The iMac Flashing Light

After coming back from a business trip, I came home to find that the hard drive had failed on my wife’s computer. It’s an older iMac, first generation Intel. We’ve never had a problem with it. And now that it is 6 months out of Apple Care, the hard drive failed.

After installing a hard drive and tearing through the cosmetic inside of the computer, I put it back together and started it up. It’s important to note that the very first step was taking out of the memory or RAM.

When I turned the computer back on for the first time, it turned on, but the display wouldn’t come on and the white light on the front flashed quickly. You can imagine my panic at 1:30 AM when I realized I would have to disassemble the whole computer again, taking out the tiny screws and putting them back in. Then I had an idea, what about the memory/RAM? I had put it back in, but maybe it wasn’t in all the way.

Compressor Repair: Still Haven’t Heard of It?

Some people still haven’t heard of one of the most useful programs around for the most problem filled application in Final Cut Studio. Compressor Repair will go into your system, do what it does and either fix your QMaster, tell you if you simply need to re-install Compressor, or whatever it is to get your Compressor application working again.

Here is the link to Digital Rebellion’s application:
https://www.digitalrebellion.com/compressor_repair.htm

Compressor is one huge reason I like Final Cut Studio. I am able to track multiple render times and now with Final Cut Studio 3, I can render out a project while editing another. How fantastic is that?

iChat Theater with Final Cut Pro

I upgraded to Final Cut Pro 7 and used the iChat Theater option now available. This is a great feature for us at Post Fifth Pictures because we handle a lot of work from distances. We are in California and Utah, but our work deals with Florida at times or in California while we are in Utah, and vice versa.

I tested the feature out over a wireless network, with only 2 bars on my wi-fi. I played Apple ProRes 422 HQ encoded footage, 23.98 1080p, with no problem at all. It streamed perfectly and looked like it had a great image. I previewed this feature with Cole Webley over at Saint Cloud and on his end the image looked great as well.

The image shown to your client is that of your timeline, the edit monitor. Rewind, fast forward, it moves around wherever your cursor goes. This is one of my two favorite features in the FCP 7 upgrade, background compressing being the other.

HockeyPlayer.com: Brian Engblom

In January of 2009, we flew Brian Engblom, Versus Hockey Studio Analyst and winner of 3 Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadians, to Salt Lake City to be interviewed for our presentation of 50 Hockey Tips.

Brian Engblom is well known in the hockey community for sporting one of the best mullets in the world of hockey. However, Brian cut his hair before the start of the 2008 season. It was a shock to many so we decided to ask Brian about it at the end of his interview.

Stop Ignoring Automator

For a long time I considered Automater as a program that wasn’t intended for normal person usage. In fact whenever I am using it at home, I have to tell my son that it is not in fact some sort of Wall-E application.

Automator is for taking lots of files, using a work flow to change something with those files and then giving you a file you can work with. For example, let’s say you get four days worth of XDCAM files from your producer. They may be on different cards, but messy file names don’t help you differentiate sometimes. Open up Automator and use it to make unique file names to each day.

You do this by;

Saint Cloud Film

One of the affiliates we work with is Saint Cloud Film. Made up of Jared Harris, Cole Webley and Julian Acosta, this group is one of our favorites to work with. They have done a lot of fun, detailed and impressive work. Check out their site at saintcloudfilm.com

One of my favorite spots to watch is directed by Cole Webley. His spot, Kodak “Memories,” was shortlisted at the Young Directors Award at Cannes in 2009.

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