[Dex Craig]

Good idea to check the firewire cable; I’ll do that tomorrow….

It’s a half-hour news show and plays just fine from the timeline, and I use firewire out from the computer through the deck to monitor editing on an NTSC monitor, and have noticed from time to time that the monitor goes blue, so maybe that’s the problem. We just got a passel of new firewire cables, so hopefully that’s the issue.

Thanks for the suggestion!

_ Dex

[Dex Craig]

Howdy —

I’m not in front of a machine with AE on it right now, so the settings will come from memory. The default is pretty good, for many circumstances. What the filter seems to do is examine the scene for large, flat color areas and blurs them to minimize the grain. It also looks for edges and doesn’t blur them, so the detail is still visible.

I’ve just played with the settings using the preview window so as to speed things up.

Good luck with it!

– Dex

[Dex Craig]

The “remove grain” filter in AfterEffects 6.5 Pro is outstanding (effect>noise & grain>remove grain). It takes a while to render, but it can do wonders with noisy video. Another side benefit I’ve found to it is that it can be used for minor wrinkle and blemish removal on video that’s not noisy at all. The anchor of my monthly news show loves it because it makes her look, as she puts it, 35 and hot.

Hope that’s helpful.

[Dex Craig]

In case anyone else has this happen, I exported a batch list (project>export batch list), then imported that batch list and used the imported batch list to batch capture the footage. The audio came along with it, just fine based on the capture settings in the capture window.

I knew it had to be possible, but I just couldnt’ find it in the documentation.

– Dex

[Dex Craig]

I have also had a similar issue with my TRV 900 (which, incidentally is the consuer version of PD-100 — no DV-CAM and some lesser other optinos — but not, actually, the PD-150). Iwas shooting in a high-school basketball gym. I was worried about the camera, but it has never done the same thing again, so I’m guessing that it was something about the sodium or mecury vapor lights that are commonly used in gymnasia.

This was a few years ago, before Premiere Pro, and I wasn’t willing to take the time to do the color correction in AE; plus it was a freebie. The folks I did the shooting for didn’t even notice.

I’d think you can keyframe the color correction in PP. If you split the clips after you’ve color corrected them on the long-cycle wave, it seems to me that PP keeps the “curve” if you will of the keyframes; that is to say, if you gradually fade a perameter from one key frame to another, then split the clip up into a bunch of shorter clips and rearrange them, the perameter in each smaller clip will still retain the changing properties it would have if it were still part of the larger clip. This is a new and wonderful feature in Premiere Pro….

Good luck.

– Dex

[Dex Craig]

I’ve heard from folks that the Academic version doesn’t include many of the third-party bits — like the Cycore Effects, Invigorator, and maybe Keylight (don’t remember for sure about that one). But you are getting the full, pro version of AfterEffects; just not the third-party tie-ins. Since I’m sure Adobe has to license the third-party bonuses, it’s probably not cost-effective for them to pay other companies license rights when they’re selling the program at the amazingly inexpensive academic rate.

[Dex Craig]

There’s also CC Pixelpoly. You need to set the grid to very small (2 or 3) to look like particles, but it does work. Then, as Steve said above, reverse the layer.

[Dex Craig]

I’m shooting in widescreen using the camera’s squeeze function. The files are 720 x 480, but the pixel aspect ratio is narrower than 4×3 standard DV, so it results in wide-screen (16 x 9) video. Because the pixels are squished a bit, there are some artifacts in the footage, but I’m not finding it to be too bad. An animorphic adapter will optically squish the image and should result in a better quality widescreen image. You’ll have to stretch it back out to 16 x 9 in post.

[Dex Craig]

You could also play with the saturation, blur and such. Here are a few things that come to mind.

Increase the blue in the footage. Add a copy using maybe an overlay transfer mode. Maybe use another layer with chroma key to extract any red, precomp that with a red solid layer (so only the items that were red are showing through), then add that on top of the original footage and blur it, so the red blooms way out of control.

HTH.

[Dex Craig]

Here’s a thought that might be a little crazy, but might work for your project.

As far as the distortion of the landscape, yes, using CC Sphere is probably the best way to simulate the curved surface reflection. Placement on the helmet might be possible with a simple luma-key. You’d have to hand roto out any reflections you’d actually have on the visor surface, but it may well work, since the visor surface is so much darker than the helmet.

I’m a little unclear as to how you intend to see your pilot’s face through the visor. It looks pretty much black in these photos. Unless you’re planning on doing very close shots of her face without the visor down and just putting the reflection over these.

I’ll be interested to see how these shots work. I’ve been toying with a similar effect putting a human actor inside a CGI astronaut body. I’d been figuring on using the 3D reflections off the CGI model, but this might be a better approach for some shots.