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Macintosh CD/DVD Drive Not Recording.

Macintosh CD/DVD Drive Not Recording.

I am in the middle of  editing a wedding movie.  I plan to offer the client three separate movies:

  • Short ceremony
  • Long ceremony
  • Reception.

I make a DVD movie after each step.  I finished the long ceremony movie and play it to my test audience.  I had no record or playback problems.  I was told to clean up an audio track by one person.  I made the recommended change and then save that movie. That part of the project, long ceremony, is done.

I then took the long wedding ceremony and cut out all the clips that seem extraneous to the main ceremony such as people arriving and a rather long procession at the end of wedding showing the married couple leaving followed by some of the audience.  Cutting the long movie only took less than one hour to complete.  Short ceremony movie is done.

I next needed to make a new DVD offering up the short and long versions.  I use iDVD because it offers pretty nice introduction screen and menu system..  All of a sudden my Macbook Pro failed to complete the DVD burn process.  The burn seemed to almost complete but it showed one minute to go for completion when the disk was ejected.  When I examined the iDVD disk when they were ejected, they did not look that any burn took place.

I went to my wife’s iMac and loaded the iDVD archived footage and tried to burn the project there.  It too failed but in a more dramatic fashion.  I could not even successfully push the disks into the drive. They immediately refused to go in and did a quick eject.

Solutions I tried.

I took the house vacuum cleaner and vacuumed out each of the DVD ports.  I don’t think this helped much.

I inserted a DVD cleaner.  This is a DVD with some very small brushes on it that supposedly cleans the DVD lens.  This DVD cleaner turned out, for me, to be an indicator of how well the drive would accept disks.  If the disk refused to go in, I was in trouble.  If the computer accepted the disk, I was pretty close to fixing the drive.  I do not recommend the Memorex Lens Cleaner for Mac computers.  I think it is intended for Windows.

I zapped the PRAM on each Mac computer.  This method also failed.  There are some  Internet reports that this might work.  There should be no harm trying this.

I next used compressed air.  I first turned the computer off.  I held the compressed air upright with the supplied tiny hose slightly penetrating into the DVD “door”.  I pressed the trigger for a full blast of air to be shot into the drive and kept shooting while I swept the hose across the full width of the DVD slot.  I am pretty sure this is the best solution.  My wife’s iMac really needed this treatment.  I had to shoot it twice with compressed air.   I used Dust-Off product to do the cleaning.  Make sure you turn the computer off before spraying the DVD port with this air blast.  I would also make sure that your computer cools down if it runs hot.  Make sure that you hold the can upright and NOT sideways or upside down.  You do NOT want the “liquid” to be sprayed into the computer!  This solved the computer part of the problem but I still had issues with the DVD blanks I was using.  Some DVD disks are way better than others.

I tried different DVD discs and found disk selection is very important:

  • Sony DVD-R, AccuCore  YES, good recording.
  • Memorex, DVD-R, 16X, 4.7GB/Go  NO.  I purchased these from Walmart, September 2015.
  • Memorex, Lebelflash (obsolete format) DVD-R  16X, 4.7GB  YES, good recording.  I use this disk to give to my customer as final product because the label has been burned into the top of the DVD.  The label will not peel like a paper label.  The label will not contaminate (over time) like a marking pen.  But, you can not get media for this any more.
  • Imation DVD-R,  4.7GB   YES, good recording.

Summary:
Use good quality canned air to clean the inside of your DVD drive.
Use recommended DVD’s (see list above).  Check the Internet for other recommendations.

P.S.  I wasted pretty much one whole day trying to resolve this problem.

 

Updated: 3-6-19 because DustOff link went bad, 404 error, so I removed it.
What I like about Adobe Premier Pro CC 2015

What I like about Adobe Premier Pro CC 2015

I would like to provide you a summary of my experience with Adobe Premier Pro CC 2015 so you do not have to plow through my rather wordy explanations that follows.  I have used Final Cut Pro and iMovie.  This program is impressive.  I love it.  I am constantly impressed at how easy tasks are to complete.  I am amazed at how many tools this program has.  For example, I had to show my first movie version to a test audience to get their feedback.  i had a second monitor that I wanted to use to show the movie to the attendees.  I would sit to one side, watch the reviewers and control the playback process.  Adobe Premier served the solution up perfectly, a simple window change.  I was amazed.

Once I caught on with the keyboard shortcut key strokes using J, K, L, I and O, plus some other keystrokes, the bin clip build process going into the time line went pretty darn fast.  I had to do a multi track time line edit where I needed to move the end of the movie into a space I removed.  Problem was that an audio track extended toward the beginning so when I did a mouse box over the tracks, to select them, I also selected a clip that I did not intend.  I used the typical shift key and it worked, that track clip was not selected.  I love it when the Adobe software people use the Apple operating system methods as part of their program tools.

The graphical user interface, the image on my computer screen that is used to edit my film took some getting used to but after a while I began to accept it and along with that it also began to make sense.    One trick I had to use over and over was to close this and that window.  It does not take long for your screen to become less productive because the wrong screen segments are showing.

I had to match audio from a camcorder to a separate track audio recording made from an unlocked recorder.  Premier offers a number of methods for matching audio.  For me the audio track waveform method worked very well.  When I found out that CMD and the left and right arrow keys would move any track segment one frame at a time, I was then able to perfectly match audio.

When I need to make a change to a time line title, I do this in the bin.  As soon as the bin title graphic  change is made and the GUI for changing the title is closed the changes  appear perfectly in the time line.  I was very impressed.

The clip audio track control is amazing.  I now had audio volume and pan control while editing the time line.  I had to drop and raise this and that audio track at precise moments.  This method really worked.

The media output solution was momentarily confusing to me when Adobe Encoder CC window appeared on my computer screen when I asked that my movie be exported.  I had no idea that the media output was sent to a separate program.  This now makes sense.  Had Adobe put this into Premier we would not be able to continue to edit more movies and our Premier drop down menus would be cluttered.  The Encoder has a lot of options and really needs its own interface.  It really was an excellent solution.

Learning Adobe Premier Pro CC

Learning Adobe Premier Pro CC

I would like to share with you my problems trying to learn Adobe Premier Pro CC.  This software has a lot of features and  a lot of apparent hidden tools.  In other words, it is a rather difficult software to fly.  I had just video taped a wedding and due to the complexity of the production assets, I could no longer use iMovie.  I had the Adobe Creative Cloud suite of software loaded on my laptop and just knew that Premier was going to work. Problem for me is that I had to learn the program fast.   Let me jump to the solution so you do not have to wade through this ratter long explanation.  Just go to https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/tutorials.html

If you are interested in reading my rather long quest for knowledge as to how to edit with Adobe Premier Pro CC, read on.

BOOKS

My son told me not to buy any books and just use the Internet to learn Premier.  I love books and can easily say that I am older than you.  My daughter would call me retro.

I wasted a day trying to buy a book at a local book store.  I even went to Fry’s because they no longer allowed you to call in and take to a person to check availability and price.  Their book section had practically vanished.  I predict that store will also vanish.

I spent hours trying to figure out what was the best book to buy on the Internet.  I had Premier Pro CC version 2015.  I did not want a book that was too old.  I was really intrigued with Premiere Pro CC: Visual QuickStart Guide by Jan Ozer. It showed being published Jun 27, 2013, seemingly a bit out of date.  I just love that format of book, quick outline and visual.

I settled upon Adobe Premiere Pro CC Classroom in a Book 2015 release.  It seemed the best deal was to buy this book at Adobe Press.  Problem was that the release date for the book was the same day I was ordering it, September 16, 2015.  It would take a week to get the book.  I spotted a nifty deal where I could also buy the eBook too for a discounted price.  I got a hefty discount because the books had just been released or were about to be released.  Here is where my assumption that the eBook would arrive earlier was wrong.

Order Details
This order contains:
1 . Adobe Premiere Pro CC Classroom in a Book 2015 release , 9780134309989 , Quantity: 1
2 . Adobe Premiere Pro CC Classroom in a Book 2015 release , 9780134310176 , Quantity: 1
3 . Total Discount , ($49.19)
Grand Total  $63.93

The paper book was shipped the very next day, September 17, 2015.  By the way, the publisher customer service did not know the book was ready to ship.  I kept going to the publishers web site to download my e-book but nothing.  I could not figure out what was wrong.

I sent customer service an e-mail asking why I could not download the eBook.

I get this response:

“Thank you for placing your order with Adobe Press. We regret to inform you
that the following item(s) from your order #WEB325633094370
placed on 9/16/2015 5:32:05 PM EDT have been cancelled:
Adobe Premiere Pro CC Classroom in a Book 2015 release, 9780134310176, Quantity: 1
We apologize that we were unable to fulfill your order within the time frame we originally indicated.
Your credit card has not been charged.
We encourage you to visit our website for further updates regarding the availability of this product.”

I looked at my bank account and indeed they lowered the charges to:
09/19/2015     AWL*Pearson Education ADOBE.PRESS NJ ONE L (-$45.35)

They did gave me a discount probably because I participated in an online survey.

But, I find this cancellation rather odd.  The publisher canceled part of my order.  I thought that should be my prerogative.  If an item can never be shipped then the publisher should cancel.  If the order is delayed, it would be nice to ask me, the customer, if I  still want delivery.

The evening of September 22, 2015, just for kicks, I check Adobe Press web site and they announce that the book is ready the very next day, the very same day the print edition is due to arrive at my home.

“Adobe Premiere Pro CC Classroom in a Book (2015 release), Web Edition
By Maxim Jago
Published Sep 23, 2015 by Adobe Press”
Pricing as of September 22, 2015: available as a
Book $47.99
eBook $38.39
Web Edition $47.99

My point in all this is that you might think the electronic version might arrive before the print.  Don’t assume that if the publication is hot off the press or hot off the hard drive.  I actually finished the wedding portion of the movie project and have not yet received the book.

ON LINE TUTORIALS

YouTube
In desperation, I tried YouTube videos but they were all over the map for providing results.  Some were good but the curriculum, the step by step learning process that a classroom teacher should put together for the class was obviously missing.  I found I was bouncing around from one video that seemed to build to another video that failed.

lynda.com
I have access to lynda.com video tutorials and tried their Adobe Premier Pro lessons. It sort of failed for me.  The first lessons were an over view.  I want to jump in and start the process and not be shown a bunch of video overviews.  I wanted to know right away how to start.  Once I got into the meat, about lesson four, I began to become confused with all the prior lesson files and the new files the person was talking about.  I finally took notes as to the keyboard shortcuts that one needs to use and made notes.  This really helped.  The J, K, L, I and O keys are extremely important.  It took me a whole day to discover that on a Mac CMD and the left or right arrow will move your clip one frame.  I needed to line up an unlocked separate audio track to video with audio and the CMD and arrow keys allowed me to gain perfect synchronization.  If I had had a book, learning this would have not taken as much time.

The beginning of the main lynda.com lessons seemed to be clouded, not clear as to the beginning step by step process.  I got the impression that steps explained in the introduction, I should integrate into the whole.  Show me how to create a project and import my media from the beginning.  Instead I was jumping around.  I thus felt I was watching video’s that were less clear to me.  I did pick up vital bread crumb information which did helped me.

adobe.com tutorials
The best solution for me was actually free.  The  embarrassing part is that it was right in front of me.  Adobe offers terrific tutorials, better than lynda.com, in my opinion.  This was my primary learning method.  I guess my son was correct; don’t buy a book; use the Internet.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/tutorials.html

Good luck to you.  Adobe Premier Pro CC is a professional product and being so it may be a challenge to learn.  Do not give up.  I found that this program has a solution for every problem you will face. Finding that solution can be a challenge.

How To Transfer Video From Panasonic PV-GS500 to iMovie and Adobe Premier CC 2015

How To Transfer Video From Panasonic PV-GS500 to iMovie and Adobe Premier CC 2015

I noticed that some people had difficulty transferring video from their Panasonic PV-GS500 camcorder.  The solution for me came when I found a DV to Firewire cable.  I used the bottom connector as shown below for the camera connection and the Firewire 400 went into the Mac laptop.

Panasonic-camcorder-DV-connector-(WEB)
Image shows the left side of the camera, the swing out video display side with some connectors behind the display when the video monitor is swung out. I used the bottom connector marked “DV” to insert my Firewire cable.

The computer I used is a Macintosh Macbook Pro, 15 inch Early 2008 and OSX Yosemite.

What was really wonderful was that both programs immediately recognized the transfer and both programs allowed me to control the camera from the software.  For Premier I had to choose “Capture” to make Premier “see” the camera.  I could completely control the camera from the iMovie application and Adobe Premier Pro CC (2015).  I really prefer to use Premier Pro.  It has a definite learning curve but you get a ton of options and a lot of different methods to work the project.  I found that iMovie would really overheat my laptop while Premier allowed my computer to run cool.  The Premier editing options are really terrific.

I love to walk away from the capture process some times and I know that in iMovie it is so easy to cut out the extra blue screen out.  I think I am correct in this.  Premier puts my computer capture process into pause at the end of the clip, thus saving me some editing.

I hope this helps you.

 

 

Kayak DD Video Switcher Goes Down While I Watch It Happen.

Kayak DD Video Switcher Goes Down While I Watch It Happen.

I am at the end of my Monday proof of a million dollar TV studio and control room.  I run into snags every week and today is not any better.  Here are some examples for this day:  I can’t get the Deko character generator computer to turn on until I go through a special power up process.  It finally does power up very clean.  Camera one is divorced from the camera control unit because someone turned camera control lock off which means we have no way to communicate between CCU and camera head.  I find the switch and set it correctly.  All the camera head intercoms have been turned off.  I turn them on.  Camera two has talent tally light turned off.  I set the switch correctly.  The mouse for one of the in/out sources to the video switcher lost its mouse so I had to come up with a solution.  Well I am at the end of the proof process where I record on to video tape and computer hard drive output from the Grass Valley Kayak DD switcher and Yamaha D1000 audio board.  I just want this proof process to end and go and get my Starbucks Zebra drink and call it a day.  Everything gets recorded perfectly during this record test but I notice that I can not dissolve from preview bus either of the Ingest computers.  I can dissolve from the preview all studio cameras but not from Ingest one or two!  As I try to do more with the switcher its capabilities rapidly diminish.  This just does not make sense.  I have never seen this before.  As I look down on the switcher control head I see the lights on the rows of push buttons go out.  The switcher is going down!  Customers will come in any moment and productions start in two hours.  I do reset on the control head and later on the main frame computer.  I reattach each connector that runs between the control head and main frame.  The LAN connection does not look pristine.  I do notice that the LED light that normally flashes next to the Ethernet LAN connector is out.  Looks like the two boxes are not talking to one another.  The main frame LED lights all show which is good.  Both main frame fans are functioning.  I call Grass Valley start a ticket and ask for Art N, an authority for Kayak DD switchers.  He is not in.  About 45 minutes later Dave G. calls me and starts to tell me to check item after item.  I simply love Grass Valley technical support.  It soon becomes apparent that we have a major failure.  The customers will be walking in any moment and final semester productions are this week.  We talk the options over.  We discovered that the control head display fails to show the main frame on its menu.  I tell Dave that I noticed that the LED LAN does not light up.  Dave tells me of a secret method of forcing the main frame computer to communicate with the control head.  I am to turn the main frame off and then on again.  I am to rush over to the control head and watch for the Home and User 4 buttons to flash.  When they flash press down WHILE they are flashing and keep my fingers pressing down until the control screen shows.  This did not work.  Dave tells me that a bad LAN cable is a low probability for failure but he has seen it happen.  I tell him I will check my stock to see if I have an Ethernet cable and call him back.  I luckily have a Ethernet cross over type cable.  I install it and nothing happens.  I power down the main frame and power it up again.   I rush around from behind the equipment racks to the control head and wait for Home and User 4 buttons to start flashing.  They flash, my fingers press down on those buttons, and then the control screen starts to light up on the control head and the switcher begins its boot up process.  I stand back and watch.  It happens slowly but switcher buttons start to flash and light up.  Preview monitor shows image because I had a key set up prior to the switcher going down.  I look down and Black button on both preview and program are lit!  A lot of other buttons are illuminated!  I am getting excited.  I press camera 1 and see an image.  I am ecstatic.  I press camera 2 then three then Ingest 1, then Ingest 2.  I do dissolves between all sources including test and the switcher is working perfectly!  it was a LAN cable that went bad as I watched the switcher fade down and out – remarkable.

The lesson for me is buy American or Canadian.  Buy from a company where technical support speaks English.  Buy from a company where technical support will not charge you.  Buy from a company where technical support really know their stuff.  Grass Valley is all that.  I love Grass Valley products!  Their technical support could easily be used as a ruler for all others to be measured.

 

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Perfect Your TV Viewing

Perfect Your TV Viewing

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This article is only directed toward individuals that own pretty good DVD players and flat screen displays using HDMI cables.

One of my jobs is to perform technical support for a state university department.  I was asked to solve a problem with a large screen TV set in a department’s class room used to show movies.  The complaint was that the TV screen looked pink.  My research came up with a couple of DVD test disks.  I was able to purchase the Disney WOW for blue ray players.  I also purchased the standard definition disk but have not had time to examine it.  Both disk types, high definition (blu-ray) and standard offer a pretty terrific package for improving the customer’s viewing experience.  In fact, hidden within those disks is the capability of performing professional video setups.  When using the disks, I recommend the advanced setup and not basic.  The basic did not go into setup detail which I felt was needed and you will learn very little.  The tutorials included with advanced were terrific.  I learned a lot.  The premium calibration tools are pretty impressive and you will better understand how to use them if you go through the advanced tutorials first.  I will next list what these disks have help me solve and the surprise for me was not that the TV set needed calibration but that the DV deck was set up incorrectly and really dragging down the flat screen TV viewing conditions.

  • Customer had the blu-ray DVD player set for incorrect output settings.  The black and white levels were wrong.  The color temperature was set incorrectly (Color temperature is a consumer choice. I tend to favor a blue shift because I like real “loud” whites).
  • The state university viewing room was simply awful for viewing when I performed my evaluation.  I could not read small text on the screen.  I immediately knew something was drastically wrong.  The TV was over scanning by five percent.  Flat screen displays typically should not be over-scanned.  We found that the DVD player was set for component output.  We had a 1080P system and the DVD deck was wired with HDMI cables to the flat screen TV set.  We then set the DVD deck HDMI output to 1080P and the focus snapped right in perfectly.  The black, white levels were off and we set them according to the screen charts.  The over scan we viewed in prior tests disappeared and came in perfectly.  Focus star charts looked terrific as well as small text and the tests for detail correction.  The customer chose a different color temperature which really made the whites look “loud” and perfect.  I typically let the customer choose what they want for color temperature.
  • A home PlayStation blu-ray player had an incorrect setting that kept us from adjusting white and black levels.  Once we made the PlayStation changes, turned off auto modes, the flat screen TV looked vastly improved.  The PlayStation menu now has a black background that the customer exclaimed they did not see before as it was washed out to a grey.

The next lesson learned was that we had to turn off some of the automatic features in the DVD player and TV video setup menu.  We discovered that we had to do this when trying to make adjustments to white and black levels.  They just would not adjust correctly so we had to go and find what auto function was turned on that kept us from making those changes.

TIP:  As I mentioned earlier, we found that the DVD decks had the wrong settings.  In each case, we found this out by not getting good results from the Disney WOW disks.  In other words, we could not get the TV set to make changes we wished and suspected the source.  Let me list those factors that led us to look at the DVD deck:

  • Flat screen TV failed the over-scan test.  It was over-scanned.
  • Flat screen TV had terrible image clarity for black text.
  • We could not get contrast or brightness to respond properly for those  test patterns.

I did find the Disney program wrapper a bit over done.  The Disney TV movie short clips included for viewing were pretty lame.  They seemed to be used to sell their DVD movies.  I wanted to see more humane beings to evaluate flesh tones but I found only one clip.  I wanted to have a few more clips showing dark area details like night action shots but I found none.  The separate Visions DVD, providing nature videos, was unnecessary in my opinion and a couple of the clips were utterly useless, told me nothing.

Recommendation:  This product, for me, is well worth the money and adds a very nice educational component.  I have to admit that this optimization system is professional if you take the time to learn to perform the adjustments properly.  You just might vastly improve your TV viewing experience.

Disney World Of Wonder HD Home Theatre Optimization DVD
Disney World Of Wonder HD Home Theater Optimization DVD

 

One warning should be included in this product evaluation.  The user must understand that the TV settings you will perform with this Disney system optimization are from a DVD player source (or computer).  We found that when we viewed our flat screen TV set from a cable box, even on “high definition channels”  the image quality really suffered.  I found TV flesh tones lacked real life detail and looked pasty on my office cable box.  Many cable TV boxes are unable to provide improved user settings to optimize your viewing.  You may be trapped within their inferior technology for cable show viewing.