Eric Nicastro
Forum Replies Created
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So let me ask you this then, since I shoot everything in BetaSP, what resolution should I be capturing in? Drive space is not an issue since I can expand when needed. The tech that setup my system set the default to DV25 411 resolution. It looks awful. I changed it to DV50. But should I be using something else?
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I think it’s an OK demo reel. It’s certainly not something I would run with for very long. What I found distracting was that because of the direction of the carousel, I keep seeing the backwards image of the video. The camera seemed to only be pointing in that direction the majority of the time and once you saw the image frontways, it was only for about a second. And I noticed the edges on the corner of the box in the center weren’t that tight nit.
It’s def not terrible, it’s just OK. If they have all of that equipment they say they have, they need to show off the difficult moves they do with that equipment. Saying you have it is one thing, but showing it in action (not from behind the scenes) is what can sell. To me, you can’t really tell what they’ve shot, it’s hard to see the video.
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I think what you need to be asking is what editing system you want to be using. If you want Final Cut Pro, obviously you can only use a Mac. For Premiere and Avid, it’s your choice. At my job, I have a high-end HP workstation running Avid Media Composer on Windows XP and directly behind me is my old (6 year old to be honest) Media 100 editing system that runs on a Mac. (It’s only staying in operation because I have hundreds of old commercial spots on it that sometimes require small changes) Personally, I prefer Macs. I’m used to using Macs because I have a MacBook Pro at home. Yes, PC’s are cheaper and easier to upgrade and you can get an extremely powerful system for much less than the Mac counterpart. But like I said, first, determine what editing system you want to use and what you want to use it for. Knowing those answers will help you make the decision on what platform to run with.
In terms of stability, both machines are reliable. However, I can’t speak for Vista because we use XP. I have used Vista before and hated every minute of it.
To answer your question about me, I use XP and Mac OSX. And in my opinion, I’m starting to find more and more places that have mixed platforms. Especially now that Avid has certified Final Cut Pro to run on the Avid Unity and ISIS storage systems, you’ll be seeing more mixed operating systems and editing platforms in one place.
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Ok, the “do not resize smaller images” setting worked and keeps the logos I import the proper size. But now I have another problem. How do I change the color of the drop shadows so its not just black? Sometimes I need to use a white drop shadow. Also, how do I had a color border around logos and such? I use logos that are alittle darker and need to add a highlight border to make them standout better. I know it all can done in Avid FX. But I’m trying my hardest to not use that. I’d rather work directly in the main timeline of Avid.
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I changed my render settings and it looks perfect now. But why does Avid have to be so difficult when working with still pictures? Final Cut Pro and Premiere are just drag and drop and move and resize. This pan and scan is such a pain in the ass.
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I did all of that but my images still look strange, almost like they’re pixelated. They’re not terrible quality but just something doesn’t look right, for one thing the lines are jaggy. I’m working with uncompressed tifs with image resolutions of 5300×3300 with 300dpi and 24 bit depth. I have my video quality setting to full quality 10-bit.
I worked with one in Avid FX to see how they would look and they came out looking great. But I’d rather work with them on the timeline because I have audio cues I need to hit. And when I imported the picture into Avid FX, it imported in at its native size.
I don’t need to rotate, just zoom in and out on the pictures and move left and right.
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I installed the After Effects EMP from the Avid install disk. I went to the preferences settings and under the video preview setting in After Effects, I changed the output device to IEEE 1394 (OHCI Compliant) but nothing happened. I didn’t see an option that said to use the Mojo SDI. I even checked the previews and interactions check boxes under the output during setting and still nothing happened.
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Wow, these are some great responses. To clarify something, when I said money isn’t much of an issue I was referring to the cost difference between Avid and FCP. The Avid quote we received was $22,000 and the FCP quote was about $16,000.
Looking over our quotes, the Avid system seems to offer less than our FCP system yet costs more. Both systems include M-Audio powered audio monitors. Yet the FCP system includes the Sony LMD2050W hi grade production monitor and two 24″ NEC computer monitors and uses the Black Magic Mutltibridge Eclipse. The Avid system includes neither and has two 20″ HP monitors, the cheap ones and uses the Avid Mojo SDI.
Am I just acting crazy pushing for FCP? I mean I see so much more for such a lesser price. This is just for suggestions, but how would I convince my higher-ups to go with FCP? And they are getting a deal on the Avid system but the deal price is higher than the regular price of the FCP. What am I missing here!?
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That fixed the purple squares showing up in my bin but now I have another problem. This so far only seems to happen when I have the Media 100 application open. But since I’ve rolled back my version of quicktime, my desktop seems to “refresh” itself every couple minutes. Refresh is the only word I can think of that describes it best. What seems to happen is all the icons on the desktop disappear for about a second or two then come back. Well when it does that, it changes the program I’m in and switches to the desktop. So if I’m capturing in the Media 100 or exporting in the Media 100 or playing something in the Media 100, it stops what it’s doing. It only started doing this after I rolled back my Quicktime version. Any suggestions?
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What is the difference between a windscreen and a wind cover? Which would work better? Lighting wouldn’t be an issue since we’ll have our own lighting setup.
To keep the panels up would just require some heavy sandbagging on the bases. I’m guessing that’s one of those things we’ll have to test to see if it would work.