Al Bergstein
Forum Replies Created
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Thanks, you sort of answered my question, in that I wondered if a $2k pro monitor would do the job. HP is selling some, you mentioned that the studio you bought yours from was moving to an HP pro. But your price is way higher, so I’m wondering what is the right model numbers to be looking for.
Is the thought that I should look for a high end professional monitor CRT with BNC connectors for red, green, blue and black?
Is HP or Sony the reference here? What about Marshall?
Alf
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I own a t2i and wish I bought the 7d, only for environmental protection. But if I screw it up, I can buy a second body for the price.
As to buying a 5d, I wish I did, because every damn lens I use is like a telephoto! Even 18mm is like too tele! I want a damn 17 mm lens that is a 17mm lens!
If none of this makes sense, or you shoot portraits in a studio with telephoto lens, then ignore my post..buy any of these that your budget allows.
Alf
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Defragging is unlikely to cause crashes. It usually just slows your machine to a state like molasses in winter. IF your hard drive is under 10% capacity left (ie. >900 GB of a Terabyte, for example) you *could* get a crash. A general rule of thumb is not to fill your hard drive! Some software can protect you from doing that, but if you are under 10%, take action! Drives are cheap!
That said, we need to better understand your crashes. What format, what is the error message, etc.
Once we get that info, we have a better idea of where you might start troubleshooting.
Alf
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If your goal is to simply get started by using Windows to edit video, I think it’s a great idea to start with MS10 and then upgrade if you like it to Vegas. I use both FCP and Vegas regularly and find editing with Vegas on Windows 7 64 to be much easier overall than using FCP. So by using MS10 you can get the feel for using a Windows box to edit (make sure you have enough RAM and hard drive first!) You shouldn’t be disappointed. Other than moving up to Adobe which I do not recommend for an beginner in this world, I would say that Vegas is the best of lot from ease of use, power vs. function, and general value for the money. Of course, these are tools, not religions. So you may find that the Vegas toolset does not help if you are working in a shop that is all FCP!
Best of luck. These forums will be invaluable to helping you.
Alf
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I’m running Win7 64 Bit with Vegas and it works fine. 32/64 Addon & Utilities: The main issue you will likely face in your department would be third party add ons. Not all of these yet support 64 bit so I would compile the list and make sure you have compatibility. And yes, Windows XP is no longer officially supported by MS, though they will continue to produce security updates, especially if your company is an enterprise, and yes, do NOT go to Vista, it was terrible. W7 is really Vista V2, in that it builds on the Vista underpinnings. I have seen very little software designed for Vista that didn’t work on W7, and I run tons of various products. However, I often upgrade as well, so I don’t have an enormous amount of legacy software. However, XP apps are a different story. A number of legacy XP apps I have that were essentially designed for XP from earlier versions of MS OS’s did not make the transition to W7. Compatability mode for XP is not very good, from my tests, I decided that if I really needed to run an XP app, I was going to use Hyper V or VMWare and just continue to run XP on those machines for the few apps I needed.
Best of luck.
Alf
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Your post is a bit odd, in that you say you have simple needs, then compare two industrial cameras that will set you back at least $3k to $6k. You might refine your requirements and budget a bit more.
If you can spend the extra $3k that it seems the Z7U costs, then yes, it seems like a great camera, though I haven’t used one. You really aren’t comparing similar cameras though. You might as well compare a Zoom to the 150, the price difference is that big.
I’ve really enjoyed the 150, and yes, would like interchangeable lens, but haven’t had a need for one yet. I would also like a dual slot for the SD cards, so I could have a backup done on the fly.
Think of it this way, you can buy the 150, and then buy a fully kitted out Canon T2i for your DOF needs for the price of one Sony Z7U, it seems from casual glance. That’s the setup I have. But maybe the prices have come down on it.
Alf
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Norm, I use FCP on a dual quad core mac pro, and Vegas on a dual W7 w/64 bit Vegas. I don’t have the video preview problems ever on FCP. (I edited my recent video project on FCP and my latest Canon T2i on Vegas.) I find Vegas much easier to use in general than FCP, I get things done much faster in general, but this issue with Vegas not fully utilizing my high end graphics cards to be quite agravating. If Sony were serious about surpassing FCP or Adobe as the industry standard, they would solve this most basic problem of their software. I have no idea what the core reasons to solving this are, perhaps there is some fundamental issue that would require enormous rewriting and test matrix to implement. I’ve been through many software iterations in my day, and I am not damning Sony out of hand. But this feature issue is really cramping us in the high end use of their product. I don’t give a damn about 3d, but understand the programatic issues with them implementing it. If they can do 3d, why can’t they do decent preview with 2d on a high end graphics card? It seems idiotic on it’s surface!
Alf
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I recommend not using a laptop, I have both a desktop and a laptop. I use a Samsung R580 with 4 GBs RAM and a i5 processor w/500 GB hard drive. It’s got an odd location for it’s trackpad, so I usually use a mouse, but to be truthful, I’ve NEVER found a windows laptop that stacks up to using a desktop, or a Mac laptop. sad but true.
The Samsung does have an esata port on it, so you can use an esata doc with it. It’s big, heavy, the screen is ok, not great, but it was only $800. If you wanted to spend upwards of $1800, then there are some great options. HP, Lenovo, etc.
Alf
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I agree that accelerated preview was something I *hoped* to see in 10. This is most disappointing. Please, Sony, get this done sooner than later. I don’t want to go to FCP for *all* my work. I’m continuing to find myself pushed this way…..
As to CC, it seems to me that with YouTube’s huge investment there, that we will be seeing more of this as a requirement in the near future, especially in government sponsored video, which I deal with currently. I, for one, am working on CC’ing my videos in all work. If customers don’t ask for it, I’m going to remind them that their parents probably can’t hear our work.
I for one, do work with HDSLR as well as AVCHD (Panasonic) so I’m happy any time that Sony wants to make improvements in both of these. And believe me, working with Canon HDSLR cameras is problematic today in 9.x
As to other feature sets, I’m just VERY glad to see Sony moving this platform forward. I LOVE this NLE compared to others I work in, it’s much simpler to use, and does 90% of what I need, so keep it moving forward.
As to 3d, I agree, I’m pushing the client envelope just being in HD. Heck, I’ve wondered if it’s worth shooting HD given my customer needs (G). I’m certainly not going to downgrade, but HD is being driven by me, not the customers! But you and I both know, that if Sony didn’t do 3d, it would be viewed as another ‘nail in the coffin’. So let’s just say, yeah, and move on folks.
Alf
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Thanks for the feedback. I didn’t add any lights to the daylight scenes, all natural lighting. Inside shots were a mixed bag that changed over time. Ended up going back to “hot” Lowell lights, as my ‘new’ cool lights really didn’t have any punch.
I debated heavily breaking up the talking heads. We had to stick to 15 minutes of run time, and as you see, there was a lot of thoughts to get in. The budget was so small that I couldn’t get additional shots of any consequence that would break things up. In future interviews I would find some stuff to shoot, them walking around their houses, the beach, etc. Next time!
The editing glitches you mention were partially there because our interviewer, who was very new to interviewing, sometimes didn’t wait to reply, sometimes she started folks before I was ready, and didn’t go back to get the just said (a lot of the good stuff was said at the beginning of the interviews). I had no *air* to edit with and so we ended up having the problems you see. Good stuff was said and people, especially couples, finished each others’ sentences…Audiences in general didn’t care, but we know that it could have been better. The interviewer however knew everyone it seemed. She was great at knowing the questions to ask, but needed to better understand the art of interviewing, technically that is.
I also struggled with the notion of a formal storyline. I broke the video into three parts: 1. what it was like 2. What was lost and why and 3. What thoughts for us to move forward? The audience for this is the people of the Olympic Peninsula, so some liberty was taken with their understanding of some of this going in.
Given the 15 minute timeline, I would have had to leave out someone to do what you are asking, I did think about it, but ultimately I decided to let them tell the story, which did sort of fall into place. But yes, I would have loved to have done a more formal storyline.
We had/have about 30 hours of video interviews shot, and I have used this as a ‘demo reel’ to start going back to other funding sources to see if we can get money to do more editing of ‘chapters’. That way, I can take some time to think each chapter through, and tell the story with less people. There’s some extremely interesting information that didn’t make the final cut. Hoping to release it someday.
Alf