Using (hopefully) DCR-TRV730 with FCE HD

Howdy all,
I just inherited a Sony DCR-TRV730 Digital 8 camcorder and would love to use it with Final Cut Express HD. I don't have a firewire cable amongst the accessories it came with and don't think it's new enough to even have a firewire port. Is it possible to capture footage from a camera that only has USB? This cam isn't listed on the compatible devices chart. Is there a converter available to make capturing possible?
I did a search for "dcr-trv730" and it seems others have been able to capture from it but if anyone has specific steps or advice they can give me that would be great.

Go to www.canopus.com and look for the ADVC-100 (a anolog to DV converter)

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What consumer camera are using that is compatible with FCE 4?

And using an external drive (that is key, have to have soemthing that works with FCE4 and ext drive)
Hi, I am reading through these forums and there seem to be so many compatibility issues in the HD area. It looks like some are just user
settings and then others the actual camcorder just doesn't work with
FCE 4.
I am trying to find a consumer type HD camcoprder that will work with a INTEl based MAC abnd an external drive
The type of camcorder that is $1200 or less
But after readingt hese forums, it seems like more people have nightmares than good experiences with HD and final cut 4 at this point
I don't know what to buy or think
Thank you, sorry, it's just seems consfusing yet I can handle the editing and operating a camcorder but it's compatibility that concerns me (especialyy with hrad earned money and a possiblity that you can't return an electronic item, like a camcorder in some stores without a re-stock fee
Thank you!
Message was edited by: Renne West
Message was edited by: Renne West

Hi there,
I am using a Sony HDR-TG3 (TG1 in the USA) and FCE4.0.0 and now FCE4.0.1.
FCE4.0.1 will allow 1920x1080i work were are FCE4.0.0 is limited to 1440x1080i with this camera.
I have an external Maxtor One Touch FW400 200GB scratch disk. I recently upgraded this disk to a 1TB. I bought a seperate enclosure Macpower FW800 unit and Samsung Spinpoint 1TB, 32MB Cache, 7200RPM SATA disk. I really just needed to extra work space. But the Maxtor on the FW400 was also perfect for AVCHD importing and editing in FCE from my Sony HDR-TG3.
Hope this helps.

Using LaCie dvd burner with fce hd

has anyone out there used a LaCie dvd burner with toast titanium 6.1.1 to burn fce hd project? the fce hd files(as a QT file ) contains 2 folders --the movie file along with an a-v 1 file(assuming this a media file) are boththese files to be dropped into the TOAST titanium drop window for burning? burning a dvd takes hours and i'm trying to save myself a lot of aggravation--thanks folks

This is not a Final Cut Express related topic. You're more likely to find LaCie DVD burner users on forums like iDVD and DVD Studio Pro.

Does Compressor 3.5 Conflict With FCE 4 And LiveType?

Last week my Compressor 3.5 app suddenly refused to open.
I tried all the usual remedies including deleting it with FCS Remover but to no avail.
Eventually it was cured by deleting all the FCS 3 apps and reinstalling.
This morning Compressor once again refused to open with the original "There is a problem . . . " error message.
Now I realised I had done something an hour before.
I had just installed FCE 4 and LiveType that comes with it.
I believe I had also done the same before last week's problem.
It looks as though there is something about the installing of FCE 4 and/or LiveType that Compressor 3.5 does not like.
I used FCS 2 together with FCE 4/LT for a couple of years with no apparent conflict.
I have got everything going again by deleting all the FCS 3 apps and reinstalling . . . . not FCE 4 and LT of course!
I'm wondering whether it is caused by both of them or just one . . . . maybe LT.
Perhaps installing FCE 4 and LT before installing FCS 3 would work?
I could find out by experimenting but I think I've done enough reinstalling!

Thanks Jon.
I felt it might be something to do with the older FCE/LT installing outdated shared assets.
A couple of hours ago I successfully installed LiveType without it affecting FCS 3.
I installed it on another Mac and then simply copied the application across. I figured that FCS 3 would probably have already installed any "hidden" files LT would need and I seem to have been proved correct.
I think it will probably work with FCE but I am not feeling quite brave enough today!

Can I use a MY Book Pro external 500 gig Triple interface HD with FCE?

Hey everyone,
I just recently bought a Macbook pro and purchased FCE HD 3.5. I want to purchase a high capacity external HD. I want it mainly for my projects with FCE and other members of the family will be backing up to it. I want to keep my projects on the external and work on them from there not my main HD.
After doing some online research I was about to purchase the LaCie Big Disk Extreme. However there seemed to be a lot of bad reviews about early disk failures. The G Technology drives sound great but are a little pricey.
I came across the MY Book Pro addition 500 gig Triple interface HD from Western Digital and found that the 500 gig pro had similar spec to the LaCie but they never mention in the specs that it can be used for video editing. They only mention "Fast enough for video editing" in the 1TB raid 0 version. I'm just wondering if anyone is having success using the My Book Pro Edition. I checked the forums first and even check specs from apple on external drives and FCE but I was hope for some real use advise. I'm not trying to cheap out, I'm just trying not to buy a lemon & get the most storage and speed for my buck. I'll buy they higher end if I should. My video productions right now are 10 minute long movies with some video clips and stills but I'm hoping to advance to bigger (High Def) things. Any advise in this matter would be greatly appreciated.
The specs from Western Digital are as follows:
My Book™ Pro Edition™
External Hard Drives
500 GB, Triple Interface
Rotational Speed
7,200 RPM (nominal)
Average Latency
4.20 ms (nominal)
Seek Times
Read Seek Time
8.9 ms
Track-To-Track Seek Time
2.0 ms (average)
Serial Transfer Rate
FireWire 800
Serial Bus Transfer Rate (1394b)
800 Mbits/s (Max)
Macbook Pro 17" 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

The 500GB MyBook Pro should work fine. Just be sure to use a Firewire connection (not USB) to your Mac and format the drive as Mac OS Extended - Journaled. It will come from the factory as FAT32, so you'll need to reformat it. But wait - don't reformat it until you offload the ButtonManager, FW Driver and Retrospect software. You will need the first two to install your drive.
And that's one of the reasons I stay away from the MyBook drives - they were really designed for Windows systems, not Macs. For one, they have their own FireWire drivers and I see no reason to be required to install device-specific drivers on my Mac in order to use a consumer-grade hard drive. As far as I'm concerned, that's just bad design (or, perhaps design for systems other than Macs ...).
The 500GB Lacie Big Disk did get a bunch of bad reviews. However, the 500GB Lacie d2 Extreme is the same price and has much better reviews. The Lacie d2 Extreme drives are quite reliable; I have many and not one of them has failed me over the years. The 320GB d2 Extreme is currently $140 at newegg.com. See how that compares to the price of the MyBook.

Is there a way to import clips from AVCHD folders I have copied from my camcorder to my hard disk? With FCE I could import these clips using log and transfer.

In FCP-X is there a way to import AVCHD clips from an AVCHD file folder I have copied from my Canon hard disk camcorder to my iMac hard disk? With FCE I used log and transfer with no problem; but, FCP-X doesn't import them. It will import AIC files that have been created in FCE from the original AVCHD files. If FCP-X will not import these files directly from the copied AVCHD folder, is there a workaround using other software to convert the files? For example, Compressor? (Canon does not provide any AVCHD conversion software for OSX).

Hi jphil and Tom
I have exactly the same problem but the answer you (Tom) provided did not help in my case. Trying to "Import ->From Camera" and pointing to the AVCHD folder yields the error message: "(Folder) contains unsupported files or has invalid directory structure."
Folder structure is
AVCHD
     BDMV
          CLIPINF
               .CPI files
          Index.bdm
          Movieobj.bdm
          PLAYLIST
               .MPL file
          STREAM
               .MTS files
AVF_INFO
     3 files (.bnp, .inp, .int)
DCIM
     101MSDCF
          empty
     MODELCFG.IND (file)
My question is: Is that not a "camera archive" of the type you talked about in the thread? Is it on principle not possible to import the files in that format/directory structure? If not, since the shots were not taken by myself, what should I ask the guy who shot the movies to give me to be able to work with them in FC?
I work with a brand new Final Cut Pro X 10.0.4 (still very clumsy with it) on an iMac 11,3 with MacOS 10.6.8.
I downloaded the latest version of codec updates from the Apple support site but no difference.
Thank you in advance
Giorgio
Freiburg, Germany

Using two displays with FCE

Hi
I wanted to see if anyone out there uses two screens when editing with FCE HD. I use a Powerbook g4, and wish to use the laptop screen for viewing editing timeline, maybe soudtrack or live type and a 2nd LCD screen to maybe see the output or toolboxes. For example, if you set up dual display mode in system prefs, and do a powerpoint show, the laptop screen shows something different (such as upcoming slides etc.) to what is output to a projector connected to the DVI port.
Is there something like this on FCE? Thanks
Abhi
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

I have now got FCE 3 and answered my own question. For any others who might be interested...if you have FCE and are looking to make use of more than one display, you have two options.
One is to use the OS's inbuilt multi-display options and have the different windows (timeline, viewer, canvas etc.) on different screens, making each one bigger. Or even have livetype open on one and FCE on the other. (Though G4s seem to struggle with this.)
However, a better solution (particularly if you have an HD capable display attached) is to use FCE's Video Out feature (Tools > Video Out). This outputs your canvas in full screen on the second display. It's great to work, and watch a huge full quality version of the final video at the same time.

Is there a preferred Video Camera in the forum for use with FCE?

I am on the hunt for a new HD camcorder in the 800 to 1200 US dollar range. Is there a preferred recording format or anything specific to look for that will help my camera work best with FCE or better yet are there things I should try to avoid?
I am looking for something compact so that I can carry it with me on trips easily, but still give a good quality HD image. Thanks

The main consideration is that AVCHD is a hard drive based format whereas HDV is tape based. The nature of tapes is that they're relatively inexpensive so it's not such a big deal to save your tapes as backups in case you ever need to restore your project from the original footage. For AVCHD on the other hand, you'd need to make a backup by copying the whole file directory to an external drive for safe keeping, and if the drive fails or gets corrupted then you are out of luck.
There are other less important things to keep in mind. AVCHD can reach a maximum resolution of 1920x1080, whereas HDV by comparison reaches its peak at 1440x1080. I've heard some say that AVCHD cameras generally work less well in low lighting conditions, but I personally haven't noticed too much of a difference. Finally, the market seems to generally be moving away from a tape based workflow. Not that AVCHD is exactly the format of the future (and you'll certainly be able to purchase DV tapes for a while to come), but it's something to keep in mind. FCE deals with the two formats differently as well, and it might be wise to skim over both the section in the User Manual about capturing and the one about the "Log and Transfer" process.
As far as bugginess is concerned, I wouldn't say that one format is prone to more problems than the other. As long as you read up on the capture or ingest process before attempting anything you should be fine.
Finally, keep in mind the fact that FCE transcodes both HDV and AVCHD into the Apple Intermediate Codec upon capture or ingest. AIC usually runs at about 41-50GB per hour, so you'll want to make sure that you have a fast external firewire drive to use as a scratch disk when editing to store your media.
Sasha

Cameras to use with FCE

I'm interested in upgrading from Imovie seeing as I know it like the back of my hand and feel limited by it at this point. I'm looking to get a new camera in the spring of this year, and I'm wondering what kind to get if I want a good one for a good price that would be great with FCE 4.
Does everybody use Mini Dv cameras with this software? I don't see these in stores, and it this point to me it seems like they are old, clunky, and outdated. I'm no expert, but that's just the impression I get from them, so why are those the primary cameras used with FCE?
So if anybody can answer these questions, and provide me a list of a few good cameras (Mini Dv or not) that would work with the program and not cost a fortune, I would be much obliged!

FCE can work with DV, HDV and AVCHD camcorders.
Most consumer/prosumer camcorders on the market today are AVCHD camcorders or a variation of AVCHD. Be aware - if the camcorder doesn't have the *AVCHD logo* or doesn't *specifically state in the specs* that it's AVCHD, then it's probably not AVCHD. Even if it says it's H.264 or MPEG4/AVC that does not automatically make it AVCHD - a lot of people have been burned not watching out for this.
DV is, as you said, on the way out. 4:3 aspect ratio & standard def; however, decent DV camcorders can do anamorphic 16:9 and it turns out quite nice. So, you can do widescreen with many DV camcorders. HDV is still around and has a loyal following. There are some very nice HDV camcorders - Canon HV20/30/40 for example - and they're not too expensive.
Another thing to keep in mind is that even though you shoot high def with HDV or AVCHD, when it comes time to burn a DVD of your video it will be standard def - because DVDs are by definition standard def. To burn hi-def optical disks, you have to get a BluRay burner, BluRay authoring software (DVD Studio Pro, Toast) and of course BD media. It's not cheap.

I'm sorry, I have to convert the mov file. for use with fce and / or imovie11, better ProRes422 or intermediate codec?

I'm sorry, I have to convert the mov file. for use with fce and / or imovie11, better ProRes422 or intermediate codec?

FCE only used AIC for HD.
Al

Choosing A Camorder to Use with FCE

I have the newest version of FCE and I've noticed that I've tried to use other harddrive camcorders, (sony + panasonic) but neither work well or at all with FCE, I'm looking to buy a Canon Vixia HG20 and I was wondering if anyone has used one with FCE yet? its a rather new camcorder btw

Yup have to agree - I have a Panasonic AVCHD cam and it works wonderfully. Just make sure your version of FCE4 is updated to 4.0.1 - this should fix your issues.
Really depends what format you like to work with
AVCHD, HDV, DV etc. This is a good website to compare the various cams.
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/d/Reviews&levelb=Camcorder&levelc=HD.htm

What camcorder are you using with FCE that's compatible

I'd like to hear from folks so other folks know what's compatible and what is not. I know Apple has a list but it's outdated. old, and not comprehensive. By you stating what make & model your camcorder is and if it works with FCE will help a lot of folks.

Hi Sheila.
The Apple list causes more trouble than it is worth.
There are possibly thousands of cameras out there but testing is so time-consuming that Apple has only tested a handful - probably all those on the list!
I think you will find that (almost) every mini-DV camera in the world, equipped with FireWire, will work OK in FCE.
You probably stand a greater chance of being struck by lightning than of buying a new camera that will not work.
Having said that, some Canon owners have experienced problems - which have usually been curable.
If you buy from a local dealer you might be able to come to an agreement that you can return the camera in the highly unlikely case that it is not compatible with FCE.
I believe some dealers will let you borrow cameras for short evaluation periods. (I don't expect the large "box-shifters" will do this).
Ian.

Sources for random effects to use with FCE

Any FCE users out there know of any good sources for random “effects” (not filters) and pre-made generic clips?
Coming from iMoive I'm really excited about the improved control I have with FCE but it doesn’t have some of the generic effects I’m looking for like the 3-2-1 screen at the beginning of a video or overlays where it looks like the film is burning on the light…etc. I need some cool yet affordable plug-ins.
Any help is appreciated!

archive.org offers some downloadable count-downs ... in "historic" pic quality..
with some painting skills, you're able to create your own in a paint-app and animate it in FCE ...
search for video-libraries on the net, many offer (for $$) DVDs with zillions of usable "movies", fog, fire, water, animatics...
lately, I stumbled here over
http://fxhome.com/effectslab/effectslab-overview.html
which allows creation of nice "particle" effects (smoke, fog, fire, bursts, ...)
I'm too more a iM user.. like all these presets... in FCE, you have to think yourself, how is it done, how to set which knobs&sliders to achieve a special, wanted look... much more options, but much more complicated ..

Any known problems with FCE-HD and "Capture Now" or edits

I've been working with FCE for almost two years now. I've had the same problem ever since-- The SPINNING PINWHEEL OF DEATH when: playing back edited video from the timeline and the playhead passes over various edit points, usually cuts. Is it a CAPTURE problem, or camcorder RECORD problem, or something else? I use a SONY DCR-TRV38 with firewire; FCE-HD;
Any thoughts on why I get this problem so often, and what I can do to avoid it in the future? should I just switch to Avid or Premier??
Thanks for any help...
Shawn

Hi Shawn.
I don't think there is a "known problem".
I assume your HDs are not more than 75% full or fragmented?
If you have not already done them, try the old chestnuts of Trashing the Preferences and Re-installing FCE.
1. Make sure you trash all 3 of the Preference Files as detailed in this article:-
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93690
2. If that does not work then re-install FCE but make sure you delete all the old FCE files first as shown in this link:-
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301182
Good luck.
Ian.
PS. When you write in with a problem, remember to give all possible APPROPRIATE details eg.
Computer model and external Hard Drive.
Operating System.
FCE version.
Camera type.
Did the problem suddenly occur or has it NEVER worked?
Have you recently loaded new Software or Upgraded ANY programs, Operating Systems etc.
Have you moved or altered your source files?
Have you captured the clips from a DV camera or an A/D Converter etc.?
Is it Standard or High Definition Video?
What type of files are you using?
Also include details of exactly what you were doing before the problem occurred.
Is your film hours long and filled with numerous transitions and effects etc.?
THIS IS A GENERAL LIST. SOME OF THEM WILL NOT APPLY TO YOU.

Few questions on exporting out with fce 3.5 for web distribution

Hello I have been trolling here for a few months reading up on things and I know my way around a search pretty well I have gotten some of these answers from reading but id like to have my own thread so I can keep it all in one place...
First..
I run websites that need video's for surfers to be able to view.. these videos are in length from 20 min to 1 hour or longer... now I have figured out that when I render with the h.264 out sorry fce calls it export... I choose the quicktime setting of lan and it seems to be about right for what im used to in high quality from rendering out with pinnacle studio for a wmv or an mpeg.. now heres where I get confused with fce
I see there is a wmv setting to export to.. but when I do it.. it only exports a bit of it...
now these are the formats I want for video...
.mov
.wmv
.mpg
I have compressor but I have no idea on the settings in there and can't find what I need
in those formats I would like to have a
high
med
low
as far as quality go's
can someone help me out so my life is easier please... in fact I have 50 bucks via paypal if I can get someone get my settings down right maybe even in compressor so I just have to edit... this part always messes with my head when it comes down to render out...
there has to be some editors on here that know excatly what im talking about without having to say it on here... if you want to chat in private you can email me chris (at) themibcorp (dot) com I will give you my ichat name from there maybe you can help me and ill help you with some paypal
I want the video to play on all forms of computers..
our's and the other kind.. LOL

This isn't something someone can decide for you. It's up to you ti make up your mind. Either will do the job. If you want to spend the time to experiment with settings to better suit your media and you know what you're doing and want to spend the money get the more expensive version. If you'll be happy to use the basic presets based on average media and file sizes then get the cheaper version.

Using (hopefully) DCR-TRV730 with FCE HD

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