
- FCP:
- In the Browser, select all items in the project.
- Make sure the Browser window is active.
- Menu: [File > Media Manager]
- Set the required options e.g. handles (margins), select the destination folder (mentioned above) and press [OK].
- Files created by the Media Manager:
- [<Destination Folder>]
- Project File [<projname>.fcp].
- [Media]
- This structure is a bit mad but it’s the FCP convention…
Refs:
Posted in file mgt, Final Cut, tidy | No Comments »
May 2nd, 2010
Some hard drives attached with FireWire may perform slowly with Windows 7 on a MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010). Not aware of any such problem on my system, but found this in passing, worth keeping a note of…[http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3188]
- MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010): FireWire drives perform slowly with Windows 7
- Last Modified: April 14, 2010
- Article: TS3188
- Issue:
- Some hard drives attached with FireWire may perform slowly with Windows 7 on a MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010).
- Products Affected
- Boot Camp, MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010), Windows 7
- Resolution
- This situation may occur because of an issue in the 1394ohci.sys driver in Windows 7.
- Microsoft has posted a “hot fix” for this issue. See the Microsoft website for more information.
Posted in Boot Camp, Mac, MacBook Pro | 1 Comment »
May 1st, 2010
Using the ExpressCard slot for SxS cards (XDCAM-EX) in Mac OS, I noticed that sometimes they dpn’t appear to “seat” properly, removing and reinserting the card normally fixes this. I wondered if it was just my machine, but I just read of a similar experience by others: [http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdcam-ex-cinealta/144158-sxs-cards-mount-inconsistently.html].
Posted in MacBook Pro, Sony EX XDCAM, XDCAM EX | No Comments »
May 1st, 2010
On a MacBook Pro, official SxS card in ExpressCard slot is seen OK by Mac OS. However on same machine running Boot Camp Windows 7, it is not seen.SxS drivers have been installed in both cases (OS X & W7). For W7 I tried a couple of versions, including the one from SXS Drivers, stated as “Updated for Windows 7”. The webpage also says “This OS must be factory-installed”, so I wonder what special things they do at the factory!I see at an apple forum some comments (at [http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2306364&tstart=0]) that “there is still no ExpressCard support in release 3.1 (of Boot Camp)” and “At the moment I’m aware of exactly zero Firewire ExpressCards that work in Windows 7 on Boot Camp”. Not familiar with this territory – maybe implies that the Sony drivers are not sufficient?Posted my problem at DvInfo: [http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdcam-ex-cinealta/477958-mbp-boot-camp-w7-cant-see-sxs-osx-can.html]. Response confirms Apple not only do not support ExpressCard (EC) under Boot Camp on a MacBook Pro, they may never do so, given that the new model lacks any EC slot.
Posted in Boot Camp, MacBook Pro, Windows, XDCAM EX | No Comments »
May 1st, 2010
In Windows 7, there are two applications folders. Presumably the same as in Vista (which I have never used), as reported at [http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=87478]:
- Program Files = 64bit apps
- Program Files x86 = 32bit apps
- If the installer is a 32bit application, it will install it to the x86 directory. If it’s a 64bit application it will install it to the regular one.
Posted in file mgt, Windows | No Comments »
May 1st, 2010
Remove large items e.g. video files (to separate storage or delete).[http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/last-minute-spring-cleaning-of-your-windows-xp-system]
- Windows: [Start > Run > Cleanmgr.exe]
- Defrag (registry as well as volumes)
- No slowness problems so didn’t try that. If it ain’t broken…
- …
Resulting filespace usage:
- Windows 7
- System Disk (Boot Camp) 41 GB
- …includes Documents 175 MB
- XP SP3
- Initially:
- System Disk 42 GB
- …includes My Documents 21 GB, mostly large downloads.
- Finally (once these downloads were migrated elsewhere):
- System Disk: 20 GB
- My Documents 370 MB
Posted in tidy, Windows | No Comments »
May 1st, 2010
[http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdcam-ex-cinealta/235167-vegas-9-imports-native-xdcam-ex-files-2.html]
- as of May 2009:
- Technically, you can edit the .mp4 files right from the card. Youd need to drill down through the directories via the standard Vegas Explorer tool (not the new Device Explorer), find your .mp4 clip, and bring it into your project.
- “We do not currently support shot markers from EX in the Vegas Pro 9 Device Explorer, but it is on our radar.”
- Spanning clips does not work properly for everybody (could in principle be due to their circumstances as much as the app). Recommended to join these together using ClipBrowser thenexport as MXF for NLEs. … It is really the same concept as (FCP’s) XDCAM Transfer except instead of re-wrapping as [.mov] it re-wraps as [.mxf].
- (In the case of FCP) … the metadata is part of the MOV after … re-wrapping the file for FCP. (Possibly) Vegas had a problem with managing the metadata and their solution was just to (import the) native (essence/mp4) files.
My own experiences:
- A long shoot gets listed as a sequence of smaller clips, corresponding to the separate [.mp4] files recorded by the camera. This is known as a spanned clip. Each of the smaller clips is of size no more than around 3.5 GB.
- Device Explorer import results:
- Clips with names like [929_1332_01_20100318_191600] i.e. having datetimes.
- These clips consist of the following files, with main file name as per the clip:
- XDCAM-EX: [.mp4], [.xml]
- AVCHD: [.mts] (but no clip info files).
Posted in AVCHD, Sony EX XDCAM, Sony Vegas, Uncategorized, XML | No Comments »
May 1st, 2010
The Device Explorer in Sony Vegas , available (unintuitively to me) under the View menu (as opposed to the Tools menu), lists devices such as XDCAM-EX cards and disks, and when selected, presents thumbnails. You can select these and Import. But where do they get imported to, and can this be changed? Not hard, but not that obvious either [http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/what-happens-vegas/235119-must-have-missed-manual.html]. I expected it to be in [Options > Preferences] but no.
By default, Imports from Device Explorer go to [Imported Media] folder in the user’s [My Documents] folder.
- e.g. [C:\Users\David\Documents\Imported Media]
To select an alternative, select the device listed in Device Explorer, then [RtClk > Properties]. Not aware of any way to change the default itself, so just have to remember to do this every time. In comparison, FCP lets you change the default import/capature folder but in practice, as for Vegas, one tends to change it for each project.
Posted in Sony Vegas | No Comments »
May 1st, 2010
http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/file-systems/understanding-file-size-limits-on-ntfs-and-fat.aspx
- FAT32 file-size limit is (2^32)-1 bytes, or one byte less than a full 4GB.
- FAT32 has a 2TB limit on partition size.
- Whereas FAT16 has a 4GB limit on partition size.
- The file system is not the only source of constraint:
- Windows XP and Windows 2000 limit partition creation to no larger than 32GB on FAT32. This limitation is by design: Microsoft wants you to use NTFS for large drives.
- Applications could potentially impose their own limits
http://www.g-technology.com/Support/Pdf/G-RAID-mini-Manual.pdf
- The Microsoft OS imposed limit of 32GB can be side-stepped by formatting instead from the Apple Mac OS (OS X).
Posted in file mgt, Formats, Mac, Windows | No Comments »
April 30th, 2010
Steps:
- Use iPartition, reduce existing HFS+ partition to half-size.
- Don’t create the other partition yet.
- Change Partition-Scheme (from GPT) to MBR
- Otherwise the partition won’t be visible to windows.
- Now create the other partition, e.g. NTFS.
- That option only became available once the partition scheme had been changed.
- Result: [ MBR | HFS+ | NTFS ]
Posted in Boot Camp, Mac | No Comments »
April 22nd, 2010
By “systems” i chiefly mean file systems, but also computer systems i.e. instances of FCP. For simplicity, I ignore here the possibility of different versions of FCP.
- Google: [migrating “final cut” disk]
- http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1020585
- “You can add multiple scratch disks in FCP, or just change it to relate to your current project, or when you import the new project put the all the media in the relevant location to your current scratch disks…”
- “When I take my portable disk to the other machine to work, rather than work from the portable disk, I want to copy the entire project folder to the other machine’s drive. It’s the main workstation where the work will ultimately reside, so my portable drive is simply the “rough-in” drive. I work from home on this drive, then take what I’ve done over to the main machine and copy everything over. “
- “…it worked. I didn’t need to change that machine’s scratch location. I just copied the folder over, launced the project file and boom. No rendering necessary. “
- .
- .
Posted in Final Cut | No Comments »
April 22nd, 2010
Great article by Studio Daily at http://www.studiodaily.com/main/work/In-Three-on-the-Workflow-Behind-3D-Conversions_12083.html, on the 2D⇒3D conversion company In-Three http://www.in-three.com/. from this article I learnt that:
- Some new movies, not just legacy ones, are being converted from 2D to 3D (stereo). This step is being planned as part of production. Don’t know why they can’t just shoot it in stereo (cost? maturity? conservatism?) but that’s how it is.
- The method: a tech & manual rotoscoping pipeline (production line) where images are masked to create layers and artistic judgement is applied to the appearances of individual objects. As one would imagine, no simple “magic solution”. However beyond those basics they have their own patented 2D⇒3D inference algorithms operating on individual objects even at sub-pixel level.
- Not quick or cheap: “for a 100-minute or 120-minute 2D-to-3D conversion, you would need about 300 to 400 artists phasing and out of production over about four to six months.”. Clash of the Titans was so-processed in under half that time – possibly explaining some negative press (mentioned in the article) regarding the quality of its 3D.
The interviewee in the article was from In-Three. Their website http://www.in-three.com/ explains:
- Dimensionalization is a method developed by In-Three of converting 2D content to stereoscopic 3D content.
- There are various approaches to creating 3D content: capturing 3D using dual camera rigs, rendering 3D using dual virtual camera rigs within a computer graphics environment, and creating 3D by converting 2D content with processes such as Dimensionalization.
- Dimensionalization is trademarked because it describes a patented process which gives the unique, depth, shape and perspective to each individual object on a pixel or even sub-pixel level. Throughout our process, there are a multitude of special and unique techniques our experienced stereo team has and continues to develop, so that you can be confident that we bring the tools and the skill to any conversion project.
- The Dimensionalization process is covered by a number of U.S. patents. These patents make In-Three a leader in the development of intellectual property surrounding the conversion of two-dimensional films to stereoscopic experiences.
Posted in 3d animation, 3D Stereo, moviemaking, Video Computer Technology | No Comments »
April 22nd, 2010
The following has a nice explanation and diagram of the arrangement, showing Final Cut Server being used to interface to both online and archive material.
Posted in Final Cut, network, Video Computer Technology | No Comments »
April 22nd, 2010
Posted in AVCHD, Final Cut | No Comments »
April 21st, 2010
Problem:
- After half an hour or so, the MacBook Pro base (top and bottom) tends to feel hotter than I’d expect, and I worried whether the innards were getting broiled or fried. Having no previous experience to go by, some investigation was needed. Various forums have some people claiming this is normal while others worry about the temperatures.
Solution:
- Downloaded iStat, a free widget for the Mac dashboard, that displays temperatures and fan speeds. There are several temperature sensors and two fans.
- Download site: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html
- It looks and works (as far as I can tell) really good. Also reports things like network traffic, which I also like to know about.
Result:
- Despite the case feel, the internal temperatures were not too bad, typically around 65C though sometimes the CPU & GPU rose to 81C, which I think is the upper sensible limit. At this speed, one of the fans speeds up a bit e.g. 2300 rpm as compared to 2000 typically.
- A colleague (Matt Roberts) said chips are designed OK up to say 90C and higher, though connections can break down at around 120C.
- Seems all within tolerance then, no need to worry.
Posted in Mac, MacBook Pro, network, temperature, widget | No Comments »
April 21st, 2010
For Mac OS:
For Windows:
They are both pretty similar, in each case displaying filespace usage via a tree map looking like a patchwork of multicoloured PVC, each colour representing a different type of file (audio, video, application, document etc.). Their advantage over traditional browser trees is you can see all the largest files and folders simultaneously (as a plan-view). Tree maps (treemaps) are explained at http://w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/onderzoek_informatica/visualization/sequoiaview/about_treemaps/ – they are formed by subdividing in alternate dimensions (horizontal/vertical), each time in proportion to relative size of item, be it folder or file. A variation on this, employed by the above tools, is a cushion treemap [http://www.win.tue.nl/~vanwijk/ctm.pdf], where shading reveals the directory structure. A further variation is the squarified treemap [http://www.win.tue.nl/~vanwijk/stm.pdf], where subdivision and grouping attempt (no guarantee of success) to make the rectangles as square as possible. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in file mgt, linux, Mac, microsoft, Snow Leopard, Uncategorized, Video Computer Technology, Windows | No Comments »
April 17th, 2010
Others have found issues with it. Maybe worth skipping or waiting for a compatibility fix for pro apps in that case.
Posted in Final Cut, Mac, QuickTime | No Comments »
April 14th, 2010
How to get screen-lock on demand, e.g. when walking away from a machine still executing something:
<<<OS X has native screen-locking built-in; though you wouldn’t know unless you dug around. To enable it, open your Keychain Access utility in the Applications / Utility folder. Under the “View” menu at the top, select “Show Status in Menu Bar.” A black padlock will appear in your taskbar in the upper right-hand corner. Close Keychain Access. Now when you click on the padlock, you have a “Lock Screen” option in the drop-down. Selecting it will cause your screen to fade to black and engage your screen saver. Click any key to open a login / password dialog box, and you’re back in.>>>
Posted in Mac, Snow Leopard | No Comments »
March 27th, 2010
Seems .NET v4 is needed in order to support Lubbo’s Fan Control utility.
- The requirement:
- The solution:
- Download ‘x64’ version of ‘.NET 4’ from Microsoft.
- Currently the latest version (I am aware of) is:
- .NET v4 Beta RC (Release Candidate), ‘x64’ variant:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized, Windows | No Comments »
March 27th, 2010
Problem:
- MacBook Pro, when in Boot Camp Windows 7, gets uncomfortably hot (in its heatsink areas, the bar above keyboard and also the chassis underside). In comparison, it runs pretty cool (temperature) under Mac OS.
Reason:
- No fan control when in Boot Camp Windows mode.
Popular Solution (does not imply any recommendation):
Some good links (as of 2010-03-27):
Experiences:
- Just copied the contents of the zip file to [C:\Program Files (x86)\Lubbo’s Fan Control] and ran it from there. It has files [inpout32.dll] and [inpoutx64.dll].
- Ran it but it gave error messages:
- (The) Following process(es) is/are using SMC:
- It’s not an error, but Lubbo’s Fan Control cannot share apple SMC access.
- Do you want to kill it/them?
- NO = the system may freeze. Try only if you are running BootCamp 3.1
- YES = the incompatible process(es) will bekilled and the program will start.
- But I have read elsewhere that this means function keys won’t then work (for that session).
- Didn’t work – it said “It was not possible to load IO driver. Retry?” and “(May be better to press CANCEL and reopen the program)”
- CANCEL = this program will exit
- Someone else had the same problem but found a solution that appeared to work for them:
- So it seems that to get Lubbo’s utility working I have to:
- Kill a system process
- Install a version of .NET that is not yet officially supported.
- I’ll write a separate blog post about .NET
- Life on the edge, huh?
Posted in Boot Camp, Mac, Snow Leopard, Video Computer Technology, Windows | No Comments »
February 22nd, 2010
The DVD Spec defines a scripting capability, allowing such things as:
- Variable play order
- Random – e.g. for public display – though”random” does not guarantee “different track each time”.
- Inferred from user-input – e.g. questionnaire
- Simple quiz games.
- Passcode-protected content (not secure but at least some kind of disuasive barrier).
Some useful tutorials, doesn’t matter that they are for a specific DVD authoring product:
- Based on DVD Lab
- Based on Apple DVD Studio Pro
Posted in DVD, scripting, tutorials | No Comments »
February 22nd, 2010
Cheema (an expert user of Sony Vegas) is often to be seen at exhibitions presenting and demonstrating Sony Vegas, when he is very helpful in answering questions. So it’s great to discover he has some web-haunts:
Posted in people, Sony Vegas | No Comments »
February 20th, 2010
Lock & Load imagestabilizer for FCP, allegedly 12 times faster than SmoothCam and more featureful.
Posted in Final Cut, stabilizer | No Comments »
February 19th, 2010
The real image manipulation happens with the desaturation and level filters. Desaturation affects the richness of colors and level (via a un-intutive set of controls) will adjust the black point, white point and distribution of brightness across the whole image. The settings of these filters will depend on the scene and the camera you have.Set Desaturate to -50. This will boost the colors just a tad. Adjust to taste. Set the level controls as follows: input = 0 input tolerance = 100 gamma = 1 output = 50 ouput tolerance = 80 Ken Stone agrees the Levels filter is non intuitive:[http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/basic_image_control.html ] <<< The Levels filter is supposed to be a more advanced version of the Brightness/Contrast filter, offering separate controls over highlight, midtone and shadow areas. In addition this filter offers the choice of working the image in RGB mode or any one color channel independently, Red, Green or Blue.However this filter is poorly implemented and is clumsy at best. It has five slider controls; input, Input Tolerance are used to lighten the image. The Gamma slider controls the midtone areas and Output and Output Tolerance used to darken the image. What makes this filter so difficult to understand and use is the fact that the filter opens with the default settings of the Input Tolerance and Output Tolerances sliders set at 100. With these two settings at 100 neither the Input Slider nor Output sliders work. It is necessary to lower either the Input or Output Tolerance sliders then start adjusting the Input or Output sliders. The real problem is that the highlight and shadow areas have two sliders each for control. Photoshop has a Levels filter but it is a different animal. Levels in Photoshop also has a ‘Histogram’ which gives a graphic display of all the pixels in the image based on their brightness values. The ‘Histogram’ display is essential to setting levels but the Levels filter in FCP has no ‘Histogram’. To be honest the Levels filter in FCP does not work for me at all – I just don’t get it. The Proc Amp filter does basically the same thing and works well. If you want to play with this filter I suggest that you set either Input or Output to a setting of 20 then start lowering the Tolerance filter down from 100. As you lower the Tolerance settings more effect will be applied. If anyone can offer any insight into this filter I would love to hear about it. >>>
Posted in filters, Final Cut, grading | No Comments »
February 19th, 2010
Things To Remember [http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/video_levels_nattress.html]
- Still images are RGB in a 0 to 255 range
- Levels above 100% FCP, 100 IRE or code 235 are called super white
- Final Cut Pro automatically converts images to fit into the 0% FCP to 100% FCP range when it is set to White.
- Final Cut Pro automatically converts images to fit into the 0% FCP to 100% FCP range when it is set to Super White.
- Final Cut Pro only looks at the 0% FCP to 100% FCP range upon still image export, and maps this range to 0 to 255 RGB.
- Picture information can be lost on still image export if you have picture information in the 100% FCP to 110% FCP range.
- Final Cut Pro always applies a gamma correction of about 0.8 to imported still images. If necessary, this can be corrected by applying a gamma correction of 1.2 in Final Cut Pro or 0.8 in Photoshop.
- Dont preempt Final Cut Pros conversion of still images by setting your blacks in Photoshop to 16 and whites to 235. Final Cut Pro expects you to use the full 0 to 255 RGB range.
- White and super white settings only effect the import of still images.
- White and super white settings do not effect video or video rendering.
Posted in Final Cut, gamma, grading | No Comments »
February 19th, 2010
Posted in filters, Final Cut, grading | No Comments »
February 19th, 2010
Posted in filters, Final Cut | No Comments »
February 8th, 2010
The Gibb Effect is an MPEG compression artefact. It is a blurring of the outline of sharp objects, with inappropriately-coloured pixels appearing around the outline of the object. The commonest area in which the Gibb Effect is seen is during end credits, where insufficient bits have been allocated to compressing the data. Another name for this artefact is mosquito noise.[http://www.michaeldvd.com/Articles/VideoArtefacts/VideoArtefactsGibbsEffect.html]
Posted in artefacts, Video Computer Technology | No Comments »
February 8th, 2010
Great sequence of images tally with my general experience:
Basically:
- 1/100 looks slushy, grey and indistinct “cords” (not flakes/lumps)
- 1/500 looks crisp – can see individual snow flakes/lumps falling
Also, from my own experience, is best to focus on 2 metres or so away. Focus matters since DOF small when aperture maxed as one may do to allow max shutter speed (depending on lighting conditions, most likely overcast)
Posted in camera technique, shutter, snow | No Comments »
February 7th, 2010
Horses for Courses Avid vs. FCP:
Posted in Avid, Final Cut | No Comments »
February 7th, 2010
Mobile eSATA (via ExpressCard) for MacBook Pro.Sonnet Fusion F2. Up to 1GB (when configured as Striped i.e. RAID0). Sustained Read/Write of 126MBps=1008Mbps.
Links:
It connects via two eSATA cables to ExpressCard adaptor and also via a FireWire connector purely for the power (no bandwidth). The intention is that the FW bandwidth is still free for use by other devices e.g. “AJAs Io external capture and effects box which requires all of the FireWire bandwidth to itself”. [http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/reviews/index.cfm?RSS&ReviewID=3203]
- Note – for Sony EX1 and EX3 users the Fusion F2 uses th Express 34 slot on the MacBook Pro, meaning one would need to transfer SxS data to either a FireWire or USB drive and then across to the Fusion 2.
Thinks: It works as Software RAID for the Mac. Is there any practical way to also use it from Windows?
Posted in Final Cut, Sony EX XDCAM, storage, Video Computer Technology | No Comments »
January 28th, 2010
In a post at http://www.macvideo.tv/BLOGS/index.cfm?blogid=101658&entryid=3201452 Matt Davis links to Sony’s page offering the latest SxS driver which is compatible with Snow Leopard. Also he points out is bugs/features, irritating rather than show-stopping. There is also a driver for Windows, I’ll try it under Boot Camp.
The following has a FAQ about it:
Posted in Final Cut, Setup, Snow Leopard, Sony EX XDCAM, XDCAM EX | No Comments »
January 26th, 2010
To export from Final Cut to WMV, this can’t be done natively, you need to install a third-party app such as flip4mac (“Studio” or greater).
“When you do install something like flip4mac you will be able to export from FCP using quicktime conversion and choose the options for WMV” or can export a QuickTime (self-contained) and use a separate app (incl. QT Pro) to convert it [http://www.iov.co.uk/showarticle.pl?ft=0;id=61821;n=0]
Posted in Final Cut, Formats, Windows Media | No Comments »
January 22nd, 2010
What is an “Eye” in the sense of an “Eye Diagram” in the digital broadcast world? I saw an advert mentioning one in TV-Bay magazine.
- http://cnx.org/content/m18662/latest
- The eye diagram provides a powerful visualization tool to interpret the behavior of the received waveform regardless of the pulse shape.
- The eye diagram reveals important performance metrics for a communication link, including noise margin, ISI, timing sensitivity, and zero-crossing jitter. In addition, the eye diagram shows the optimum sampling time for the receiver to regenerate a bitstream from the received signaling waveform.
- From my interpretation of a figure in the article at the above link:
- The vertical size of the eye’s “iris ” is noise margin (amplitude), the horizontal size of the “iris” is timing error sensitivity.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
January 20th, 2010
Excel, ODBC Query, PHP, XML
Posted in Excel, ODBC, PHP, XML | No Comments »
January 19th, 2010
http://www.yousendit.com/cms/plugin-finalcutpro
- Convenient file sending right from Final Cut Pro!
- 25% faster uploads than the Web application
- Add additional files and folders of any kind to the same upload batch
- Resumable upload- handles network interruptions
- Includes all standard YSI features like password protection, certified delivery, and file expiration control
- Convenient drag-and-drop and right-click sending options
- You must be a registered user to download and use this plug-in.
(Discovered via forum at http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=691764&Replies=5)
Posted in Final Cut | No Comments »
January 10th, 2010
Utilities for FCP from DigitalRebellion, found them serendipitously while googlingfor other stuff, bear them in mind. In any case wait for any new versions for FCP7 and Snow Leopard).
- http://www.digitalrebellion.com/fcs_maintenance.htm
- FCP Maintenance Pack
- Detects bad things (projects, plugins or footage) that may crash or confuse FCP.
- Interprets FCP crash logs to suggest the probable real-world cause/fix.
- FCP Versioner
- Automatically saves projects (in XML) as different versions (as opposed to just overwriting each save)
- Each version has a change-log, listing exactly what changed.
- (e.g. “New filter added: Time Remap”)
Posted in Final Cut | No Comments »
January 9th, 2010
Posted in Mac, Snow Leopard | No Comments »
January 8th, 2010
Posted in Avid, tutorials | No Comments »
January 8th, 2010
This guy, AppleShakeguru, is knowledgable not only in the tools & features but also the practicalities. His style is to first walk thru at pedestrian pace, sometimes fumbling (as any new user might), so the details can come out. Then he runs thru afterwards, so it all clicks together.
Posted in 3d animation, Final Cut, tutorials | No Comments »
January 8th, 2010
- iMovie rough-cut to XML to FCP to QT (reference) to Compressor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTrxEAPGY5Y
- ScreenFlow for screen captures
- e.g. 5 minutes exported as ProRes 422 gives 10GB
- iMovie:
- Rough edit in iMovie
- Trims, cuts and AutoAdjust (for levels)
- Share > Export Final Cut XML
- Final Cut:
- Refined cuts, transitions etc. and add soundtrack
- e.g. Soundtrack Pro (STP), find music etc from library, reveal in Finder and just drag to FCP project, no obligation to make an “official” STP project.
- Export to QuickTime – uncheck the “Make self-contained” option if only to be used on same system (e.g. to send to compressor for render-on to some other format).
- Compressor:
- x
Posted in Compressor, Final Cut, iMovie, Mac, Soundtrack Pro, Uncategorized | No Comments »
January 8th, 2010
The Apple Mac has no hash (#) key on its keyboard, either US or UK. Mad or what? Workarounds [http://www.viciouslime.co.uk/articles/5-applemac/4-where-is-the–hash-key-on-a-british-mac-keyboard]:
- UK: Alt-3
- US: Shift-3
- (In the UK, Shift-3 instead makes a £ symbol)
To see all such “special symbols” (my term):
Posted in Mac | No Comments »
January 7th, 2010
Need to establish a better home network, e.g. so Parallels on my Mac can see my Windows laptop, so it can suck the XP out of it. Also want shared printer etc. (I have a node for that). Just a question of setting it all up…
Posted in linux, Mac, Networking, Parallels, Setup, Windows | No Comments »
January 7th, 2010
I want to transport everything off an existing PC into a Parallels VM (on a Mac). I want to confirm it is possible and find out how to do it. So, after a bit of googling:
- Yes it is possible.
- The source machine (the Windows PC in this case) needs to be running the Parallels Transporter Agent
- The Transporter Agent may be obtained from http://www.parallels.com/uk/download/desktop
- Here’s a problem someone experienced when installing it to Windows 7 (though my main source PC is running XP):
- http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=97119
- Here’s someone who is attempting to do the same thing I wish to do, but stumbled:
- http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=97777
- (no answer to his question so far)
- x
Posted in Mac, Parallels, Windows | No Comments »
January 7th, 2010
“The feature that elicited the most “OMGs” in the room was a new dialogue level matching option. Allows you to quickly, automatically, intelligently match levels on separate snippets of dialogue, without increasing the levels of noise or non-dialogue sound sources. You can save levels and use them as standards in future projects. This saves a TON of time on a frequent issue that crops up for low-budget web productions that can’t afford to hire sound guys for every field shoot. This was a big deal for a lot of us.”
[http://boingboing.net/2009/07/24/apples-new-final-cut.html]
Posted in Final Cut | No Comments »
January 7th, 2010
Links:
- http://lifehacker.com/315747/tech-support-and-document-collaboration-gets-easy-with-ichat
- http://lifehacker.com/5088083/five-best-video-chat-applications
Posted in collaboration, iChat, Mac, Windows | No Comments »
January 7th, 2010
Geographically separated team members of a Final Cut project can collaborate via iTheatre. Suppose an editor is discussing with a client via Apple’s iChat. Then the editor can play out of FCP straight into the iChat session. It’s in FCP: View > iChat Theatre Preview.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RACPO0N4Hc4
There are some reputable video people covering this topic:
- http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/non-linear-editing-mac/353369-ichat-theatre-preview.html
- http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_ichat_theater_stone.html
But iChat is only available for Macs. What if the client doesn’t have a Mac? I did some googling:
- iChat is an Instant Messenger.
- It is only available for Macs but it is compatible with AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), which is available for Windows.
- ” iChat is only available on OS X” [http://lifehacker.com/5088083/five-best-video-chat-applications]
- .mac accounts are just AIM accounts. Enter your .mac username with @mac.com at the end while configuring an AIM account. [http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=458194]
- Whatever is playing in your Viewer or Canvas window is sent via iChat to your remote viewer. [http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoedsys/revfeat/apple_ichat_theater_preview_0827/index1.html]
- But can the iChat Theatre option be used with Windows users?
- This person believes it is not possible to interact with Windows users (I wonder if they know of the AIM option or whether it handles iTheatre) [http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1065470]
- “If your collaborators are on Windows and dont have access to a Mac, youre out of luck.” [http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoedsys/revfeat/apple_ichat_theater_preview_0827/index1.html]
- “for iChat Theater Preview to work, both the host and remote computers much be running Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard or later. Both computers must have iChat accounts and the remote users account must be added to the host computers buddy list (more detail from Apple here). ” [http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoedsys/revfeat/apple_ichat_theater_preview_0827/index1.html]
- [http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Talk/thread?tid=3669a2bf94155d06&hl=en]
- “… is it possible to make videoconference between a PC using google video and a MAC using ichat ?”,
- “No, it is not possible. Video chat is only between Gmail chat users.” and furthermore “You need … the Newer Version interface of Gmail”
- It has screen sharing, so both parties can observe and control a single desktop
Some links about iChat itself:
- iChat itself:
- http://www.timsblog.net/2008/06/07/ichat-for-windows-maybe
- Overview and context wrt other Instant Messengers (IMs).
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IChat
- Has great list of add-on tools e.g. encryption.
- http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macosx/ichat.html
- How to converse with Windows users
- [http://screencastsonline.com/forums/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1216452140/0]
- “I wish MSN Messenger was supported natively as hardly anyone I know in the UK uses AIM. I’ve only got 10 AIM buddies. I have to go through a Jabber server with an MSN transport to use it”
- “I am same as the others. I use Adium as I have MSN and Google Talk friends mostly and very few on AIM. Sure I can use iChat fo Google Talk”
- “It seems most of us are using Adium because iChat doesn’t connect to MSN and/or Yahoo Messenger.”
- “Skype doesn’t intereact with any other software as far as I know but for internet-based phone video calls, it is the best because so many people use it and it is on Windows as well as Mac.”
- [http://digg.com/apple/Adium_2_0_Coming_With_video_audio_support]
- Adium is what Pidgin should be.
- Adium is based on Pidgin’s libpurple (libgaim), which is already used in Pidgin on all three platforms.
- Adium is the Cocoa client of libpurple. Pidgin is the GTK client, finch is the CLI client, etc… Same IM backend, multiple GUIs.
- http://pressf1.pcworld.co.nz/showthread.php?t=86311
- “AIM [http://products.aim.com] is about as close to iChat as you’re gonna get on Windows. That said, a better option would be to go with something more flexible like Pidgin. [http://www.pidgin.im]”
- AIM
- http://products.aim.com/
- [http://digg.com/apple/Adium_2_0_Coming_With_video_audio_support]
- If you’re using the AIM service, make sure you have port 5190 open on your router, NAT, firewall, cable modem, or DSL modem. You’ll need it open for incoming connections to send and outgoing connections to receive (yes, that is the right way round: the recipient connects to the sender).
- Pidgin
- Is open-source, has sometimes debatable deadlines and capabilities. Many consider Adium better, and it has been stated that they are both front-ends onto the same core.
- (formerly GAIM) [http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/28/adium-offers-first-look-at-video-integration]
- [http://www.pidgin.im/about] “Pidgin is a chat program which lets you log in to accounts on multiple chat networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on MSN, talking to a friend on Google Talk, and sitting in a Yahoo chat room all at the same time. Pidgin runs on Windows, Linux, and other UNIX operating systems”
- There are third-party plugins for other protocols such as Skype and Twitter.
- x
Posted in chat, collaboration, Final Cut, iChat, linux, Mac, Networking, Windows | No Comments »
January 7th, 2010
After having installed FCS3 (feat.FCS7) and its XDCAM Transfer plugin, I did an Apple Software Update. As expected, this detected an available update for “Pro Applications”. Among those updates listed was one for Soundtrack Pro, described as “Fixes issue with installer”. What does that mean? I already installed it. Should I uninstall and reinstall it ? I’ll do nothing until I find out for sure.
After that update , there were no further updates.
Posted in Final Cut, Setup | No Comments »
January 7th, 2010
The XDCAM Transfer plugin allows FCP to easily ingest footage in the format generated by XDCAM-EX cameras such as the EX3. Unlike FCP6, where it was also advised to load a “FAM Driver” (as a separate plugin), this is not appropriate for FCP7 (explained below)
From the ReadMe phase of the ‘Install XDCAM Transfer’ installer dialog:
XDCAM FAM driver and tool.
Mount Professional Discs in XDCAM devices connected by FAM (i.LINK) in the Finder.
Note: The XDCAM FAM driver and tool are not compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and are not installed.
XDCAM Transfer main application.
Preview clips from XDCAM and import your selected material as QuickTime movies. XDCAM Transfer supports the PDW-U1 XDCAM Drive unit and Professional Memory Cards recorded with the PMW-EX1 camcorder.
Sony XDCAM Import and Export plug-ins for Final Cut Pro.
Initiate transfers from XDCAM directly into a Final Cut Pro project and render your Final Cut Pro sequence directly onto a connected XDCAM disc.
Final Cut Pro XDCAM presets.
Configure your sequence and export settings to be compatible with XDCAM. The XDCAM HD422 presets replace those installed by Final Cut Pro 6.0.3.
XDCAM Transfer User Guide.
Found in the Documentation folder of this disk image and also available from the Help menu of the XDCAM Transfer application after installing the software.
Posted in Final Cut, Setup, Snow Leopard, Sony EX XDCAM, XDCAM EX | No Comments »
January 7th, 2010
As a first experiment (with how well or not FCS3 would run), I installed the upgrade to a new machine.
Groundless concerns:
- There is no hassle over installing it on a second machine. The license allows it and there is no Deactivation etc required. Only if both machines are on the same network will it complain.
- It was not necessary for the target machine to have the previous version of FCS installed.
The update physical form was a cardboard box measuring about (by eye) 5x5x1.5 inches. Its main contents were 7 data-DVDs, a nice concise booklet and some formal documentation, one of which had the serial number printed (twice). Installing the system took a few hours.
The main installation disk additionallycontained electronic documentation. I copied it to :
- Boris Calligraphy User guide
- Exploring Final Cut Pro 7
- Same as the booklet that came in the box.
It also contained “Extras”, as follows:
- AppleQmasterNode.mpkg
- Allows a computer to act as a node in a render-farm, in support of Compressor. If you are unsure which role each computer will play in your network, just install the Apple Qmaster software on each computer in your network. You can sort out the details later. [http://documentation.apple.com/en/appleqmaster/distributedprocessingsetupguide/index.html#chapter=2%26section=2%26tasks=true]
- I started its installer but it asked whether I wanted to let this computer be used as a rendering node. I had already been asked that question when loading the main FCS3. So maybe it was loaded already. Decided that FCS was probably best left alone in this respect, so I aborted the install.
- CORRECT: While following QMaster tutorial [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTrxEAPGY5Y] I checked existing System Preferences for QMaster and they were already there, it was already enabled for sharing.
- In contrast, when I checked the same for my older machine running FCP6, its QMaster was not enabled for sharing. Of course I fixed that immediately.
-
- BUT in both cases (both machines) the options were greyed-out.
- For the newly-installed FCP7 machine, Options for selected service (Compressor) said “Selected Service On (2 instances). Sounds like it’s using both cores OK.
- For the older FCP6 machine, it said “Selected service On (1 instance)”. But its an 8-core machine. So maybe something is not quite right…
- Then again it might be a “feature” of no significance, just run a render and check Activity Monitor to see if all cores are being used [http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7315551]. The discussion (like some others) also suggests not using all the cores available.
- DVX-100 Audio Sync Tool
- DVX-100 is a camcorder by Panasonic. Broadly EX3-like and film-ish e.g. 24P)
- I don’t need this, so I won’t install it.
- Head Leaders for Cinema Tools
- Countdown etc.
- A number of prebuilt QuickTime clips have been included to use as head leader in your edited sequences. Using these head leader clips is preferable to selecting the “Start with 8 seconds of leader” checkbox in the Export Film Lists dialog because these clips also contain Picture Start, countdown, and an audio pop at the 2-second mark. [‘Head Leaders Read Me’ file]
- I guess they’re intended to be copied somewhere (?). I put them at […/Documents/Final Cut/FCS 07]
- Spotlight Importer
- Spotlight importers should be provided by all applications that support custom document formats. A Spotlight importer parses your document format for relevant information and assigning that information to the appropriate metadata keys. [http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/DOCUMENTATION/Carbon/Conceptual/MDImporters/Concepts/WritingAnImp.html]
- In other words, it allows Spotlight to search withinapplication-specific files.
- But when I tried installing it, it said “The domain/default pair of (com.apple.dock, loc) does not exist”. Don’t know what it means but it sounds broken… Either way, I can’t install it, so must abandon it.
- Template Intro Movies for DVD Studio Pro
- Blocks, corporate, mosaic, stripes, smoke…
- I guess they’re intended to be copied somewhere (?). I put them at […/Documents/Final Cut/FCS 07]
Posted in activation, Compressor, Final Cut, Mac, Setup, Uncategorized | No Comments »
January 6th, 2010
I have Microsoft Office 2007 installed on one of my computers (“the old laptop”) and want to put it on another one (“the new laptop”). But is there any restriction involving Activation etc.?
- At the link below, someone else with the same uncertainty verbalises my uncertainties clearly “Will “uninstalling” Office 2007 in that machine, send a signal via the internet that I’m uninstalling it? Or should I take note of any particular machine ID of the one I’m replacing it so I can “tell” the system which one to de-activate?”
There are great clear anwers to this at http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/genuineoffice/thread/413e0f83-774c-43f5-bc1e-b55af6a6b1ea.
- “Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 can be installed on 3 computer at a single point of time. Other office suite 2007 can be installed on 2 computer. Information can be found in the jewel case.”
- “There is no process of de-activating an office product. Uninstalling does not de-activate the product. Install the product on the computer and activate.”
- “REASSIGN TO ANOTHER DEVICE. You may reassign the license to a different device any number of times, but not more than one time every 90 days. If you reassign, that other device becomes the licensed device. If you retire the licensed device due to hardware failure, you may reassign the license sooner.”
- “…there’s a lot of slack in the activation logic, so you’re unlikely to have a problem, but in case you do, you can do a phone activation, which Microsoft says is painless and will only take 5 minutes.”
So all I have to do is go ahead and install it on the new machine then!
Posted in activation, microsoft, office suites, Windows | No Comments »
January 5th, 2010
I downloaded these ones, for trial:
- PathFinder [http://www.cocoatech.com]
- “Path Finder’s goal is to fill the gap between Apple’s Finder and the command line environment by integrating many different features usually found in external applications into a single, powerful interface.”.
- Not sure I need it. And for sending files to applications, QuickSilver may be better.
- Leap [http://www.ironicsoftware.com/leap/index.html]
- Intriguing, because (like I have imagined for myself) it allows the user to cut/slice files from a multitude of perspectives. You can go down the folder hierarchy or have a flattened view of all files, filtered by tags (that you define). Many variations on these ideas.
- Rage Macintosh Explorer [http://www.ragesw.com/products/explorer.html]
- Is very like Windows Explorer, comfortable to use and clear. And the path is always displayed, in editable form (so it can be copied). I like it.
Posted in Mac, Uncategorized | No Comments »
January 5th, 2010
Posted in Mac, self-organization | No Comments »
January 5th, 2010
How to copy a file’s path as a string:
- Open a Terminal window.
- Drag the file or folder to the Terminal window. (The full path appears in the window.)
- Select the path in the Terminal window, copy it, and paste it into your email or script.
- Close the Terminal window.
- The only slight snag is that, if your file or folder path contains spaces, the spaces get escaped with \s in the Terminal window.
- If the escaped spaces bug you, or you often want to copy the path to a file, check out the catchily-titled FilePathToClipCMPlugin. Download and open the .dmg, drag the FilePathToClipCMPlugin.plugin file to ~/Library/Contextual Menu Items, and restart the Finder (Apple menu > Force Quit, then choose Finder in the list and click Relaunch). You can now right-click any file or folder and choose FilePathToClip! to copy it to the Clipboard. Works a treat.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071018002311820
- “You can copy the path right out of the Get Info window in Snow Leopard.”
- (haven’t yet tried this)
Posted in Mac | No Comments »
January 4th, 2010
Recap:
- Backed-up via Time Machine to a low-cost (£60) USB-powered 0.5TB hard drive that will be carried around with the laptop (can that drive be backed-up itself?)
- Turned off Time Machine (auto-backups) afterwards.
- Updated everything
- Several system restarts required, and re-ran the Update function until no more updates available.
- Backed-up again viaTime Machine.
Continue:
- Ran Boot Camp Assistant
- It prompted me to print its instructions. I decided to accept this.
- I connected my printer. System prompted for printer-driver download – I accepted.
- I selected the print option to format the instructions specifically for my (make of) printer.
- From Preview, the instructions occupy 14 pages. Thinking green (and clutter-avoidance) I elected instead to save it as PDF to a memory stick that I can view elsewhere.
- Read thru the Boot Camp instructions
- It seems I have done it right so far (update everything & backup)
- Boot Camp Assistant: Actions
- Click Continue (onwards from the printing stage).
- Partitioning:
- Select Divide Equally
- (Don’t know what sizes I need, presumably can alter proportions later if needed using e.g. via iPartition).
- Click Partition
- Windows Installation
- Insert Windows disk.
- There are two options (disks): 32-bit and 64-bit. Let’s go for 64-bit. In case of any residual doubt:
- Click Start Installation
- (Even though Boot Camp Assistant (BCA) does not mention Windows 7 as an option, onlyXP & Vista.)
- Locale info:
- Language: English; Units: UK; Keyboard: UK
- (What is “UK Extended” ?)
- Install Now
- Installation option: Upgrade or Custom(BCA instructions don’t mention this choice)
- Default is Upgrade but this is a fresh installso choose Custom
- Warning (from instructions): “Its important to select the correct partition when installing Windows so that you dontoverwrite Mac OS X on your computer.”
- Selected the Boot Camp partition (Disk 0 Partition 3), but…
- “Windows caannot be installed to Disk 0 Partition 3”
- …because it has not yet been formatted as NTFS (did I miss that stage?)
- Clicked Drive Options, and, with Partition 3 selected, clicked Format.
- There were no format options e.g. NTFS or other, it just did it, taking only a few seconds.
- Clicked Install, now it worked.
- Looking thru the BCA instructions, that formatting step is indeed mentioned, all is well.
- “The Windows partition is formatted using the NTFS file system”
- (installation automated processes took half an hour or so)
- Enter names for user (account) and computer (to distinguish it on a network)
- Enter a password
- Enter Product Key and accept default option to automatically activate when on-line.
- Select Use Recommended Settings (e.g. for updates policy)
- Accept TimeZone as UTC
- JoinWireless Network
- Enter key, accept Automatically Connect policy
- Selectit as Home Network (trusted)
- (Windows now began its update processes)
- First it downloaded a manifest- list of available updates
- After this it prompted to “click here for available updates”. Did so.
- It offered “11 important updates” and “2 optional updates”. I accepted them all.
- An update clash (my term) occurred – it said “Some updates were not installed” and “…try again in a few minutes”
- Waited several minutes and tried again – it worked: 10 updates successfullyinstalled, then required restart (did it).
- First proper login to Windows.
- Note there had been no prompts for drivers etc.
- Mac Hardware Drivers for Windows
- Insert the Mac OS install-disk … after ejecting the Windows install-disk.
- But the”Eject Disk” button has no effect (presumably due to no driver yet)
- Workaround: Windows Explorer > DVD Drive > Eject
- Autoplay (yes/no): Windows Support > setup.exe. YES.
- Security: Allow it (Boot Camp) to make changes to computer. YES.
- Boot Camp: Accept license, allow “Apple software update for windows”
- (It took some significant time)
- Restart
- Doh – I left the Mac OS install-disk inserted; as a result I feared the machine would boot from that disk. However in practice it was Windows that came up.
- The default OS can be changed via the Boot Camp icon in system tray.
- Unable to log in – keyboard doesn’t work.
- (Yes, this is familiar Windows behaviour…)
- Restart again.
- Now it works fully. Keyboard and disk-eject too.
- Settling-in to Windows
- Config the system tray to always show all icons.
- Got warned that there is no antivirus as yet.
- Purchase Parallels 5, which Kapersky AntiVirus comes bundled with, and I want Parallels anyway. Cost around £60.
- x
- Install Parallels
- Purchase & download Parallels 5 desktop for mac. Is a “.dmg” file of size 222 MB.
- Restart machine in Mac mode.
- Backup (Time Machine)
- Run installer. It says the installation will occupy around 450MB of disk.
- Backup (Time Machine)
- Run Parallels. Prompts for activation (license key/code). Did so.
- (Parallels then did a “prepare for first start”)
- x
- Create new Virtual Machine onto the Boot Camp Windows 7 system.
- New Windows Installation
- Boot Camp Partition
- Windows 7, “Let other Mac users access this virtual machine”, sharing “Home folder only”. Create.
- Done.
- Now I have two new desktop items, for Parallels Virtual Machines (VMs): “My Boot Camp” and “Windows 7”.
- How come I’ve got two items, not just one? What are each of them for?
- Others are similarly confused, e.g. http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=829128
- Looks like the answer is at http://download.parallels.com/desktop/v5/docs/en/Parallels_Desktop_Users_Guide/23414.htm,”If you install Parallels Desktop on a Mac computer with a Boot Camp Windows partition, and Parallels Desktop detects that there are no virtual machines on the computer, it automatically creates a new virtual machine for this Boot Camp partition and places it to the following location:
<Username>/Documents/Parallels/My Boot Camp“
- So I need not have created one explicitly. I guess “Windows 7” is the one I (explicitly) created, “My BootCamp” is the one that Parallels (implicitly) created. In that case all I need to do is delete the “Windows 7” one. Did so.
- Ran the “My Boot Camp” virtual machine for the first time. It said “Setting up forthe first time – may take some time”. In that case I regard this as part of the installation process.
- Got to the login prompt (for Windows 7) and, reasonably enough, required me to log in before it could act further. Dod do.
- (It said “Please wait while the virtual machine is being upgraded”, then after several minutes “…was successfully upgraded”)
- Now I had a Windows login prompt again. Logged in.
- The VM runs in Coherence mode by default.
- (It said “The Windows application folder is being added to the dock” and “To remove the folder, edit the Shared Applications settings in the virtual machine config)
- Installed Parallels Internet Security (Kapersky AntiVirus etc.) – it is not installed by default – you have to take action, did so as follows.
- Select the Parallels VM Launcher (window). In the Mac (top-screen) menu (when that window is selected), click:
- Virtual Machine > Install Parallels Internet Security
- (Took maybe 30 minutes to download)
- Began installing itself. As part of this, Windows Firewall was disabled (as indicated by a Windows security message), so I unplugged my router, just in case.
- At the end of installation, the VM restarted itself (successfully).
- Following restart, I plugged my router back in and told Kapersky to update.
- Following Kapersky update, a VM restart was required. Did so.
- Did another Kapersky update. Status: Up-to-date.
- Ran a full system scan. Takes quite some time (started 18:08, finished ????). No issues detected.
- Windows security messages about “No firewall” and “Parallels Internet Security is on but reporting its status to Windows Security Centre in a format that is no longer supported”.
- The “no longer supported” message: someone said “I had to uninstall Kaspersky as well as Parallels Tools, and then reinstall Parallels Tools, to fix this problem. That seems to have worked.” http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=96492&highlight=longer+supported
- I tried simply the VM Launcher option “Reinstall Parallels Tools”, because being simple, it was worth a try. It restarted the VM.
- No effect – didn’t fix it.
- Try following another person’s advice “If Tools are already isntall, you can remove them from (Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs>) Programs & Features list, restart Windows and load them from Virtual Machine menu. “. Did so. VM Restart.
- Configure: Do not backup with Time Machine. This is very important!
- x
- x
Posted in Boot Camp, Mac, Snow Leopard, Windows | No Comments »
January 4th, 2010
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/721366.html
- Screen Sharing: Drag “Screen Sharing” from /System/Library/CoreServices to the dock.
- A few people prefer http://www.jinx.de/JollysFastVNC.html, shareware but can be evaluated free.
- To cope with dynamic IP addresses, use services like DynDNS. Also, for routers, port-forwarding. [ http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=359212]
But “VNC by default is not all that secure of a protocol and can open you up to attack by someone who is determined to gain access to your system. For this reason you should disable VNC by reversing the above steps when it is not needed” [http://www.wikihow.com/Setup-VNC-on-Mac-OS-X]
Posted in Mac, Networking, remote access, Windows | No Comments »
January 4th, 2010
Further config items:
- Safe-Boot (hold shift-key down when booting)
- Create a “Default Everything” account.
- Disable bluetooth (is enabled by default) and also disable its Discoverable property.
- RightClick on the bluetooth icon at Mac’s top-right “system tray”
- Which graphic card (GPU) is in use? According to “About This Mac”, it is the lower-powered 9400M instead of the higher-powered 9600GT (both are NVIDIA GeForce). How do I change it to the higher-powered one?
Posted in GPU, Mac, Setup | No Comments »
January 4th, 2010
Regarding Time Machine and Virtual Machines of Parallels, ensure these VMs are excluded from Time Machine’s source volumes. That can be done in the Config dialogs of the VMs themselves.
Posted in backup, Mac, Parallels | No Comments »
January 3rd, 2010
I was getting a problem where Boot Camp Windows 7, accessed as a virtual machine under Parallels, failed to recognize that Parallels Internet Security (Kapersky 2009) was fully running. It was unable to see that the Kapersky Firewall was running and only had limited visibility of the Kapersky AntiVirus.Some advice from a Parallels official was found in the article at the following link:http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=95997&highlight=securityIn that article it was advised to follow the steps below:
- In Virtual Machine uninstall Parallels Internet Security
- Select Uninstall, Complete Uninstall.
- Reboot guest OS.
- In Virtual Machine uninstall Parallels Tools
- Select Uninstall, Complete Uninstall.
- Reboot guest OS.
- Install Parallels Tools
- from Parallels Desktop Menu – Virtual Machine -> Install Parallels Tools.
- Install Parallels Internet Security
- from Parallels Desktop Menu – Virtual Machine -> Install Parallels Internet Security.
- Reboot guest OS.
However when I followed this exactly it resulted in no difference.
Posted in Kapersky, Mac, Parallels | No Comments »
January 3rd, 2010
What’s the best backup strategy when using Time Machine? Want ease of life and low cost. Sometimes I have more than one instance of Mac OS on my Mac, e.g. on different hard drives, and these require to be backed-up onto their own unique volumes. The following represents my best understanding of the matter so far, based on web-trawling and received expert advice, but I am a beginner, still trying to orient myself in the world of Macs.
- Time Capsule
- Acts as network hub with WiFi and own backup volume plus the ability to connect (via USB) to shared printer/USB drive etc.
- You can for example plug it into your broadband modem or router
- Can support Time Machine from multiple Macs, provided they are named differently; it automatically creates similarly-named folders for each Mac.
- It costs about £235 for a 1TB unit.
- Generic network (NAS) drive
- Where there is already a network in place, this can simply be connected (via Ethernet) to one of its hubs (e.g. a router).
- To allow for multiple Macs, one would presumably have to manually divide the disk into separate partitions, each of which would serve as a unique backup volume for a single given Mac. Care needed not to accidentally mix them up / overwrite.
- Cost is about £100 for a 0.5 to 1TB units(depending on make & supplier)
- USBdrive
- Could be connected directly to USB port on the Mac in question. Or, could be connected to a network hub with USB ports (making it like a network drive).
- Regarding multiple Macs, same argument as for network drives?
- Cost can be as low as £47 for a 0.5TB device.
Not sure about the multiple Macs sharing a common backup device. If one had already started using a storage device for a particular set of Macs (maybe only one Mac), then at a later stage required to add support for a further Mac, would this be straightforward?
- For a Time Capsule, would one simply point the new machine at it and it would get added automatically?
- For a plain (non Time Capsule) disk, would it be possible to add a new partition? Would that be straightforward or would some special measures be needed e.g. to adapt to the repositioning of blocks that can occur during partitioning? Presumably it would make no difference if it was a network drive or USB drive (?)
Some things (I imagine) in favour of a straight USB drive over a Time Capsule:
- It can be small (even pocket-sized) and light, hence easily carried to various locations, whereas the Time Capsule appears more intended for being left in a base location, where it can serve as a WiFi router.
- Although a Time Capsule will automatically create folders for each uniquely-named Mac, what happens if it encounters two Macs of the same name, i.e. could one of them corrupt the other one’s existing backup data?
Questions:
- Can a Time Machine backup volume itself be backed up (or cloned) ?
- When a Time Machine backup volume gets full, the oldest backups are deleted. Is there a way to keep certain “milestone” backups as permanent? For example the machine’s initial clean installation or, just after this, when updated and user-configured.
Posted in backup, Mac | No Comments »
January 3rd, 2010
This is what I have actually done so far:
- Backed-up via Time Machine to a low-cost (£60) USB-powered 0.5TB hard drive that will be carried around with the laptop (can that drive be backed-up itself?)
- Turned off Time Machine (auto-backups) afterwards.
- Updated everything
- Several system restarts required, and re-ran the Update function until no more updates available.
- Backed-up again viaTime Machine.
Next I intend to set it up for BootCamp-Windows7, because I guess this is best done while my Mac OS system footprint is still small (so it won’t spend ages repositioning blocks of my (to-be) installed Mac apps when the disk gets repartitioned for BootCamp).
Posted in Boot Camp, Mac, Snow Leopard, Windows | No Comments »
January 2nd, 2010
- The mix&match feature of the Avid (e.g. MC4) assumes bringing in footage in corresponding projects. After that, you can instantly access that footage from any other project (or project type), and playback in real-time
- http://lfhd.net/2009/10/01/avid-mc-4-0-inside-look-at-mix-match
- Your sequence setting is what you tell it. 1080i, 720p, 525i
whathaveyou. And whatever clip you add to that that ISNT that format, gets scaled to that format
using a filter called a MOTION ADAPTER. This add interpolation to match the sequence settings, and this is added automatically when you add new footage that doesnt match. And there are all sorts of interpolation modes
these are all user selectable. AND you can change your sequence settings to match something else later.
- If you want the interpolation to better then you can promote the motion adapter to a full blown TIME WARP (that has been there for many years) and the footage will benefit more.
- Works in software-only (no Mojo required) and takes advantage of multi-core (e.g. 8 core)
- Avids open timeline implementation is much better than FCPs. Avid MC automatically adds a plugin that is designed to do this upscale in very smart ways. It isnt just scaling it and then repeating a frame.
- The editor does need to have certain switches turned on to see the highest quality output, such as: -Full Quality 10bit output, -HQ RT Scaling Decoder, -Advanced Polyphase image interpolation.
- For example: “you will have to import NTSC clips in an NTSC project and 720p60 clips in a 720p60 project. If you try to import 720p60 files into a 30i project, you will be downconverting upon import, which is not as nice, and will not be able to handle certain metadata correctly”
Posted in Avid, Formats, NLE, Video Computer Technology | No Comments »
January 2nd, 2010
Amazon lets a system admin type person rent time/space/bandwidth on Amazon’s Cloud Computing network, “Elastic Compute Cloud”, EC2 (which also sounds like “Easy-To”). It costs e.g. about 10 cents per hour (depending on selected level of service).
- Maybe useful for CGI generation?
Setup is fiddly, but this tutorial explains how to do it from command-line, including some pragmatic tips:
Here’s an easier way, via web-based GUI:
Generic intro to Cloud Computing:
Posted in cloud computing, Video Computer Technology | No Comments »
January 2nd, 2010
Problems when I first tried it (ultimately I just adapted a pre-built project by a much more experienced user):
- Wrap % only goes to 100%, can’t use that to stretch a strip to repeat itself twice – is there another way to do that?
- Tried specifying a bitmap to go round the sphere. File “world.topo.200407.3x21600x10800.jpg”. Image size is 21600×10800. Fails: image too large.
- Using separate graphical editor (Gimp 2), scale the image to width 4096 (height locked by aspect ratio is 2048)
- Boris now accepts it but scales-up the sphere to accomodate the image rather than scale-down the image to match the existing sphere size. So it now fills the screen…
- Enter X-scale 40 (Y and Z are linked to this). Sphere now looks good match in size to the belt.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
January 2nd, 2010
Want to establish an organized plan and checklist for setup from scratch, whenever it’s required. Here’s an initial stab at a Checklist:
- First-use basic config (enable internet access but don’t browse or update or download anything)
- Back-up (Time Machine, requires exclusive use of a volume unless using TimeCapsule (or does that create multiple (machine-specific) volumes as partitions?)
- Ideally would like to backup this and other stages permamently, but TimeMachine backups can get overwritten and need to install other apps to backup from OSX. Maybe a linux LiveCD block-copy (to a linux rather than Mac formatted disk, but that doesn’t matter)? )
- Time Machine backup failures can occur but sometimes just a retry works http://www.davidalison.com/2008/06/now-daily-time-machine-error.html
- Time Capsule http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/backup.html
- Time Capsule includes a wireless 1TB or 2TB hard drive1 designed to work with Time Machine in Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard.
- It can back up and store files for each Leopard– and Snow Leopard-based Mac on your wireless network.
- Does that mean it can act as common (shared) backup medium for more than one Time Machine (on more than one Mac or Mac instance)
- It can act as a Wifi and USB-connected resource (e.g. printer or hard disk) sharing node, where it prefers to be the main node (not a client), e.g. connected (Ethernet) to an ADSL model.
- For more information about Time Machine, choose Help > Mac Help from the Finder
menu on a computer using Mac OS X Leopard, and then type Time Machine in the
search field. http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/TimeCapsule_SetupGuide.pdf
- Set up a “Default Everything” account (admin) – useful if get into trouble later
- Drivers (No need for printer driver – see below – but what about graphic card drivers?)
- Update (check what’s compatible with FCP etc. at this time?)
- Further configs of user account (e.g. side-oriented dock).
- Can these be automated e.g. by AppleScript,for any future machines I might want similarly configured?
- Some suggestions & tips:
- Utils (some from : http://www.macupdate.com)
- QuickSilver
- iPartition
- CarbonCopyCloner / SuperDuper (for cloning or backing-up (as stanalone image) the Mac OS system disk)
- WinClone (for backing-up images of BootCamp-Windows partitions)
- VideoSpec
- A cross-platform file-sync & backup util
- A remote-access & mgt util.
- Parallels
- AppDelete ?
- GoogleNotifier (indicates when new GMail received)
- Handbrake (DVD ripper ?)
- BitTorrent (eg Transmission (tips at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PyfcjMxyd0) or some people consider uTorrent easier)
- Generic Apps
- FireFox etc.
- An “Explorer-like” alternative to Finder
- An Office Suite (probably NeoOffice – is a Mac-specific fork of OpenOffice, though how compatible is it eg interchanging “.odt” files with it?)
- Skype
- Twitter (http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac)
- ScreenFlow? KeyNote?
- Specific Apps
- FCP enhancements
- FCP Versioner http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/33200/fcp-versioner
- Automatically creates a backup every time you save your Final Cut Pro project
- Each backup has a changelog listing exactly what changed between revisions
- Backups are in XML format which has durability and compatibility advantages over FCP project files
- Flexible backup management options to fully customize how older backups are purged
- Autosaves your project file at specified intervals.
- x
- x
Posted in Mac, Networking, Snow Leopard | No Comments »
January 2nd, 2010
Some people rave about this free util. It replicates some Spotlight functionality but is more advanced.
Setup/config tweaks are non-obvious, so it is worth checking out the following tutorial:
To obtain it:
Posted in Mac, util | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
How easy is it to use ProRes in Avid MC4 these days? Obviously relevant to using FCP-generated media in AVid but also for establishing the practicality of using the Aja KiPro recording device – a hot topic for lots of people.
I am an extreme newbie on Avid, though experienced in some other NLEs, and I am not yet au fait with the basic Avid quirks and ways. I read that it is possible to import ProRes but that there can be issues with level shifts (gamma & 709 etc.). Is this true and is there a workaround for it? If levels issue was solved then would there be any further issues?
I did try searching via Google and in the Avid forum but precise intelligence on this subject was thin on the ground. Most people seem to just convert ProRes to DNxHD; what I’d like to know is whether it’s practical to avoid that and just use ProRes-encoded media directly. Maybe that’s a very naive perspective, as my experience below hints at…
I did a quick experiment to Import some ProRes to an Avid project (on Mac). The ProRes I had available just happened to be SD (35 sec clip, 180MB). The project was HD (I just accepted this as default). Importing it caused it to do “Creating video from QT”. [Avid:(bin)>Clip>Reveal] showed that this “creation” had produced (in a generic Avid scatch area) a set of three MXF files, two of 3.5MB (the stereo audio channels maybe?) and one of 500MB, which I assume is the upscaled version of the original media. It was not playable by QuickTime or recognized by VideoSpec. Meanwhile, the bin I imported to listed a QT (.mov) file of the same name as the original ProRes file but its datestamp (in the bin) indicated it had been created just now and it was listed as being of type DNxHD 120 (not the original datestamp or codec i.e. ProRes). I wonder if it is a Reference file, just pointing to the content in the MXF files, and in that case whether the original ProRes file could (in principle) now be deleted, if that original file is not being used by the project. I wonder where the reference file (if that’s what it is) is located.
Next I tried a more sensible experiment: Import SD ProRes (PAL DV 50i LFF, 27MB) into a matching project. Again got the “Creating video from QT” message but it completed more quickly (presumably because it didn’t need to upscale and involved less data). The resulting (created) MXF files were two of 772KB and one of 19MB. The bin listed the imported file under its original name (.MOV) but being of type DV 25 411. The “411” is news to me – PAL DV uses “420” colour sampling whereas “411” is for NTSC. Makes me want to call “911”… I guess (and hope!) this message is just the result of a “lazy” bit of coding in Avid, i.e. that it hasn’t really re-sampled my media’s colours into colors… Even if it hasn’t done that, DV is a lossy format (hence I suppose the slightly smaller file size than the original ProRes) and I would have preferred some kind of “visually lossless” format (can DNxHD also handle SD resolution?) here. Maybe I need to attain some Avid-Wrangling skills. On a hopeful hunch I briefly tried Avid’s AMA but it didn’t recognize the folder containing my ProRes files as an AMA-compatible volume. On a previous occasion I had used AMA successfully with a folder of XDCAM-EX footage and that had worked fine, so I just hoped … but my hopes were dashed.
It looks on the face of it like there’s no choice: Avid generates its own equivalent files in its preferred format (MXF-Avid) automatically, not just re-wrapping the “rival/alien” ProRes stuff but transcoding it into DNxHD (for an HD project) or DV (for a DV project).
But it’s early days in my Avid experience and I will find out more…
Posted in Avid, ProRes | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
Some good stuff I picked up from some randomly visited Final Cut Pro (FCP) video tutorials on YouTube. Now that my main project, based inside Sony Vegas, is finishing, it’s time to start getting far more familiar, comfortable and effective with Final Cut.This tutorial (by a child, re Lego “brick videos”) shows how to use the 3-way color corrector for secondary color correction. What’s nice is he shows where this feature is (slightly) “hidden” and how the source hue-space can be aggregated by eyedropper shift-clicks. His slightly uncertain demonstration encourages me to blunder about – not to be frozen by uncertainty!
The following tutorial assumes you know what a 3-way color corrector does so takes that for granted. Instead it concentrates on how to do it efficiently in FCP, by virtue of FCP’s handy bits and pieces such as Favourites effects-folder and CopyFrom(clip-1..-2) and CopyTo(clip+1..+2) buttons.
This one explains when you would want to use Sequence Nesting. Some of the reasons are not immediately obvious. Looks much slicker than Vegas’s nested projects (though I have yet to experience for real). Also it shows handy way of creating nested Sequences on-the-fly i.e. you don’t always have to pompously do [FCP:File>New>Sequence] etc. On the side, it demonstrates some generic “handy working” features of FCP. For example, instead of tree-climbing down to find a filter/effect, you can use [FCP:Help>Search], it works like Spotlight, e.g. if you type in “Level” or “3-way” it puts you there in the effects menu, ready to drag. Another handy feature is [Clip:Option-DblClk] to get a timeline clip into the viewer (no need to laboriously drag it there).
Posted in Final Cut | No Comments »
December 24th, 2009
I wanted to know, if I bought a MacBook, could I run my existing copy of FCP on that too. The answer appears to be “yes”, and thankfully without the hassles/risks/worries of having to activate/deactivate etc.
According to [http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2254660&tstart=0]
- There is no technical limit to the number of installations. There is also no deactivate function in FCS as there is in Adobe products.
- The whole point of the agreement allowing (1) Desktop and (1) Laptop is that Apple acknowledges that some people will use FCP on a MacPro for primary use, but when they travel they need to use it on a laptop. So in this case the one copy is on two machines, but will only be used on one machine at a time.
- The user cannot have it on the desktop machine and use that while another editor in another bay uses the laptop with the same copy. That is not allowed.
- The language in question is “so long as both computers are owned and used by you.”
- (the license) does specifically state that the software can not be used over a network by multiple users at the same time, but it does not specifically state that one user can not use the software on a desktop and laptop at the same time.
Posted in Final Cut | No Comments »
December 24th, 2009
When to use each kind of DNxHD format?
Posted in Avid, DNxHD, Formats | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2009
Posted in Mac, self-organization | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2009
Someone switching from Vegas to Avid, seeking advice:
Example advice from that thread:
- (Implicitly, from the following) Try AMA as a first port of call.
- “Import” is used for file types that can’t be accessed via AMA (Avid Media Access). There are two types of Importing: fast and I guess what I’d call slow.
- Fast Import rewraps the file in an MXF container, but it does not transcode, so it takes very little time and there is absolutely no quality hit.
- Slow Import is necessary when the codec is not natively supported inside MC or one of the import settings dictates a transcode, e.g. going from 601 to RGB color levels (hard remapping all colors so 16 becomes 0 and 235 becomes 255). Slow importing can take time
- Avid will most certainly accept (content in) a MOV container, but will always generate new MXF mediafiles when you import these MOVs into the system.
- Indeed that’s what happened when I imported a MOV file containing ProRes content. The MXF was about the same size as the MOV.
- I guess this would have been an example of Slow Import
- Avid works mostly with its own codec, and with some other codecs. Not with ProRes.
The comment about ProRes conflicts with advice I have read elsewhere (and repeated elsewhere on this blog). Possibly it is context-dependent (e.g. PC/Mac, Avid version, QT version, workflow) ??? I will reserve judgement until I have tried it.
Posted in Avid, ProRes, Sony Vegas | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2009
Avid training by ClassOnDemand, Steve Hullfish:
A video-ad for it at http://avidl2.blogspot.com/2009/11/re-avid-l2-re-speaking-of-ama_1043.html gives a coupon-code.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2009
“… if you want to upgrade to Snow Leopard, Avid recommends that you do a clean install of the OS, rather than a simple upgrade. ” [http://lfhd.net/2009/11/]
Posted in Avid, Mac, Snow Leopard | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2009
Posted in Final Cut | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2009
Eugenia recommended ([http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2008/09/15/prores-for-windows/] as of September 2008) DNxHD and ProRes, among other codecs, for transfer between PC and Mac. She also advises Lagarith for transfer to/from linux, though it sounds slightly tricky.According to BobRusso (Applications Specialist at Avid) [http://community.avid.com/forums/p/62217/407573.aspx#407573]:<<<
You can install the ProRes decoder on a system without FCP:
Make sure you have the latest version of the Avid codecs. They can be downloaded here:
I suggest using MPEG Streamclip to convert the files: http://www.squared5.com
>>>
Posted in Avid, Compressor, DNxHD, Final Cut, Formats, linux, Mac, ProRes, Uncategorized, Windows | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2009
The Aja KiPro captures HD (& SD?) from analog or SDI to 10-bit 422 to QT-ProRes (ordinaire and HQ). In comparison the Convergent Design products currently capture to 8-bit 422 (hi-bitrate Mpeg2). ProRes is particularly suited to (aimed at) Final Cut. But since ProRes decoder is freely available, including on Windows, the KiPro could be used with other NLEs.Presumably (haven’t yet tried) once the ProRes is copied to the editing system’s media drive, it can be simply dropped into an Avid project (bin/timeline). Some seem to find it OK e.g. “I import ProRes straight into MC all day, no problems. You’ll need FCP 7 to have access to the new 4444 codec though..” [http://community.avid.com/forums/p/76196/426097.aspx#426097]. But some people are cagey about this (on principle?) “…if I were you I would reencode the quicktimes to an Avid codec” [http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/45/866733#866733]. One re-encoding option [http://community.avid.com/forums/p/62217/407573.aspx#407573] is Mpeg StreamClip [http://www.squared5.com]. Not sure what the advantage is (or whether it is real) but some people complain of problems with levels [http://community.avid.com/forums/p/62217/407573.aspx#407573] and metadata. I would hope that Avid’s “New Thinking” would render any such problems historical, but experience will tell.One slight nuisance – Avid doesn’t work directly with the Aja KiPro. That is, the KiPro is not a device type recognized by Avid’s Advanced Media Architecture AMA [ http://community.avid.com/forums/t/71260.aspx?PageIndex=1 ]. Not a show-stopper, but definitely a tilting force (from Avid to FCS/FCP).The KiPro is bulkier than the Convergent Design products. It can record from more kinds of input to more kinds of storage medium. I haven’t looked at power consumption or robustness yet. Links:
Posted in Avid, Final Cut, KiPro, Mpeg StreamClip, NLE, ProRes | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2009
Posted in Avid, Mac, NLE | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2009
Just wondered what was happening video-wise in the linux world, for example how was Cinelerra going. Last I looked (months or a year ago) it was possible to get Cinelerra working under Ubuntu. So when I came across UbuntuStudio, I thought it was worth checking out, just to keep abreast of developments.
However it appears not to include Cinelerra, instead OpenMovieEditor http://www.openmovieeditor.org/
From [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/PackageList]:
Description:
- openmovieeditor – Video editor
- ffmpeg – Multimedia player, server and encoder
- ffmpeg2theora – Theora video encoder using ffmpeg
- kino – A non-linear editor for Digital Video data
- stopmotion – A program for creating stop motion animation.
- dvgrab – Grab digital video data via IEEE1394 links
It is only available as an Installer, not LiveCD [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=703822] . For more info:
Posted in linux, Music, NLE, ubuntu | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2009
Heard about it at http://www.stagetools.com/previs.htm, which said: People are using existing multimedia tools for previsualizing projects, … “One exception to this trend is PowerProduction Softwares StoryBoard Artist drawing package, which helps automate the drawing of storyboards by non-artists. The software comes with a collection of pre-made characters, props and backgrounds that can be viewed from various camera positions and animated.
I checked it out and it looks to me mainly aimed at contemporary scenes, not for example english period drama. Within its own context, it looks extremely slick (hence quick) to use. Nothing that can’t be done by more general tools but just plain handy, all there and convenient; less technical fiddling to distract from the creative process. Quick & simple is what you want when the previz needs to be adaptable (e.g. is part of a dialog or things turn out differently than expected) rather than a fixed plan.
Of the three products I saw at that website, the StoryBoard Artist product (http://www.powerproduction.com/artist.html) seemed most appropriate. It has a timeline for soundtrack etc.. Also “Multi-angled, multi-positioned characters with overheads and expression.”. And “Non-linear linking storyboarding for DVD and iTV prototyping”. Or indeed uncertainty…
I’ll keep an eye on it.
Posted in moviemaking, Uncategorized | No Comments »
November 27th, 2009
Gleaned from Philip Bloom’s presentation on using a 30p native cam to produce to other standards (e.g. 24p):
- Edit native, convert the edit result, not the source (rushes). Saves render time (& space)
- Don’t edit H264 – current machines are not fast enough to avoid jerkiness.
- Before edit, convert to ProRes (standard is sufficient, no need for HQ). If disk space at a premium then could instead use XDCAM EX format but that is not compatible with Cinema Tools.
- Conversion to ProRes is done twice as fast by Mpeg StreamClip (free) than by Compressor.
- Mpeg StreamClip:
- [File > Open Files, File> Export to QuickTime, choose format ProRes 422, change top-slider to Full 100% Quality (default is less)
- Can also use it to batch-convert, result can be either separate files or all concatenated in sequence.
- (DO THE EDIT)
- FrameRate Conversion:
- Simplest: speed change – change the timebase (the rate at which the existing frames are presented). OK when speed change does not matter (e.g. static scene).
- Can be done e.g. via Cinema Tools.
- Stages: Analysis then select desired new framerate then Conform.
- (or [Cinema Tools: File > Batch Conform], select a folder containing set of files, select any example file in it, Open, change speed, go: all the files are done)
- Speed-preserving frameRate conversion can be done by Compressor or by JES Deinterlacer (free)
- Compressor
- Open Compressor
- Drag file to job-strip
- Create a Setting if needed
- Geometry (5th icon along) – set Frame Size to “100% of source” (to ensure Compressor setting doesn’t re-scale)
- Frame Controls: Unlock
- (ignore settings that don’t apply e.g. resize method)
- Rate Conversion: choose the fastest you can get away with
- It is not compulsory to set a Destination.
- (what happens if not? same directory as source? what filename gets generated)
- If no destination specified then file goes to same directory, auto-named as the original filename plus the name of the export format Setting. Example: From TRV 12-39 AvidGrade.mov it generated TRV 12-39 AvidGrade-QT ProRes Interlaced.mov, where QT ProRes Interlaced was a compression setting (previously defined by myself). Incidentally the QT-DV was 35MB, the generated QT-ProRes was 47MB.
- JES Deinterlacer
- Choose > (input your file)
- Output > Compressor > Export
- (nothing to do with Apple’s Compressor, at least I assume…)
Posted in Cinema Tools, Compressor, Final Cut, Formats, JES Deinterlacer, Mac, Mpeg StreamClip, NLE, ProRes, Sony EX XDCAM, Uncategorized, XDCAM EX | No Comments »
November 27th, 2009
Based on info from Rick Young’s Blog at MacVideo.tv, 16 Nov 2009
How to export a FCP7 project to FCP6:
- Export XML from the FCP7 project – choose Apple XML Interchange Format, version 4 (not 5).
- Open this in FCP6 then manually reconnect the media.
Alternatives that don’t work:
- Export a project as Apple XML Interchange Format, version 5 then import this into Final Cut Pro 6 – it asks for a Template.
- Export EDLs from the FCP7 project and try to bring these into the FCP6 project – doesn’t work.
Posted in Final Cut, Mac, NLE, Uncategorized | No Comments »
October 18th, 2009
Free Fonts (TrueType & OpenType)
http://www.urbanfonts.com/fonts/handwritten-fonts.htm
How to Install TrueType or OpenType Fonts in Windows
[From article by By Jacci Howard Bear, About.com, http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/fixfonts/ht/install_fonts_w.htm]
Whether you download fonts from the Internet or have a CD full of
typefaces, in order to use them in your word processor or other
programs you must install TrueType or OpenType fonts in the Windows
fonts folder. It is a simple procedure, but heed the following notes
and tips when you install TrueType or OpenType fonts.
- Go to Control Panel.
Click on your Start button and select Settings > Control Panel (or Open My Computer then Control Panel)
- Go to your Fonts folder.
Open (Doubleclick) the Fonts folder.
- Go to Install New Font.
Select File | Install New Font.
Check the Font FAQ if your Install New Font command is missing.
- Find the directory with the font(s) you want to install.
Use
the Folders: and Drives: windows to move to the folder on your hard
drive, a disk, or CD where your new TrueType or OpenType fonts are
located.
- Find the font(s) you want to install.
Highlight the TrueType or OpenType font to install from the List of fonts window.
- Install the font(s).
Click OK. This completes your TrueType or OpenType font installation.
Tips:
- Put installed fonts on your hard drive.
If
you are going to install TrueType or OpenType fonts from a CD be sure
the ‘Copy fonts to folder’ box is checked; otherwise, fonts may not be
available to use if the CD is not in the drive at all times.
- TrueType fonts have the extension .TTF
TrueType fonts require only this one file for installation and use.
- OpenType fonts have the extension .TTF or .OTF
OpenType fonts require only this one file for installation and use.
Posted in Fonts, Text, Windows | No Comments »
July 1st, 2009
Un-advised by Avid but the people are doing it anyway…
- [http://xdvfaq.tripod.com/]
- Avid® Xpress® DV 3.5 FAQ (2003)
- Avid does not recommend Athlon systems. While some users are reporting good success with these systems, many more are having problems. If you are going to get an Athlon, make sure you or your dealer install all the latest BIOS upgrades and chipset patches prior to installing Xpress DV (2003)
- [http://community.avid.com/forums/p/71606/400394.aspx] (2009)
- “New Nested Effects Technique in Media Composer 3.5” (article, May 2009))
- MC 3.5.1, HP dv9605ea, Vista Home Premium, AMD Athlon 1.8 GHz, 2 GB RAM, nVidia GeForce 7150M, Conexant HD Audio, G-tech 500GB G-drive
- [http://community.avid.com/forums/p/30313/168427.aspx#168427] (2006)
- “I have two editing systems, the HP xw8200 with a Quadro FX card, and the d4100e Dual Core Athlon 64x, with a ATI x1600 video card, I had installed Avid Xpress Pro 5.6.2 with Mojo on both machines, for my surprise I do not get any errors on the System with the ATI video card and Athlon Processors. I am able to capture, edit, export and playback audio and video without any problem.” (2006)
Posted in Avid, NLE, Uncategorized, Windows | No Comments »
July 1st, 2009
Avid -> Vegas File Transfer:
- How can I use files that were made with AVID within Vegas?
Vegas does not support OMF, but Vegas 6.0 (and newer) now supports AAF (“Advanced Authoring Format”) which is a new format that builds substantially upon OMF. With that being said, use the AAF format rather than OMF for Vegas. If you are using an earlier version of Vegas, below is a solution that should work well for you:
- Export your audio tracks from AVID to .wavs or .aifs, along with a low-rez video proxy file.
- Export the AVID tracks dry (no EQ). You might consider doing only a synch/dialog (and maybe scratch music) track in AVID, then exporting only those tracks. Do all the FX, ambient, ADR, etc stuff in Vegas so you’ll have more control of your audio. It’ll also be worth it to re-layin the music, but your scratch music track will make it easy to synch this up. Edit/Mix in Vegas, using the proxy video in Vegas as your reference picture.
- When you are done with the mix, save out “Left” and “Right” .aif files, and open those back up as LeftMix/RightMix tracks in AVID.
- Synch them to (AVID) picture (should be easy if you saved out from “timeline start” in both apps). If you are lucky enough to have AVR77+ you could playback right off the timeline and record to tape and be done. If you are adding this media online, create a Video only edl, dump the mix to your deck (match the timecode) and auto assemble your video over the top.
[http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/sonypictures.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1301&p_created=1123084578&p_sid=PFn6uKBj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MSwxJnBfcHJvZHM9MCZwX2NhdHM9JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfcGFnZT0xJnBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9YXZpZA**&p_li=&p_topview=1]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
July 1st, 2009
Reports and advice vary:
- Some advise “No”.
- [http://www.editheaven.co.uk/faq.html]
- “What about installing other video applications such as Premiere Pro or Canopus Procoder?
Installing other NLEs such as Premiere, Vegas or Edius is seriously not a good idea. You will definitely run into huge problems and this may even result in having to reformat your system in order to fix things. Transcoding applications such as Sorenson Squeeze, Canopus Procoder, CinemaCraft and Media Cleaner are fine. “
- “There are many software programs which you can install safely on your system without affecting performance or stability. However, our view is that your Avid system should be used for video editing only. If you need Photoshop or After Effects, feel free to install them. However, the problem is that the more software you install, the more likely that something somewhere will have a negative effect on performance. Using your Avid system as an office PC is not a good idea. “
- Others say yes:
- [http://community.avid.com/forums/p/42046/237010.aspx#237010]
- “There was a problem where FCP would act up if the Avid codecs were installed (installing Avid installs them), so maybe that’ll be a problem. Otherwise, install both and try it–if they don’t run, uninstall and pick your editing poison. Ghost your drive before hand in case you run into problems. It’ll be faster than waiting for “definitive” reply.” (2007-05)
- “I’m running them both, w/no observable deficiencies. At least on Avid. I can’t say I’ve used FCP for more than 10 times or so. I really air out the Avid 2.7, so I can say it’s solid w/the FCP install. ” (2007-05)
- “I’ve got both on the same cpu and I haven’t noticed any difference. They both seem to work fine even if they are both running at the same time. That is if I’m doing a major export or render on the Avid I can still edit on FCP with Avid working in the background. I would suggest that you keep your media on separate drives though.” (2007-05)
- [http://community.avid.com/forums/p/18581/105067.aspx#105067]
- “I run both systems on one partition of my Adrenaline system. There really is no problem. The only thing to be aware of is the capture card. If you are using an Aja card, you’ll need to disable it when launching the AVID by holding down the SHIFT key.” (2006-06)
Posted in Avid, Final Cut, Mac, NLE | No Comments »
June 30th, 2009
Context:
- In FCP I imported [File>Import] a CineForm AVI file residing on an NTFS disk. It showed up in FCP’s browser OK. I dragged it to Viewer and it played there OK. I dragged it to timeline and it displayed there as a clip i.e. as a long pale-green block.
Problem:
- When I tried to play teh timeline the Canvas screen remained blank.
- Also the timeline clip-block had no thumbnail (which, given my configuraton of FCP, I would normally expect)
Interpretation:
- Mac support for AVI is said to be half-hearted. This is probably what is happening here.
Response:
- Try re-wrapping the Cineform AVI file as a CineForm MOV file.
- This can be done via Cineform’s bundled tools as follows:
- On the PC by using HDLink
- On the Mac by using ReMaster
- (I have not yet tried this)
Posted in Cineform, Final Cut, Mac, NLE, Uncategorized | No Comments »
June 30th, 2009
Context:
- In a Compressor job I defined a file on an NTFS drive as source. That was because I had a file of graded video on that drive which was being used in a Sony Vegas project and I wanted to use FCP’s excellent SmoothCam effect to de-shake that video. For that Compressor job I defined a destination on a separate drive that was HFS+ hence read/writable by Compressor.
Problem:
- Compressor gave an error to the effect that the source drive was not writable hence not a valid destination. Even though it wasn’t the destination…
Interpretation:
Response:
- Workaround: copy the source media file from NTFS drive to HFS+ drive and use that as source instead, no other change. Worked fine (apart from wasting my time and disk space).
Posted in Compressor, Final Cut, NLE | 1 Comment »
June 30th, 2009
From [http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/24/887550]:
- To save an FX chain
- Click the “Plug-In Chain” icon (found in the upper right of the Video Event FX window).
- Click “Save As” in the “Plug-In Chooser” window that comes up,
- Give it a name
- Save it.
- When you want to use this chain again:
- click the Video FX icon on the event
- Click “Filter Packages” on the “Plug-In Chooser” window that comes up
- Click the one you want.
Posted in NLE, Sony Vegas | No Comments »