Fianl Cut Pro 3.0: Commercial vs. Academic Versions?

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Was the Academic Version lamed by Apple when offered at academic discounted pricing or is it just a stickered, discounted version of the full version with a non-commercial use license downgrade?

While on the topic, I snagged Final Cut Studio 2 Upgrade + Final Cut Pro 2 Full Serial = FCS2 Full Retail with the misguided expectation that "full version" would include the manuals for Final Cut Pro 2. No problem really, I got the Application CDs with keys to the realm and a possible "Killer App" that might finally entice me into making the jump from my OS9 Graphics bubble and into OSX on a Cheese Grater at some point.

Related questions:

Should I bother to start my learning curve at FCP2.0 or just skip up to FCP3.0?

Platform choice would be QS'02/1GHz/DP or MDD'03/1.25GHz single proc OS9 special edition.

Which machine would run which FCP release version with better performance under 9.2.2?

Wondering about dual proc. support obviously, otherwise there's be no question. [] ]'>

edit: http://www.ebay.com/itm/122755096112

 

[Unknown_K]

You need the versions for OS 9 then? I purchased FCS 5.1 with the big bulky manuals and called it a day (for OSX).

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Yep, I live in an OS9 bubble with only dedicated, quarantined Firefox workstations and Zip disk sneakernet exposure to the rampant evils of the WWW. Think Gene Hackman's Faraday caged computer lab in Enemy of the State. h34r:

 

[Unknown_K]

I don't think there is any difference between retail and academic versions except for upgrades (academic serials can't be upgraded to the next version).

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Got it for $30 yay! Not too worried about the academic serial number. I'll be using the commercial key from the FCP2/Studio2 bundle if it will work with the installer. Otherwise that combo will work if and when using FCP3 may lead me down the Cheese Grater/X/Studio hole

edit: still wondering which machine to set up for better FCP3 performance under 9.2.2?

QS'02/1GHz/DP

MDD'03/1.25GHz single processor (OS9 special edition)

Are dual processors even supported under OS9 by Final Cut Pro?

 

[Cory5412]

I have used the academic versions of Final Cut, they are no different, functionally.

Final Cut 3 (and IIRC 2) support dual processors, but not for everything, so it may or may not make any difference.

What type of video will you be working with? DV? HDV? Something form a modern phone/webcam or other modern camera? The newer your source material, the newer you'll want your copy of Final Cut to be. As it stands, Final Cut 6 is old that no video I can get from anywhere plays natively on it, and I never quite figured out the right combination of settings to not have to render everything.

I used Final Cut Pro 3 on my blue-and-white G3@450 and on my TiBook@1000 and the actual act of cutting never felt difference. One of them probably did renders faster, but I took care to make sure I was using footage that complied with the timeline I was using. It would be worth testing both machines, FCP3 doesn't, to my knowledge, do any kind of verification. The duallie will work better if you ultimately decide you want to use FCS2 in OSX, which should work on that machine, but FCS2 will be better on some kind of G5 or (more realistically) an early Intel Mac.(1) It's worth noting that even Final Cut Pro 7 in Final Cut Studio 3 is a 32-bit application, so it's not super worthwhile to spend money and time on FCS3 and, say, a decked out early Mac Pro (with like 32 gigs of RAM) unless you explicitly plan on running a bunch of applications at once.

Classic Final Cut (2 through 7, at least, where FCS1 = FCP5, FCS2 = FCP6, and FCS3 = FCP7) are all nearly identical in terms of basic workflow. You can learn on any of them and take those skills forward and backward. Most of the updates Final Cut got were to add functionality, add support for capturing new video formats (although with a performance impact you can basically put anything you want on the timeline), and stuff like that.

(1) I'm getting ready to abandon my own use of FCS2 because I'm going to upgrade my Mac mini to High Sierra, where purportedly all old versions of Final Cut and the attendant apps flat-out stop working. We will see whether that's true.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I've got home video on VHS to edit downn and cut together. Still need to get an SVHS deck for digitizing that to best advantage over SVideo. If I want to cut some movie clips from DVD I'll have to do something like analog capture to get around the copy protection crap, right? We've got a family reunion coming up next year and cutting sound bite/video gags from movies together with family photographs and the various home movie clips I've been pulling out of the woodwork should be a hoot.

FCS2 may never happen if FCP3 is good enough for that kinda crap. Specs I read made it sound like a late G5 or early Intel Mac Pro was the minimum config, so I'm right there with you on that. Prices gotta hit rock bottom on craigslist before I'll be ready to make that kind of jump.

 

[Cory5412]

FCS2 will run on a G4, if you're working with SD video and you're using a DV converter to do the import, then it'll be pretty okay.

Using something else to do the conversion then importing and cutting with Final Cut could cause more problems than it's worth.

One possibility to look out for is that Panasonic or JVC built a dual deck that had both MiniDV and S-VHS, so if that's what all your things are on, that deck might be worth looking for.

For movie clips, I don't know if analogue to DV converters are built with copy protection in mind, so that might work, but you might also be able to find the clips you want on youtube and use a program like 4k video downloader on a modern system to download them. The format will be "wrong" for final cut but you'll be able to either convert it or just render those clips.

For standard definition work, final cut pro 3 will be sufficient. I used to do DV editing on my blue-and-white G3 running OS 9.2.2 with final cut pro 3 and it was fine.

 

[Cory5412]

One thought: The book that I picked up on a whim that actually made me understand video editing was the For Dummies book on either Final Cut Pro 2 or 3. As I mentioned, interface is very very similar from 2 all the way up to 7, so the training materials for them cross over pretty well. (If you don't know a lot of video editing or just want a good third party reference on the mechanics of Final Cut specifically, if the included manual doesn't get you what you need.)

 

[Unknown_K]

I use whatever the capture cards will allow. Matrox RTMAC will do FCP 2 natively from what I remember (did you have that setup?).

Currently messing with a Bluefish 444 HD Fury and I need Premiere Pro 2 for that depending on the OS.

A SVHS VCR will give you a better signal then a VHS VCR but you won't get better resolution from something recorded in VHS. Pro model SVHS decks also have ref signal in (if your capture hardware has that also) and the option of remote RS422 control.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

A SVHS VCR will give you a better signal then a VHS VCR but you won't get better resolution from something recorded in VHS.

Better signal to noise ratio over the S-Video cable was what I was expecting. Will the difference be noticeable/worth the bother of buying an SVHS deck?

 

[Unknown_K]

Pro decks are built like tanks, have reference signal in so you can sync sound to video perfectly, allow for remote control via software (or a cool remote jog shuttle with other buttons), and better tracking etc. I have a nice JVC SVHS (forget the model) to feed all my capture cards.

 

[Cory5412]

If you have SVHS tapes, it's worth getting an SVHS deck. If you do not have SVHS tapes, then it probably won't help a lot, because the weak point will be the signal stored on the tape, although it also won't specifically hurt.

If you're using DV conversion, serial control probably isn't particularly important, the main reason that was important in the early days, certainly on a system like the 840 running premiere, was that your system memory would fill with a few seconds of video, and you'd have to rewind and restart to continue capturing. Premiere 3 or 4 (I forget which version I have) has a tool that will do this for you.

One possibility is to dub tapes onto something like digi8 or minidv or even a larger dvcam deck and then capture to the computer form that, it depends on how you want the workflow to go.

For what it's worth, if your source is VHS/SVHS/v8/hi8/betamax then I don't think you're going to get a lot of benefit out of anything more heavy duty than something like this, at least in terms of quality. 

This is the SVHS/miniDV deck I was talking about. I used one a few years ago on a pretty regular basis and I don't remember it specifically being bad or good. If you're just going to show off your movie on a standard-def TV, you could also use this to write out your DV tape or to an SVHS tape and plug this deck into the TV you'll play it on.

The other thing to look at may be MiniDV/DV/Digi8 camcorders, many of which have video input functionality. From there you can use the camcorder to bridge between a VHS or SVHS deck and Final Cut on your Mac.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Great links, THX, C! The JVC Deck looks like overkill for my purposes as I only have VHS tapes to transfer.

I've got the portable Panasonic Omnivision PV-6000 VHS Deck that in the gear bag with a Newvicon Omnipro PK-957 Color VidCam setup I thrifted for $15 ten or twelve years ago. It looks like a more consumer oriented, two year earlier version of the much more capable C-Mount equipped pro-sumer Omnipro that went down the storage room whirlpool, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's the about the same quality deck bundled with a much less expensive (time shift corrected, mine might have cost less two years later in the upgrade cycle) VidCam.

Ergo: would a portable CamCorder Deck be of a higherr quality than a consumer grade VHS deck? Never had one, I recorded everything on a 50' Panasonic PSU/Cable extension on our first VCR. Might I have all I need for transferring those tapes in this (yet to be tested : ) portable VidCam deck?

Price seems right for this one, not familiar with DV or LANC as I stopped movie making about the time the rug rat hit high school?

 

[Cory5412]

It would be worth testing that video camera. Many people prefer using regular VCRs or tabletop playback decks for editing so they don't wear out the mechanism in their camcorder, but I don't know how real a problem that ever ended up being.

LANC was a common Sony control interconnect, they've been using it since the mid '90s at least, perhaps earlier. You don't need to worry much about it.

DV is the firewire port. What you would do with this device is plug your camcorder on the "In" analog ports and then use a 4-pin to 6-pin (or 9 pin) firewire cable to connect this box to your computer. There's a button on the front that flips this device to input mode and then the video from the analog inputs should show up in a DV program's capture window.

One thing you used to be able to do with DV tapes (and perhaps with LANC or any other format with timecode and serial control) is mark in/out points in final cut's capture window and capture separate clips, but the workflow I always used was to capture a whole tape or a whole relevant section of whatever I was working with and then split it into clips on the timeline later. Both methods work fine, the biggest gotcha is that you may itnerconnect with systems that have file size limits. (An hour of DV footage is about 13 gigs.)

 

[CC_333]

What is that box? I know it's Sony and it has a bunch of ins and outs, but does it have a model number or name or something?

EDIT: Never mind. Figured it out!!

EDIT #2: Is this thing program and platform agnostic, so I can, say, use it on any version of Premiere or FCP I want, on any Intel or PPC Mac? And can I use it to capture an analog signal from, say, a LaserDisc player without using the LANC?

c

 

[Cory5412]

You do not need to use LANC. LANC merely exists as a convenience if you're using it with Sony cameras and decks that support it, but it's completely optional. This box (and others like it) gets put into a mode and transmits a continuous stream.

It is agnostic in that any program that can capture or output DV on any computer with firewire can use it.

iMovie would be a good program to use for simple captures, and iMovie (early versions, at least) produces files that easily place on Final Cut timelines.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Thanks again for the links. Just snagged that Sony box and found a nice 6-way rack mount Audio-VGA Splitter to grab while I was at it!

The SVHS deck went for over a hundred bucks, I'll give the Portable Deck for the CamCorder a test drive. I'd think it would be a bit higher quality than a run of the mill consumer grade VCR. That's why I never bought one, just the camera. Those decks were PRICY and it likely wasn't just the portability aspects as they were meant for very expensive cameras in that time frame. I remember seeing my VidCam in us by professionals covering weddings etc.

 

[CC_333]

You do not need to use LANC. LANC merely exists as a convenience if you're using it with Sony cameras and decks that support it, but it's completely optional. This box (and others like it) gets put into a mode and transmits a continuous stream.

I see, That corroborates some brief research I did after I posted here.

It is agnostic in that any program that can capture or output DV on any computer with firewire can use it.

iMovie would be a good program to use for simple captures, and iMovie (early versions, at least) produces files that easily place on Final Cut timelines.

That's exactly what I was hoping for! It'd probably be less cumbersome than my RTMAC, and I can take advantage of my 12-core Mac Pro, which would be ideal for the task (digitizing some LaserDiscs and VHS tapes).

c