[Adam Taylor]

thanks for the suggestions….i shall see if i can find some copies. That dvd rom based training looks like a good product.

adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Adam Taylor]

no – a compressor will not improve an already distorted signal. If the compressor was in the recording chain, it would be used to keep the rogue transients in check and give a smoother overall level, but adding one after the fact is a wholly pointless exercise…sorry!

One thing you could try in ProTools ( and be very careful when trying it) is to use the pen tool to round off the clipped waveforms…bear in mind that this is only worth attempting on very small occasional distortions – there would simply be too much to do on a large clip. And be judicious because it can easily do more damage. Sometimes the best option is to re-record the offending bits.

adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Adam Taylor]

yes – i currently supply them as .wmv’s (created using the popwire plug-in) and it does a fine job. Its just some people take one look at the extension and get arsey when it doesn’t read.mpg !!

I shall continue the way I have been….thanks for confirming that i’m not missing some great obvious alternative.

muchas grassy ass.

adam

[Adam Taylor]

check your project properties (under edit menu)- the built in option is incorrect. You need to set your settings again. The pal option puts the field order incorrectly as even – this needs to be odd. And you need to check this for every project as i haven’t been able to set a default that works for me (I too am exclusively digibeta pal, 10bit uncomp, etc.)

good luck

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Adam Taylor]

hey Peter,
just thought you might like to see your plug-in being used. Its not on a tv project though. I have used it to bring a little life to the headline banner on our company website… but don’t blink, its quite fast.

https://www.character-online.com/

happy new year

regards
Adam

[Adam Taylor]

who knows!!!

the idea is something i’m planning for one of our products, which we have no ad budget for. If i can make a decent job of the demo, it might be used on some web advertising…but unfortunately, its still just an idea i’m trying to find the time to develop.

One thing i have been meaning to suggest should you decide to enhance the plug…the ability to keyframe the centre point of the effect (as well as the wipe from side to side/top to bottom) so you could track a light source as it moves about the shot.

adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Adam Taylor]

thanks for the swift replies.

i usually do rely on just eyeballs…its just on this occasion the material was lots of organic amorphous shaped toys and kids playing with them. To me kids always have odd looking heads anyway, so i was looking for a technical way to decide!

i’ll look into the character flag option…thanks again

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Adam Taylor]

Jason, in truth I have only been using it about an hour… and i think its really good. I used to have a wacom graphire and hated it – too plastic and lightweight.

This Intuos 3 is great – i am using the A5 wide which feels a good size. You can restrict the area of the tablet you want to use, although i have decided to follow the quantel practice of using the whole tablet area. I have decided to try this out to help prevent RSI, and restricting myself to tiny movements will probably result in the same aches i get from mouse nudging. It actually feels quite expressive to use use larger gestural moves….try it and see what you think.

If you can get someone to let you borrow one for a morning, that might help you decided because they ain’t cheap..but you certainly get what you pay for.

I think the A6 may be a little small – but having said that, the A5 is smaller than my 17″ MBP and so sits easily in the same bag. I use a Musto Navigator bag – an amazing number of pockets and you can squeeze a large mac laptop into its built in sleeve – but only just!

regards
adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Adam Taylor]

Walter, just thought this might be of interest….I have just got my wacom doing the kind of scrubbing i wanted. Basically, i set the left hand scrub strip to Zoom, and the right hand strip to scroll.

Now here’s the really interesting bit….if the cursor is placed over the time bar at the top of the timeline window, then the scroll setting will scrub the timeline. If the cursor is over the actual tracks, the scroll will cause the tracks to scroll up and down in the window.

I think this tablet requires a lot more experimenting, cos i bets theres some really fun hidden features.

adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

[Adam Taylor]

I use digibeta because that what the material is captured on, and its the prefered broadcast format for all the UK stations.

Digibeta rushes are fed into my edit suite, cut uncompressed so as to maintain everything, then the broadcast master tape is recorded direct from my system.

Anyway, the question was about codecs, not about input/output formats. Regardless of it being digibeta or dvcpro or whatever, i would still go with uncompressed for editing as long as the system could handle it.

I think any quality difference between the higher end formats is lost as soon as you put the tapes through a broadcast station. The methods they all use to get the shows to air all degrade the images far more than we would ever be allowed to!

adam

Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK