I have been making some DVDs with DVD Studio Pro 2 and Final Cut Pro 4. I had noticed that DVDSP was getting slow, and then it crashed as soon as I started using M2V’s from Compressor (MPEG-2 encoded files)
It turns out several issues were happening:
Always encode your audio with A.Pack – Use Final Cut to export your audio to AIFF using grouped channels, set up an A.Pack batch project to encode your audio in it’s proper format (usually stereo) and bring that AC3 file into DVDSP manually.
Always encode your video with closed GOPs. Compressor appears to not close GOPs properly, so set up a new preset, copy the preset you like (say 60min HQ) then change the format from auto to NTSC (or PAL) Now you can select the GOP tab and click “Closed”
Don’t be a dummy like me and assign your video as an asset on every button – Oops, copy and paste can sometimes be a killer – You can set the target, just not the asset – asset is for motion buttons, etc.
Due to the fact that it is clear these jerks were just out to get their name out, I have removed the post about the guys who made the anti-ipod battery video.
They are not out for the consumer, just out for their own limelight. They never posted the info on how to fix the battery or replace it cheaply and they lied to the guy mirroring their movie that they indeed would do as such. So, the mirror of their site is gone from here.
Go buy an iPod today and give these dopes the finger!
So I made a movie in Final Cut Express and went to burn it in iDVD.
Two days later, four kernel panics, 100 failed burns, crashes, etc, iChat getting corrupted and crashing when sounds were played, I have done a Archived Install from the G5 discs, installing jaguar, then upgraded to panther, and now I can burn in iDVD just fine, iChat works, all is happy.
I have not reinstalled the MS MOuse Driver nor Keyspan yet, plus I have not moved in a lot of my library prefs, but the only thing that fixed iDVD was a reinstall from the G5 Jag disc. I tried everything, believe you me.
We have not uploaded the files to the site yet (we need to add a “For OS X button” but when they are there, I’ll post a link.
I’ve been working on this for 2 years, off and on, mostly off, but it is finally shipping. I learned how to port an application originally written for Windows, ported to OS 7, to OS X. Was interesting!
TK3, an electronic book author tool (and much more), runs super fast on OS X, no longer uses 100% of your CPU and supports OS X navigation dialogs and printing.
The one tooth that has always been an issue (and a crown trainee for some time) looks like it took a toll from the braces and as such, I’ll be getting it crowned this December. Wee! At least it will be done with. Man, dentistry is expensive
Him – “Odd, I called mall services and they gave me your number”
After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized that I had called mall services this week to find out when the mall opened, had told them I was going to be there for the Apple opening and haha, they put me down as the mall contact! LOL.
I’m still crackin’ up.
Update: I went back to the mall and talked to the Apple store manager – She asked me to go down to guest services and see if they could remove my name. So I did and they had a big green sticky on the back of the directory that said “Apple” with my phone number. Said sticky is now gone, haha.
So the opening has come and gone. I had a blast! While in line, I met a nice guy from the Eugene Mac group and there were many more babies and small kids than I expected for that time of the morning.
The quote of the morning was “Oh my gosh, look at the line!” and that was only for the first third. Other things overheard:
Dad – “I think these people are here to buy a computer.”
12 year old son – “No dad, they are here to buy that cool mp3 thing!”
Cute woman – “So what are they giving away to you guys?”
Me – “T-Shirts”
Her – “Oh, hmm, uh huh”
Elderly woman to husband – “See that man, he’s surfing the internet wirelessly!”
Elderly man – “Wirelessly?”
Me – “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
The Warden – “Not ever in this mall.”
The Warden – “When will those pictures be online?”
Me – “They were up as of 7:05am”
The Warden – “Oh really?”
*The Warden is the nickname the guy from e-mac gave the guy who was in charge of mall operations, ie he was monitoring the line. We made him get up really early.
Other fun happenings:
The employees running around whoopin’ and a hollerin’.
High-fivin’ the employees as we entered the store (ok this was a bit strange).
Seeing Sweethaven and Mine9 from IRC. (I wish I had gotten to visit with them more!)
The unavoidable grin on guy’s faces as Victoria’s Secrets saleswomen entered the store.
The cool, yet geeky, backpack apple shopping bags
The serious attention Apple drew from the totally packed mall
Me whispering “Apple Store” at people as we walked around the mall. (LOL)
Cheering for the puzzle car cart dude as he opened his cart minutes before the store opening (Hey you sit on your butt for 3 hours, you’d cheer too)
After the Apple Store Grand Opening, I had to move some photos from the laptop to the G5 and I wanted to preserve my comments. So I broke out the trust Caption Buddy, which gave me errors.
After some wasted time, I found that on a system using FileVault, “/Users/yourname/Sites/index.html” as posix file becomes “:yourname:Sites:index.html” whereas on a non-FileVault system, it becomes “Macintosh HD:Users:yourname:Sites:index.html”
I have used LaunchBar for Mac OS X
since day one of Mac OS X. This little application will save you so much time, you’ll not know how you lived without it!
LaunchBar is a program that scans selected directories and indexs the files found. You can refine this search to just applications, or documents, or add other data types, such as your bookmarks or address book entries.
“So what?” you say? Now that LaunchBar has indexed things, you can activate it from within any application via a simple command-space. Now a menu slides down and you can type the name of the file/application/person you want and LaunchBar will find it for you. You can type “BB” for example and LB will show things starting with BB, or that have two “b”s starting separate words, etc. Scroll down to “BBEdit” and BBEdit will launch. Now do this again and LaunchBar has learned that when you type “BB” you mean BBEdit!
so “PSE” opens Photoshop Elements, “mr” opens a new email to my brother, “sp” opens system profiler, on and on and on!
“Again, Steve, so what?” Well, now you can only keep applications on your dock that are running, seeing as you can launch them from LaunchBar faster usually than clicking on the dock!
Or like me, you can add a new entry in LaunchBar to scan a folder named “Databases” for all documents. Now, “sn” opens an excel spreadsheet containing all of my serial numbers, “ab” opens the address book, “md” opens my movie database. You are starting to get the speed of this.
Even better, you can now store all applications you install in a folder named “My Applications” and simply tell LaunchBar to scan that folder for applications. Now you have separated your applications from Apple’s, making migrating to new disks or operating systems easier and you don’t really care where they are located because LaunchBar gives you one, simple, common user interface to all of these files.
LaunchBar comes with a 30 day demo – you owe yourself to try it out and if you hate it at first, give it a week. You might thank me later.
