[Bill Davis]

Batteries should be friends
but death lurks on every
big important job.

What is the sound of
a bad microphone?
It is the sound of failure

The weather is my master
not to offend it
I must tempt the fates

shoot edit pro am I
but clients camcorder kids
get the paid gigs

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Fundamentally there are three aspects of the difference which are most important to understanding this.

A) Raster size issues
B) Progressive verses interlaced issues
and C) Temporal offset issues.

In order,

A) Nearly every camera including the modern high-rez DSLRs “dumb down” the area of the sensor that captures video. This is because trying to stream data from a full chip capture creates WAY too much data to allow full 30 frame throughput. So a modern digital still camera taking one capture will typically take a MUCH higher rez fundamental image than ANY video camera.

B) Most video systems use an interlaced field capture. The even lines are scanned, then the odd lines are filled in. This means the fundamental data of any single “capture” (one field) is essentially HALF the actual resolution of the chip producing it. Only when two fields are combined, do you get the FULL resolution the imager is capable of. (this wouldn’t be AS big an issue if not for the following…)

C) Temporal offset is the reality that when you’re capturing interlaced fields (and sometimes even when you’re NOT!) an object in fast motion will physically change location during the time it takes to actually capture the picture. In interlaced systems, this means objects can easily change position in the time BETWEEN the capturing of the first field and the second field. Think of a race car. Even if you use a fast shutter, if you’re taking TWO pictures (the two fields of interlaced video) separated by milliseconds – the race care will be in a DIFFERENT place during the second scan than it was during the first. So it’s common practice to have to DE-INTERLACE still captures from video in order to remove the distortion that comes from adding together two picture fields taken at slightly different times. Most systems just take the first field and copy it and use that to replace the second field, an act that cuts the ACTUAL resolution in half.

Fundamentally, these are the basic reasons why it will be quite a while before video capture systems can come close to the resolution abilities of even inexpensive digital still cameras.

Hope that helps.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

What kind of mic?

If it’s a dynamic, then the incoming signal will be reasonably low by nature and having to turn gain up to get a clear signal (within reason) isn’t very strange.

OTOH, if your mic is an electret design, you probably have to turn on the H4n’s phantom power in the menu in order to properly power the mic.

It’s also possible that cable or mic or even the unit itself is defective.

All possibilities that require traditional gain structure troubleshooting to track down and solve.

Good luck.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Just so you understand, this really isn’t a production or even a content problem.

It’s a marketing problem. Pure and simple.

No matter how wonderful or compelling your product/content might be, the central sales challenge is ALWAYS getting it exposed to large enough audience and then getting that audience to REACT to the marketing by actually sending in money. THAT is the CENTRAL issue in selling anything.

Anyone who doesn’t understand this is NOT going to be successful.

Yeah, we all hear stores about the rare few who get “lottery lucky” and it’s VERY easy to translate those stories into “if I just make my widget – lots of people will buy them just like the products I see on TV” thinking. But for every “infomercial you see on TV where you hear of people making huge sales, there are a thousand (probably TENS of thousands, of products that are nearly as good that don’t come even CLOSE to turing a profit.

The marketing plan AND the funds to drive it – that’s what usually makes the difference between sales success and sales failure.

For what it’s worth.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

I guess it could be argued both ways.

But the thing I’d really miss is being able to do an accurate WINDOW DUB for clients.

Having reliable frame-locked timecode means that when they tell me that they want the music even softer starting at 1:02:30 and back to full at 1:02:32 there’s NO room for discussion about the request.

I know that most modern data streams have lots and lots of meta-data attached, and if some replacement that can easily be displayed and used that’s NOT traditional SMPTE TC, I’m open to that.

But there’s GOT to be a way to ID the stream or stuff starts to breakdown in workgroup or cutter to client communications.

Just sayin’…

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

I try to always remember that when you’re calculating computer aging, it works a bit like ascribing age progression in dogs.

Your 5 year old laptop is actually 25 in “presentation years.”

Let us know if this works.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Quality C-Stands have a LOT of mass. And that means they transmit vibration poorly.
Just use decent shockmounts – (or rig some rubber band mounts between the mic and the arm) and you should be fine.

Of course, the best solution is to rent enough lavs to mic all the principals directly. You can’t get around the fact that a mic 3-6 inches from a speakers mouth will ALWAYS outperform one 6 feet away in terms of clarity and isolation of the sound of a person talking.

Good luck.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

What a fun thread!

Can I play?

(clearing throat and announcing in my most stentorian tones…)

Unless FCP X, honors my individual needs above those of ALL others and conforms to my personal workflow expectations, I hereby reserve the right to complain to everyone who will listen (and, of course those who don’t wish to.)

Oh, also, – before I forget – (because this matters a LOT to me!) – upon completion of my projects, any new iteration of VCP must throw up ONE giant glowing button that is marked AUTO OUTPUT BILL’S WORK IN A FORM EXACTLY AS HIS CLIENTS NEED IT AND MAIL IT TO THEM INSTANTLY IN A FORM THAT WILL WORK PERFECTLY WITHOUT FAIL — (and the software must complete such distribution in less than five minutes regardless of the size of the output file because he’s impatient and HATES having to wait for stuff) – well, that’s it.

Unless you do this FCP team… I will consider this release an ABJECT failure and immediately move my business to alternate software where I’m sure the new company WILL concentrate ALL their efforts on making sure their stuff works precisely to my personal specifications and who will strive always keep ME happy because, after all, **I** am the center of the editing universe and all shall tremble before my awesomeness…

(Huh, now I get it – that DID make me feel much more “in control” and better about my life.)

Thank you.

; )

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Here’s my 2 cents.

You build RELATIONSHIPS with your crews. For me, that means keeping a VERY close eye on anything that overly stresses or annoys them. If they see me as a producer/director who has a history of not abusing them, paying fairly and promptly, and taking THEIR comfort and needs into the mix along with those of the clients and sponsors, then they’ll typically cut me a LOT of slack when it comes to the rare situation where we have to push an extra hour or two in order to get a shot or make something legitimate in the production schedule work.

If you haven’t built those relationships and level of respect, then EXPECT that when you ask people to go “above and beyond” for you, they might do it – but eventually they will STOP doing it – or worse, in my view, the best of them will suddenly start taking OTHER gigs in preference to mine and I’ll have trouble assembling the crews I need when I need them.

In my experience the WORST thing you can do in this business is devalue the human relationships that exist between ALL the people working on your projects.

And if you ever let them get a WHIFF that you’re using their pain to try to make more or save more of even just keep one party to the operations (clients, execs, whatever) happier to the detriment of the others – you’re eventually going to get hosed for it.

My experience, anyway.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

And on the more “philosophical” side…

If you narrow your view down to ONLY the dialog track, it’s pretty easy to see flaws that you feel the need to correct. And in many cases this is a good and proper process.

However, never lose sight of the fact that the actual presentation to the audience is pretty likely to have MUCH more “communicative information” than just the sound itself.

Scene context, body language, the ability to see the LIPS of the characters as they speak – all these can do a LOT to help the audience understand what’s actually being said.

Think if it this way. If the shot is of a couple staring into each others eyes – and the guy mumbles “I love you” but mumbles it such that he completely drops the “I” and it just comes out as …’love you” the audience will likely have absolutely NO problem with the flub. That’s because, in context” we understand EXACTLY what’s happening and precision dialog recording’s importance is submerged in the overall flow and context of the scene.

This happens ALL THE TIME in videos. So pay attention to the details, but also learn when “enough is enough” when it comes to seeking perfection.

For what it’s worth.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner