[Curt Pair]

Eric,

I did download this software. It is what allowed me the ability to be able to use a drag and drop or copy & paste functionality!

It seems to work… I’m just new, and having a hang up like I did was really confusing to me.

Thanks,

Curt

Curt Pair
Picture This Productions (Phoenix, AZ)
http://www.picturethisproductions.net
#CurtPTP | Facebook | LinkedIn

Red Epic M No.565
Sony ICE Team: F800/F350/PMWF3/F900/PMW700/EX1/EX3/D790/D600
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 HD/Matrox Axio/MX02 Rack
DSCLabs|Nexto NVS 2500|Convergent-Design nanoFlash|GoPro|K5600|Westcott|ONiCAST|Bright Tangerine

[Curt Pair]

Charo,

Thanks for your reply.

I did indeed attempt to transfer material over my network to my LTO. I believe that is what caused a “hang up.” After the hang up, I rebooted, and then copied material off the network to a local drive. From the local drive I then copied to LTO. That seemed to work very well.

I still don’t think I understand the “X” thing. Will all of my files have this? I did just find the following in an HP document… is this what you mean?

Thumbnails: When Windows encounters a folder full of files, it attempts to build thumbnails to represent the content of each file. This is not desirable in an LTFS volume, because it may take many minutes or even hours to generate the thumbnails. So by default HP StoreOpen Standalone tells the operating system that the volume is in the “offline” state, which prevents automatic thumbnail creation. You can turn this off if desired, but be aware that it will have a severe effect on the time needed to open and browse folders.

So if I’m reading this and your statements correctly… the folders indicate the files are there, but the X indicates the file is “offline” in terms of thumbnail browsing to speed up the process to access material. Correct?

Thanks,

Curt

Curt Pair
Picture This Productions (Phoenix, AZ)
http://www.picturethisproductions.net
#CurtPTP | Facebook | LinkedIn

Red Epic M No.565
Sony ICE Team: F800/F350/PMWF3/F900/PMW700/EX1/EX3/D790/D600
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 HD/Matrox Axio/MX02 Rack
DSCLabs|Nexto NVS 2500|Convergent-Design nanoFlash|GoPro|K5600|Westcott|ONiCAST|Bright Tangerine

[Curt Pair]

Charo,

Thanks for your reply.

I did indeed attempt to transfer material over my network to my LTO. I believe that is what caused a “hang up.” After the hang up, I rebooted, and then copied material off the network to a local drive. From the local drive I then copied to LTO. That seemed to work very well.

I still don’t think I understand the “X” thing. Will all of my files have this? I believe even the files copied from the local drive to the LTO have this X too.

I would like to demo your software. I will request a free trial. I’m just so new to the LTO process, I have many questions.

Thanks for your time and effort. I appreciate your help and support.

Curt

Curt Pair
Picture This Productions (Phoenix, AZ)
http://www.picturethisproductions.net
#CurtPTP | Facebook | LinkedIn

Red Epic M No.565
Sony ICE Team: F800/F350/PMWF3/F900/PMW700/EX1/EX3/D790/D600
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 HD/Matrox Axio/MX02 Rack
DSCLabs|Nexto NVS 2500|Convergent-Design nanoFlash|GoPro|K5600|Westcott|ONiCAST|Bright Tangerine

[Curt Pair]

Eric,

I’m NOT using that software. I have a disc, but there isn’t any software on it! There are drivers and manuals and such.

What is the software called? Perhaps I can download it?

I just used Windows Explorer once I was able to “see” the drive as a viable option. I “formatted” the tape in LTFS, and I then copy and pasted files to the tape. It seems to have worked.

I guess I need to “test” transferring material off the tape and back to the system to see if it truly worked.

I appreciate your help. Thank you.

Curt

Curt Pair
Picture This Productions (Phoenix, AZ)
http://www.picturethisproductions.net
#CurtPTP | Facebook | LinkedIn

Red Epic M No.565
Sony ICE Team: F800/F350/PMWF3/F900/PMW700/EX1/EX3/D790/D600
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 HD/Matrox Axio/MX02 Rack
DSCLabs|Nexto NVS 2500|Convergent-Design nanoFlash|GoPro|K5600|Westcott|ONiCAST|Bright Tangerine

[Curt Pair]

Tim,

Not that much has changed since I originally wrote this. I will say the newer cameras can help in some interesting ways, if you understand them.

The main points in ANY chroma key environment are to use a waveform monitor to ensure your lighting is flat and even!

I’m not sure which XDCam you have… But let’s say you are using an F800. That camera has a VERY extended paint menu, and thus my approach is a bit different. I actually only run the rear lights (on the background) at about 35 IRE! Yup, that’s right… I use the 16 way User Matrix in the Paint menu to “grab” the green color, and then I increase only that color’s saturation (In the menu of the camera)! This absolutely eliminates any chance for a green “kick back” from the screen onto the back of your subjects! (This really helps in smaller than ideal spaces!) The high end Sony cameras have this feature: F800, F900/3/r, SRW9000PL, F23, F35, F65, PMW500, PMW700, F3. This is the secret weapon if you will, of those cameras!

If you are using the F350 (optical disc or SxS card), the EX1/3, or a host of other Sony cameras in the XDCam family, that unfortunately is not possible. These cameras do have a paint feature in the camera, but it’s not as in depth, (it’s a “6 way” color matrix that is actually a bit harder to use, believe it or not!) and would be very time consuming to pump up the green saturation in the paint menu…

However, you can always use “+Green” gel in front of your lights to over-saturate the green too! This has long been a trick of many folks in the film community. The “color temperature green gel” (available in 1/4, 1/2, full green, etc.) essentially pushes the green color saturation of the background, in hopes that you can run the brightness of the background lower. If you’ve never done this before… I’d do some testing before your first real big shoot. I’d also recommend that you use a magenta gel, in a 1/8, 1/4, or 1/2 configuration for the back of your talent/subject. Because this color is the EXACT opposite of the green color on the “color wheel” it will in effect “cancel” any of the green spill or bounceback from the screen onto the shoulders and hair of your subject. That will prove to be VERY important in the edit process.

As far as creating a single, repeatable setup… that’s no problem at all… you can make talent marks on the floor and have each person stand or sit in the same spot. The green typically doesn’t move, so once it’s set up, great! I would caution you NOT to change the iris once it is initially set up… that’s the first mistake rookies make! You’re setting that for the background… set it and forget it! When lighting subjects, move the lights to compensate for exposure. With varying skin tones, it will be very likely, you’ll have to move the lights closer or farther away depending on each person.

I hope this helps. I would encourage you to do a test before “the real” shoot to make sure you have all the kinks worked out. Once you understand how to do this, it’s really not that hard!

I post “tips” on my website all the time! Feel free to visit from time to time: https://www.picturethisproductions.net.

I have a nice tutorial on using XDCam and naming your clips in the field to make it easy to find them in post without even opening them! https://www.picturethisproductions.net/index.php/blog/pro-tips/233-xdcam-and-clip-naming

Good luck, and let us know how it all turns out!

Curt Pair
Picture This Productions (Phoenix, AZ)
http://www.picturethisproductions.net
#CurtPTP | Facebook | LinkedIn

Red Epic M No.565
Sony ICE Team: F800/F350/PMWF3/F900/PMW700/EX1/EX3/D790/D600
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 HD/Matrox Axio/MX02 Rack
DSCLabs|Nexto NVS 2500|Convergent-Design nanoFlash|GoPro|K5600|Westcott|ONiCAST|Bright Tangerine

[Curt Pair]

Danny,

Thanks for your time and information. Since my original posting, I’ve spent quite a few hours researching the specs for Encore and making highlight buttons, it seems as though my search criteria was “off” for what I was looking for (or I didn’t know what to call it!).

I’ve found that Encore allows three “states” for buttons: normal, selected and activated. Most folks who author DVDs use the same “state” or color choice for selected and activated states…

This is from Encore’s documentation:

“A color set consists of a maximum of 15 colors, each with its own opacity setting. The colors are divided among one color group for the normal state and two highlight groups. Each highlight group contains up to six colors: three for the selected state and three for the activated states. Any button can reference either of the highlight groups. You can use the highlight groups to distinguish between different types of buttons on the same menu. For example, you could assign Highlight Group 1 to the main navigation buttons in the menu (such as Play Movie), while using Highlight Group 2 for the common navigation buttons (such as Next and Previous). The subpicture is limited to three colors (each represented by a layer in the button set), but you can change those three colors and their visibility for each state in the color set. (DVD regulations allow only a limited bandwidth for button subpictures and subtitles.)

Think of the subpicture as a paint-by-number image, with areas designated for colors 1, 2, or 3. The color set is the color key that determines what colors (if any) are used for colors 1, 2, and 3. In addition, all three colors can have different definitions and opacity settings in each button state. By varying the color definitions for each state, you can change the colors of each area; by varying the opacity of the colors in each state, you control whether or not that area is even visible in a particular state.

You build the image used for the subpicture by creating separate layers for each color. The layer names must include the following prefixes: (=1) for areas using color 1, (=2) for areas using color 2, and (=3) for areas using color 3.”

Currently, I’m successfully using 7 colors in my buttons. I’ve burned a few test DVDs and they work perfectly!

However, I’ve learned that the sub-pictures/highlights need to be a solid color without transparency, gradients and the like. Further you are correct in that the anti-aliasing doesn’t work for sub-pictures.

To view more in the “help menu” of Encore, I found a TON of info under “Button Subpictures,” and “Menu Color Sets.”

I hope others find this useful and don’t spent hours pulling out their hair trying to figure this out…

I hadn’t made a menu this “complicated” with Encore in quite a while… once I started reading… it all started pouring back in!

Good luck!

Curt

Curt Pair
Picture This Productions
Sony ICE Team
F800/F350/PDWF3/F900/PDW700/EX1/EX3/D790/D600
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 HD/Matrox Axio
DSCLabs|Nexto NVS 2500|Convergent-Design nanoFlash|GoPro|Westcott
Phoenix, AZ

[Curt Pair]

Les,

Thanks for responding…

I’ve been pulling my hair out for over a year on this! It was driving me crazy! I’ve searched all over the net, forums, you name it. No answers.

Today, wouldn’t you know it, an hour after my post, I found the answer! I somehow stumbled upon a older “Lynda.com” link from an Adobe forum for CS3…

You can import an Adobe Illustrator still-image file directly into a Premiere Pro project. Premiere Pro converts path-based Illustrator art into the pixel-based image format used by Premiere Pro, a process known as rasterization. Premiere Pro automatically anti-aliases, or smooths, edges of the Illustrator art. Premiere Pro also converts all empty areas into an alpha channel, so that empty areas become transparent.

If you want to define the dimensions of the Illustrator art when it is rasterized, use Illustrator to set crop marks in the Illustrator file. For information about setting crop marks, see Illustrator Help.

So now you need to make your selection in Illustrator, go to “object” then “make crop marks” and then enlarge the crop mark selection to the full-frame size of your video/preset. After that, go to “effects” and then use the crop mark selection there. Save the file.

Open Premiere, import and VIOLA! The entire ‘graphic’ as designed in Illustrator appears! It’s ready to lay down on the time-line, all good to go, no further adjustments need to be made.

This was a long and tedious process to find the answer. Perhaps I gave up too quickly before, just needing to continue working on the task at hand. Today, I was tenacious about finding the answer once and for all!

Curt Pair
Picture This Productions
Sony ICE Team
F800/F350/PDWF3/F900/PDW700/EX1/EX3/D790/D600
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 HD/Matrox Axio
DSCLabs|Nexto NVS 2500|Convergent-Design nanoFlash|GoPro|Westcott
Phoenix, AZ

[Curt Pair]

Tim,

I was lost there for a minute! I was like “CS3?” Where the heck did he get that? Then I realized it’s in my signature!

So, I guess I need to fix that…

Anyway, I’m talking about CS5 all the way through now!

I’ve been pulling my hair out for over a year on this! It was driving me crazy! I’ve searched all over the net, forums, you name it. No answers.

Today, wouldn’t you know it, an hour after my post, I found the answer! I somehow stumbled upon a older “Lynda.com” link from an Adobe forum for CS3…

You can import an Adobe Illustrator still-image file directly into a Premiere Pro project. Premiere Pro converts path-based Illustrator art into the pixel-based image format used by Premiere Pro, a process known as rasterization. Premiere Pro automatically anti-aliases, or smooths, edges of the Illustrator art. Premiere Pro also converts all empty areas into an alpha channel, so that empty areas become transparent.

If you want to define the dimensions of the Illustrator art when it is rasterized, use Illustrator to set crop marks in the Illustrator file. For information about setting crop marks, see Illustrator Help.

So now you need to make your selection in Illustrator, go to “object” then “make crop marks” and then enlarge the crop mark selection to the full-frame size of your video/preset. After that, go to “effects” and then use the crop mark selection there. Save the file.

Open Premiere, import and VIOLA! The entire ‘graphic’ as designed in Illustrator appears! It’s ready to lay down on the time-line, all good to go, no further adjustments need to be made.

This was a long tedious process to find the answer. Perhaps I gave up too quickly before, just needing to continue working. Today, I was tenacious about finding the answer once and for all!

Thanks for your help Tim.

Curt Pair
Picture This Productions
Sony ICE Team
F900/F800/F350/PDW700/EX1/EX3/D790/D600
Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 HD/Matrox
Phoenix, AZ

[Curt Pair]

Peter,

Thanks for the question. Typically, no, the background level isn’t raised enough to alter my background. I do use flags, grids and the like to control light spill. This keeps everything in line. Depending on how you light, its relatively easy. Remember, light’s intensity will fall off faster than you think, when at 10-15 feet.

[Curt Pair]

Tim et. al.,

I am a user of BOTH XDCam HD (optical) and XDCam EX (SxS flash card). I must say that the XDCam optical format is extremely robust. I’ve found myself wearing more “cargo” pants these days, because it’s easy to carry a spare disc when I work in the field. I’ve accidentally WASHED a disc or two and didn’t lose a single sector of data! You can’t say that with tape!

I live in Arizona, and it can reach temperatures of well over 150 degrees in vehicles. The discs have never had an issue with heat either. They take a licking and keep on ticking, to borrow a phrase.

In 2006, I was able to receive a pre-release version of the EX1, original model camera. I began using it frequently as a second camera for our XDCam HD (optical) clients. The question became “how do we provide the media to our clients?” The answer became clear, when some of our clients DEMANDED that all of the files be identical. We started using Clip Browser and the Main Concept codec package to transcode all of our files from MP4 to MXF. I would then use an F70 deck or a PDW-U1 drive, the latter being faster, to copy the files onto an optical disc. Further, we backed up the source footage onto external HDD’s. This in reality created FOUR copies of the media DL DVD, 2x HDD, and optical disc. (We’ve had a few issues throughout the years with HDD’s, so I didn’t particularly care for that method. Thus, we backed up to TWO HDD’s and DL DVD. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.)

In the last 24-18 months, we’ve began to use the Convergent Design nanoFlash as a secondary recording for ALL of our shoots, with EVERY camera we shoot. Our F800 has a nanoFlash, so does our F350 and EX1. With the advent of the “User Data” folder, we began storing ORIGINAL files in that space from both EX cameras and the nF. This has worked out extremely well. Typically, we STILL convert the files for our clients into the MXF wrapper, and write those to optical disc too… but we will keep the “originals” on optical disc for archive purposes. In effect, this creates MULTIPLE COPIES of the source material, albeit in different states, both file type and frame size; Optical disc transcodes, Optical disc originals, and HDD (typically at client request).

No one has a crystal ball… therefore it is hard to “estimate” what will and will not be around years from today. If one really needs to make a 3/4″ or MII dub, or utilize source footage there ARE decks out there to do it.

As previously stated in this thread… films are being restored from the 80’s. Remember, 3/4″ and beta became prominent in that time frame. I don’t know if ANY format is fool proof for the extreme long haul. All one can do is protect themselves for the daily work pitfalls. Hopefully that will carry you through for the next 10 years or so. I’m four years into all of the XD formats and going very strong. I haven’t lost a single clip of either type since we started in 2006. I had tapes that broke, stretched, etc. in shorter time frames.

I’m convinced that the XDCam HD and EX systems and formats are robust and here for a while. Sony is committed to both formats. These have proven to be more stable, and secure with a more rapid turn around time than any format we’ve used in the past.

As for tape, I don’t think most XDCam HD or XDCam EX users or clients are WILLING to spend the necessary funds to PURCHASE an HDCam SR deck. Further, the media is still quite expensive. These are some of the reasons that Sony created the optical and flash workflows.

The optical media prices will drop, as the discs are becoming more widely accepted for other uses. Many “other” industries/users have become familiar with the relatively inexpensive PDW-U1 drive and are utilizing it for non-traditional uses. These include P2 users, Red users, nanoFlash users, still photographers, and medical / legal offices. Due to the rigidity of the “cartridge” in which the disc is housed, many industries have began a transition into using XDCam optical discs for their long-term data storage needs. The footprint is small and they are reliable.

I suggest you examine your own personal needs, listen to the experiences of others and decide what works within your own facility.

Curt

Curt Pair
Picture This Productions
Sony ICE Team
F900/F800/F350/PDW700/EX1/EX3/D790/D600
Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 HD/Matrox
Phoenix, AZ