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Meeting Summary -October 22, 2003- "Dual 2gig G5 vs the Dual 1.4.2 G4 " Join us for a very special night where we will discuss the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the New G5 from Apple. We will have a shoot out between the G4 Dual 1.4.2 and the Dual 2gig G5 using Final Cut Pro real world examples and talk about whether the G5 is right for you now or later. Plus, Steve Martin with a LiveType tip/trick, Larry Jordan on "When Bad Things Happen to Good Apps, Show and Tells, Stump the Gurus with an all star panel, and of course, World Famous Raffle.   This meeting is available on DVD   Agenda 6:45- 7:15PM - Stump the Gurus What a panel! If there is any reason to show up for this meeting it's to hang around these folks. Join FCP Gurus, Andrew Balis, Ken Stone and special guest Gurus, Steve Martin of RippleTraining, Philip Hodgetts of Intelligent Assistance, Author of the Visual QuickPro Guide, Lisa Brenneis, Co-Creator of Final Cut Pro, and author/filmmaker, Michael Wohl and author Tom Wolsky as they will attempt to answer all of your questions and solve all of your problems concerning FCP. If they can't solve your problem or answer your How 2, then you get your pick of the raffle table. Of course you still go home with your problem but you get your pick of the raffle table. 7:20PM - 7:30PM - Matting video to text in LiveType - Steve Martin This month Steve Martin of RippleTraining will show you why LiveType is more that an app that makes your text shake, rattle, and roll. LiveType is a true motion graphics powerhouse, that puts hundreds of options at your fingertips. One of those options is matting video to text and other non-text objects to create incredible titles and DVD motion menus. Follow along with Steve as he builds a DVD motion menu in record time. The project he will be demonstrating is right out of the forthcoming FCP4 Advanced book he co-authored from PeachPit Press.   7:35PM - 7:45PM - Time lapse imagery - Tony Donaldson - Show and Tell It's a short experimental film of time changes. Slow motion and time lapses, much of it done with still cameras more than video cameras, though the slow motion was done with video. I was inspired to do it by some friends, and it wound up being a bigger project than I'd anticipated. It runs the gamut, from nature to sports, five minutes and 19 seconds of variety based on my experiences with what I normally do (still photography) and the various video projects I've done, and a fascination of time lapse imagery.   7:45PM - 8:15PM - The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth about the G5 - JD Wilcox and Cawan Starks Using two projectors we will attempt a "shoot out" between the G4 Dual 1.4.2 and the Dual 2gig G5 using Final Cut Pro real world examples and talk about whether the G5 is right for you now or later. We will also take your requests and answer any and all questions on issues that are currently affecting the G5. Plus (hopefully) we will provide benchmarks on Panther running on a non FCP optimized Dual 2gig G5. 8:20PM - 8:35PM- "Ivory Gate" - Drew Mylrea - Show and Tell Showing a remarkable amount of maturity in not only narrative structure but camera technique and pacing, 17 year old Drew Mylrea will drive down from Scotts Valley to show off his movie, Ivory Gate. From Drew: Drew Mylrea is a high school senior living in Scotts Valley High, CA. Alongside of going to school he teaches the Video Productions class at the school ( check it out at http://www.ivorygatemovie.com/ . The film he will be showing, Ivory Gate, was filmed over the course of three months, shot with the AG-DVX100, and edited all on Final Cut Pro. Ivory Gate centers around a young man Stephen, and his pursuit of truth in his life. Note: If time permits we will show the entire film (30 minutes) at the close of the meeting. And we did show it and it was great. 8:40 - 9:00PM - Break In the Lobby will be Promax showing off new toys and answering questions on the just shipped G5 PowerMac. Intelligent Assistance will also be showing off the must have Great Visual FX CDs and Killer Titles CDs. Michael Wohl and Lisa Brenneis will be selling their respective books for a big discount. Visual QuickPro Guide for FCP 4 will be selling for $18.00. Michael's excellent NEW edition of "Editing Techniques in Final Cut Pro will be going for $28.00. lafcpug will be selling past "lafcpug on DVD meetings" (Oct 2001 - Oct 2002) for 3 for $10.00 Plus another addition of the FCP Guru table where we "guarantee" you'll get your FCP 4 questions answered. 9:00PM - 9:25PM - "When Bad Things Happen to Final Cut Pro" - Larry Jordan There is nothing more frustrating that your lean, mean, state-of-the-art-editing machine thumbing it's nose at you and quitting unexpectedly. Before you start slashing your wrists or babbling uncontrollably, take a listen as FCP guru Larry Jordan presents "What to do when good Apps go bad." Here are Larry's notes from the presentation. I. We will cover: A.Preventing problems B.Keeping your hardware,and hard disk,current C.What to do when FCP crashes D.What to do when your Mac crashes E.Thoughts on OS X 10.3 File Journaling feature F.Final Thoughts II. Preventative Maintenance A.Use "Save as..." regularly for complex projects B.If you run lots of applications in the background,change FCP memory allocation 1.(System Preferences->Memory 2.Set to 85-90% C.There 's no advantage to more than 2 GB of RAM in the system 1.Especially if you are running 10.2.6 or earlier 2.Also for Cinewave users D.Rebuild permissions 1)Weekly or 2)Whenever you install new software or OS versions 3)If permission errors are found,rebuild permissions again. III.Hard disk issues A.To partition or not to partition your hard disk? 1.Based on conversations with drive vendors,no benefit,or loss,in partitions. 2.My recommendation is to avoid it,unless you need it for security reasons. B.Drivers --invisible,essential software 1)RAID drivers a.What does a RAID driver do? b.Examples of RAID drivers are a.OS X b.Express Stripe (OS X) c.Express RAID (OS 9) c.RAIDs are more affected by OS upgrades than hard disks d.Current Medea driver is 1.58 (G-5 &10.2.9) 2)Hard disk drivers a.What does a hard disk driver do? b.Hard disk drivers are rarely effected by OS changes.Never by apps. 3)SCSI and Fiber Channel card drivers a.What DOES a SCSI card do? b.What does a fiber channel card do? b.Examples of SCSI and fiber channel cards are: a.ATTO b.Adaptec c.Apple (Fibre channel with XRaid) 4)Capture cards a.What does a capture card do? b.Examples of capture cards are: a.Cinewave b.Digital Voodoo c.Kona d.Blackmagic C. Use "About this Mac " to check for current drivers using System Profiler..Pay attention to the Devices and Volumes tab. D. Keep hard disk drivers current 1)Disk drivers needed to be replaced from OS 9 to OS X 2)For some,replaced again with FCP 4 (Kona,Black magic,Cinewave) 3)For some,replaced again with 10.2.6 (Cinewave) 4)And,again,for some for 10.2.8 and G-5 (Cinewave and Medea) E. Expect LOTS of driver updates with Panther (OS X)--hold off on upgrading for a couple of weeks,if meeting deadlines is important. F. Keep SCSI card drivers current G. Capture card drivers and software should be current 1)New drivers needed for FCP 4.0x 2)New drivers needed for G-5 H.Replace drivers by visiting the vendors web site and looking for updates IV.What to do when FCP crashes 1)Trash preferences a.Show where preferences are located (User/Library/Preferences) b.What do you lose when you trash prefs c.How are Preferences rebuilt? d.Effective backup plans for complex preferences 2)Rebuild permissions 3)It isn 't required,but if FCP crashes twice in a row,I 'll also restart the computer V.What to do when your Mac crashes 1)Run "fsck -y " IMMEDIATELY upon restarting 2)If problems are found,run FSCK until it reports the boot disk is OK. 3)If problems can 't be corrected by FSCK,run Disk Warrior X 4)Rebuild permissions after any crash. VI.If you get the "Spinning Beach Ball of Death " 1)It means the OS has preempted the application. 2)Most times,waiting a few minutes will make the Beach Ball go away 3)If not,force quit (Apple Menu->Force Quit ->Final Cut Pro), trash preferences,then follow the procedures outlined for when the Mac quits VII. Using OS X Crash logs for early warning 1)Setting up a crash log a.Open Applications->Utilities->Console b.Under Crashes tab,set both preferences to ON 2)Often,just before a crash occurs,you 'll get a warning so you can save work 3)Not always,though VIII.Thoughts about using File Journaling in OS X 10.3 1.What is journaling?Writing a "transaction " file to your hard disk every time you write or delete a file.As disk directories are kept in memory to make them faster,this is a backup to blown directories. 2.Benefits to Journaling a.Faster directory rebuilds b.Less lost data during a crash 3.Disadvantages to journaling a.Significant performance hit 4.A suggestion for the immediate future a.Don 't turn on journaling for editing systems b.DO turn on journaling for servers and general,non-time-sensitive data work. IX.Final Thoughts 1)If your Mac takes longer than 30 seconds to shut down,you have potential disk problems that need to be addressed immediately. 2)Don 't rush to upgrade FCP or the OS --if your system is working now,leave it alone.Your goal is to edit,not spend you life chasing problems. 3)Don 't use Software Update.ALWAYS upgrade your applications and operating system using a freestanding download.They generally get posted several days after the first upgrade,but they are almost always more reliable. The Mac isn 't an unstable platform.If you follow common sense and these guidelines,you can be productively editing for a long time to come. Thanks! © 2003 Larry Jordan 9:30 - 9:40PM - Dalai Lama - Joshua Lee Cohen - Show and Tell I am going to show a video of a man named Joel Kuwahara who traveled to Dharamsala India to teach the monks of the Dalai Lama's monestary how to burn DVD's to preserve teachings of the Dalai Lama. Director Doug Pray shot the video and we edited it over a 2 1/2 period of time from 30 hours of footage down to the 5 minute video it is now. The video is not intended for broadcast, just a document of what they did and a chance for me to practice on Final Cut Pro.   9:50PM - 10:00PM - World Famous Raffle 5 $20.00 Gift Certificates - Paquito Mas Restaurants 1 copy of Inside Editing with Final Cut Pro 4 - Magnet Media 1 T -shirt - DVCreators.net 1 Hat - DVCreators.net FREE FCP 4 hands on Training Class - DVCreators.net 1 copy Shooting Awesome Video CD - DVCreators.net ShuttlePro - Contour Design ShuttleExpress - Contour Design Copies of Motion Graphic Backgrounds - 12 inch Design 2 copies of ProMax QuickStart Training DVD-ROM for Final Cut Pro 4 - Promax 2 FCP 4.0 Keyboard KeyGuides - Neotron Design Color Corrector for FCP DVD - Digital FilmTree 2 Royalty Free Stock Footage CDs - ThinkStock Footage Great VisualFX for Final Cut Pro - Intelligent Assistance Killer Titles for Live Type and Calligraphy - Intelligent Assistance DVD Companion Pro Pack - Recipe 4 DVD Petrol/DV Bag - Xtreme Video Magazine 1 T-shirt - kenstone.net 13 copies of lafcpug DVDs (Oct 01 - Oct 02)- lafcpug Special thanks must go to Ken stone for taking pics. Jim Perry and Tony Peck for taping the show for the DVD, Gregory Clark for taking tickets, John for doing the lights, and of course ProMax for footing the bill. Michael Horton, "HeadCutter" This meeting is available on DVD