By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (MovieEditor.com) 2012/2/2 -As with counting money or telling time, graphics uses measurements that often need to be analyzed or converted into another form. Let’s cover the essential basics of graphics measurements.

First, keep in mind that k means thousands, M means millions and G means billions. Think of it this way, 1,000,000,ooo byes = 1,000,000k = 1,000M = 1G. As when counting money, how many zeros is the most important part. And while it doesn’t typically matter, it’s worth noting that 1 k isn’t exactly 1,000, rather it’s 1,024.

Computer image sizes are measured three ways. In pixels (as width and height), or as a file size (in bytes), or as DPI. It’s quicker to look up file sizes, but when precision matters you need to know pixels. DPI is a relative measure similar to a car’s MPG. DPI tells you how “good” an image is, but as with a car, not how soon you’ll run out of gas.

Print images are often referred to as DPI (dots per inch), with 300 dpi being common. To convert DPI to pixels you multiply by the number of inches when printed. For example, a 300 DPI image printed 2 inches wide is 600 pixels, but if 4 inches wide that same image needs to be 1,200 pixels. Confusingly, the same image file can be said to have any DPI you like, depending upon how big you intend to print it. Speaking generally, if it’s 80 DPI it’s a web image. 300 DPI for newspaper. 1,200 DPI for a poster.

The number we care most about for computer images is pixels, how big the image will be on the screen. For the web we often want images that are 300 pixels wide. An image that size will typically be 50k to 500k in file size. Because images are compressed, image size and file size only track loosely. If you have a 300 DPI image or a 2.5M file or a 1k wide image, that’s too big for the web. You would open it in an image editor and resize it to be 300 pixels wide. A high definition image for film or HDTV is 2k, that is, about 2,000 pixels wide.

Read the above until all this makes sense. You can’t do graphics properly without understanding the basics above. It would be like trying to travel from Los Angeles to London without knowing how to count money or convert to pounds.

By Robin Rowe

First step toward FFMBC is getting Xcode

HOLLYWOOD, CA (MovieEditor.com) 2012/1/26 – If you have MTS or M2T files, that is, raw HDV, you can’t use them in Final Cut without converting them first to something Final Cut understands like Apple ProRes or XDCAM 50. Many editors are familiar with FFMPEG, a popular command-line transcoder. FFMBC is a version of FFMPEG that came out of the lab at the BBC. It’s designed for Linux, so it takes some extra effort to build it on Mac OS X.

About Mac OS X Lion… Before we jump into it, a couple user tips for those who are new to this OS. The Expose system is totally different from prior OS X versions. Use [Ctr][UpArrow] or [Ctrl][DownArrow] to access that.The [Fx] keys are gone. Another surprise, the mouse wheel scrolls the opposite direction from prior versions. These annoying changes are considered improvements by Apple, increases compatibility with iPhone devices.

1. Download and install Xcode from the Apple App Store. While this is free, it requires registering with a valid credit card at the App Store, something I found very difficult. It said my credit card had an invalid code. My PayPal account worked no problem. In the past, logging in as an Apple Developer (free) was sufficient. Took me a lot longer the new way using the App Store app. When it finally did start downloading, App Store gave no indication at all what’s happening. You have to poke around to bring up the downloads window to see the progress bar. Be ready to take a break while you wait. The download is 2GB.
2. Install Xcode. Once the download completes you’ll find this under Applications in Finder. Xcode launched on installation, but I can’t find it anywhere in Applications. Where is it? I don’t care. We only need Xcode to get the command-line tools like gcc.
3. Download FFMBC.
4. Open a Terminal and configure FFMBC with this magic from the Debian Linux build instructions: ./configure –enable-gpl –enable-nonfree –enable-shared –enable-postproc –enable-runtime-cpudetect –enable-frei0r –enable-libfaac –enable-libmp3lame –enable-libvpx –enable-libx264 –enable-pthreads –enable-libxvid –enable-zlib
5. Configue will fail with error messages for missing libraries. Download and install: yasm, frei0r, faac, lame, libvpx, x264, xvidcore. When you get an error message you don’t understand, use ‘tail config.log’ to get more info.
6. Installing x264 takes an extra whack… sudo make install-lib-dev sudo make install-lib-shared sudo make install-lib-static
7. Building xvidcore is from a non-standard location…
   ./xvidcore/build/generic
8. When you have the libraries built and installed, build and install FFMBC. You can use ‘ffmbc -format’ and ‘ffmbc -codecs’ to see what’s enabled. Depending on your needs, you may have other libraries to fetch and build to get the formats you use.

-rw-r--r--@ 1 rower  staff   4.3M Jan 13 12:00 FFmbc-0.7-rc5.tar.bz2
-rw-r--r--@ 1 rower  staff   519K Feb 10  2009 faac-1.28.tar.bz2
-rw-r--r--@ 1 rower  staff   5.8M Jan 26 09:05 lame-3.99.4.tar
-rw-r--r--@ 1 rower  staff   535K Jan 26 09:38 last_x264.tar.bz2
-rw-r--r--@ 1 rower  staff   1.2M Aug 15 14:13 libvpx-v0.9.7-p1.tar.bz2
-rw-r--r--@ 1 rower  staff   681K May 25  2011 xvidcore-1.3.2.tar.bz2
-rw-r--r--@ 1 rower  staff   9.4M Jan 26 08:47 yasm-1.2.0.tar

Using FFMBC

You need a magic recipe…

1. Converting to MJPEG
   ffmbc -i $1 -vcodec mjpeg -b 100M -s 640×360 -acodec pcm_s16be mjpeg.mov
   cat *.m2t |ffmbc -i – -vcodec mjpeg -b 100M -s 640×360 -acodec pcm_s16be mjpeg.mov
2. The How-To
3. XDCAM Encoding (didn’t work for me)
4. Video Conversion with FFMPEG
5. HowTo FFMPEG

Shell Script

#ffmbc -i $1 -vcodec dnxhd -b 185M -acodec pcm_s16be dnxhd.mov#cat *.m2t |ffmbc -i – -vcodec mjpeg -b 100M -s 640×360 -acodec pcm_s16be mjpeg.mov

NAME=${PWD##*/}
cat *.m2t |ffmbc -i – -vcodec mjpeg -b 100M -s 640×360 -an ${NAME}.mov
cat *.m2t |ffmbc -i – -acodec copy ${NAME}.wav

Errors

1. “error, audio timestamps difference is too big, cannot compensate a/v sync”
   Message when trying to convert gifts ep202-1 m2t to mjpeg . Workaround is to use -acodec copy file.wav to copy as mp2 stream in separate file with -ar on video file.

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (MovieEditor.com) 11/7/2011 – Creating your own iTunes podcasts may seem hard when you read the Apple iTunes directions, but it’s easier than it seems.

First, create an MP3 of your podcast. There are many hosting services for podcasts that will automate everything. However, we want to host from our own server because we’ve already got the bandwidth. Upload your podcasts to a convenient location, such as www.YOURWEBSERVER.com/podcast/. Next, the slightly tricky bit…

Creating Your iTunes RSS Feed

Use the Redevelopments Podcast XML Creator,. Enter the information for your podcast in the form then copy the XML code created into a text editor. Upload your XML file to your website at  www.YOURWEBSITE.com/podcast/FILENAME.xml. You can view a sample XML file that was created with the podcast XML creator. You can even link to it in iTunes to test it.

Making Your Podcast Official on iTunes

1. Launch iTunes.
2. In the left navigation column, click on iTunes Store to open the store.
3. Once the store loads, click on Podcasts along the top navigation bar to go to the Podcasts page.
4. In the right column of the Podcasts page, click on the Submit a Podcast link.
5. Follow the instructions on the Submit a Podcast page.

To get your Podcast published to a wider audience there’s the free Podcast submission service at www.podcastalley.com.

More on Redevelopments How to Podcast and Podbean Podcast in iTunes.

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (MovieEditor.com) 11/5/2011 – Final Cut has issues capturing HDV tapes. Sometimes it cuts up your video into a series of little files instead of capturing the whole tape as one as we want. What seems to happen is Final Cut drops out when it encounters timecode breaks and some tapes that seem otherwise fine cause Final Cut capture to miscue. If you have a Linux box with a Firewire port, that can be a better way.

We’re using Puppy  Linux as our distro. That uses it’s own package manager GUI with the standard Debian repository. In the Puppy Package Manager, select {Configure Package Manager} and add the Debian Main repository. When you do that it will seem like nothing happened, but if you close and re-open the Package Manager you’ll see the Debian repository listed as a search choice. (Ignore the warning that you may need to edit system files manually to add a repository.) You may also add the Debian Multiverse and Universe repositories if you think you need them, but you probably don’t.

Installing dvgrab and dvcont and ls1394

Dvgrab is a command lne program that captures HDV from tape. In the Package Manager a search for  dvgrab recommends the dvgrab_3.5-1 package. Install that and say yes to installing all its dependencies of which there will be many with 1394 in the name.

Dvcont is the command line program that controls the tape transport so we can rewind the tape deck or camcorder. A search for that finds nothing. So, we’ll search in the Debian package repository online at packages.debian.org. That reveals dvcont is buried in libavc1394-dev. Now that we know what its package is called, we go back to the Puppy Package Manager and install that.

We’d also like to have the ls1394 bash script. Download that, rename as ls1394 and chmod 755.

# cp ls1394_v20070103 /usr/bin/ls1394
# chmod 755 /usr/bin/ls1394

Using ls1394, dvgrab and dvcont

$ ls1394
0:ffc0 0000850001a2498c ‘VIXIA HV30′
0:ffc1 08004603011534d3 (local)

$ dvcont rewind

$ dvgrab -f hdv filename

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (MovieEditor.com) 10/24/2011 – A quick way to edit a podcast is to drag the tracks into a Final Cut project. Here’s how.

1. Create a Final Cut project. The picture type doesn’t matter. Pick HDV.
2. Convert tracks to aif format if not already. Do not import wav or mp3 tracks. You may see odd intermittent errors, such as not being able to render waveforms in timeline. Use Quicktime Pro or FFMPEG to convert.
3. Arrange the tracks in order of how busy each one is. Have the show host be the first track. Guest is track two. Music at the bottom.
4. Set overall levels. You can set overall levels easily now. Not easy later after tracks are cut up. You can only add 6db in Final Cut. If you need more amplitude it’s better to bump it up in Audacity than to use the trick of wrapping it in a Final Cut sequence and bumping it twice in Final Cut by embedding a sequence in a sequence, although that trick can work in a pinch.
5. Use the razor tool in Final Cut to chop up the tracks. If the tracks are exported from Pro Tools then all the levels are gone and will need to be adjusted. Any place a track would be clipped, razor it out. We could do this all with levels and the pen tool in Final Cut, but that takes do long. Do adjust the overall level by dragging the audio line in the timeline if a clip needs it.
6. Export the sequence to aif 16-bit.
7. Open aif in Audacity. Fix any thumps you see in the waveform and make any final adjustments to amplitude.
8. Export as mp3. Put podcasts in separate podcast folder to signal that it’s completed. You’ll need to have the lame mp3 plug-in installed to do this. If you login as a different user on the Mac then Audacity will have to be told again where you’ve placed the lame plug-in.
9. Use CyberDuck to sftp the mp3 to the server.
10. You can also upload to Podbean.

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (MovieEditor.com) 10/24/2011 – If your Linux box freezes with a lot of tabs open in your web browser, a swap file may help. It used to be you had to dedicate a partition to swap, but now you can create a swap file. We’ll create an empty swap file, format it, activate it and add it to fstab so it will be activated automatically upon system boot.

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=2048000
# mkswap /swapfile
# swapon /swapfile
# vi /etc/fstab
Append this line to fstab:

/swapfile swap swap defaults 0 0

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (MovieEditor.com) 10/4/2011 – Keeping your Apple G5 Power PC going takes a little extra effort as new software becomes available that only runs on newer Intel-based Macs. Final Cut has cut you off at version 6, so forget upgrading to version 7 or to Final Cut X.

Useful software for Apple Power PC

• Flip4Mac4Mac plays WIndows Media files in Quicktime. version 2.2.1.11
• Opera Web browser, faster and lighter than Firefox.  We care because Safari seems dated and Firefox crawls to a stop on a Google search as it hangs on Google’s dynamic page reload script. version 10.63
• Bean word processor
• Cyberduck ftp client
• MPEG Streamclip
• Skype
• Audacity
• NeoOffice, which is based on LibreOffice or OpenOffice but has enhancements to be faster on Mac OS X

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (MovieEditor.com) 10/2/2011 – FFMPEG is command line tool that converts between various video formats such as MPEG, DV and Quicktime. We could do many of these tasks in QuickTime Pro software, but being able to do batch conversions is often more convenient. FFMPEG and QuickTime Pro don’t support all the same file formats. Sometimes FFMPEG is the better way forward.

1. Download and install XCode from Apple so you have the compiler and other build tools you need
2. Download FFMPEG http://ffmpeg.org/download.html

Adding a Linux SAMBA printer to Mac OS X using your browser

Set up your Linux box as a Windows share and make OS X see it

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (MovieEditor) 9/20/2011 – It can be tricky getting Mac OS X to see your Linux SAMBA printers and file shares. One obstacle  is the OS X System Preferences widget can be finicky, may not even show you the SAMBA printer you want. We had that with one of the Macs in our office. The others showed the printer, but our PowerPC G5 stubbornly refused to do so.

The fix is surprisingly quick and easy. Use the Mac’s SAMBA Web interface instead of System Preferences.

Point your Mac’s web browser to http://127.0.0.1:631/.  Under Administration, choose Add Printer. You’ll need to login using your name and password. Next give your printer a user-friendly Name and optional Location and Description. Choose Windows via SAMBA as the protocol. Next you need to give the network name of your printer. If you already know it because you wrote it down when you installed your printer on Linux, great. If not, here’s how you find out the name.

Open a terminal window on your Mac and enter:

$ smbtree

That will list all SAMBA resources on your network. The name of our printer is //puppy528/OKI_DATA_CORP_B431. If smbtree doesn’t display your printer, you can try to get it to list this way:

$ smbclient -L //puppy528

That didn’t work either. However, running smbtree or smbclient from another machine or from our Linux SAMBA server gave us the info we needed. It was just this one Mac that wasn’t displaying Cups SAMBA printers. Go figure.

Note that smbclient will always ask for a password, even though it doesn’t need one to list services. Just press enter. On Linux machines you can use the -N switch to suppress this, but our PowerPC Mac didn’t understand -N.

Back to our printer setup, just one more task. Pick the right driver. Our OKI printer is HP Laserjet PCL6 compatible. Because the Mac comes with the open source Gutenprint drivers, there are a lot of drivers to choose from.

To print the SAMBA test  page on a Mac in the Web interface, go to Printers, Print Test Page. Or, print from the terminal:

$ lp /usr/share/cups/data/testprint.ps

Opera annoyance that a simple ini change fixes

Quick fix for an annoying Opera web browser bug

 

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CA (MovieEditor.com) 9/12/2011 – Opera seems to us a better choice than Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Safari. IE seems so wrong and Safari seems dated on the Mac and awkward on Windows. Firefox is the software most turn to who feel the same way, but it has problems.

Firefox is not happy on Windows if you keep open fifty or a hundred tabs. It eats memory like crazy. On a daily basis Firefox was crashing or causing our systems to come to a halt for a minute or so while it seems to be doing some sort of memory purge (swap file?). Firefox seems to be able to also crash Thunderbird and Flash. So, we turn to Opera.

Opera hasn’t had the annoying crashes and hangs, but it did show a quirk on one of our Windows machines. On our Windows 7 64-bit HP Z600 workstation, Opera  11.50 won’t open links from mail or when double-clicking an HTML file. Instead, it displays a dialog that says “Another user is running this copy of Opera”. There’s a simple fix for this:

1. Exit Opera
2. Check it’s really not running, that opera.exe isn’t in the Task Manager’s process list
3. Find your operaprefs.ini file (AppData/roaming/opera/opera) and open it with Notepad
4. At the end of the [User Prefs] section, add the line: Enable DDE=1

Thanks to Ted at the Webmaster forum for this tip.

11.50