[Fernando Mol]

For optimal storage performance of a P2 card in your camera, shoot at 720 24PN

Don’t shoot in SD, you will not be using the full CCD and the image quality will be way lower than if you shoot HD.

[Fernando Mol]

The only time I have seeing that kind of specific detailed requests for a bid was in a situation that was exactly what you guessed: the client already had decided with whom he wanted to work, so he wrote the request just because he was forced to.

Some companies arrived with very interesting proposals, but the client shut them down internally, talking technical garbage to the rest of the personal that was involved in the decision. Of course, not in front of the companies that did the job to present excellent projects.

The reason the client did that? He was forced to give options by the company, but he didn’t want to. So, my advice, if you smell something like that don’t waste your time unless you really have some free one.

PS. You guessed right, I worked there but I was NOT the client. Just an embarrassed witness.

[Fernando Mol]

I Greg. I understand your frustration, but remember we don’t know all the details of your project nor we have seen the footage, so we are guessing based in what you tell us. It sounded like a newbie mistake, but it seems that you are just suffering one of those bad situations that all of us have from time to time.

I still think that if you use your original footage at 100% size in your 640×360 project should do the trick. ¿How small can the letters be? But, again, I haven’t seen your footage.

If you have After Effects, you can place your footage and scale it and, if you change the quality switch for the layer in the timeline you get a pixel based scale, not the smoothed one that you get from quality zooms.

I haven’t used Final Cut in years, so I don’t remember if there’s an option for that, but Photoshop can do it.

Anyway, I’m sure about now you already meditated enough about the problem to have an idea of what to do. I hope you get out of it soon.

[Fernando Mol]

[Mark Suszko] – “However, they always forget that time when they see the results.”

Toke me some years to learn that lesson. And when you deal with a junior in corporate jobs this is especially true: When THEIR BOSSES see the final result, he will forget the process and call you back next time.

[Fernando Mol]

If the page is not dynamically updating itself, you can use a snapshot. Then change the image size in Photoshop, using the Nearest Neighbor method to preserve a clear pixel look.

If it was me, I’ll go to the client’s office and spend a couple of hours capturing the material with them just to show them how it is. If they need more time or don’t want to do it, tell them about the extra bill.

Or, edit 30 seconds with the material they gave you and let them decide if that’s what they want.

[Fernando Mol]

Why don’t you do the pan/zoom in post?

I know it’s more work from your part, but if your project is a good one you can help your client not to worry with technical stuff.

You can always charge an extra for fixing that. If you already gave them an option that they resisted to take, it’s completely ethical. Just be nice.

I don’t think that is a good idea to overwhelm a client that doesn’t understand technical stuff just for making the job simpler for you. You can scare them out and lost them forever.

I hope this helps.

[Fernando Mol]

I agree with Noah. Unless you’re shooting film narrative you shouldn’t bother about the dept of field.

However, you may need to tweak another parameters to match your cameras, like color and sharpness.

[Fernando Mol]

Price is one of those things that make you unique. You know what kind of work you like to deliver, your quality and your costs. Finding your price is both a math problem and a testing process.

I hope this helps

[Fernando Mol]

Even a ready made solution would need some programming skills.

Moodle is free and it’s oriented to learning. See if it fits your needs.

https://moodle.org/

[Fernando Mol]

Looks fine in my iPad