[Brian Lynn]

Yeah I tried to search for this one… but the ubiquitous names “Picture” and “Frame” turned up an astounding amount of hits, I figured I might just ask again! =)

[Brian Lynn]

Yeah I avoid eBay for most things that I need professionaly. I use B&H regularly. Ever been in their shop in New York? What a trippy place, I recomend a pilgrimage if you ever get the chance!

The lighting is crucial, I know… I will be helping with the lighting and shooting, (and audio, and editing and visual effects as well as we have no budget, just trying to do the best we can with what our regular jobs pay!).

I hope to be able to post a clip soon of something we’ve done, as lots of what we’re planning is based on modified, or at least inspired by, CC tutorials and forum posts!

Thanks for the help, you’ve relieved my fears of investing into the Lastolite product. They are not the B&H top of the line, but the green/blue reversable, at its 10’x24′ size will give us a good work horse.

I would love to invest in Reflecmedia but I think the requirement of the LED ring and how you use it will limit its application, and I can’t afford that much just for a chroma rig at the moment.

Any experience with the Rosco Paint? Seems the cost on it has come way down from the last time I looked…

Thanks again for all the posts!

Brian Lynn

[Brian Lynn]

Take a quick run through these two tutorials created by the wonderful masterminds here at creativecow, I think they will answer most of your questions!

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/reflections.php

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/okerstrom_jon/reflections.php

Andrew Kramer lays down the basics in the first tutorial, and Jon Okerstrom does an excellent job expanding it to include Invigorator.

Hope it helps!
Brian Lynn

[Brian Lynn]

What kind of video files are you trying to import?

(.mov, .avi, .wmv …)

And what Codec is used?

And is there audio?

[Brian Lynn]

Thanks for the replys!

I knew I had heard people talk about “green for digital” or “blue for something” but I never paid attention lol!

The concept of choosing based on the shot comp elements makes perfect sense, and its what I figured I would end up choosing. The Lastolite surface I want is blue on one side, green on the other, so I will have the flexability to do either.

It seems while looking at all the different manufacturers of green and blue chroma color paints and surfaces that there is some variance in the actual color used… I don’t think this will be a problem as AE and its Key tools/plug-ins can work around that, but is there a preference of one manufacturer over another?

Some of these things are very expensive… and I do understand why the Reflectmedia stuff is expensive, its new, its flashy, and the surface is not cheap with its embedded glass… but on the more standard flat backdrop type, is there really that much of a difference between the manufacturers? Prices range from $200 to $800 on what seems to be almost the exact same thing…

You guys rock, thanks for the help!

Brian

[Brian Lynn]

Rear projection will not give a nice smooth color. Unless you have a very expensive Stuart rear screen, or a similar low-gain Da-Lite or something you will have a gradient color. Rear projection has an inherant “hot spot”. If your projector uses a 0.8 lens this hot spot will be center of the screen itself. Most other lenses will place the hot spot at the lower edge of the screen. This also depends on the actual setup… its possible to “ceiling” the projector and move the hot spot to the top edge, or use “Lens Shift” to move the projected image more off center.

I have used a projector for what you would like to do. Your best bet is front projection, onto a surface large enough that your side-keystone won’t matter. Place your projector far enough back that you will never see the edges of your keystone raster.

The other option is to overhead “ceiling” mount your projector on a crossbar or other rigging. This will allow you to shoot over your subject, will bounce ambient light into the floor first, and allow to you shoot your blue/green image squarely onto your key surface.

I hope that all makes sense!

[Brian Lynn]

>>>Can you describe the term “mangled” in a bit more detail? That could mean anything from running off-speed, or heavily-artifacted, or bad color, to chopped up into 8-frame chunks and rearranged randomly.

***by mangled… well stuttering is the most common problem. We get bands of what seems to be slipped vertical pixels. Its hard to explain but its like the top 10% has slipped to the right by 50% of the width… the next 10% down is slipped by 40%, and so on down. The middle 50% seems to be ok, but then the lower area is artifacted, or just jumpy with no clear image at all. Wish I could get you a screen shot. Once a bad clip is loaded it makes all the good clips do bad things. Delete the offensive clip and the good ones play back fine again.

>>>The Turbo’s propoganda states that within the machine, it uses MPEG2 with bit rates ranging anywhere from 4-25 MB/S. What sort of files (QT, WMV, AVI, etc.) and just as importantly, what sort of codecs are you using to create the files that you ingest into the machine?

***We have found that 5mb/s is the easiest for the Turbo to take in. We have tried everything from default settings to tweaking out stuff we’re not even sure what it does in the MainConcept mpeg encoder option screen.

The codecs we have tried are:
none (uncompressed quicktime) from AE
H.264 .mov from AE
mpeg from AE
m2v mpeg from AE
its a windows based machine but it can’t play with .avi at all.
.mov, .moeg, .m2v/m2t are the file types we’ve tried.

>>> Where does the conversion to MPEG2 take place?

***If I render my comp as a MPEG it mangles. If I render my comp as an uncompressed.mov it mangles. If I render my comp as an H.264.mov it mangles. All from AE…

If I take any of the same renders and run it through FCP or Premiere, it works… no problems.

AE uncompressed.mov -> FCP -> mpeg -> Turbo, works.
AE render to any file the Turbo recognizes to FCP/Premiere to any file Turbo recognizes, let the Turbo convert the MPEG, and it works. As long as it hits the NLE between AE and the Turbo it works…

>>>As to training on the machine, did the Grass Valley rep just drop it off and tell you to figure it out?

***This is a box I work with quite often, though I/we have had limited training on it… Grass Valley’s support is not the best on this toy. I’ve tried calling Grass Valley, to try and get a work flow, codec, or ANYthing that would guarantee sucess, and they could not help me.

We have used them in many situations, and they always give us troubles of some kind. We’ve used a DNF controller, and multiple Turbo machines to feed a super widescreen blended projection system, 2304×768 pixel space. Three projectors of native res. 1024×768 onto a 3:1 ratio screen using full raster height. Feed the Turbo into a Barco Encore and run that out to the projectors. On that particular show we used the high-def (afterthought) capabilites of the Turbo. We use DoReMi V1U playback units as well. Those give us all kinds of other problems, mostly HDD crash related.

So far, the only machines I’ve been able to get to with AE are PC (I’m a PC user)… the FCP is a co-workers MacBookPro.

So AE render from comp = very good chance of problems. Take the comp render into FCP or MPEG StreamClip or Premiere Pro2 and then there is no issues with ingest.

<<>> Anything else, or anything I can clear up more, please ask!

Sorry it took me so long to post a reply after you posted… I’ve been backstage on this show all week with very limited cell/internet service. Drives me crazy! lol

Brian Lynn

[Brian Lynn]

Thanks for the replies guys! Both are a big help, and will save me a ton of time! Thanks!

Brian

[Brian Lynn]

I found the issue.

Sonic DLA

I uninstalled, now the Pro.Bund.CS2 disk installs Render Engine just fine.

[Brian Lynn]

Ok I am a idiot… helps to look through my entire CD before I post! lol…