December 2006 Archives
After Effects has had some serious export issues when using an Intel Mac based computer. GridIron Nucleo fixes this problem, but if you do not want to drop $150 to fix this problem I thought you would like a free native solution.
Closed all other Rosetta apps and processes, lowered the memory settings WAY down (max memory to 30%, Max RAM Cache to 15%). This should up your rendering to more than twice as fast on a G5 or Mac Pro running 6.5!
Here is a proven set up system:
1. Mac Pro 2 x Dual-core Xeon 2.66, MacOS 10.4.8
2. Final Cut Studio 5.1 on same machine
3. 3GB RAM, all Apple - 2x512 on one riser, 2x1GB on the other
4. Did NOT use Migration Assistant (no one who uses pro apps should)
5. Trash prefs and workspaces.
This is a great starting point to get After Effects to work on you system but you may have other conflicts with various programs.
If there is one piece of advice I can give when capturing your media it is that you need to label your tapes and name them, in the capture tool, the exact name of that particular tape. If you have several tapes that might correlate with the same name just simply number them in order by date or just numerically. The main reason for this comes into play with batch capture. If you delete your media to save hard drive space or more than likely it is lost when you least expect it. This is not a problem if you did your job. Avid uses the time code from your video cassette to navigate to the various frames. Every tape has the same time code so if you put in the wrong tape then your Avid system will go out a search those time codes on the tape in the deck, right or wrong and batch capture that media. So if you name your tapes correctly and insert the tape Avid asks for then there will be no worries of capturing the wrong media. Just remember do not forget to name your tapes in your Avid the same name that your write on your tapes!
Don’t miss out on my up and coming Avid class in Seattle, seating is limited!
Have you ever wanted to make you text dance to you music. Maybe you have wanted a graphic to pulse to the beat! No problem with After Effects. This is called Convert Audio Keyframes. Here is a quick rundown of how to convert your audio to match your needs.
First highlight the track of music you want to keyframe and go up to the animation tool on the toolbar. Now navigate to Keyframe Assistant and choose Convert Audio to Keyframes. You will notice now that you have a new track at the top of your composition that says Audio. This is where you will find all of your keyframes that you can now parent to scale, opacity or whatever you feel like making fluctuate with your keyframes. Now go out there and make your graphics dance!
Editing brings many different challenges everyday. From color correction problems to audio issues, it always seems something needs to be fixed. Well a problem I ran into recently was some footage that I had obtained to edit for a client did not have enough handles to perform any kind of transition. In other words when the action was over he immediately pressed the stop button and only pushed the start button within maybe one second of the action beginning. The major problem with shooting like this is that he had many shots that I had to use to the very last frame and the nest shot I had to start within the first few frames. This leaves no frames to make your dissolves or fades. So first of all hopefully if you shoot your own footage or have an excellent cameraman this will not happen very often but when it does here is a quick solution. Open of the title tool and create a black title. Just make a square the size of the box and fill it with black. Save to a bin. Now you have a fade to black transition. All you have to do is determine the size of fade and apply directly above the transition. So, if you what a 30 frame fade then simply load the black title into the source monitor and mark an in and an out to equal 30 frames. In your time line find the edit point and place an in point 15 frames to the left of the edit point. Now overwrite the black title to the video track above your edit point. The next step is to make this title fade. Select the black title and enter into the effects edit mode. Now all you have to do is place a key frame 7 frames from the first key frame and 7 frames from the last key frame.
Or you can use the fade effect button and set the same parameter. Now select your first and last key frames and make the foreground to equal zero. Select the second and third key frames and set the foreground to 100. Before you close the effects editor drag the effect icon into a bin so that you can use this effect without having to make again. You now have built a perfect 30 frame fade to black for any situation.
Many might not be aware of it but you can actually do Windows Media Live Streaming on the Intel iMacs. In our Video Streaming and Compression lab we show how this type of Live Streaming can be done to our students. Here are the specs for one of the workstations we use in our lab.
Machine: iMac Processor: 2 GHz Intel Core Duo
Memory: 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM OS: Mac 10.4.8
Processors: 1 Number of Cores: 2
The iMac we use is equipped with Bootcamp and can boot to either a Mac or a PC at boot-up. The process works great. For those that are already doing Live streaming for Windows Media or haven't yet begun and are looking for workstations to use. The Intel iMacs are a great buy and powerful computers. It's a machine that's powerful enough for Live encoding and what's nice is the Intel iMacs using Bootcamp really think that they're PC's when booted in PC mode.
If you are using Windows Media Encoder the computer can recogize the Firewire port and you can stream Live to your Windows Media Streaming Server. Think about taking your Intel iMac on the road with you for your Live Streaming events with the Windows Media Streaming Server.
To learn more about Live Streaming for Windows Media on the Intel iMacs attend our 3-Day Video Streaming and Compression Training class . We have classes for PC and Mac users.
Having the abilty to control your keyframes is very important. The only true way to decide which setting is best for you is to experiment with the different options and see which one works best for you. Once you use the different options and see the results then you will become more familiar with the one the works best for you effect.
You can select from the following options for controlling parameter changes at keyframes:
1. Shelf : The parameter value does not change between keyframes and then changes abruptly to the new value. Some applications call this Hold.
Use Shelf to hold a parameter value for a fixed length of time. For example, you can use Shelf with the Position parameters to create a PIP that appears to "pop" to a new location at each keyframe.
2. Linear: The parameter value ramps smoothly between keyframes but then changes abruptly at each keyframe. The change in parameter value at a keyframe happens with no ease-in or ease-out.
Effects with standard keyframes make linear parameter changes (with the exception of Spline for motion paths and Acceleration for other parameters). With advanced keyframes, you can use the Linear interpolation option for some parameters and not for others, depending on the effect you want to achieve.
3: Spline: The parameter value changes smoothly at each keyframe, creating a simple ease-in or ease out effect. Spline is sometimes called Natural Spline or Cardinal Spline because the line representing the parameter value always goes precisely through each keyframe.
With two keyframes, the parameter value changes slowly at the beginning of the effect, speeds up the rate of change, and then slows down to come to rest gently at the end of the effect. Use three keyframes to create an arc.
Use the Spline interpolation option or the Bézier interpolation option for any parameter for which you want to avoid abrupt changes, such as Scaling or Border width.
4. Bézier : The Bézier interpolation option is similar to the Spline interpolation option, in that the parameter value changes smoothly at each keyframe. In addition, the Bézier interpolation option provides direction handles at each keyframe. You adjust the rate at which the parameter value changes by manipulating the direction handles.
When you click a direction handle and drag it, you change the height and angle of the curve. The curve responds as if you were gently tugging it like a piece of string. The curve remains anchored to the keyframes on either side of the active keyframe.
Use the Bézier interpolation option (or the Spline interpolation option) for any parameter for which you want to avoid abrupt changes.
After Effects 6.5 and 7.0can read and write native OMF video media essence, as used in Avid OMF essence files. You can import OMF files as you would other footage types. When you import an AAF file that references an OMF file, the OMF footage also imports. The .wav files are not imported at the same time. You can import them later to sync up with your OMF file but if you are going to export the file back into Avid Express Pro this is not necessary. The great feature that I use everyday is the export to OMF. This not only saves space on your hard-drive but it also helps to preserve quality. Just remember the audio that is associated with the OMF will not export. This is a great new feature of After Effects for Avid Express Pro users! This is one of the many great new things you will learn in one of our up and coming After Effects classes!
Telestream, one of the key companies in the realm of video compression, has a new product available in beta form called Drive-in.
Drive-in is an innovative application that allows you to store your personal DVD movie library on your Mac. It is now available as a public beta.
Using Drive-in you can create an image of a DVD disc on your laptop or home entertainment system. The image preserves the quality, navigation and special features of the original DVD and can be played using Apple’s DVD Player or Front Row.
Drive-in preserves the DVD's original content protection. Drive-in also allows you to play your images on any computer that you own but does not allow you to share your images with others.
Nero, leaders in digital media technology, have released another product called, Nero Mobile, a content-centric media solution, which transforms mobile phones, PMPs, and PDAs into true feature-rich mobile media centers.
Now users are able to carry their digital photo, video, and audio content with them wherever they go using Nero Digital technology, a codec that compresses digital files while maintaining outstanding audio and visual quality. Nero Digital also resizes content to automatically fit chosen digital profiles including iPod, MDAs, XDAs, and PSP.
Nero Mobile and Nero Digital Audio+ technology turn users' mobile phones into powerful hi-fi devices by compressing entire CD albums, including album art, into a single file that is, on average, as small as three typical MP3 files, while preserving the highest audio quality previously unimaginable with technologies such as MP3. Nero Digital Audio+ technology retains highest fidelity sound quality even at its 44:1 compression ratio.
Many organizations and individuals that have a Windows Media Streaming Server, QuickTime/Darwin Streaming Server or Real Helix Universal Server don't realize that they can actually get statistics from their content viewed from their streaming server. Individuals can use a tool called Sawmill to process the streaming server log files that come off the streaming server. Streaming Servers can process log files, which are files that can contain all the data surrounding viewing habits of those that tuned into Live or On-demand streams from your streaming server. The log files are tucked away inside of folders that sit on your Streaming Server. You can even process files from a web server if you have the log files.
What's nice about Sawmill is it runs on Mac and Windows platforms and provides all kinds of details about viewing habits. Using Sawmill you can actually go and fetch the log files using FTP to your streaming server or web server or you can locate thgem manually and pull them inside of the Sawmill application for processing.
Here's what Sawmill can help you find:
Number of viewers
Most Popular videos watched
IP addresses and domains of your viewers
Packet Loss on videos
Order of videos viewed
Length of time viewers watched and all kinds of other great stats
Viewing errors
Media players your viewers use
If you really want to learn how to use Sawmill take one of our 3-Day Video Streaming and Compression classes. We walk students through setting up profiles in Sawmill for their streaming server and finding the statistics that are important to most individuals.
Alfred Spellman, Producer of the Cocaine Cowboys, set out to make a documentary of the ruthless drug lords that changed the face of Miami. He had a very unique and challenge in collecting and editing all of the 3,000-cut feature documentary, mixing virtually every video and film format along with archival still images. Without Avid this task would be not only difficult but very time consuming. Dubbed the definitive documentary about Miami’s darkest period by the New York Post, Cocaine Cowboys tells a multi-faceted tale. There are first-hand reports from the ruthless drug dealers and hit men who cashed in on Miami’s coke wars, as well as sobering interviews with the detectives and prosecutors who fought on the front lines. The end result is a high-energy expose that combines rapid-fire cuts of present-day interviews, archival still images, and vintage television footage. "It was an ambitious project, even by documentary filmmaking standards" says producer Alfred Spellman. "The final film has more than 3,000 cuts, compared to 1,200 for your average two-hour feature film. Plus we worked with just about every video format you can think of, incorporated several film formats as well, and animated hundreds of archival photographs" Avid allow the producer and editor to bring all of there visions togeterh without having to worry the editing process getting in the way!
Once you start working with advanced keyframes you will need to become aware of what you are looking at. Commands you select in the Effect Editor window apply to the keyframes in the Effect Preview monitor. For example, if you select "Add Keyframes to Enabled Groups" from the Effect Editor shortcut menu and then deselect all groups, you cannot add any keyframes to the Effect Preview monitor. In this case, enable a group in the Effect Editor shortcut menu before you add keyframes or select another command from the shortcut menu.
When you select a keyframe in the Effect Preview monitor, the system automatically selects the corresponding keyframe in the effect track and all keyframes directly under that keyframe. The following illustration shows the result of selecting a keyframe in the Effect Preview monitor.
Dont' forget to sign up for my up and coming Seattle course.......seating is very limited!
The first thing you need to know is how do you promote your effects to advanced Keyframes. Many effects support advanced keyframes and if it is available for that particular effect the Promote to advanced keyframes button appears in the effect editor toolbar.
To promote an effect to advanced keyframes:
In the Effect Editor toolbar, click the Promote to Advanced Keyframes button.
The Effect Editor displays the effect with keyframe tracks.
The following are some things to consider when you promote an effect to advanced keyframes:
You can choose whether or not a newly promoted effect first appears with no keyframes or with two keyframes, one at the start and one at the end of each parameter. You set this option in the Effect Editor entry of the Settings list.
Once you promote an effect to advanced keyframes, the Acceleration parameter category no longer appears. You manipulate acceleration (ease-in and ease-out) of the effect using the spline or Bézier interpolation options, which give you more control than the standard Acceleration parameter category.
Using advanced keyframes, you can change the order of nested effects by manipulating the Nesting Priority icons that appear in the Effect Editor.
GeniusDV now offers Avid Xpress/Media Composer and After Effects training in the Seattle - Tacoma area. This will make it easier on our customers who live in the Northwest corner of the U.S.
The pimary instructor for GeniusDV in Seattle is Mickey Hough. Mickey shoots and edits one of the nations most popular fishing shows. It is slated to be one of the first shows broadcast entirely in High Defiination across all of North America (including Canada). The show makes extensive use of Avid Xpress HD, and Adobe After Effects.
This is a rare chance to learn from a seasoned professional who works on a 'real' show that is currently in production. This means you'll be able to to gain real-world knowledge that is 'outside' of any book or training manual.
Courses offered at this location are:
Adobe After Effects (5 Days)
Avid Xpress Editing, Effects (5 Days)
*Since Mickey is often busy producing 'The Angler's Experience' our course schedules are limited. However, he is also available for on-site Avid or After Effects training sessions.
The training is held at the Red Lion hotel near the Seattle-Tacoma International airport.
If you are travelling outside the area, we reccomend that you stay at the same hotel for convenience.
Red - Lion Seattle - Tacoma
18220 International Blvd
Seattle, WA 98188
206-246-5535
Advanced keyframes is one of the most underused abiltys of the Avid edting applications. I wanted to take the next few entries and let you in on what advanced keyframes are and how to use them. When you use advanced keyframes, separate timeline tracks, keyframe tracks, appear in the Effect Editor. These keyframe tracks allow you to manipulate keyframes in groups or to open a separate keyframe graph for each individual parameter.
One of the main benefits of using the advanced keyframe model is that it allows you to modify a parameter's keyframes independently from other parameters' keyframes. With standard keyframes, every keyframe affects every parameter.
Effect track: The keyframes in this track correspond to the keyframes in the Effect Preview monitor. If you select a keyframe in the effect track, the system automatically selects all of the keyframes at that point in time in the effect (all the keyframes directly under that keyframe in the Effect Editor window). This makes it easy to move, delete, or perform other operations on many keyframes at the same time.
Parameter group track: This track shows all the keyframes in the specific parameter group. If you select a keyframe in the parameter group track, the system automatically selects all the corresponding parameter keyframes in the group. Parameter groups can have subgroups. For example, in the previous illustration, Color and Blend Color are subgroups of Border.
Parameter track: This track shows the keyframes for the individual parameter. Parameter tracks are lighter in color than the parameter group tracks. You can open individual parameter tracks to fine-tune the parameter values in a keyframe graph.you can perform an operation on all three types of tracks, this guide refers to the track as a keyframe track. You do not have to use advanced keyframes in the Effect Editor. You can work using standard keyframes, in which each keyframe affects all parameters. In addition, advanced keyframe functions are available even when a keyframe graph is closed to show only the keyframe parameter track.
Stay tuned and I will explain to you how to use the advance keyframes in the next few entries.
Setting up your equipment so that you get the desired output is critical to the workflow process. It nice to have the confidence that when you apply your color corrections to your productions that the rest of the world will see results that you have worked so hard to achieve. I wanted to let you in on how I set up all of monitors and cameras and I ran across a great article by Hal Landen of Videoguys. He goes into great detail on the proper set up of your color bars and how they should be used. Make sure you spend some time setting up your equipment so that the color is appropriate and your productions will have all the vivid color that you intended. Also don’t forget to sign up for one of our up and coming classes…..sitting is limited!
Have you ever wondered what the different colored bars mean at the bottom of your timeline after playback ends. Well, those little bars are an indicator about the difficulties that your avid application is having during playback. This can help you determine the important parts to render or help you find problems tha may come up later during playback.
Red bars mark the ranges where the Avid editing application was unable to display frames.
Yellow bars mark the ranges that caused difficulty for the Avid editing application during playback because of processor limitations. No frames were dropped; this is only a warning.
Blue bars mark the location of frames that caused difficulty for the Avid editing application because of disk speed limitations. No frames were dropped; this is only a warning.
If you find that your playback information often includes blue bars, it is likely that replacing your media disks with faster drives will improve the Avid editing application's ability to play back effects in real time.
As you all know Avid is a part of all most every major motion picture release. There are many reasons that most editors use Avid products but the one that seams to stand out the most is seamless integration. The Pursuit of Happiness was edited using Film Composer.The drama is inspired by the true story of Chris Gardner, a man forced by circumstances to live on the street and in shelters while competing for a job and a better future at the prestigious Dean Witter stock brokerage firm. Gardner, played by Will Smith, is also a single father caring for his five-year-old son.
In addition to the two Film Composer systems, there was, in effect, a third editing system on Pursuit: a 17-inch Powerbook laptop equipped with Avid Xpress Pro software and Avid Mojo hardware. Second assistant editor Brisson kept this system up to date by copying media from the FireWire drive that FotoKem delivered daily. Nearly every week during production, Winborne would take the Powerbook with him and fly to San Francisco to meet with the director. When Winborne returned from his San Francisco trips, his assistants would sync his laptop with the Avid Film Composer and Avid Unity MediaNetwork systems in Culver City.
I found it to be seamless, Winborne says of the integration of media and files from his traveling editing room to the studio-based suite. The easy exchange of media and metadata between Avid systems was quick and flawless, so he could resume editing from any location instantly.
Once again Avid is the leading editor of the motion pictures!
Telestream, leaders in media encoding and workflow solutions, announced release of
Episode Series version 4.2 software. Episode Series is a scalable suite of desktop and workgroup media encoding applications for the Mac that targets today's diverse new media distribution needs, such as web, mobile, podcast, DVD and IPTV. Episode v4.2 adds important VC-1, HDV and surround sound support in response to evolving market needs. It also brings Compression Engine into the Episode product family, completing Telestream's transition of Popwire products to Telestream. When configured into a cluster of Apple Intel Xserves, the ultra-fast Episode Engine enables real-time HD encoding.
"Our recent acquisition of Popwire allows us the opportunity to bring craft encoding to the desktop and the workgroup encoding market," said David Heppe, president of Telestream. "With this next step of transitioning Compression Engine into the Episode product family, we are pleased to offer the quality, hands-on, fine tuning capabilities of this powerful product to our customers."
Episode Series version 4.2 adds VC-1 encoding (the SMPTE-standard video codec) and WMA Pro audio, plus HDV and IMX encoding for professional users. A new ATSC A/52 compliant audio codec adds support for 5.1 audio encoding. Additional Episode v4.2 features include a channel mapping filter for surround sound, the ability to add bumpers and trailers to encoded clips, and Apple help. For server-based workgroup applications, Episode Engine now includes a filter that changes the field order of the video, plus simultaneous monitoring of multiple Episode Engine servers, and the ability to cancel, abort or reprioritize jobs in the monitor queue.
Using Match Frame in the Avid editing software is a part of my daily workflow. Being able to find the exact frame in my timeline and reload that frame back into the source menu is very important for many reasons. The most common us is applying a Motion Effect to an exact point in my sequence.
To use the Match Frame feature:
1. Move to the frame in your sequence that you want to match.
2.Make sure you select the correct track for the frame that you want to match in the Track Selector panel.
3. Click the Fast Menu button, and drag to tear off the Tool palette.
4. Click the Match Frame button on the Tool palette.
This loads and marks the source clip in the Source monitor or a Source monitor.
I use this button so often in my daily workflow that I mapped it to my F6 button on my keyboard. Match Frame is a very powerful tool in the Avid Xpress Pro and Media Composer.
Video capture and video playback in Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 are extremely valuable.
Video Capture
First, the ability to capture video right in the Squeeze application to DV.mov or DV.avi files is very important to workflow. Windows will capture to DV.avi files and Macs will capture to DV.mov files. For many that use AVID and Final Cut Pro systems they can save precious workflow time by going directly into Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 for web video, mobile video, Podcasts, or other video compression tasks. Individuals will need a video deck or DV camera connected by firewire to capture videos into Sorenson Squeeze. Once videos are captured users can import their videos into Squeeze and apply compression presets and filters as they normally would with video they import into the application.
Video Playback
James Bond movies have always been one of my favorite movies and the new Casino Royale is puts a new twist on the traditional Bond movies. We are introduced to the "real" Sir James Bond (David Niven), a retired "pure spy" who is horrified by the outrageous activities of the agent currently assigned his name and number. M (John Huston) appeals for Bond's return to active duty. Spies all over the world are being killed, and the governments of the Soviet Union, France, the United States, and England have temporarily set aside their differences to combat SMERSH, the criminal organization suspected of the murders. At first, Bond refuses, but, after M is killed, he changes his mind and agrees to come back.
The editing on Casino Royale took place on multiple Apple G4-based Avid Meridians running Media Composer, with 4Tb of Unity storage and fibre optic LANShare networking. The HD dailies were viewed via a Rushplay system, outputting HD MPEG 2 files through a Sony Qualia projector, which was supplied by Bell Theatre Services
LEM Digital also provided an Avid Unity system with 2.4Tb of storage, and a Mac G4 Avid Meridian, at Arion the facility responsible for the provided the daily film transfers. The dallies were digitized into the Avid via Digibeta and transported to location on fire wire drives. The HD dailies for projection were also shipped at the same time on separate drives before being copied to the Rushplay server for the crew screening of digital rushes.
Time remapping, clips being played at variable speeds within a sequence, has become commonplace in television and film. Just think about it, every commercial promoting a car, countless music videos, In the post Matrix world what was once unique and curiously sleek has become a nut and bolt in every editor's tool box. But, I must admit, I still like it!
Time remapping gives you the ability to create smooth shifts between various speeds such as a punch being thrown at fast speed in a Steven Chow film and the impact being slowed down to emphasize the overwhelming force at which it was thrown. Skip the external compositor, because you can do it right within your edited sequences in Final Cut Pro.
These speed changes can be created in Four areas of the Final Cut Pro workspace; The Timeline, Motion Bar, Time Graph, and the Motion tab in the Viewer.
Tips
- Within the Timeline you can manipulate speed changes by utilizing theTime remap tool which will create a clip outline indicating which frame is being remapped to a specific time.
- On the Motion Bar, keyframes will appear that will allow for their selection and the ability to move forwards and backwards of the keyframes therefore, manipulating speed.
- The Time Graph allows you to add additional key frames, tweak, and to remove them while in the Keyframe editor in the timeline.
- The Motion Tab In The Viewer will display your speed manipulations for a clip via the time remap setting.
Avid is pleased to announce the release of Avid Xpress Pro version 5.6.3 for Windows XP and Mac OS X. This release includes a number of quality improvements. This is mostly a patch update to fix many bugs from the 5.5 release. Some of the upgrades include many color correction bugs fixes, and several fixes for HD editing. It appears so far that this latest version has no apparent bugs. Fist check out the read me before you download the latest version and then download the version 5.6.3.
Author: Derrick Freeman
Video Streaming and Compression Specialist for GeniusDV
I'm been working on some benchmarks for Flip4Mac's speed export settings. Flip4Mac users can actually find the export speed adjustment setting by clicking the Advanced button under the Video tab inside Flip4Mac.
When the dialog window opens users will see 5 options located within the Complexity pull-down menu under Coding Method. The available options are Live Fast, Live Normal , Offline Fast, Offline Normal, Offline Slow.
Here are how the settings work.
Did you know that Final Cut Pro sometimes misinterprets alpha channel data by expecting you to have a straight channel when you could possibly have a premultiplied alpha? If you have been unahppy with the alpha channel you get when you put a Motion project into a FCP timeline, you may want to start by investigating here:
1 Choose the imported Motion project file in your browser.
2 Select Modify>Alpha Type Black.
Telestream, a leading global provider of multiformat media encoding and delivery solutions, announced the release of FlipFactory Version 5.1 software. FlipFactory is Telestream's flagship enterprise-class workflow automation solution that converts and transfers media and metadata files between professional formats and systems. A major new feature in V5.1 is Telestream's exclusive MetaFlip 0technology which addresses the need to transform metadata with video files for submission to cable VOD providers and content aggregators such as iTunes. Additional V5.1 features include encoding of AMR audio in 3GP files for mobile distribution, support for more MXF and HD formats, more comprehensive iPod support and further system interoperability with support for Avid Interplay.
"With the explosion of new media distribution outlets, our customers are asking us to reach beyond transcoding solutions. They require packaged solutions that automatically combine metadata with media to meet the unique file format and delivery requirements of a growing number of content aggregators and distributors," said Anna Greco, Director of Business Development and Product Marketing at Telestream. "FlipFactory's MetaFlip was developed in response to this market need, to help our customers capitalize on these new revenue opportunities."
After performing the editing for a student run news program for a couple of years in college, one thing was very evident to me, correcting audio problems can be a beast!. I couldn't tell you how many times I received distorted video on a news segment that would have otherwise been very good. Here is just something to think of the next time you are contemplating audio in FCP.
If you are capturing from a pre-mixed master tape, then all of the audio should have already been adjusted to levels that coincide with the tone media at the beginning of the tape. When you use the gain slider in FCP's floating audio meter to level your audio in accordance to the reference tone, you should be as right as rain.
If you have received a tape directly from the field, even if it has bars and tone at the beginning of it, it is very likely that the audio on that tape will vary from shot to shot. In this case you would also need the Gain Slider to prevent your audio from being hot. Don't be afraid to adjust from clip to clip to tame wild audio.
LiveType allows you to bring dramatic effect to your text by allowing you to insert images and even video clips inside of them.
1 Click on the track that contains the text that you want to fill with an image.
2 Go to the Attributes tab, click it, then click on the Matte Pane.
3 Under Matte to, select the choice for Movie or Image, then browse to the clip or image you want to use, then click ok. Your selection can now be seen inside of the text.
