[Jeff Pulera]

Ann is correct, the 720p sequence will give you more leeway zooming 1080p clips. HD is more forgiving than SD for a “little” zooming/reframing – loss is barely noticeable a lot of times, but if you want to zoom more than a bit, and on many clips, then 720p definitely the way to go.

A tip – if you have “Scale to Frame” enabled in Preferences, this will automatically scale the 1080p clips to fit the 720p frame. On any clip that you wish to zoom, first right-click and disable Scale so that clip expands beyond the 720p frame edges. Now when you use Motion effect to scale, zoom will get the full benefit of the extra pixels when zooming.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Kenn,

More info needed to suggest a solution.

PC or Mac?

Did capture used to work, and suddenly quit, or is this the first attempt?

What camera?

DV or HDV?

Is DV control enabled in capture settings?

If this is an HDV camera, there will be a menu setting for “VCR” with options of AUTO, DV, or HDV. Specifically choose DV or HDV according to your needs, AUTO can cause issues.

Never switch cable when camera is powered, could blow out the DV port.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Lisa,

When exporting any video source to put on DVD, the ONLY export option should be “MPEG-2 DVD”. No other option will create a “DVD legal” file and Encore will simply have to transcode whatever you give it to MPEG-2 DVD anyway. You’ve now added another generation of compression (loss) and more time to the workflow.

Assuming you’re in NTSC-land, you could use the preset “NTSC Progressive Widescreen”. That would use be 30p (29.97), but there is also an option for 23.976 if you have a 24p source.

It’s important that you use the best bitrate to match the length of the video. Too low of a bitrate and you’re throwing away better quality (empty space on the DVD), too high and it’s not “legal” for DVD spec and also may not fit the disc.

As a rule of thumb, 560/minutes=bitrate usually works pretty well, maybe round down the result slightly for menu overhead/safety margin, or there are plenty of “bitrate calculator” apps online, just search. For shorter videos, most users like to keep the maximum rate to 7 or 8. The spec allows a little higher, but some DVD players don’t like high bitrates on burned media, better safe than sorry.

In the AME encoding window, there is a checkbox at the bottom for “Max Render Quality” and you can check that to increase the downscale quality (not needed when source and output dimensions are the same).

EDIT: NOT recommended to use “Dynamic Link”. More headaches than it’s worth usually. Many users say the AME encoding engine is different, and BETTER, than what is use din Encore, another reason. Create your own assets using AME and Import them into Encore.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Anycast is $20k. I would second the motion to find a used TriCaster (an SD model), should be perfect for your needs. Has chroma-keying, virtual sets, titling and recording built-in and is portable. Why would you want to use “web cams” for pro training? Used SD camcorders (miniDV) are dirt cheap and are a much better option.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

” Never had a problem ”

Well apparently there IS a problem, you’ve asked for help because your videos are not as clear as those of the competition. Any time you upscale your video, like 720p to 1080p, there will be softening. Why not stay 720p and deliver a clean 720p product to the customer? You are not doing anyone a favor by delivering 1080p from a 720p source. It is still 720p, but now looks worse because it has been blown-up.

I’m a fan of the Ninja units, have used them on several projects. But in my case, it was more for convenience. My cameras are HDV and when shooting multiple long events, there is lots of tape changing and then many, many hours of capturing all of those tapes. Ninja allows me to capture direct to the hard drive, ready to edit!

As for quality…recording to ProRes with 4:2:2 color can be helpful when planning to do a lot of color grading, or especially compositing such as green screen work. Fast motion video will have less artifacting with the higher data rate and more robust codec. But in general, you will not see an obvious difference between camera native footage and the ProRes most of the time, without scrutinizing the footage side by side and expanding the image to check/compare details. In other words, don’t expect your footage to magically look much better just because of using Ninja. To the naked eye during playback, the footage will usually look the same.

Thank you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Select a clip on the timeline, then go to the Effects panel. Each clip already has “Adobe Motion” effect on it. Use the “Scale” function to “zoom in/out”. You will need to use Keyframes to animate the scaling up/down. Plenty of online tutorials on how to use keyframes, probably some right here on the Cow.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Gerry,

The size of the display is not necessarily the issue – rather, it would be the display resolution. Right-click the Windows desktop and click Properties to bring up the display settings. See if you can increase the resolution used.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

I would question why the need to convert from 25p to 24p? That is most likely causing a bit of stuttering motion in the playback. Stick with 25p output unless there is some compelling reason that REQUIRES 24p delivery.

Thank you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

The video DeNoiser effect is most definitely the issue. I use Red Giant DeNoiser II and the 20 hours sounds about right for 45 minutes of HD. Actually, the newer version of DeNoiser now uses CUDA acceleration and should be a couple times faster, but maybe you don’t have the right graphics card?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

I did understand the original request, and am saying that to my knowledge, there is no live switcher that saves an “edit list” for later use with NLE software.

However, here is what you could do with a TriCaster 460 for instance.

1) Perform the live switch, taking notes, and RECORDING all 3 cameras, while also recording the final Program (the mix). All recordings saved to TriCaster hard drives.

2) Connect the removable TriCaster media hard drive to your edit system using inexpensive hard drive dock.

3) Import all 4 video clips into Premiere (or any NLE). They are all identical length, in sync. Stack them on the timeline, Program on top. Jump to timecode where you want to “correct an edit” and do so, using the original camera ISO recordings that are right there. You can do this manually in a sequence, or use the MultiCam function in Premiere to see all 4 sources at once.

Very quick and easy.

Most switchers do NOT offer the ISO-recording that TriCaster does, so that would complicate matters with other hardware, perhaps using outboard recorders.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers