[Jeff Brown]

Cineform might be worth looking into…

[Jeff Brown]

Ozzie — glad it helped. By the way: I can’t afford those portables either! Maybe some big location job will come along…

-Jeff

[Jeff Brown]

If you have the budget, you might look at the high-end laptop market. A couple vendors I know of are: BoxxTech (dot com) and NextComputing (dot com).

-Jeff

[Jeff Brown]

I would check that you don’t have a problem with “setup” being [mistakenly] embedded in the SD material. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure digital black is zero in both colorspaces…

-Jeff

[Jeff Brown]

You can also get the (free) Avid DNxHD codecs from Avid for your system. They are very good at the higher bit-rates, and can save some space. Might export faster from a Media Composer, too.

-Jeff

Jeff Brown
Fire Mist Media
http://www.firemist.com

Workstation:
Boxx 8700 dual-quad
4 GB RAM
nVidia Quadro FX 4500
WinXP Pro
AJA Xena 2K
CalDigit HDOne

Main Software:
3ds Max
Combustion
Photoshop
PremierePro

[Jeff Brown]

Chris– I’ve had no luck in XP using a Kona(Xena) for system audio. I think it may not be possible, as Windows doesn’t want to use ASIO devices for system audio. I use a 2nd audio card (motherboard audio actually, yuck) for system audio, and have not noticed any conflicts.

How’s that for a “no-help” help answer?

Jeff

[Jeff Brown]

Since much, or most, work these days ends up on a computer display at some point, I’m a big advocate of shooting progressive whenever practical. I would test “shutter” speed settings and see if you can find a happy medium for computer and traditional video displays.
There may always be some outliers (like an old SD CRT) that are less than ideal, but my opinion is progressive will maximize the quality for the greatest number of display options. It also has the perk of better still-frames for print use. The one exception would be sports, which does benefit from the higher temporal resolution of interlaced.

-Jeff

[Jeff Brown]

You can find Chroma Green fabric from many sources (check B&H photo or Markertek). Another way to work with full green is to build a platform about 10 to 20″ high, and large enough for your talent (6×6′ maybe), and paint the top green. The less green you have in the room, the easier it will be to clean up spill. Having a raised platform should let you “overlap” the floor/wall green in the shot.

-Jeff

[Jeff Brown]

in your Encore project, set the pixel aspect to “widescreen (1.2)”.
NTSC DVD-video is _always_ 720×480. 16:9 and 4:2 are determined by the pixel ratio.

-Jeff

[Jeff Brown]

Hi David,
I think the MacBeth chart is an excellent production tool (I have one from my photo days, too). I don’t do much editing, but does ColorFinesse have an eyedropper match tool? Video being what it is, I would start with a basic grey (white) balance, and adjust from there. Because of the non-linear and non-film nature of video, I doubt the RGB values will match the log densities one would use with film. But the chart should be a boon in doing shot-to-shot correction; I would pick a “master” clip, and match the succeeding shots to that, as much video color correction moves away from a neutral color balance.

-Jeff