Brian Lynn
Forum Replies Created
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Without using special firewire/component adapters to get better quality video, you are pretty much limited to S-Video, or Composite.
How long are your runs?
Sony 8041 monitors usually have built in speakers. Most monitors do, but they are seldom used.
If your runs are not monster long then you can use just BNC cable from each room to yourself, you will have to run audio separatly.
The other option is something like a Gefen video/audio to CAT5/6 converter. I use these all the time, I actually own 3 sets. They allow me to send great quality composite video and audio L/R down 1000 feet of Cat5 cable! It has 3 RCA inputs, any of the 3 can handle audio or composite video. So you can do 2 runs video, 1 run audio, or 3 runs of audio, or 3 runs of video. You get the point. And its all down ONE peice of CAT cable! Camera video/audio LR out into one box, long run of CAT cable, and the reciever translates it back to RCA outs that you can feed your monitor with.
It also helps keep the signals clean. Long analogue cable runs are suceptable to noise, like 60 cycle hum. Power running parallel to a video cable can mangle your image.
Really it all depends on how far away you are going to be. If you are close enough then BNC cables and RCA>XLR adapters for audio, and run XLR cables for the audio runs. Trying to make long runs of RCA is nasty stuff.
Try calling a local Audio Visual company, or try your local hotel that has P.S.A.V. or another in house company that handles meetings and stuff. They can rent you the gear you need. VER (Video Equipment Rentals), Nationwide, Broadcast Rentals, and Bexell are also great resources for rentals.
Hope this helps, and good luck!
Brian Lynn
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This might have been better posted in the Media Formats Media Capacities forum I just discovered…
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Wow that’s a creative video!
My guess would be a lot of time and patience? lol
I believe it would be possible to do 90% of this video with a printer, a cheap video camera, a still camera. Film your talent doing their moves, print the frames you need for motion, cut them out and then film the whole thing as 10cm tall miniature cutouts…
Or
It looks to me like this could have been filmed and assembled without a green screen… because all the “actors” are cutouts it looks like they could have used white to fit the paper theme.
After you have your video cut out, probably a rotoscope or a even just an angular junk matte.
Looks like they’ve taken the same cut out and layered time after time, offset the time of some of the cutouts, freeze some while other continue, and obviously run them all in 3d space.You very seldomly see any of the 3d layers straight on its edge so its possible they are just simple flat 3d layers in After Effects. Even when the images fan out, or the camera spins around, and you do see and edge its so fast its hard to tell if there is true thickness to them.
Either way, or neither way, it was a lot of work, but it paid off… unique feel, great look. I like it, thanks for showing me =)
Brian
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These errors are coming from a PC actually…
But as I said, we have MacPros on site, and all of them are Final Cut boxes. All have QT Pro, the MPEG playback component, and none of them can touch this video. I have more luck on the PC trying to get it to do anything.
We’ve tried MPEG Stream Clip on Mac and PC, no luck.
Final Cut can’t touch it.
After Effects Mac and PC both can’t touch it.
Compressor can’t touch it.
Windows Media Encoder can’t touch it.I’ve even tried Cinelarra (ugh) and it can’t touch it either.
G-Spot tells me I have the codecs installed, but only VLC can get a real handle on it and play it back.
Per my follow up posts, the only thing that can touch this video so far is Sorenson Squeeze 5. And it freaks me out, that software, so I’ve uninstalled it already and reloaded my registry backup.
VLC was the only media player that would actually run the video. Windows Media Player would not play the video, until I installed Sorenson Squeeze 5. It took forever to load but it played back and it played smooth, looked great. Once I uninstalled Sorenson Squeeze 5 (before the registry was restored from backup) and all the scary stuff it installs like ACdsee stuff I think and FFDSHOW stuff, Windows Media Player again would not play the file.
So I got 1/2 way to a solution, but Sorenson is scary. My client has already abandoned this clip a while ago, but I would still like to know for my own personal information banks WHY this is happening. I never feel bad telling a client “your video footage is broken and this is why”. But I feel like a moron when I can’t give them a reason, just give them the symptoms, which to me sound like excuses even though I know they are truth.
Thanks for all your time on this Dave =)
Brian Lynn
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I have to agree 10,000% with David on this one…
Get the heck out of there!
media100 on os3?? are you kidding?
Kick this place to the curb and move on. I worked in a place like this (husband and wife who are now divorced and I got to hear all of it in the office) and I can honestly say I believe you are harming yourself by staying.
Yes, you are being exposed to tools and experience, but at the same time the gear you are learning… um… well here is the best example I can give that might make sense:
You are playing on an Atari. It has one joystick, one button.
The rest of the world is on PS3, or Xbox 360, and they have two joysticks, 8 buttons. You will never get as good as you can be if all you ever do is play on an Atari.You will learn a lot about how difficult the industry -used- to be, and you will spend a lot of time trouble shooting problems and having to create work arounds that the rest of the modern world have upgraded past.
Why doesn’t your boss use something cheap, free, like I-Movie? I’ve never used it, but my MOM makes movies on it. My mom can’t even set the time on a VCR yet she makes slideshow videos for her classes all the time on her little Mac and has a blast doing it. As far as I know I-Movie is aimed at non-technical oriented people who want fast easy templates to drop picturs in to get movement and such.
AE 4.0 … holy C-COW! My earlist version was 4.5 Production Bundle and it was hard to use. I bought it used on Ebay and tried it for a week. I went and bought the upgrade to 7 as soon as I could afford it, and I was so happy with the upgrade that I’ve followed every upgade since then.
And you don’t even have Automator, nothing… sheesh… yeah, get out while you still watch color TV!
Brian Lynn
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I hate to confuse people, but I am curious…
.mp3 works just fine in my After Effects (CS3). I can scrub audio, render out video with the audio, no problems…
Is there a reason to not use .mp3 if I can, other than quality? Its not always possible for me to get my hands on an original .wav. I usually get music handed to me by clients and its all .mp3. Converting back to .wav won’t gain me any quality as far as I know, and its a much larger file. If I started in .mp3 is there a reason to redo it to another audio codec?
Brian Lynn
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Are you Mac? PC? Linux?
PC:
Since you are already on After Effects I would recommend Premiere.
Sony Vegas is also nice, though not considered high-end like Final Cut and Premiere so its cheaper. It works well enough and its what I used to use when it was still Sonic Foundry, before Sony bought it. Luckily Sony hasn’t made many changes to it.Mac:
Only NLE I’ve ever used for Mac is Final Cut.Linux:
Only NLE I’ve used for Linux is Cinelarra. Its… well… if you are used to other NLE is very hard to use, its linux based so it can be hard to get up and running, if you can get it up at all, but if you can run it and learn it its very powerful, and free. The Jahshaka project has also restarted with real focus according to their website. If it ever comes about as the tool they hope/plan it to be, it will be awesome.Hope this helps =)
Brian Lynn -
Need to know how you are defining “jittery”…
Best thing you could do is render a sample, and post it on youtube and give up a link! From that I can tell you so much more than I could with just using words to try and describe a problem. Especially this kind of problem.
Do you have problems with only one type of move? For instance, horizontal is nasty, but vertical works ok?
Hard edges on things you bring in can make the image looks like it almost crawls across a screen. This is because the line you are seeing is moving between pixels. After Effects does one of the best jobs of sub-pixel smoothing around, but it still can’t compensate for a hard edge. This might not be your problem at all though, which is why I would love to see a sample of what you’re talking about.
What are your comp settings? (composition>comp settings)
And render settings? (in the render cue tab under Render Settings) -
Doesnt have to be blue… You could always mask the glasses to isloate their key separate from the green sceen and use green for the key on both. All depends on what your light is like, and what colors your other subjects in the shot have in them.
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Try drag and drop the effect onto the text to apply it.
Also, have you switched the layers to 3d? If you have, don’t. Let the effects preset do that for you.
Are you using a camera?
My work flow would be Layer>New>Text, enter my text, drag and drop my effect on, and should be done. Should be able to rotate the camera and see the text flying around in 3d space.
Can you post a sample simple project (no 3rd party programs, no external media, use just AE to create a project with your problem in it) to take a look at?
Brian