Best reference munual for FCE?

Hi all,
I've finally got around to making the transition from iMovie to FCE (one look at iMovie7 was the final straw!)
Can anyone please tell me what they reckon is the best book to buy on FCE?
One that covers all the "tricks" as well as the basics.
Thanks,
TonyT

If by "tricks" you mean Special Effects, I don't think there are any.
The main problem most people coming from iMove have is how to get started on the darn program !
Forget about doing tricks for a few weeks.
The best book for getting you started is probably one of Tom Wolsky's Final Cut Express Editing Essentials available from Amazon.
If you later want an encyclopaedic reference book, try Lisa Brennais' Final Cut Express HD, again available heavily discounted from Amazon.
But as for books on special effects, I think you will have a long search.
Ian.

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http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11457489#11457489
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Thanks for the details. Now we can respond on what the problems are.
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Your sequence is NTSC DV 720x480 4:3 aspect ratio. That would be fine if you were using QuickTime NTSC DV clips. But you aren't. You are using a QuickTime .dv clip (sorry, but that really is a difference) plus two H.264 1920x1080 16:9 clips.
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I use the M-Audio Fast Track guitar/mic recording interface. You can hook-up your XLR mic or use it to play your guitar in Garageband.
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Thanks Wei,
With some more tweaking, I am able to get and use the layout metadata as you said! Here is where my issue stands now:
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I am growing tired of watching the progress bar creep along.
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Thanks
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Sorry I should have mentioned it.
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That looks like a nice package. I remember looking at their offerings a while back, but found that my graphics card prevents their software from running on my computer. Here are the requirements taken from the Noise Industries site. These are the supported cards on both Intel and Power PC machines:
• ATI Radeon 9550, 9650, 9600, 9600 XT, 9700, 9800, 9800 XT, X800, X850, X1600, X1900 XT, HD 2400 XT, HD 2600 PRO, HD 2600 XT, HD 3870
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• NVIDIA GeForce 6600, 6800 Ultra DDL, 6800 GT DDL, 7300, 7600, 7800 GT, 7800 Ultra, 8600M GT, 8800 GT, 9400M, 9600M
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500, 5600
For best performance, a graphics card with a minimum of 256MB video memory is recommended.
The following graphics cards are not supported:
• NVIDIA GeForce FX Go 5200
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
• Intel GMA 950, X3100
• ATI Radeon 8500, 9000, 9200
Then I looked at the GeeThree offerings and find that you need FCE 4. I have 3.5.1. So until a new Mac shows on my desk, I'll stick with using the motion tab to animate stills.
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Using an external reference clock for counter measurements

Hi all,
I have several PXI chassis
configured for testing, each of which uses an NI-DAQ-6221 for
conducting period and frequency measurements among other things.
However each of my setups give me a slightly different reading when conducting identical measurements due to
the tolerance of the DAQ on board reference
clocks.
The chassis' have a 10MHz GPS calibrated reference fed into them via the reference input and this is connected to the backplane. I have tried and failed to try to route and use this as my reference
base for my counter measurements so that each of my cards will give me
the same reading every time. I have tried the routing method using the
DAQ connect terminals vi but could not get this to work. I have looked through the labview examples and cant find anything thta shows me what i need to do to take frequency and period measurments using my external reference as my base clock. There are some examples showing the use of the DAQmx timing vi set to sample clock mode which allows a clock source to be selected. However these examples are only for counting digital events and when i apply the same vi to a frequency or period measurement an error is thrown saying 'invalid timing type for this channel', 'you can select: implicit, on demand'.
I do not
understand the working of the DAQ hardware very well so was hoping
someone could help explain to me how to do this if it is even possible
or give me any guidance as to how else to overcome my problem. Any vis
showing how to use my external 10MHz reference
as the base clock for these kind of measurements would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Dan

Hi Dan,
Thanks for the reply. When trying to use the connect terminals i just tried connecting the PXI10 to the onboard clock in the hope that this would configure it to use the PXI10 signal to synchronise the onboard clocks via the PLL. Doing this didn't throw any errors as i recall, it just gave me a reading of infinity as it couldn't measure the signal.
I have actually just managed to successfully do what i wanted thanks to help from Rob at NI tech support UK. There is a DAQmx timing property node which allows you to choose a reference clock source. By using the PXI_Clk10 signal this makes the DAQ synchronise its reference clocks to this signal. I have included an image of the code i used to achieve this to take period measurements.
Here is a very useful link which Rob sent me which may be of help to anyone else with similar problems
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/3615
Best regards,
Dan.
Attachments:
ExtRef Source Image.jpg ‏105 KB

Best reference munual for FCE?

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