Final Cut Pro Settings

I have had a couple of people ask what the workflow is to get video files into Final Cut Pro, so here it is below...

1. Copy movie files off the camera using something like 'Image Capture'. iPhoto should happily grab them too, and Aperture will copy them to disk also

2. Start a new FCP project. I have previously created a new sequence preset with the following settings...















This will allow you to create as many projects and sequences as you want, in a format that will allow direct import and use of your TX1 video files without any transcoding. You will need to render them once you put them on the timeline, but this only takes a few seconds per clip. Then you just import your files as you would normally and away you go.

One helpful tip if you are using FCP, use Compressor to transcode clips for the web or later storage. It does a much better job than Quicktime conversion. I managed to get a clip that had been compressed with QT down from 245MB to 95MB by switching to Compressor and using its advanced settings.

New York City 720p video posted

I've uploaded a 720p video of my recent trip to New York City, all taken on the TX1. This was my first proper outing using the video aspects of the TX1 'in the field' a couple of months back. At the time it wasn't taken with the idea of wider release, but nevermind.

A few tidbits about the vid...

• It was edited on Final Cut Pro, with the lower thirds titles done in iMovie and brought across (they look a bit soft to me)
• I employed the seemingly pointless 'colour accent mode' a few times to good effect, singling out the yellow of NYC cabs (and to bad effect in Central Park by mistake)
  
• It was pretty hazy up top of the Empire State and Rockefeller buildings so those images look a bit washed out
• As good as the image stabilisation is, you can clearly see some shaky hand syndrome going on, especially when zoomed right in (apologies in advance for that)
  
• Purple hazing obvious in a few shots
• Some shots have had some effects applied
  
• Surprisingly good exposure and focus performance at night in Times Square
• I found a great piece of accompanying music on ccMixter, a Creative Commons based music site. If you want music to accompany your video or slideshows and can't use copyright works, definitely check this out

Vital statistics...

• All shot in 1280x720p 30fps on the TX1
• 4.5mins, 95MB
• 3121.69 kbits/sec in H.264 codec
• Soundtrack credit: Crazy Love - The Alex and Lang mix by J. Lang

Download Video (If you have any problems accessing it, try here)

The trashed flash card

I've had a bit of a disaster with my Transcend 4GB SDHC flash card. I shot a bunch of video and stills when I was away on holidays recently. When I got back I used my SDHC compatible USB card reader to try and download the files. Unfortunately, something went awry and the card got corrupted. I lost everything on there. Luckily I had previously backed some of it up.

That's painful enough, but now the card seems to be totalled. I can't reformat it in the camera, via my Mac or even on a PC. I've tried half a dozen different ways to try and reformat it with no success at all. The camera chokes on it, the Mac won't even mount it, and the PC gets most the way through a format and comes up with an error saying it can't complete the format. Strangely enough, both the camera and the PC report that the card is 24GB in capacity which is clearly wrong.

I've never had a flash card crap out on me like this before. Do you think it is beyond salvage or can you suggest ways I might be able to revive it?

Flickr adds TX1, photo pool and review

A few quick Flickr related updates...

• The TX1 has been added to the list of cameras that Flickr automatically recognises. At the moment it's ranked 94th of 130 Canon cameras but I can imagine this will increase as more people get out and about with the TX1

• A new photo pool has been started by Flickr member dcJohn for photos taken with the TX1. Check it out and start adding your TX1 pictures

• Another in-depth review of the TX1 has been put up online, this time by Flickr contributor Oscar Colorado

TX1 101: Making the print button more useful

Answer truthfully, how many of you have actually used the complex DPOF functions on your camera that allow you to print directly from the camera to a compatible printer? Not me. Mine go straight into Aperture, get tweaked, cropped and generally fiddled with before they are ready for prime time. So if you're like me and not going to bother with it, then what could you possibly use that pointless print button on the top of the camera for?

By the way, I'm not trying to alienate any dedicated DPOF lovers out there, so please don't come back with any strongly worded comments if you fall into that group of dedicated direct-to-print enthusiasts ;-)

Right. Wass it for then??? Think of it as a convenient and configurable one-touch button for accessing certain camera features that will otherwise mean a trip into the menu tree to select, most likely just as the Abominable Snowman ducks behind a tree and you miss the shot.

The button can be easily assigned to any of the following functions:

1. Nothing (the default setting)
   
2. Exposure compensation
• Normally accessed via the function button and one click down, this allows direct access in one touch without any fiddling around (or messing up) with the 4-way function controller
• Very useful if you are shooting in low or very bright light
  
3. White balance
• Normally accessed in 3 clicks, this is a feature any intermediate or above level photographer will be interested in accessing quickly
4. Custom white balance
• Taking the previous point one step further, you could access the custom white balance settings in one touch, allowing you to set and reset custom white balance with just a touch of the button each time
  
5. Digital tele-converter
• The subject of an upcoming TX1 101 post, this feature allows you to improve the already lengthy 10x zoom of the camera using some digital jiggery-pokery
• Normally accessed via the Menu in 3 clicks, this could be a real winner if you want to quickly give your camera an extra dose of digital zoom at short notice
6. Image/display guides
• This has 2 parts, the first being the capability to the show the well known rule-of-thirds composition grid overlay on the LCD screen. I had this on an earlier point-and-shooter and as someone who had become interested in better composition of my photos, found it to be fantastically helpful in remembering to put the main subject of a photo on or near one of the lines or intersects
  
• The second guide allows you to see what a 4:3 photo might look cropped onto 3:2 aspect paper (think a printed 6x4)
7. Display off
• If you're an owner of the TX1 you may by now have noticed that the battery life isn't stellar. This option allows you to assign the 'Display off' function to the button to immediately turn off the LCD rather than wait for the auto-shutoff or flip the LCD closed (which is what I tend to do)
8. Play sound effect
• This final option allows you to assign a sound effect to be played when you press the button. Personally I think this is an odd choice, but the manual states it might be handy for getting people's attention just before you hit the shutter button. I've always found 'say cheeeeeeeese' is quite effective

To assign one of the above functions to the Print button, press Menu in any of the camera (not playback) modes. Make sure you're on the 'Camera' tab and either scroll down to the bottom, or just hit up once on the 4-way to get to the last item in the menu list, 'Set Print Button'. Select the item and then pick the chosen option from the list of icons available. You will then be able to press the Print button whilst in Camera mode and it will access the chosen feature in one-touch.

Those are some genuinely helpful options (save the last one I reckon), but what I'd like to see is some of the other functions of the camera able to be assigned to this button, like...

• Switch between 4:3 and 16:9. I like taking 4:3 photos and 16:9 HD movies. Being able to flick between the two without accessing the menus would be just brilliant (please, please, please Canon!)
• To be able to cycle through movie modes (640-30, 640-LP, 320-6-, 320-30, 1280-HD, 1280-LP)
  
• Access super-macro mode

Despite missing these wanted options, I think Canon deserves praise for including a custom button that allows you to choose a function to access quickly. Some other cameras of theirs have this option and it's good to see them including it on the TX1, even if it's not obvious at first glance what's possible with this custom button.

For those of you who just must get it all from the horses mouth, you can find more details on page 67 of the Advanced Camera User Guide for the TX1.

TX1 101: Tips, help and how-to's

The DPreview review from the other day commented that they couldn't really work out who the TX1 is pitched at. Whilst potentially not the kind of thing Canon marketing might be happy about, to me it just means that this camera means different things to different people.

And one thing I've noticed about people is that some are user's guide readers and some are not. These days I think most consumers expect that electronic products will be intuitive enough that they will be able to work out how to use them just by playing around. With products like the iPod setting the standard in that department, who could blame them?

I for one though, am a big fan of sitting down with the user's guide and finding out all I can about my latest gizmo. I'm not so dedicated that I read the manual cover to cover before getting my mits on the device itself, but I certainly head for the manual pretty quickly once I have worked out the basics. Not everyone is like that though, and some folks would rather see a dentist than sit and read a user's guide. If you're that person, then this new TX1 101 series of posts are for you.

The TX1 101 posts will not cover the basics of the camera that you can work out easily. Instead they will delve into all those hidden but nifty features that could really help you use the camera to it's full potential, but you'd never know unless some geekier manual reader (like me) told you!

Stay tuned for TX1 101: Changing the Print button function - hey it sounds boring but it's actually cooler than you think!

DPreview reviews the TX1

The folks over at Digital Photography Review have posted a full review of the Canon Powershot TX1, the most in-depth I have seen to date, and up to their usual high standard. Pitching it as a camcorder that does great stills, they were struggling to work out who the TX1 is really pitched at, but eventually gave it a 'Recommended' rating by the skin of its teeth.

What do they like?

• Good quality stills
• Compact design
• 10x zoom
• Good image stabilisation
• Minimal purple fringing
• 720p movies
• Super macro

What they don't like?

• Vertical design and ergonomics
  
• Lens not very wide
• Noisy over 400 ISO
• Focus hunts a bit too much
• Huge movie files
• Soft looking HD movies
• No HDMI
• Movies noisy in low light
• Small LCD
• Weak flash
• Poor battery life

DPreview do some of the best and most well balanced reviews around, and to be honest I think I have to agree with the vast majority of this, although I also don't think there were many surprises for those of us who already own one. The TX1 really seems to be a love it or hate it kind of camera. I for one am down with the luuuuurve.

Link to review

Full res Matterhorn photos

Hey folks, I am back from my recent trip through Switzerland and Italy, and can upload the full resolution shots taken with the TX1 that I had smaller versions of before.

Unfortunately last night I managed to corrupt my SDHC card as it was being read on my machine, so I have lost a great many videos and some stills that I hadn't backed up. Thankfully I only took a few stills on the TX1 (as compared to over 1900 on the DSLR), and backed up all of my Switzerland alpine railway shots on a portable drive during the trip. So I've said arrivederci to all of my lovely Lake Como and Italy vids. I religiously backed up all of my DSLR photos every day but was a bit more lax with the TX1. Geez that's annoying. Not the TX1's fault, more likely the crappy SDHC card reader I got off eBay. I think from now on I'll put up with downloading directly from the camera and be more vigilant with the backup up whilst on the road.

I have a stack of cool video, but as per usual that's going to take a bit of time to edit together into something half decent for the viewing public!

Anyway, here's the full size versions completely unedited. Click to enlarge...

On the way to Zermatt on the open windowed Matterhorn Gotthard Railway.

On the way up the mountain to Gornergrat on the Mattherhorn Gornergrat Railway.

View from Zermatt of the Mattherhorn, at widest angle, then 10x zoom


View from the top

New USB sticks slash H.264 encode times

Gizmodo and others are reporting that Elgato, fine purveyor of hardware based TV tuners for the Mac have started shipping a USB based H.264 encoder that can speed up video encodes to H.264 by up to a factor of four on newer Core 2 Duo Macs and up to 10x for older G4 spec machines. This could be especially useful for TX1 owners who are gagging to convert their weighty Motion JPEG movie files to something more lightweight and accessible.

Video enconding is extremely CPU intensive and can paralyse your machine for hours whilst it converts from one format to another. The Elgato Turbo.264 offloads the computation tasks from your computer's CPU onto it's own hardware based processor, allowing you to continue to browse questionable websites or frag a few enemies whilst the svelte little USB powerhouse munches down on your video conversion.

Typical targets for conversion include iPod, Apple TV and PSP. The Elgato unit retails for about €99 or US$99, and is available now.

If you're looking for a similar solution for the PC, ADS has been offering up Instant Video-to-Go for a while now for US$80. Check out the Engadget coverage.

Whilst I am not yet doing a lot of conversion to other formats, as I sit here now and think about all the footage I captured on holiday, and how I'm going to have to leave my laptop crunching it overnight, these options seem like a real time saver.