Ten year veteran newbie questions

[johnneumann]

Oh, this feels so freaky.

I used to be a Casablanca junkie. (Casablanca, as in 1998 or so.) But truth be told, there really just wasn't that much to learn on the machine back then. It sort of took care of itself.

Then I got the Kron, spent a bunch of time with it, but never progressed beyond cut/transition/render/burn. I also maxed out at 4.1c.

I got 6.2d, literally, just days before putting the Kron into mothballs some years ago. It's been there ever since. I'm now looking at my Kron interface with 6.2d newly installed and never once used. Installing the thing was the last thing I remember before putting it sleep for years.

I have a new project to do and, I swear, it's like I've never seen this machine before. I've got to learn this thing all over again! I plan to do the grunt work of printing out the manual and getting up to speed ... I promise I won't abuse the forum with braindead startup questions ... but I'm hoping to ask one or two questions that are SO basic, and which would take me forever to learn myself from the manual. Anyone willing to help?

1) It seem (if I remember correctly) that the big attraction from SE4 to SE6 was that 6 allowed for an external hard drive which could be used to duplicate the project and scene bin. Am I correct in that? I remember hating only being able to back up a finished project to miniDV tape. Not much of a backup. ...... Coincidentally, my wife scored a 160gig SATA drive at work yesterday. (160 gig solid state, of all things. Expensive little toy.) She gave it to me and told me to put it to good use. It's one of those drives about the size of a pack of cards and half as thick. It needs an encasement and some kind of adapter cable, I suppose. Can this be used as an external drive to my Kron? 160gigs should go a long way. If it can be done, where do I even start with getting an external drive attached and connecting properly? I'm dying to have true backup, because I remember losing lots of projects to crashes in the past.

2) I've got 6.2d. Is that the last free update I can get? Or is there a 6.3DD or whatever out there? (Sorry, a little brassiere humor there.) Seriously, where do I check for free Kron upgrades?

Criminy, where on earth does a guy start when he hasn't been on the machine in years and step one is working through the manual for a system upgrade. I'm all whacked out with too many options.

Well, these two questions I suppose are a good place to start. The rest I imagine I'll come by the hard way via the manual.


Blessings, puppies, and bunnies for anyone who's willing to help me get launched again ... and hopefully with a backup external drive.

Thanks for your generosity, guys.

-JOHN

[LouBruno]

A good place to start is : http://www.casablancaexpert.com


Everything you will need to know. Good luck!!

Criminy, where on earth does a guy start when he hasn't been on the machine in years and step one is working through the manual for a system upgrade. I'm all whacked out with too many options.

Well, these two questions I suppose are a good place to start. The rest I imagine I'll come by the hard way via the manual.


Blessings, puppies, and bunnies for anyone who's willing to help me get launched again ... and hopefully with a backup external drive.

Thanks for your generosity, guys.

-JOHN

[johnneumann]

Thanks, Lou. Doesn't look like a good lead for the immediate question, though. I typed "external hard drive" into the search field at the website you recommended, got a bunch of results, started clicking, and found "this page available to subscribers only" on the most relevant link.

This is only my second post in a long long while and the first one got me a slew of PMs suggesting I upgrade my Kron to a new machine and here's the dealer to go with...

Not really the insights I was hoping for.



-JOHN

ps. Unfortunately, I left my printout of the SE6 manual at a friend's house and I won't be able to get there again for at least a week. I really wanted to get this external hard drive up and running, if it is in fact that easy. Anyone who can offer any quick advice (assuming it's a quick job, I really have no idea) would be most appreciated.

[Charles]

Hi John
I only had my Kron for a few weeks but from a poor memory i don't think it had a swap drive function like the Prestige and even now with Bogart you can't use a ex drive for editing only storage.

You will find the manual for SE 6 here http://www.macrosystem.de/e/downloads.html if that's any help.

[TimKennelly]

No John, you cannot use your old Kron with an external hard drive the way you seem to want to.

The problem is you are talking about old equipment (they stopped selling the Kron, what six, seven years ago?) with outdated software and it's hard for most of us to remember exactly what the situation was with an operating software that is several years old.

There are far fewer users here than there once were and most of us have moved on to much newer Smart Edit operating systems and/or the third generation Bogart run machines.

Chet Davis no longer works for the company and has set up his own business helping those who need it at all levels with all MSUS machines, including your old Kron, but he has to make money to do this to put food on the table so much of his site and his personal one on one help has to be a commercial venture.

His rates are quite reasonable and his knowledge it top shelf making him quite a bargain for those that need his help.

[Jeanton]

Hi John

I agree with Tim if I was you I would become a member to the Cassablanca Expert Chet is doing a fantastic job explaining the system step by step and on screen so you can see what he is doing. Even I who spend nearly every day behind the machine learns new methodes of doing things all the time.
Best thing is your information is available 24 hours a day and if you need to watch it ten times you can do so.
For a small fee of only $62 dollars (35 cents a day)for a 6 month supscription you have your Expert right at your finger tips.
Sorry can't help you with the kron never owned one.

[CasablancaExpert]

Thanks gentlemen for the recommendation - it is my delight to continue to play a vital role in providing expert training & instruction for the Casablanca line of video editors. I am pleased that you and some 200+ other Casablanca professionals & enthusiasts continue to find my website of value to their video editing!

John - to give you a sample of the quality and depth of the training/resources available inside my website, you can take advantage of this particular streaming video in the Webinar Archives here: http://www.casablancaexpert.com/categories/webinarpost

Scroll down to the program:
Casablanca Webinar - General Session
Episode 15
Held Tuesday 9/08/09

And check out the first video titled '1 of 3: All About Archives (entire episode) - includes Storyboard Archives, Bogart HD Backup and Customs Archives'
This will provide you a detailed explanation of the options available to you.


And then - when and if you decide to join the community at CasablancaExpert.com - you simply click the 'join now' link at top right corner of the main page. As Jeanton mentioned you can join at the 6-month Gold member level or the month to month $12.99 Silver member level.

Regards,
Chet

[johnneumann]

Hmmmm.

Yes... well ... We interrupt this commercial announcement for some regular programming.

I was rooting around the 6.2d menus last and found a button for "backup / restore archives". When I clicked on it, I got three options for CD/DVD, Firewire hard-drive, and USB stick. That's as far as I got because the hard drive is not out of the box yet.

Strangely enough, the option for a Firewire hard-drive is not discussed in the manual, even though it's in clear view in the software. Maybe at the time of the manual's release at SE6 it didn't exist yet, but did at 6.2d.

Seems I'm going to have to go about this commando. (No, not editing sans underwear. I mean just hit and miss until I figure it out.)

Thank you, Charles, for the link to the old manual. Very helpful.

Thank you, Tim, for just saying outright that most of ya''ll have moved on with your gear and just don't know anymore what the deal was with SE6. That was in fact the definitive and true answer of the day, even if it didn't get me the instant Satori I was looking for.

Back in the day of SE6, us SE4'ers were still able to mooch information off the big boys. But nowadays, even the 6'ers are fringe relic lunatics, like those 80 year old Japanese soldiers in the Pacific islands thinking the war is still on.

-JOHN

ps. I did try to watch the first 36 minute video. I don't know if it was the video archive that was faulty or if it was my old Mac G4 laptop not responding quite right, but the video skipped around all over the place after the half-way point. (Never had that symptom before.) I wasn't able to watch it to completion because the video would keep jumping back several minutes repeatedly.

I'll spend a few hours with the backup/archive button and see if I can get some success.

[CKNewman]

Hi John,

I'm not sure agree completely with Tim's assessment, although a good number of people have upgraded to the newer generation 3 machines.

You can find some information if you look at the MacroSystem website at this page on the external hard drive they sell. The good thing is that it's already formatted to work right out of the box. http://macrosystem.us/index.php?pr=External_Hard_Drives

You can get a really clear picture of what your OS 6 has over earlier operating systems if you start reading the info available on Carroll Lam's website on the changes to Smart Edit through the different versions. http://www.clamcamvideo.com/resources.html If you look at the DVD tutorials available under the Product section you'll find a very reasonably priced 2-DVD set on Smart Edit 6.

I don't have instant recall of everything that's been added, improved, or changed over the years. I would have to look it up and then start typing - and time is precious for all of us. I would agree with the others that Chet's website is the best resource for teaching and supporting Casablanca users.

[johnneumann]

Craig,

Thank you! That link on external hard drives was very helpful.

So MS sells the LaCie already preformatted. I've got a different firewire drive here on my desk already, blazing fast and brand new.

How does one format a drive for the Kron? Will it just happen by itself when I connect 'em ... like a computer does when you hook up a drive that hasn't been formatted? (On computers, you usually get a pop-up screen that says something like "drive not recognizable ... do you wish to format?")

I guess it's the same question as how would I format the authorized MS LaCie drive if it crashed and needed to be reformatted.

-JOHN