[Bob Cole]

Great answers — I’ll add a few.

The usual low-budget (and not very pretty) answer: pose subject so sun acts as a backlight and use a Flex-fill to put some more light on his/her face. The slightly-bigger-budget answer: a small HMI near the camera, as diffused as you can afford it to be.

If wind isn’t an issue and there is enough crew/set-up time to ensure safety, I like to use a very light silk in a Chimera 42×72″ frame.

The environment can help: a white wall can act as a giant reflector. In the magic hours near dawn/dusk, full sunlight on the face can be terrific.

As said previously, avoid sun overhead at all costs as it will turn the nose into a bright white triangle.

Good luck!

[Bob Cole]

[Miha Boom] “It is a bit of steel sticking out so perhaps you have to be a little more careful as a hard knock may damage your XLR plug but so far I’m fine with small accidental ones.”

You can put this anywhere in the line, right? directly onto the mic, or between two XLR cables, or on the camera? Where do you put this device?

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

I’m a PC refugee so my experience may or may not be relevant.

For all of our natural focus on video, I agree with David that the non-AC3 audio is almost definitely the problem. Also, I’ve had situations where encoding the audio at the 228 (?) rate didn’t work, and 192 did.

When I have to do a small run in-house, I use several PCs, a disk image (is that what others call a “build”?); for software: DVD Decrypter (which also verifies the disk very conservatively); for media: Taiyo-Yuden best quality; and I make sure that there are no competing programs which will “poll” the DVD drive during burning. Speeds of 8x are not a problem at all. When it is a very important DVD, I will burn at 1x, though my success with 8x is about 98%.

The other biggie is using less of your physical space on the DVD. The outer edges are particularly vulnerable to errors and physical handling problems, and that’s where the last bits will be recorded. So, use more compression and leave a good part of the DVD empty. I was obsessed with compressing for DVDs at the lowest rate for awhile, until the abovementioned David Weiss persuaded me that you couldn’t really see much of difference between that and a little bit less.

My main reason for being a PC loyalist is my nice real-time, multi-format Digital Rapids card. But I’d like to learn the Mac side. Is there a good tutorial for the mindless (that’s me) on how to use Compressor and DVDSP? The few times I’ve tried it, the difference in terminology from what I’m used to has sent me back to my Digital Rapids card and Encore. But I’d like to try and learn, in case my DR card ever goes up in smoke.

Thanks!

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

I appreciate the feedback. I will follow your good advice.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

I was aware of Trai’s service. I just wondered whether putting the project on DLT made it less necessary.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[JonatCalDigit] “Will be a SAN solution, (we’re developing software now).”

Do you mean that an existing product will be a SAN solution when the software enables it, or are you talking about a yet-to-be-announced box?

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Camtasia?

[Bob Cole]

First, thanks for the fantastically informative test. It’s a real service, and I hope Apple sees it. Your suggestions for a work-around are excellent, but what a PITA! Looks like I need to use one of the other ways to handle text graphics for FCP that you suggested (Motion or Live Type).

[billlee] “A multi-layer photoshop file is storing the layers as a set of the smallest bounding boxes for each layer. This is true for both raster layers and for text layers.”

That little vertical smear that I referred to, just grazing the right side of my text, is probably the edge of this bounding box.

I think it’s very odd, still, that when I import a wrong-sized graphic (720×540), FCP handles it fine (except for needing to render).

Thanks again for the great research.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

This has turned into more of a puzzle than I’d thought. Doing the wrong thing works, and vice versa. Surely I must be doing something very basically wrong here.

1. In PS CS, I created 720×540 graphic. White (235/230/230) text over black background. Imported to FCP 720×486 timeline, the red line immediately appeared. I dissolved from graphic to live action, and rendered. Result: no jumps.

2. In PS CS, I non-proportionally changed the pixel dimensions of that same graphic to 720×486. In FCP, no rendering line. But two problems: (a) long vertical smear (faint but definite) at the right side of the last letter and (b) from the very first frame of the dissolve out to live action, the text jumps slightly larger, particularly in the vertical dimension. Putting a darker color on the font makes the smear even fainter but the dissolve still makes the text jump.

re: my earlier centering question: I was thinking that may be due to how I made the graphic inside PS, but it’s still inconsistent. For Graphic #1 (720×540) above: When I double-click the graphic to pop up its own timeline, and then double-click each layer, the black background layer is centered at 0, 0, while the text layer is centered at 4.5, -16. For Graphic #2 (720×486): 4.5, -14.5. That half-pixel makes the dissolve-jump especially troublesome, as it creates a doubling-up of the lower part of the font. When I change that to 4.5, -14, the moire effect disappears but the dissolve jump remains.

Thanks for wading through this tedious and annoying problem. Any insights would be most welcome. Or should I just wait for FCP Studio 2?

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[JeremyG] “he didn’t say what version of Photoshop,”

sorry about that — CS.