Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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[Michael Slowe] ” I heard that version 9 of Toast burns Blu-Ray but I didn’t think it encodes.”
Hi Michael,
With the release of Toast v.9.0.2 there’s no reason for Mac users to wait any longer if they can live with authoring a simple Blu-ray disc that will play in just about any set top Blu-ray player. You just can’t view your finished disc on the Mac. At least not yet. You still need to buy a Blu-ray player to watch your finished product.
I’ve discovered that Toast 9 will indeed create simple Blu-ray menus using still frames and buttons, in addition to authoring a “first play” BD. Toast 9 does does have encoding capabilities but if you drop a movie into the program that has already been encoded using one of the acceptable formats (such as H.264) then you can skip the encoding process within Toast 9. The program will even accept a MOV file and will encode that to a particular Blu-ray format that you can specify before the encode is started. The cost for all this is about 80 bucks USD plus an additional $16.00 for the Blu-ray plugin that you need to actually author and burn a Blu-ray disc. Toast 9 does other stuff besides Blu-ray so some folks don’t need to buy Blu-ray capability if they don’t want to.
Toast 9.0.2 will author BD-RE media (re-writable) and BD-R media which works the same as DVD-R.
– Don
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[Eoin Ryan] ” I believe I might need to use Encore or some other software? “
You would need to use Encore if you want simple menus on the disc but that means buying the whole CS4 suite just to get it. I think Toast 9 will author a Blu-ray disc now as well but it acts more like a “first play” DVD where you insert the disc and it’s starts playing the movie.
[Eoin Ryan] “Can I edit in Final Cut Pro, export the high def file to my desktop and transfer that over to the PC Laptop and burn it in Encore?”
You can edit in FCP and encode your Blu-ray content with Compressor. Then transfer to PC.
– Don
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It would seem that the only info available at the moment about the upcoming PDW-700 24p option can be found here:
It doesn’t mention anything about 35 Mbits sec. recording but you never know what will be in the final firmware package. If I was to guess, I’d say no there won’t be a 35 Mbit setting.
– Don
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[Michael O’Reilly] “We do have access to the next model up in terms of XDCAM cameras – I don’t have the model number but it has a 2/3 inch chip – are there more temporal features/controls with the 2/3 inch chip XDCAM camera ? “
That would be the Sony PDW-700. Right now it’s not classed as a CineAlta camera because it doesn’t do 24p yet. Next year there will be a firmware package available to 700 owners that will enable 24p aquisition. I think the fundamental difference between the EX series cameras and the others such as VariCam, the other XDCAM HD cameras including the new 700 etc. is that the EX sensors are CMOS and the others use CCD’s.
If you recall, a CCD sensor is scanned all at once whereas a CMOS sensor is not scanned instantly but instead from the top down. Therein may lie the difference with respect to increased motion blur with the EX, but since I’ve no shooting hours spent with cameras like the F355 or the VariCam my reasoning is just a supposition.
– Don
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[Ronnie Martin] “I wonder what ever happened to the EX-2? “
Apparently the Japanese don’t like odd numbers. Or is it even numbers?
– Don
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[Craig Seeman] “Don G., why is Sony Canada slacking off? They always used to be first with this stuff.”
It would seem that the British Empire has rescinded its privileges with regard to the colonies and Canada was first on their list.
– Don
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[Craig Seeman] “I’m going to get the tattoo behind my right ear. “
You’ve just spilled the beans. Everyone now knows that you’d never make it as a Sony gang member. Why? Because anyone who’s anyone in the gang biz knows that you don’t refer to a tattoo as a tattoo. It’s called a “tat”. But, whatdowhyknow.
[Craig Seeman] “I’ve heard some people have tested and found that although it’s close it’s not 100% accurate and can be impacted by such things as temperature. “
But Sony keeps harping on the fact that the lens isn’t supposed to breathe. Another truth down the drain.
– Don
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[Michael O’Reilly] “Changing the shutter speed does not get rid of it, so I thought maybe changing the shutter angle (which most video people would not touch having never encountered it before) would have some effect. “
You’re probably not going to like this answer but if you shoot 30 progressive frames a second you’re going to get motion blur no matter how fast you set the shutter speed or how tight you have the shutter angle. There won’t be a difference that I’ve been able to determine in using shutter angles instead of shutter speed. The main difference between the two is that you can set the shutter angle independent of frame rate, whereas with shutter speed you’re restricted to a set of speeds depending on what your shooting mode is.
You can reduce the amount of motion blur in progressive modes by increasing shutter speeds but you won’t eliminate it. As you increase shutter speed there will be less time for light to hit the imager for a given frame duration, so you’ll end up with more of a stuttery look to the picture but with less motion blur. Think of a strobe light freezing the action of a fast moving object.
Progressive motion blur isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It gives the perception of action provided it’s done correctly and has achieved the look you’re after by focusing the viewer’s attention where you want it. If you look at any movie shot on film or 24p video you’re going to see lots of motion blur when something passes in front of the lens with any kind of rapidity. Since it’s impossible for the human eye to analyze each frame of film both in detail and in real time the viewer “gets it.”
If you want to reduce motion blur as much as possible you need to shoot with a frame rate faster than 30p. You can increase the temporal resolution of the EX by shooting 60i, which is 60 interlaced frames per second or shoot 720p 60 (60 progressive frames per sec.).
– Don
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[Brian Volland] “Does anyone know what it stands for?”
It’s the symbol for the camera’s focal plane. The symbol location shows where the focal plane is.
– Don
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[Robert Semeniuk] “is there not a program that allows a PC to read a Mac formatted drive?”
Yes there is, and it’s called MacDrive®. Installed on a Windows machine the program will read and write to a hard drive formatted in Mac OS Extended.
https://mediafour.com/products/macdrive/
Another option is to format a portable drive in FAT32 which is the formatting that can be read by both Mac and Windows computers without the need for additional software. You can use Apple’s Disk Utility to format a hard drive in FAT32. Sony’s SxS Pro memory cards for the EX cameras are also formatted in FAT32 for this very reason. That’s why EX files are split into 4 Gbyte chunks on the cards because FAT32 has a 4 Gbyte file size limit. So, although I haven’t tried it, a logical and natural way to transfer your EX media to a Windows machine is to drag the BPAV folder from the card directly to a FAT32 drive attached to your Mac and then drive over to your client’s place with your hard drive.
– Don