[Bob Pierce]

Richard,
If you end up getting the FSI I’d love to hear what you think of it. I’ve had my eye on it for a while buy can’t find any reviews.
Bob

http://www.lightstreamassociates.com

Mac Pro 2.66 – 8GB memory –
Mac Book Pro 2.33 Duo –
FC Studio 2 – Kona Lhe
Adobe Production Suite CS4 –
Sony Multiformat 14″ – Panasonic 42″ Plasma –
Ikegami HLDV7 – PVW EX-1

[Bob Pierce]

I second Rafael’s recommendation. Neat Video’s reduce noise plug in is absolutely amazing.
Bob

http://www.lightstreamassociates.com

Mac Pro 2.66 – 8GB memory –
Mac Book Pro 2.33 Duo –
FC Studio 2 – Kona Lhe
Adobe Production Suite CS4 –
Sony Multiformat 14″ – Panasonic 42″ Plasma –
Ikegami HLDV7 – PVW EX-1

[Bob Pierce]

If I’m not mistaken, what you’re doing basically is the same as the blu ray Share function in Final Cut. It’s a bit confusing since these aren’t really blu ray disks, though they are HD and play on most blu ray players (some don’t accept the format). Due to the lower datarate the quality is a bit below blu ray but they still look pretty darn good.
Bob

http://www.lightstreamassociates.com

Mac Pro 2.66 – 8GB memory –
Mac Book Pro 2.33 Duo –
FC Studio 2 – Kona Lhe
Adobe Production Suite CS4 –
Sony Multiformat 14″ – Panasonic 42″ Plasma –
Ikegami HLDV7 – PVW EX-1

[Bob Pierce]

You might have better luck with embedding a streaming video within your iweb site. You could upload and stream your video from Vimeo, for example, and simply embed the code on your page. Within iWeb it’s one of the “widget” functions (if memory serves) to embed.
Bob Pierce

http://www.lightstreamassociates.com

Mac Pro 2.66 – 8GB memory –
Mac Book Pro 2.33 Duo –
FC Studio 2 – Kona Lhe
Adobe Production Suite CS4 –
Sony Multiformat 14″ – Panasonic 42″ Plasma –
Ikegami HLDV7 – PVW EX-1

[Bob Pierce]

I use a service called Provdn that has a nifty client review feature. It allows the client to actually stop the video, type notes, even draw on the damn thing. Like most of these services, you can try it for free.
https://www.provdn.com/
Bob Pierce

http://www.lightstreamassociates.com

Mac Pro 2.66 – 8GB memory –
Mac Book Pro 2.33 Duo –
FC Studio 2 – Kona Lhe
Adobe Production Suite CS4 –
Sony Multiformat 14″ – Panasonic 42″ Plasma –
Ikegami HLDV7 – PVW EX-1

[Bob Pierce]

I’ve never bothered to try using an EX camera for night sky photography, but I suppose you could try. With the Canons, you can set long exposures, 30 seconds say, and probably catch lots of activity, but then you won’t see the meteors actually move, since you’ll likely not see much motion across frames (meteors are fast!). Then again, these cameras are so darn sensitive that maybe you can use much faster shutter speeds. Do you have the remote for your canons? I have yet to try timelapse with my 7D but have lots of experience with my Nikon. Let us know how you make out. Good luck!
Bob

http://www.lightstreamassociates.com

Mac Pro 2.66 – 8GB memory –
Mac Book Pro 2.33 Duo –
FC Studio 2 – Kona Lhe
Adobe Production Suite CS4 –
Sony Multiformat 14″ – Panasonic 42″ Plasma –
Ikegami HLDV7 – PVW EX-1

[Bob Pierce]

One more thing about the 5D: the camera drops to SD external monitoring while recording.
If you’re really going to shoot with one of these you’re going to need lots of add-ons, hand held rig, loupe viewfinder, follow focus, etc.

http://www.lightstreamassociates.com

Mac Pro 2.66 – 8GB memory –
Mac Book Pro 2.33 Duo –
FC Studio 2 – Kona Lhe
Adobe Production Suite CS4 –
Sony Multiformat 14″ – Panasonic 42″ Plasma –
Ikegami HLDV7 – PVW EX-1

[Bob Pierce]

I found this solution on a website called Video Copilot:

SOLUTION: After rendering into a QuickTime/h.264 file, open it up in QuickTime and select “Show Movie Properties.” Highlight the video track then click on the “Visual Settings” tab. Towards the bottom left you should see “Transparency” with a drop-down box next to it. Select “Blend” from the menu then move the “Transparency Level” slider to 100%. Choose “Straight Alpha” from the same drop-down and close the properties window and finally “Save.”

After doing this, I found the the video displayed correctly whether the “enable Final Cut Studio compatibility” preference is selected or not.

Bob

http://www.lightstreamassociates.com

Mac Pro 2.66 – 8GB memory –
Mac Book Pro 2.33 Duo –
FC Studio 2 – Kona Lhe
Adobe Production Suite CS4 –
Sony Multiformat 14″ – Panasonic 42″ Plasma –
Ikegami HLDV7 – PVW EX-1

[Bob Pierce]

Michael,
You are right – I remastered the audio limiting it down to -12db while increasing the gain and sure enough, the subjective volume of the sound was just about the same as the less compressed audio mastered up at -1db. One does sacrifice some of the nuance of dynamics, but I think this may solve my immediate problem.

Since I have your attention, one last question about this: I typically do my mix in Final Cut, striving for a good balance between voices, nat sound and music. I then export out a stereo mix aiff file and then do the final normalizing and compressing. The only problem with this approach is that the balance of the audio mix is altered – usually the subtle music is suddenly overpowering. I know I can do multitrack mixing inside STP but I always found it an awkward workflow.

Thoughts?
Bob Pierce

http://www.lightstreamassociates.com

Mac Pro 2.66 – 8GB memory –
Mac Book Pro 2.33 Duo –
FC Studio 2 – Kona Lhe
Adobe Production Suite CS4 –
Sony Multiformat 14″ – Panasonic 42″ Plasma –
Ikegami HLDV7 – PVW EX-1

[Bob Pierce]

Thanks for your input, Guys. I understand why you might have -10db for broadcast, but these are video files that will likely end up as streaming video, so I would have thought that mastering hot was the way to go. I’m curious to know what others think about normalization levels for web video.
Thanks!
Bob

http://www.lightstreamassociates.com

Mac Pro 2.66 – 8GB memory –
Mac Book Pro 2.33 Duo –
FC Studio 2 – Kona Lhe
Adobe Production Suite CS4 –
Sony Multiformat 14″ – Panasonic 42″ Plasma –
Ikegami HLDV7 – PVW EX-1