Hardware Selection and Connection
You'll need a few additional items to transform your Macintosh into a video production studio. This section describes two possible setups. The basic system is the bare minimum required; the recommended setup is, well, highly recommended for anyone with more than a passing interest in making movies.
Basic hardware configuration
A basic hardware configuration (Figure 2.1 ) includes a DV camcorder or deck, a computer, and a high-resolution computer monitor. The beauty of the basic system is its simplicity: a DV camcorder connected to your Macintosh with a FireWire cablethat's all there is to it.
Figure 2.1. A basic FCE hardware setup.[View full size image]
Here's a rundown of the function of each piece of the system. DV camcorder or deck: The DV camera or deck feeds digital video and audio into the computer via FireWire and records DV output from Final Cut Express. During video capture, you must monitor audio through your camera or deck's audio outputs; computer speakers are muted. Computer: Final Cut Express, installed on the Mac, captures and then stores digital video from the DV camera or deck on an A/V hard drive. Qualified Macs are equipped with FireWire; no additional video digitizing card is needed. You use your computer's speakers to monitor your audio. You edit your DV footage with Final Cut Express and then send it back out to tape through FireWire to your DV camcorder or deck. High-resolution computer monitor: You view the results of your work on the computer's monitor.
Recommended setup
A recommended setup (Figure 2.2 ) adds a dedicated hard drive to store your media and enhances your monitoring capabilities with the addition of an NTSC or PAL video monitor and external speakers.
Figure 2.2. A recommended DV hardware configuration.[View full size image]
Dedicated hard drive: Adding a dedicated drive for your media improves the performance as well as the storage capacity of your system. For more information, see "Storage Strategy for Final Cut Express" later in this chapter. NTSC monitor: Most DV camcorders feature a built-in LCD display that you can use as an external video monitor, but if you're producing video to be viewed on television, you should preview your video output on an NTSC monitor as you edit. A real studio monitor is best, but even a consumer TV will give a much more accurate idea of how your program looks and sounds. Connect the NTSC or PAL monitor to your video deck or camcorder using the component, S-video, or composite output jacks. External speakers: Monitoring audio output from your video camcorder or deck with external speakers provides higher-quality audio output.
Tip | If you plan to use an external NTSC or PAL monitor as you edit, connect your external speakers to monitor the audio output of your camcorder or deck, so that the audio from the external speakers will be synchronized with the video displayed on the video monitor. You need to do this because audio from your computer's built-in audio outputs will be slightly out of sync with the NTSC or PAL monitor.
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HDV: HD for the Masses
FCE's big sister Final Cut Pro has been able to handle even uncompressed HD formats for years, but the cost of HD cameras, additional hardware and storage requirements has limited the number of users able to take advantage of this power. Now JVC and Sony have started to offer HDV cameras with retail prices under $5000. These inexpensive cameras make entry-level HD video available to those thousands of us with more limited means. With Final Cut Express HD and iMovie HD, Apple joins Sony and JVC in a serious campaign to bring HD to the Mac and the masses by offering entry-level video editing software that can handle HD without additional hardware. Final Cut Express HD (and even the latest edition of iMovie) can now capture HDV via FireWire, edit using Apple's new Apple Intermediate Codec format, and then output via FireWireall without an additional hardware card. To celebrate their latest achievement, Apple rechristened Final Cut Express 3 "Final Cut Express HD." HD capture without a hardware card? What's the catch? Here's the scoop: HD is the first video standard that's digital all the way from acquisition through final playback. Now video developers are freed from the constraints of analog video broadcast standardsand new HD formats are popping up faster than Las Vegas suburbs. High definition video is a growing family of formats with a wide variety of frame sizes and frame rates ranging from ultra-compressed HDV 720p (1280 x 720-pixel frame size and a data rate of 19 Mb/s) to uncompressed 10-bit 1080i60 (1920 x 1080-pixel frame size and a data rate of 932 Mb/s). HDV uses MPEG-2, a compression algorithm that reduces the size of the HDV datastream by reducing the number of frames that contain complete picture information. One of these complete frames (called I-frames) is followed by a sequence of reduced-image-data frames (called B-frames and P-frames). HDV operates at data rates ranging from 19Mb/s to 25 Mb/sthat's a data rate that FireWire can handle. As you capture, FCE converts the HDV footage to Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) format. AIC generates complete image and audio information for each framethat's a frame rate that FCE can handle. For more information, see Apple's New Features in Final Cut Express HD PDF. |
Storage Strategy for Final Cut Express
Digital video files are bigreally, really big. In the Olde Days (five years ago), big hard drives were an expensive proposition; these days, $300 will get you a reliable 120-GB FireWire drive that will store 8 hours of DV. If you're going to edit anything substantial at all, consider additional hard drive storage for your system. Here are some overall considerations when selecting a storage option: Any storage system you select must be fast enough to keep up with required data transfer rates (some experts recommend a minimum transfer rate of 7 or 8 MB per second). Many storage formats do meet the speed requirement, but as you weigh your speed/capacity/price trade-offs, don't shortchange yourself in the speed department. Hard disk storage is available in a variety of formats, and the number of formats is always growing. Rather than present a variety of specific hard disk options, here's a set of strategic questions to help steer you to the storage option that's best for you. How much space do I need? DV requires 3.6 MB of storage space per second of program material. That's 216 MB of space per minute of DV. Or 1 GB of space per 5 minutes of DV. When calculating your storage needs, remember that a good rule of thumb is to add the final program lengths of the total number of projects you want to keep online and then multiply by four to accommodate any render files, undos, scratch copies, and test exports you may generate while editing. Be more generous if you want to capture much more footage than you ultimately use. Do I need a dedicated drive just for media storage? A dedicated drive for storing your media will improve the performance of your system because it contains no operating system software, other applications, or other files that can fragment the disk. Fragmentation can interfere with the continuous data flow of video and audio to and from the disk. Here's another reason to keep your media files and program files on separate drives: your media drive, because it works harder, is more likely to crash than your program drive. In the event of a media drive crash, you may lose your media files, but you won't lose your edit data, which should make it easier to recover from the crash. A dedicated drive or drives for media storage is almost always a great investment. Should I go with internal or external storage? What kind of workflow do you anticipate? Whether to invest in internal drives (which could be less expensive) or external drives (which allow you to switch between projects quickly by swapping out drives on your workstation, or to move a project and its media from one workstation to another quickly) depends on your individual needs. |
Connecting a DV camcorder
Connecting a DV camcorder or deck to your computer couldn't be simpler. All you need is a single FireWire cable, which transmits device control data, timecode, video, and audio between the DV device and your Mac. To connect a DV device to your computer with FireWire:
1. | Start with a 6-pin to 4-pin FireWire cable (Figure 2.3 ). Plug the 6-pin connector into the 6-pin Apple FireWire port (Figure 2.4 ) and the 4-pin connector into your video device's DV port. (FireWire ports on external devices are sometimes labeled IEEE 1394, DV IN/OUT, or iLink.) Both connectors snap into place when properly engaged.
Figure 2.3. A 6-pin to 4-pin FireWire cable. The 6-pin (big) end goes into your Mac's FireWire port; plug the 4-pin (small) end into your DV camcorder.
Figure 2.4. The FireWire logo identifies the FireWire ports on the back of your computer.
| 2. | Turn on the DV camcorder or deck. | 3. | Switch the DV device to VCR mode (sometimes labeled VTR). |
FireWire Cables: Handle with Care
Before you hook up your FireWire connectors, take a careful look at the connector ends (the 4-pin connector is the smaller end). The connectors are easy to hook up, but the 4-pin connectors and ports can be especially fragile. Before connecting a 4-pin connector to its corresponding port, be sure to align it properly by matching an indent on the connector to the indent in the port. Do not force the two together. The 6-pin connector (the larger end) plugs into one of the FireWire ports on the back of your Mac. Don't try to force the 4-pin connector into the computer's 6-pin FireWire port. |
New in FCE HD: Monitor Full-Screen Video on a Computer Display
Chapter 5, "Capturing Video." |
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