[Craig Seeman]

I agree with you too. Did you put anything into your contract that would imply it was open ended? I include turn around time in my contracts. If you do allow it to be open ended, your rate should be as open ended as the contract. If not, they’ll be sending you the Bar Mitzvah boy’s wedding pictures and those of his kids thereafter to edit.

[Craig Seeman]

It really depends on how the NLE handles the respective codec.
One should really test on a player that can handle MPEG2 Program Stream natively. You’d think that MPEGStreamclip would do this but it doesn’t handle Program Streams well.

VLC does. What I see in VLC is what I see when my spots are distributed by DG to local cable stations (understanding that VLC/Computer display is not color/gamma accurate to TV).

[epontius] “If you imported it into your NLE, it most likely converted the high bitrate MPEG file into another codec in order to use it in the timeline and export it to a monitor. Probably not a true representation of your MPEG file.

Erik
“

[Craig Seeman]

There’s a Video/Video Device menu choice but I don’t think it’ll pass to a TV Monitor.

If you’re within broadcast specs (video scopes, audio meters on your system) and it looks good in VLC, you can probably send it off to DG.

DG has certification process requiring 5 tests so they’ll tell you if there’s an issue with your workflow/encoded files.

[Craig Seeman]

VLC plays MPEG2 Program streams well for me.

Codec as in DV, 8 or 10 bit Uncompressed, DVCPro50, etc.

Try avoiding any proprietary codec and see what happens.

[Craig Seeman]

[Naveen Mallikarjuna] ” tried to output to both a Matrox AVI and the generic Windows AVI w/o compression. Got the same results.”

But what’s your source codec. AVI is the wrapper. What’s the codec?

Try a 25Mbps 2 Pass CBR encode.

Also you didn’t say how you’re testing your encoded file. What Player? It’s decoder can have big impact on what you see.

[Craig Seeman]

I use Episode Pro and use 25Mbps 2 pass CBR to ensure my entire encode is at their peak acceptable data rate.

So far I’ve found the best way to confirm the quality of the encode is with VLC.

I’ve found that MPEGStreamclip and Quicktime don’t seem to playback the program streams well.

You don’t mention your source AVI but I’ve even got good results with DVCAM MOV source (I’m on Mac so I’m using MOV).

AVI is a wrapper so what’s in there can make a big difference.

[Craig Seeman]

Many people have done this. A lowly Sony DSR-11 can do this. I’ve head Sony can’t “say” that it can due to licensing reasons. Don’t know that for sure but I’ve heard that’s the reason it’s never mentioned in any product literature.

In any case, what you’ll find is that you can get analog out but not firewire. So you’ve got to use some other device with analog in to convert to firewire (or convert to some form that can go into an analog input card if you have one).

[Craig Seeman]

So you’d do a 30 commercial for $62.50?

Charge based on how many hours it takes to do something, not on the duration of a piece.

If you did the whole thing in 10 hours you might be ok depending on your cost of living and gear used.

[Craig Seeman]

You’re finding that DVCAM deck will play DVCPro analog out but not firewire. You’ll need to send it to a device that can take the analog in and sent that out firewire. You might have a DV camera that can take analog in and pass through firewire or use an analog to DV convertor.

[Craig Seeman]

The current version of Flip4Mac as well as Episode support encoding VC-1 on the Mac.