[Craig Seeman]

While I haven’t done my own green screen test yet, I’ve seen some very good stuff posted. Even though EX1 is 4:2:0 the fact that the pixel density is so great 1920×1080 helps. Shooting progressive helps too. If you don’t mind being cable bound, the HD-SDI out is 4:2:2 10 bit uncompressed and that should be the “bee’s knees” for green screen work. Now if I can find some bee’s knees to key . . .

[Craig Seeman]

The “story” I heard is that the firmware update will come out with the release of the Sony Hard Drive recorder since the EX1 will need that whereas the release firmware of the EX3 is already compatible.

BTW, if you look at ClipBrowser 2 the metedata referring to cache record is now visible (I had found it the actual file metadata previously). One can hope that that indicates a possibility too.

[Craig Seeman]

I don’t know how you can make a general statement like that. Quicktime 7.5 handles H264 just fine. Just take a look at any of the HD trailers on Apple’s site.

Certainly there are workflows and compression apps that can have issues but that’s not a Quicktime playback issue. If you have a computer that can handle the decode Quicktime 7.5 playback of H264 looks very good.

[Craig Seeman]

If I’m understanding you correctly I don’t think your workflow it optimal.
Edit first. Then use the best tools possible to deinterlace and resize. A good compression app can do this well.

Going through VDub, then taking a resized file into PPro, then compressing, has to result in a quality hit. Edit at highest resolution possible. Compress with a good compression app. If you want graphics etc to hold up, you can make sure you’re compositing in a better codec than DV. Try 8 bit uncompressed for example.

[Craig Seeman]

Things are changing too quickly and often the optimal settings depend on what compression tools you have available and sometimes the sites changes things and they’re not always announced or obvious until you suddenly notice the difference.

I talked about this generally at a MoPicTiv (formerly NYFCPUG) meeting a couple of months back. Not more than a week after the meeting things changed again on some of the sites (YouTube, Google Video, Vimeo, ExposureRoom).

It would probably be better if someone kept up with this and had a web page people could book mark or have an RSS feed so you’d be notified that somebody spotted a change.

[Craig Seeman]

Why are you using VDub first? I’m not sure what you’re doing with that but you might be better off just working the the DV in PP CS3 first. Export to Flash with On2VP6 codec if you have the choice.

[Craig Seeman]

Version of Quicktime? What extension are you using on that H264 (although that probably shouldn’t make a difference)?

[Craig Seeman]

I find time of day, although not what you want, has a real ease of use factor.
If you match the time of day code to your (whoever is logging the shots) then they don’t need to bug anyone. They look at the watch and note the time and it’ll be close to whatever your shooting. Neither you nor they even have to look at the status display.

Now what would really make that work is if then just typed the time code in your NLE player it would call the clip with the correct time code. Otherwise knowing the clip number would help and . . . . we’re back we started from . . . but alas you can’t see clip number on the status display.

[Craig Seeman]

What Mic?

Not all mics are the same. Some are hotter than others. I’m using a Sony 680S shotgun and there are times I’m down to – mid teens dBu, the peaks are so hot.

If you’re using wireless you may have to consider what’s happening from end to end too for example.

[Craig Seeman]

[Michael Palmer] “I’m not sure what a BPAV folder is – is it the original RAW files and do I store them as well?
YES, The BPAV folder is the raw files and you need everything within it and you can never rename it or store it with any other files, always put it in its own separate folder and name that folder. “

Although ClipBrowser 2 will successfully rescue an orphaned MP4 and create a new BPAV file should you make a booboo.

[Michael Palmer] “When the original files are converted to quicktimes do we lose any quality from HD?
I don’t think there is any loss because the transfer program is really just rewrapping the file to a .mov wrapper.
“
Nothing lost at all. but just in case you’re wondering why not save the mov instead of the original BPAV, the mov will only work with FCP with the appropriate EX codec installed. Those BPAV can be converted to work on other NLEs if you need to do that (like hand files to a client for example).

[Michael Palmer] “how many minutes of HD footage can fit on a 500GB drive?
16gig cards hold 57 minutes of HQ (35Mbps) so you should be able to safely store about 28 16gig cards to the 500gig drive. “
And twice as many on a 1TB drive . . . personally I’m nervous about about hard drives as archive if that’s what you’re thinking. I use good DL-DVD but others seem to be nervous about that.