Viva La Difference: mixing media formats with Final Cut Pro 6
February 16, 2008
Having to render any media that does not match the format of the sequence is a problem that has plagued Final Cut Pro versions 1 through 5. With Version 6 (bundled with Final Cut Studio 2, no longer available as a stand-alone application) this problem has gone away. Version 6 of Final Cut Pro introduced the ability to mix video formats on the timeline, a long awaited feature that was the source of lots of teasing from the Avid snobs.
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Boston Media Makers Meeting, January 6, 2008
January 6, 2008
Today I attended another i3 (interesting, inspiring, and informative) meeting of Boston Media Makers on a gorgeous sunny Sunday morning at Sweet Finnish Cafe in Jamaica Plain. Here are my notes. I’ve not included everyones three minute update and/or show-and-tell, lack of mention should not be construed in any way as lack of interest or relevance, I simply could not record everything.
Comparing MacBook Pro external drive performance
July 20, 2007
Yesterday I wrote about using SATA drives with a MacBook Pro. Is it worth the trouble going the external SATA route with a MacBook Pro for editing? It’s certainly valuable when doing media ingest in the field (e.g. P2) direct to a mirrored pair of disks. I like it simply because I need to move external SATA disks between the laptop and my desktop editing systems. But there’s also a performance advantage. But how much? I decided to run a little test comparing the performance of the following:
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Using SATA drives with a MacBook Pro
July 19, 2007
Need fast, cheap, reliable storage for video editing on your MacBook Pro? Tired of paying a price premium and performance penalty with external FireWire drives? Tired of dropped frames with that USB external drive? Want to be able to move a project between the laptop and a PowerMac or MacPro and keep it on a fast SATA drive? Several interface cards are available for the MacBook Pro to interface with SATA drives.
Keeping laptop and desktop address books in sync
July 13, 2007
It drives me crazy having three address books, one on my desktop editing system, another on my MacBook Pro laptop, and a third on my old iBook laptop used to surf the web while watching the old media box. How can I keep three Macs synchronized? I’ve finally found a good way to do this after a harrowing journey.
Mac Coolant Leak (video)
April 7, 2007
Not all RAIDs are created equal
April 20, 2006
I did not emphasize a very important aspect of my discussion of media storage expansion options: a critical aspect of setting up a software RAID array is the utility you use to set up the RAID, and SoftRAID is a better option than Apple’s Disk Utility.
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Media storage expansion options for the Power Mac G5
April 15, 2006
Recently I needed to add more video storage to my G5 editing system and I faced several options, below are the three options I considered. Apple would love to have you buy their XServe RAID, and it’s a beautiful, high performance box, but it’s overkill for the indie filmmakers and others doing tight-budget video editing. If several people were sharing the same media, maybe FibreJet and Xserve RAIDs would make sense for an economical SAN arrangement. But back to my own needs at home, I was deciding between internal SATA expansion, external SATA expansion, or external FireWire 800 expansion.
Macintosh with Intel Inside?
June 7, 2005
Now this is some of the most interesting news from Apple in a while. Yesterday, at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, they finally announced in public their long brewing plans to start shipping Macintosh computers using Intel chips.
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