Pinnacle CineWave and Commotion in conjunction with FCP

Hi all,

I'm new here and in fact am a noob to FCP too. Searching far and wide, I finally was able to purchase a Mac and FCP. Mainly because of the price and the TON of stuff that came with it, I ended up buying a G4 Dual 1 with Final Cut Pro 5.0.4, DVD Studio Pro 3, Pinnacle CineWave with all the bells and whistles such as Commotion Pro, Knoll Light Factory, Pro Analog option, Pro Digital option, etc. (Yes, there's an external raid system, too, so that all of the above options will work.)

Now mind you, I don't really know how to use any of this yet. But I've been bitten with the editing bug in a bad way and there's no turning back.

I'm the type of person who likes to fully research different options first and then dive in headfirst and completely. This is how I was with deciding to go with FCP.

I eventually want to get a Mac Pro and Final Cut Studio 2, but that's out of my financial realm at the moment. Like I said, price was a major factor in getting the system I did get above.

The system, while a bit obsolete, as it turns out was designed from the ground up by a very, very pro systems designer/editor. It can accept just about every type of input and output and has all the hardware to do so. It also has produced lots of very high quality projects and I purchased it from a working hollywood studio who created recent projects (as recent as six months ago) on it and when I came to pick it up, we literally unhooked it from the boss's desk.

Now, having set up my scenario above, I would like to know: are there any other LAFCPUG forum members who use CineWave or Commotion?

I talked to the Creative Cow CineWave guru and he got rid of his CineWave setup a few years back.

Sincerely,
Eric Harnden
Quitessential Studios

cinewave is a pretty cool, but pretty outdated product. im pretty certain that your system is NOT going to be compatable for any of the newer HD or "pseudo-HD" formats.

i dont know if thats going to be a problem for you...?

At this point, no, it's not going to be a problem.

I'm just learning FCP6 at my local Community College and, in fact, I can't even do my homework on my home system! I only own a couple JVC MiniDV consumer cameras and am mainly concerned with learning to edit on FCP, editing shots from my cameras and capturing old VHS tapes at this time. I am also interested in getting into the conversion game, converting 8mm and 16mm film. That sounds like a LOT of fun to me.

But I figure I'll just load the Learn FCP3 DVD onto it and can build on my editing education that way.

Honestly, I don't think I'll really end up using the Pinnacle products, although my FCP teacher said that "Commotion was like AE on steriods" the other day.

I think what will end up happening is that I will either keep this system around as a sort of a legacy system, just in case and having a newer system down the line. This way I can deal with any old format that comes through the door. Or I will end up getting rid of the G4 and accoutrements to someone who can actually use it/needs it for spares and use that money towards a newer Mac and FCS2 upgrade.

I think as I learn more and more, then I'll be more able to descern what route I'll take.

But at this point, I would like to know if anyone out there is currently using CineWave or Commotion. Anyone?

--
Eric Harnden
Quintessential Studios
---------------------------------
[wordpress.quintessentialstudios.net]
[twitter.com]

>although my FCP
>teacher said that "Commotion was like AE on steriods" the other day.

Haha. I once heard that Motion was like Photoshop gone wild...

Good luck on your system. Capturing old VHS tapes!? If you're talking about checking out edits of features, I'd suggest you go with DVDs and VCDs. For ripping VHS you will need a capture card or DA converter.

strypes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >although my FCP
> >teacher said that "Commotion was like AE on
> steriods" the other day.
>
> Haha. I once heard that Motion was like Photoshop
> gone wild...
>
> Good luck on your system. Capturing old VHS
> tapes!? If you're talking about checking out edits
> of features, I'd suggest you go with DVDs and
> VCDs. For ripping VHS you will need a capture card
> or DA converter.

So, is motion like photoshop gone wild?

By old VHS, I meant my own (or other people's) camera recordings, not copyrighted material. As far as the capture card goes, I don't know for sure but I think that's on my system.

Thanks for the good luck wishes. I'm having a blast checking it all out!

--
Eric Harnden
Quintessential Studios
---------------------------------
[wordpress.quintessentialstudios.net]
[twitter.com]

You might want to contact Walter Biscardi at Biscardi Creative. He was a BIG Cinewave user and used to mod the Cinewave forum over at Creative Cow.

[www.biscardicreative.com]

marcus_sg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You might want to contact Walter Biscardi at
> Biscardi Creative. He was a BIG Cinewave user and
> used to mod the Cinewave forum over at Creative
> Cow.
>
> [www.biscardicreative.com]


Thanks. That's actually who I was refering to in the last line of my first post. He got rid of his Cinewave and seems to not want to look back!

--
Eric Harnden
Quintessential Studios
---------------------------------
[wordpress.quintessentialstudios.net]
[twitter.com]