Friday, January 23, 2009

Opening Old Projects in Motion 3 Problems

Symptoms
Projects created in Motion 2.1 or earlier that use filters including position parameters applied to a 2D layer may behave differently when opened in Motion 3. The center point of the effect may no longer remain with the underlying footage, but may move in the opposite direction.

Resolution
To restore the original behavior, follow these steps:

Open the project in Motion 3.
Choose Window > Layers.
Select the 2D layer in the Layers window.
Select the Groups tab in the Inspector.
Select the Fixed Resolution check box.
Save the project.


Yup. Doing this reminds me of Dan Lyons's great quote, "If your just going to repeat press releases, why have the press?"

Mac Mini with 3 GBs of Ram & FCP


Speaking of Ram, yes it is possible to have 3Gigs of Ram in a Late 2007 (Macmini 2,1) Mac Mini. So, if it's true that FCP can only address at maximum, 2.5 Gigs of Ram, then the Mac Mini is a viable editing platform for SD and maybe 2 streams of HD.

Although, multiclip editing would still be problematic unless you transcode I'm guessing.

Quick tip: Hold OPTION while you select the upper-left Apple menu and see "About This Mac" turn into "System Profiler..."

FCP Only Supports 12 Hour Long Clips or Timelines

Symptoms
Final Cut Pro does not support clips or sequences longer than 12 hours. Importing or capturing clips longer than 12 hours will produce the message "File Error: 1 file(s) recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown."


Resolution
Keep individual clip length to less than 12 hours to avoid this issue.


So sayeth Apple.

It's strange that that is the limitation given that some timelapses are far far longer than a mere 12 hours. I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned before. A friend of mine had a 24+ hour clip once and thinking about it I remember him mentioning a limitation like this. I wonder if it has anything to do with FCP only addressing 2.5 Gigs of ram at a time, if that still applies.