Aaron Star
Forum Replies Created
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I posted this a while back on the Sony forum. The Surface Pro and 3 are pretty much the same, with the 3 having even better hardware. The Surface pro 4 is right around the corner sometime this fall.
There is a YouTube video from a user showing how Vegas works on the Surface. I think using some combination of keyboard JKL and the pen would be quicker, but the video shows pen only.
https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/showmessage.asp?forumid=4&messageid=921108
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The Blackmagic Intensity card that I recommended, and the shuttle that John is now recommending are the same thing. The thunderbolt and USB3 interfaces are another layer to have to work through. Where as the PCIe card in the right slot has full bandwidth to the PC, and no fiddling with USB3 modes in bios.
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I am sure the beachtec is fine, I use to have one a long long time ago back in the DV days. The audio ciruits on consumer devices are like the poor cousins to the imaging circuits. Recording to a separate audio device is better. Something like this:
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_850DR60DII/Tascam-DR-60DmkII.html?tp=61591
Then get a cheap mount adapter for your wireless receiver for the hotshoe on the camera. Prefer “balanced” audio wiring from shotguns or wireless units.
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This echo is why I suggested using a Zoom H4N in 4 channel mode. recording the audience/room with built-in, and then running a line to Channel 3 from the mixer/stage PA mic you are speaking into. More than likely the Stage is using an SM58 which will give you a much higher quality than any smartphone lav.
In post make the audience levels like <-20db and bring it up only when you need to hear it.
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If you need to edit in 2160p convert to XAVC.mxf, this will eliminate the clip number issue. XAVC will not maintain the 500Mbs bitrate quality of the ProRes HQ. Quicktime in Vegas is only 32bit and so runs out of resources after so many clips are added. Currently Vegas has NO high bit rate 4k codec internal to convert at the same quality levels. XAVC is 600Mbs capable but Sony’s implementation in Vegas auto determines the bitrate based on content and frame rate. 4k60p is up to 600Mbs, 4k24p will be a much lower bitrate since there is less to compress. Converting to DPX or EXR and then editing proxy would be the Vegas way I would try of working at that level. Of course if the XAVC conversion is good enough for the final display then edit in that format. Make sure to convert in 32-bit video levels to XAVC.
You could try the trial of Catalyst Prepare and convert the Prores to XAVC. Catalyst will convert to XAVC at a higher bitrate. Test 4K files I have done, have shown the resultant files at 300Mbs. There is no advanced settings to set the bit rate in Catalyst, but it looks like catalyst will auto determine the bitrate needed, and has access to the full 600Mbs range of XAVC. I would imagine Catalyst Edit has something similar. You can take the resulting converted files back into Vegas for editing or edit in Catalyst Edit. If no color correction is made to the footage in Vegas, Vegas will smart Render the edit or not recompress the media again. Smart Render also means a faster final render of the edit, as only overlays and transitions will be rendered/recompressed.
Convert all your audio to WAV/PCM so it does not use QuickTime.
Vegas is a good batch render tool, using included scripts, search the scripting forum over at Sony’s forum. You would just need to batch in quantities that are lower than the QuickTime limit.
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I would try MS Encoder 4 as it is a free download. If you are just recording GUI, and not Video or gameplay, you can reduce your capture frame rate to something as low as 1-5FPS. You do not need 30FPS to animate mouse movements. Convert the capture format to WMV @10Mbs-20Mbs, and it will be pretty much lossless image wise. You can also just use the VBR more at a quality setting of 95% and it determine the bit rate for you. You can edit the WMV in Vegas with any other video formats you have.
HDMI capture look at a Blackmagic Intensity card, and use the Media Express application to capture to MJPEG at whatever frame rate you want. I believe the Intensity requires standard video formats like 720 or 1080 to be output from your PC. With multiple monitors, you can loop an HDMI output from GPU into the HDMI input on the Intensity. On second monitor run the capture application. It can be confusing, you clone monitor 1 to HDMI out, record application on monitor 2, effectively you have 3 monitors in the display resolution applet.
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What Todd offers is good advice. I thought about the spotlight mode too, but you do not get that setting on DSLR cameras. On Nikon there are a couple modes to try under effects which are named Hi Key, Low Key, or silhouette. I am not sure what Canon calls them. It really depends on your setting and background. Basically your silhouette setting is going to see the over exposed areas and stop down, and allow all the darker areas to fall off.
You asked about ISO and stops. This is harder to say without seeing the environment. When shooting Film, 500iso at a 2 would pretty much be what the eye can see in a dark setting. Adjust for low cost lens that only achieve 4-5.6 and you are at 2000-4000iso. But you have that bright spot light you need to expose to, and 2000-4000 could be grain city for your video. You could get a light meter and meter the spot light, or tape a 18% grey card to the mic stand, and use the spot meter mode on your DSLR. In auto or P mode use the camera in video mode to “read” the card, and note what the camera wants to shoot at. Then manually set the camera in video mode to those settings. Make sure light is just falling on the card, and not reflecting the spot light. You can walk up on the card and take a reading, then put the camera back on the tripod if the card is to small to get a good reading.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=%2B18%25+%2BGRAY+%2BCARD&InitialSearch=yes&N=0
Once you solve the picture problem, I would spend some time on getting the audio cables necessary to get a line from the mixer or PA system. Possibly even getting stand alone recorder like a Zoom H4n and tapping that into the stage mixer. A camera with pro audio interfaces will allow you connect directly to the camera with whatever the stage has. Obtaining clean audio will sell you almost better than a rocking clean image.
Here are just some of my low cost, future looking cameras that I would recommend for what you are trying to do. Remember HD is already the old Standard Def, and if things go to 8k in 5-10 years, your HD clips are going to look pretty low res. But get the best you can afford today, as even a low cost DSLR will give a good HD image.
This would be a good choice for preservation as a good cheap 4K camera, and not have the 20min limit of DSLR. 4K will down res to HD very nicely, and then you will have a good long term preservation format.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1022653-REG/sony_fdrax100_b_hdr_ax100_full_hd_handycam.html
or
This is the same unit with pro audio interfaces, a 10-bit codec (which you did not know you needed, until you see it), and you would need to add the 4K license into the cost if you go that route.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1072752-REG/sony_pxw_x70_professional_xdcam_compact.html
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Shoot at least 3 camera. A,B on one side, and C wider shot from the other side of stage. This will give you 3 shots to cut your set up in post. A&C could be roughly the same shot size from different angles, with camera B as medium or close shot if you have an operator. Having both sides of the stage covered, allows you to cut and keep you facing the camera when turn to different sides of the audience.
As for exposure, stop down so you look good in the spot light. Lock all cameras to that exposure. If the rest of the stage or seating area is to dark, add fill lighting to bring that up. You can also bring the spot light down, it is most likely on a dimmer, but to low and the light will start to turn real orange. Best to adjust the contrast of the overall stage and seating areas to work with in the contrast range of the cameras you are using. Keep the spot light up all the way, as to not blow color temperature of the light.
Single camera pretty much just follow the same exposure adjustments above.
Hire a pro, and do not pay them if you look like crap in review of the footage.
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If you are running on i7-Gen4 or older, or Hd79xx or older hardware, you are not going to see updates to your system any more. Bios, drivers, nothing. What you will get from the likes of NVidia and AMD are driver updates that will updates the advertising they want pushed out to you, or new graphics that they want seen for the control panel.
Basically if you are running win7 on old hardware, why update, your system will not change as no one is actually solving problems on your hardware anymore. You may get security patches to the OS, but that’s about it. Issues or quirks with older hardware will stay that way until you upgrade. Use your Win7 system until you cannot deal anymore with the problems.
Most of the problems I have had with Win10 were on laptop hardware that was “designed for vista.” Those problems were with a wifi adapter already identified as having a DPC problem with intel’s driver, trackpad driver issues, and card reader drivers.
The problems the user above is having sounds similar to some of the problems I was having with the older laptop I was testing on. This is the type of stuff you run into when you try and support the amount of ageing hardware that MS is. The Apple way is, we do not support that model anymore or architecture, move on. Microsoft could probably take some direction from Apple in that respect.
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I know everyone just wants someone to give them a fish, but this tutorial may help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=790&v=K2s4HYkvnwg
Learning how to work the compositor may help you better achieve what your vision is.