OT: Urgent advice needed

Tom Pauncz wrote on 4/22/2006, 2:44 PM

I have a friend who is very much PC challenged, as am I when it comes to a Mac. He edits with FCP. I need him to provide a file (a finished half-hour movie) on a DVD-ROM that I can read on a PC, so I can author it to DVD with DVDA. The last attempt of giving me a file didn't work.

Does anyone here know what my friend needs to set on the Mac in order to write a PC compatible file to a DVD-ROM.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Tom

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 4/22/2006, 2:52 PM

A DV .mov file would probably be the best option, unless he can render to DV .avi which would be a little bit better for you.

A standard 4.7GB DVD-ROM can only hold about 21 minutes' worth of DV, so he'll have to split it into two files.

Tom Pauncz wrote on 4/22/2006, 2:53 PM

Hey Kelly,
Got a few minutes to Skype??
Tom

rs170a wrote on 4/22/2006, 4:12 PM

Why not just do a print to tape? No playing around with codecs and you're guaranteed that you'll be able to import it.

Mike

Tom Pauncz wrote on 4/22/2006, 7:34 PM

Thanks Mike. Unfortunately the guy with FCP cannot successfully print to tape - some kind of equipment malfunction. It prints to tape for a while, then FCP stops - about halfway into the 30min film.

As I am not a Mac expert I can't help with that.

Oh well.. I am trying some other way to get this film into Vegas to encode for DVDA. Needs to go on a film festival compilation DVD and we're running out of time - showtime is next Wednesday. Don't ask...:-)

Tom

Jeff_Smith wrote on 4/22/2006, 8:34 PM

If money was no object he could put it on an external hardrive and fedex it to you.

Tom Pauncz wrote on 4/22/2006, 10:16 PM

Jeff,
The guy's local. I can drive to his place. How would a HDD differ from just putting the file on a DVD-ROM?

Would a file written to a HDD on a Mac still have the same issue as a file on a DVD-ROM???? Is a file not a file?

Tom

jrazz wrote on 4/22/2006, 10:21 PM

Read this for more on the subject of Mac to PC transfers. I hope it helps ot shed some light on the issue. I placed a link in that thread to a 3rd party app that will allow the Mac to be seen via networking. There are some other tips there as well.

j razz

Jeff_Smith wrote on 4/23/2006, 9:05 AM

Tom,

I miss read your post. Did you get any answers? Seems Kelly's advice is best assuming you can save to a DV .avi. I found this link http://www.uemedia.net/CPC/2-pop/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=106628&Main=106188

I was working on a project where the Mac was authoring using some of my video, opposite of your situation.

Tom Pauncz wrote on 4/23/2006, 9:28 AM

Jeff (and others who have offered suggestions),

The issue I am faced with is not what kind of video file I need, but a matter of reading a file, any file be it .mov, .avi, written to DVD-ROM as a file (due to size) and being able to read that file on a PC.

Since Vegas can handle .mov files just fine, if I was able to read the DVD-ROM data on the PC, I could bring that file into Vegas ...

I have read j razz's and Bjorn's pointers and I think if all else fails, I will try those suggestions if I don't run out of time.

Thanks all again ...I didn't think this platform compatibility would be such a major PITA.

Tom

mountainman wrote on 4/23/2006, 9:51 AM

Tom, can your friend render the first half to tape, then the second half. If so then you can edit them back together in vegas and proceed from there. JM

Tom Pauncz wrote on 4/23/2006, 11:21 AM

JM,
It's probably worth a shot... I'll suggest it...tks
Tom

Chienworks wrote on 4/23/2006, 11:28 AM

While we're talking about splitting, i should amend my suggestion. Both Windows and Macs should interchangably read the ISO 9660 file system usually used when writing data discs. However this format is limited to 2GB per file. This is about 9 minutes of DV. Actually i would split it into 6.5 minute sections as three of these will fit nicely on a single DVD, just about filling it completely.

Tom Pauncz wrote on 4/24/2006, 1:28 PM

Thank you so much for all the responses. Obviously a lot of different ways of solving the platform compatibility issues.

Due to the short runway, my friend decided to cut his losses, went to a dub house and had the Mac file transferred to a miniDV which I succesfully captured via Vegas' vidcap.

A bit of background info - this piece was one part of a DVD compilation (authored using DVDA 3.0 and really pushing the 4.7GB limit of a single layer DVD) that is the screening medium for an upcoming short film festival, being held in Toronto on Wednesday evening.

DVD successfully delivered to the organizers and everyone can now breathe a quiet sigh of relief.

Tom

Grazie wrote on 4/24/2006, 2:54 PM

Good! . . phew . . g