[Craig Seeman]

I surmise from Mitch’s and your comments that the HD cards (Decklink, Kona, AJA?) require a PCI-X slot.

[Craig Seeman]

Thanks Ken and Douglas for your answers.

Client was lower budget so it was only 1 camera, wireless lav, shotgun. The parents hadn’t told me anything because they honestly had no idea what to expect. It seems this event was a grandparents’ wish.

At the Church, the Priest met with the parents and God parents and explained the whole thing from start to finish (and it was as Ken described).

Because of the movement involved and the church limitations on where the tripod could go, I shot most, but not all of it, handheld. I’m very experienced at steady hand held work so no problem there. Ken, what you didn’t mention was the baby SCREAMING into the lav clipped to the God father’s tie. The whole event actually took just over 50 minutes. The only thing I didn’t see that you mention was the hair clipping and the wine. There was also a point when several of the young children in attendance circled the water container. The service consisted of three parts. The back of church event, the baptism which a candle lighting at a table to the side and then a confirmation at the alter. The cantor was very far to one side of the church. On tripod, I zoomed in to him while he sang.

[Craig Seeman]

I’ve played WMV9 files created in Flip4Mac on Windows 98 (pre 98 SE) with WMP7.1 just fine. There’s a free update for WMP7 which will allow it to play WMV9 files. Update default for WMP is “auto udpate” but if disabled, they’d have to update manually.

Flip4Mac will work in Quicktime Pro, FCP, iMovie directly but having Squeeze4.1 (or Cleaner 6) will allow for much additiional tweaking.

[Craig Seeman]

I’m a risk taker like you. I often use capture now on long captures without problem.

BUT

The client needs to bear the costs of that risk and I always make it clear to them. I’d give them an estimate on the number of hours (I assume these hi8 tapes are 120min.) and tell them that if the tapes have issues that I have to fix I have to charge for that time too.

Two issues you can run into with capture now is drop outs killing the capture and/or Audio Video sync issues.

My rule: Never take a job at a flat rate if you don’t have control of everything from start to finish. You have no idea of the tape quality on these home videos.

My Suggestions. Capture one tape and see how it goes. If you find problems notify client ASAP. Reevaluate price and don’t take a bath on a job like this. Some tapes may be great, others not. Only way to know is to do it. You can simply prorate price for the “easy” tapes and then explain you need to charge to work with tapes with issues. You can end up spending an entire business day fighting one tape. If these are to put on a “server” for future editing then they might consider paying for DVCAM (2 hour tapes) dubs, or splitting the tapes in to 2 60 minute miniDV tapes (means future editing) and capture from that. If this job is important to your client they’ll pay.

[Craig Seeman]

[Douglas Villalba] “they start at the main entrance of the church, they will spit at the devil and pray in greek so you won’t understand a word. “

Hmm, I thought the wedding was in Aramaic. Curious how you’d do audio? For the wedding I wireless lav mic’d the groom (as normal) and just used the shotgun for the “ambiant” audio. The cantor was VERY LOUD during the wedding and audio from shotgun sounded fine/clean since the cantor didn’t go too far away.

I’m not sure the cantor or priest would like to wear a lav and I don’t think there’ll be any PA system.

Is it ok to position camera left or right flank of the priest or better to be front left or right and might that be considered an obstruction? Obviously I want a clear shot of the baby.

Thanks Douglas for any help/tips!

[Craig Seeman]

With one camera you can’t be expected to shoot two things at once. From moment to moment you have to make judgements. I offer a two camera package and stress the advantages that coverage provides. In my experience, most of my budget conscious clients choose just one camera. I don’t think you should suffer financially because you made a judgement based on a set (or conflicting sets) of instructions. You should offer a two camera package if you don’t yet.

You might find out if the photographer took stills of the candle lighting and include animated stills (nice slow zoom in for example and/or a series of dissolves if the photog took a series) at the appropriate point.

[Craig Seeman]

Flip4Mac Studio can go from MOV to WMV and WMV to MOV. The WMV encoder plug in can be used in QuickTimePro, Cleaner, Sorenson Squeeze 4.1 (as well as Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, iMovie).
Flip4Mac

[Craig Seeman]

I’ve done Mpeg1 in the dreaded Cleaner for Windows Powerpoint presentations. They’ve always worked for my clients. BTW I agree Cleaner Mpeg encoding is bugy but the Mpeg1 it produces (when it does it right) works in Windows Powerpoint.

Don’t ya love it when clients insist they know what they’re talking about when they don’t.

[Craig Seeman]

Hi Scott,

Just to clarify. You’re WMV file with Flip4Mac out of FCP? You said you’re getting a message in PowerPoint that

[scott] “my quicktime format is not set up correctly”

Have you actually created a WMV file?
What version WMV Player does your PC actually have?

Can you post your settings in Flip4Mac (Standard or Advanced/frame size, etc for example)?

To be safe and check work flow I’d recommend creating a QuickTime Reference movie in FCP and then doing the convert to WMV in QuickTime Pro (and it doesn’t tie up FCP that way). Then check your file on the PC using WMV Player.

[Craig Seeman]

Flip4Mac also has WMV HD encoding with surround sound. WMV Studio Pro (which does the 2 pass and HD encoding, etc) also has the new WMV Player Pro which allows you to import WMV files in FCP (as well as QuickTime Pro) for editing. There’s also a less expensive WMV Studio (1 pass encoding, no HD) but has WMV Player Pro also. All this works in Squeeze.

The competition is fierce between CM and Sorenson (with Flip4Mac added of course). A refreshingly exciting time for Mac compressionists after Cleaner’s”dormancy.”