[Bob Cole]

This discussion has centered on the web and DVD.

I sometimes need to create video news releases, which are put on a website for local tv stations to access and use in their own stories. What should I be shooting for that? 1080p30? 1080i60?

I would very much like to find a table on the web which lays out each format, with its optimal purpose. Has anyone seen anything like that (and accurate, too?).

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Thanks. Great ideas.

I still like Edius’s software integration with an external DVD burner, but these tips will help me a lot.

I appreciate your help!

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[doug eklund] “I would appreciate if anyone could tell the earliest possible examples they know of night cinematography?”

You might want to post this in the Film History forum in this same website.

[Bob Cole]

[Jason Jenkins] “that the preamps are way too noisy to be any good.”

I’ve found the Sound Devices MM-1 a wonderful choice for pre-amp, especially when you are taking your sound with a boom (and as Todd said, that’s the way to go). It has 48v phantom powering, monitoring, a wide range of pre-amp boost, and even 12v T-power.

And, responding to the original post, Todd is right: you need good audio; you can get by with your existing software.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

The results: great, thanks in large part to the advice I received here.

I was able to put only one light, two cameras, and no operator in the vehicle. No tinting of the driver’s window was allowed. I used a FilmTools 494 kit to attach a light and camera to the passenger seat’s headrest support rods, providing a profile view of the driver with the background of his window. The light was an LED (Flolight Microbeam 128), set to provide moderate, subtle fill when the background was backlit, i.e. relatively dark. It didn’t look “lit” at all. I used a Flip HD, which averaged the exposure, so that the background would never look blown out.

To provide coverage of the driver’s face when the scenery outside the driver’s window was frontlit and therefore too bright for the profile view camera, I put another small camera (Sony CX150) on an interior windshield mount, aimed, zoomed-in, and spot-metered for the driver’s face, so we always had coverage for his facial expressions.

The coverage of those two cameras along with the various POV cameras on the outside of the car, did the job beautifully. To repeat, it never looked “lit” yet we got what we needed.

Thanks again. The concept of merely filling, not lighting, was the thing I needed to hear.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Thanks for the real-world advice. Glad I asked. I think a couple of small FW800 drives would work great.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Don Greening] ” So I don’t know, I think hard drives are still more cost effective for archiving.”

But on the road, when you’re in need of fast backups that are more secure than a hard drive, it seems to me that the USB flash drive/thumb drive devices are a better bet even if they cost more. I’d feel insecure about downloading to only one hard drive.

[Bob Cole]

Thanks Michael. I will try to figure out the exact Avid codec. There is also the possibility that the Avid editor has an older codec.

What do you think would be the safest file format in which to export my Final Cut Pro movies? Is there some universal format which Avid editors can import?

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Thank you Ted. I had to move into another project, but will be able to try your AE project next week. I appreciate your help!

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

I’d appreciate it if you could respond to this, if I’ve gotten anything wrong here. I have shot on SxS cards for a couple years, but only occasionally. Now that I have an XDCAM, the issue has become a lot more important to me. My take-away from this thread as well as many others is:

1. Erasing will preserve all your filename settings, which is a great aid in editing as well as ensuring against accidental file overwriting during file transfers and backups. So you may want to erase rather than format, while making an individual project.
2. Formatting is a good idea between projects as it may create a more reliable recording medium. At any rate, it doesn’t hurt, and renaming your cards appropriately has benefits of its own.
3. I’m going to make it a practice to format when shifting from any significant (more than a day) project or client to another.

Thanks for the thoughtful and useful replies. Am I in the ballpark here?

Bob C