[Bob Cole]

[Rich Rosen] “What do you do when one guy is in a white t-shirt and the other in black or other darker color in the same shot?”

sounds as if you are at one location a lot, so maybe you could change things. In Hollywood they shoot “wardrobe screen tests.” Maybe you could supply the white/black tee shirt wearers with something more photogenic.

Or, instead of ameliorating the overly-contrasty scene, you can use it. Just as we use depth of focus to isolate the point of interest, you can use correct exposure in an overly-contrasty scene to concentrate the viewer’s attention on a specific place. You see all sorts of wacky exposure shifts and lighting now, and it’s kind of neat.

— BC

[Bob Cole]

Thanks all for your good ideas.

I checked to see whether Encore actually transcoded the .mp2 to .ac3, and after not finding any .ac3 files at all, I tried reimporting the .mp2 and transcoding yet again. This time, the transcode seemed to take much longer, and an .ac3 file was created.

I wish I could figure out what I did differently which resulted in success. But I’m going to be checking to see that an .ac3 file actually was created for awhile.

Thanks again!

— Bob Cole

[Bob Cole]

[Borjis] “you definitely don’t want to
be using mpeg layer 2 for audio as most U.S. players don’t
support it.

PCM should be avoided, so stick with AC-3 around 256kbps
or less.”

My encoder (Mainconcept in the Stream package for the Digital Rapids card) offers PCM and MPEG Layer 2. I opted for a non-multiplexed (sep. video and audio file) encoding, so that in Adobe Encore I could transcode the audio to AC-3. I am not sure from that point on. Encore says it is transcoding, but I have looked at the “transcoded” folder, right-clicked for properties, and all it will tell me is that the file is a WAV file.

Is there an analysis tool which would enable me to look at my files and tell me just what they are?

It strikes me as very odd that (1) the DVD fails at the same point every time and (2) no problems at all in a $150 home player, consistent problems in a $1000+ industrial player.

I’ll try the burning-at-1x trick. Thanks!

— BC

[Bob Cole]

Thanks Alex. I’ve ordered it already. They should give you a commission for your excellent article. Do you have any observations about the changes seen in the updated version — or do you plan to update your article for eDVD 4?

— BC

[Bob Cole]

[tony salgado] “You will only stay fat if you want to be fat.”

Appreciate your advice. I agreed with everything you wrote up to that line.

Some fatties hate being fat, go to extreme trouble and expense to fight it, and fail. Some skinny people BECOME fat while they are going through medical treatments for certain diseases.

And while I am glad you exempt Subway from the list of bad-fast-food spots, it is extremely easy to turn a healthy Subway sandwich into a Big Mac with a few squirts from the squeeze bottles at the end of the line.

All that said, your advice is excellent, and for most of us, but NOT ALL, fat is something we can fight successfully if we want to badly enough.

[Bob Cole]

There’s a whole long list, and it boils down to conditions, size of boat, your location in the boat, and practically speaking, the availability of equipment wherever you are.

The Kenyon gyro-stabilizer is good for hand-holding in moderate conditions, but panning can be a problem as it needs time to stabilize the move, and it doesn’t end a pan smoothly because it wants you to keep panning. Like holding a big bowl of jello.

— BC

[Bob Cole]

A purely unscientific observation, but it seems to me that back in the day, all of the tv shooters I saw around town had big bellies.

Now they are much fitter-looking of course….

— BC

[Bob Cole]

[Miguel] “I am looking for a DV/analog capture card”

Interesting question. I already have PP, but have not used it because I am waiting for the right i/o/RT acceleration board. Matrox Axio is out of my reach as a turnkey (and I already have an HP xw8200).

What would you recommend for:

1. i/o: SD composite/S-video/component video, bal./unbal. audio, SMPTE timecode input/output and deck control.

2. some hardware acceleration so that I can at least do basic effects (dissolves, wipes) in real time.

3. some kind of upgrade path for SDI/HDV/HD i/o

This is probably where I realize that I’ve been spoiled with my Matrox DigiSuite system for discreet edit.

Am I looking at a combination of Blackmagic and something else?

— BC

[Bob Cole]

I stand corrected about truck/dolly terminology. I think you have a good point about the whole zoom discussion. It’s very risky, but I think a nice slow zoom, perfectly timed, in a key point of an interview can be dramatic. As Leo remarks, it does call attention to the camera, but that can actually be useful, for example as a “cue” that the film is over. I recently used a slow dramatic zoom-in interiew bite as the last shot in a small museum piece, and it works great.

— BC

[Bob Cole]

[Kevin Herrin] “Or is it still who you know more that what you know.”

Who you know IS what you know. Be genially persistent. I know a very good DP who simply hung around a public tv station for months after his internship and pay ended, while the public tv station advertised fruitlessly for a new cameraman, ignoring him totally… until the day before the funding was about to be cut, when they panicked, & hired the intern. It was the start of a great career, and if he hadn’t gotten that break, he may not have become a DP. otoh, he probably would have gone into real estate and made several million dollars….

— Bob C