[Mallrat]

Hello--

My system is an

500 G3 iBook
384 MB of RAM
FCP 3.0
External 120 FireWire HD
My Sony one chip camcorder acting as my VCR

This is my low budget editing system.

I was wondering if anyone has used this system to edit?
Any advice to make it work the best with my limited equipment?

Any tips or problems to watch out for would be great.

things you would add.

thank you.

-Matt

[MountainMac]

Sounds like a good setup to me.

My initial words of advice:

1)Always "stripe" or "black" your DV tapes before recording (that is, record them all the way through in VTR mode to lay timecode on the whole thing). FCP hates timecode errors. Also, don't record anything of value on the first minute or so of a DV tape. This gives the camera enough "lead-in" time to properly capture your clips.
2)Record everything in SP mode.
3)Properly log all of your clips before you capture. Label your tapes consistently and enter that info in the logging process (under "Reel"). This makes it a lot easier to take a project back online if something goes awry (and it most likely will).
4)Keep all projects rigorously organized in a hierarchical folder system. Makes things much easier to find and reconnect if links get broken, or if they "mysteriously" go offline or something.
5)I would suggest using the external drive exclusively as a media drive. Just remember to check your scratch disks every time you start up FCP if you periodically connect or disconnect the external drive, because they will default back to the internal drive if FCP starts up w/o the external drive connected.
6)Speaking of checking settings, get into the (very good) habit of checking your settings every time you sit down to work on video. It makes you more familiar with your system, and makes you less likely to have a "WTF?"

There are quite a few good FCP websites out there; here are some (in no particular order):
Creative Cow
Ken Stone's Final Cut Pro
2-pop
LA Final Cut Pro User's Group
DV Knowledge Base
Final Cut Pro 411

HTH. Have fun!


MM

[Justin W. Williams]

66MHz bus of the iBook is gonna suck for encoding the video.

[Eug]

500 G3 iBook
384 MB of RAM
FCP 3.0
External 120 FireWire HD
My Sony one chip camcorder acting as my VCR

This is my low budget editing system.

Hmmmm... Do you have an educational licence or something? FCP is $1000 usually.

[Mallrat]

thanks for the helpful post.

[Mallrat]

Great post. Thanks a bunch.


QUOTE]Originally posted by MountainMac:
Sounds like a good setup to me.

My initial words of advice:

1)Always "stripe" or "black" your DV tapes before recording (that is, record them all the way through in VTR mode to lay timecode on the whole thing). FCP hates timecode errors. Also, don't record anything of value on the first minute or so of a DV tape. This gives the camera enough "lead-in" time to properly capture your clips.
2)Record everything in SP mode.
3)Properly log all of your clips before you capture. Label your tapes consistently and enter that info in the logging process (under "Reel"). This makes it a lot easier to take a project back online if something goes awry (and it most likely will).
4)Keep all projects rigorously organized in a hierarchical folder system. Makes things much easier to find and reconnect if links get broken, or if they "mysteriously" go offline or something.
5)I would suggest using the external drive exclusively as a media drive. Just remember to check your scratch disks every time you start up FCP if you periodically connect or disconnect the external drive, because they will default back to the internal drive if FCP starts up w/o the external drive connected.
6)Speaking of checking settings, get into the (very good) habit of checking your settings every time you sit down to work on video. It makes you more familiar with your system, and makes you less likely to have a "WTF?"

There are quite a few good FCP websites out there; here are some (in no particular order):
Creative Cow
Ken Stone's Final Cut Pro
2-pop
LA Final Cut Pro User's Group
DV Knowledge Base
Final Cut Pro 411

HTH. Have fun!


MM [/QUOTE]