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Selecting The Best Storage

Although there’s no universal answer for this question, in this article we look at what RAID system or otherwise, that I personally recommend using for various types of video editing.

Technical: Understanding The Broadcast Safe Filter

For those of you interested in a more technical look at the Broadcast Safe filter, Dennis Couzin, technical assistant to a video documentarian based in Germany, sent me the following article that he wrote.

Solving Problems With Capture Now 

I am not a fan of Capture Now, however, for some formats Capture Now is the best option. I like the workflow one subscriber suggests in this article.

FCP 7: Renaming a Clip

In this article a subscriber would like to change the name of a clip in a sequence in the Timeline without having to change the original source file. We take a look at the options (making a clip independent, using subclips, etc).

Burning Questions

In this article we examine my personal favorite method to burn DVDs (Roxio Toast) as well as the most reliable way to burn a VIDEO_TS folder.

FireWire Drives Can Slow Your System Down

Inevitably, adding too many FireWire devices will cause problems. In this article we discuss some things to think about to keep your system running smoothly and avoid, at all costs, the dreaded “beach ball” .

Protecting 16:9 Titles in 4:3 Title Safe

A subscriber, creating titles for a 16×9 movie that will go to SD DVD, writes in asking whether he keep his text in a 4×3 title safe grid. In response, we look at how Title Safe is defined.

FCP 7: Faster Rendering with ProRes

In this article we examine Final Cut’s usage of multiple processors to enhance rendering speed, the possible alternatives, and more.

Eliminating Compression Artifacts

An extensive email correspondence with editor/subscriber, Patrick Nugent, concerning some difficulties with video artifacting and the solutions he found, is summarized in this article.

FCP 7: Adding Chapter Markers to H.264 Files

Creating markers for H.264 is exactly the same as creating markers for a DVD. In this article we examine the technique to do just that.

A Facebook Conversation on Tapeless Media

Growing out of a topic originally posted on our Facebook page, this article serves as a summary of our subscribers’ biggest challenges with the industry’s reliance on tapeless video.

Locking A QuickTime Movie

A subscriber, William Aleman, writes in with a valuable tip on the feature that successfully locks QuickTime movies from being downloaded or saved by the visitors on the Internet.

FCP 7: Audio Master Gain and Audio Transitions

Two excellent questions by an editor/subscriber, L. Blake Baldwin, involving why the Master Gain defaults to .51, and also when to use a +3dB audio transition instead of a dB audio transition. We examine and answer both.

FCP 7: Aspect Ratio Conversion from 4:3 to 16:9 

In this article we give a quick examination of how to upsize an original 4:3 sequence into a 16:9 timeline.

Keyboard Shortcut: Targeting Tracks

In this article we discuss the limitations of using the keyboard to target audio track numbering above 9, and the keyboard shortcut for the lower track numbers is demonstrated.

Keyboard Shortcut: Transition Tricks

A clever trick for working around Final Cut’s resetting of transitions is supplied by subscriber, Richard Day, using a temporarily set up dummy edit.

FCP 7: Making Short Audio Edits

An editor’s interest in “cleaning up” some audio clips is a joy to answer, and very useful info to have.

Improving Export Image Quality

Experiencing a problem exporting a sequence as a mov and finding that the quality of the QuickTime is soft, a subscriber is referred by Larry to a previous article and walked through an easy QuickTime7 solution.

FCP 7: Choosing Codecs: Animation vs. ProRes

Larry weighs in on the issue of selecting between the Animation codec and ProRes 4444, following a subscriber’s question regarding importing files into Final Cut.

A Question on Timecode

The reason that drop frame timecode was invented was because non-drop did not properly indicate running time. And as one subscriber has discovered, there is a difference in running time between DF and NDF material.