|
Show all posts by userPost here if you are offering a job or looking for a job. Check the lafcpug Talent Directory first if you are an employer. Lots of good talent in there
Re: New iMac vs. Mac Pro - 11 years agoLast August, I deliberated whether to replace my 2006 Mac Pro with a new 2012 model or an iMac. I opted for another Mac Pro, despite its lack of Thunderbolt and USB-3. The tipping point for me was that I have existing AJA Kona and FirmTek eSATA cards. Had I switched to an iMac, I'd need to obtain new video capture/output and eSATA devices that connect via Thunderbolt. The iMacs have enough horby JAS - Café LA Re: U-matic Transfer - 11 years agoIf you can find one in good working condition, a Sony BVU-900 or BVU-950 would provide better playback quality over earlier models. In addition to the VTR, it is important to use a time base corrector (TBC) to stabilize the off-tape video signal and to properly adjust levels.by JAS - Café LA - X Re: billing rates/freelance charges - 11 years agoJoe Riggs Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- QuoteWhat are everyone's thoughts on half day vs. full day rates? Do you charge a higher rate for a half day to entice them to book you for a full day? When traveling to someone's premises to perform the work, I and most other professionals I know charge a per-diem that covers eight hours (including a meal break). If byby JAS - Café LA Re: OT-Old Day Editing Systems - 12 years agoEIAJ half-inch machine to machine Datatron 5050 U-matic Datatron Tempo 76 U-matic Sony BVE-3000A U-matic Sony BVE-3000A Beta-SP GVG VPE-151 One-Inch Type C Avid NewsCutter and Media Composer Final Cut Pro (beginning with version 2) The best on-air work came from the BVE-3000A/Beta-SP era.by JAS - Café LA Re: Freelancer Q:- Tape vs Tapeless projects . . . - 13 years agoAbout 80% of my projects originate on videotape and are delivered on videotape. Most of these are for large companies.by JAS - Café LA Re: Final Cut Pro X - still Pro - 13 years agoIf VTR input/output and control are removed from the upcoming Final Cut Pro, I'll be on version 7 for a long while to come. A large share of my customers provide their source material to me on videotape and want the final product on videotape. Few of them will accept a self-contained QuickTime movie on a hard drive as an "edit master" for their media library. Despite Apple's remark tby JAS - Café LA - X Re: Where did my title go? Font disappears even though it shows everywhere else. - 13 years agoBy chance did the typeface display properly prior to OS version 10.6.7? It appears there is a defect in 10.6.7 that causes problems with OpenType fonts. I found it necessary to downgrade my Mac Pro to 10.6.6 for OpenType fonts to display correctly.by JAS - Café LA Re: Can I ONLINE-EDIT in Broadcast Quality with FCP? - 13 years agoI concur about the lingering preponderance of the Beta-SP videotape format. In fact, a substantial program that I'm editing will soon ship out for DVD replication by a major firm. I proposed delivering digital files; but both the client and the replicator request that the program be delivered on Beta-SP. Also, I have firsthand experience with television stations in my top-10 market. While theiby JAS - Café LA Re: DVD authoring pay rate - 14 years agoI concur with Peter. $1,000 is a good minimum rate for a one-off project. There is more to an authoring project than encoding the media, designing artwork and buttons, scripting the actions, et cetera. Allow for significant time and effort during the testing and approval stages. In my experience, even a "simple" authoring project consumes more than a day of time from start to end.by JAS - DVD Studio Pro Re: FCP 7: Motion 4 : Color 1.5 ect :-))) - 14 years agoSome of FCS 7's new features such as iChat Theater are compelling enough to spend the modest $299 upgrade price -- but I am disappointed that Apple has not yet redesigned the Title Tool. The process for adding titles within Final Cut Pro is so un-Macintosh-like. This is one area in which Avid's interface is better. Creation of a title ought to occur in a window that is superimposed over the Tiby JAS - Café LA Re: S16 Grain - 15 years agoI had reels of 16 millimeter film transferred to DVCAM for editing in Final Cut Pro. I also noticed pronounced film grain when viewing the footage in FCP on an Apple Cinema Display. The grain was far less apparent when viewing the video on an NTSC monitor, however.by JAS - Café LA Re: mouse freeze with 10.5.6 - 15 years agoThis is an AJA forum on CreativeCOW's web site. Perhaps AJA staff reads messages there. CreativeCOW Kona forumby JAS - Café LA Re: mouse freeze with 10.5.6 - 15 years agoAlthough there might be multiple reasons for our Macs to lock up when exiting sleep under 10.5.6, I have found that the presence of the Kona LHe driver is one factor. Below is a summary of the troubleshooting I did to see where things go haywire. I put a new hard drive inside my Mac Pro, did a fresh install of OS 10.5, used the combo updater to reach 10.5.5, installed the latest Kona LHe driveby JAS - Café LA Re: mouse freeze with 10.5.6 - 15 years agoAfter updating to 10.5.6, my Mac Pro will not wake from sleep properly. The screen turns on, but the mouse (cursor) is frozen. I think there is a conflict between 10.5.6 and the driver for my Kona LHe card. Downgrading to 10.5.5 returned the system to normalcy.by JAS - Café LA Re: Which capture card? - 15 years agoI am a fan of the Kona LHe. AJA's technical support and software/control panel are the best around, I think. But Decklink is a viable alternative to Kona. Their products have become much better in recent times.by JAS - Café LA Final Cut at KCBS-TV - 15 years agoA while back, there was a video on Apple's web site about KCBS-TV using Final Cut Studio and Final Cut Server for news and promotion editing, areas that have long been in Avid's domain. Does anyone know whether this L.A. station has had success with Final Cut, or if any other broadcast stations have made the switch?by JAS - Café LA Re: Straight Cuts - 15 years agoIt is encouraging to hear from someone who understands the power and usefulness of the cut transition. I'd suggest that your editors watch the CBS News broadcast 60 Minutes. For the most part, the reports are edited with cut transitions only. (Sometimes a dissolve will slip in.) Another nice thing about 60 Minutes segments is their lack of keys.by JAS - Café LA dynamic range of Proc Amp filter - 15 years agoIt seems to me that the dynamic range of the video gain control in the Proc Amp filter is rather limited. Does anyone know of a third-party Proc Amp filter that would provide a greater adjustment over the video level? Editors who have worked with TBCs might understand what I'm talking about.by JAS - Café LA Re: Rates... - 15 years agoDon't sellers of products and services freely publish and advertise what they charge? Why ought video editors be barred from doing the same? "Collusion" would apply only if a group of vendors entered into a pact to charge a customer the same amount for their goods or services. $500 seems to be the minimum per-diem rate for basic FCP editing in my area. Editors who do special effectsby JAS - Café LA Re: QuickTime 7.4.1 is out - be very afraid - 16 years agoQT 7.4.1 is working fine with Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 on my Mac Pro that is running OS 10.5.1.by JAS - Café LA Re: What is the normal Pay Scale for editors - 16 years agoAs a free-lancer in the Boston market, I tend to be paid $450 per eight-hour day in the corporate/industrial world. (But I've heard this figure is now considered a bit on the low end.) Boston TV stations pay fewer dollars for free-lancers ... about $300 per-diem. If you do not increase your rate by at least 3% per year to keep pace with inflation, your pay is actually going down each year.by JAS - Café LA Re: What are FCP editor's rates and charges per hour? - 16 years agoSome years ago, it was common that professional wages started at $50 per hour. I imagine that inflation has pushed this figure higher. Ultimately, rates will fluctuate based on several factors including the market and the editor's level of experience. Professionals tend to work on a per-diem basis rather than hourly, especially if they are traveling to a customer's facility to perform the work.by JAS - Jobs Re: Adjusting border sides separately - 17 years agoJude, thanks for the suggestion; but wouldn't the the crop tool in the Motion tab settings crop the main picture, in addition to the color border? If I think way back to my Avid days, I recall it being possible to adjust border widths independently. This might have been called "Edge Width."by JAS - Café LA Re: Adjusting border sides separately - 17 years agoThanks! These are all useful suggestions. But I wish there was a border filter, even a $$$ third-party one, that allowed us to adjust the widths of the sides separately.by JAS - Café LA Adjusting border sides separately - 17 years agoI've searched this forum and the Internet for an answer to what I thought would be a common question. Is there a filter available that would allow each side of a border to be controlled independently? For instance, say you'd like a white line between the two pieces of a split screen. The Basic Border filter in FCP applies a border to all four sides of the frame.by JAS - Café LA Re: Mixer control surfaces - 17 years agoI second the endorsement of the Tascam FW-1082. It allows you to ride audio levels in Final Cut Pro in much the same way you would in a conventional videotape edit suite. Play the timeline and move the sliders up and down with your fingers. Now, if someone would create a proc. amp. control surface with knobs for video level, black level, chroma and hue, I'd be even happier.by JAS - Café LA Re: Back Up (What's your Work Flow) - 17 years agoAll of a project's media (video, stills, music, titles) is kept in one central location, its Capture Scratch folder. This exists on an external, removable serial ATA drive (Firmtek). When a project is completed, I place the removable media drive inside a box and store it on a shelf. The FCP project file is routinely backed up from the system drive to two volumes: a second internal drive and theby JAS - Café LA |
|