Jerry Waters
Forum Replies Created
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It is a big advantage with Pan/Crop — especially when you need to cut something out of a scene but don’t want a “jump” in the event.
JerryW
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The numbering thing was way off this year. Century (now Schneider) was difficult to find but worth it. They had several lenses for the A1U and I forgot to mention the bendable arm thing at Anton Bauer was a big help in stabilizing that camera. I lugged mine around two days to check out extras.
The operator of http://www.equipmentemporium.com was very helpful at the Audio Technica booth. My only interest is feature production and he is an award-winning TV sound man who now teaches film in a CA college. He demonstrated some really fine and reasonably priced equipment.
JerryW
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Thanks for the info. The guy was a little shocked when I asked him the question. I wouldn’t want to get him in trouble.
To me, NAB seemed a little wierd this year. Nothing new about Vegas, the big countdown to “Red” turned out to be a tent labeled “Under development” and no product. There was a cool camera that CineForm helped develop that is 2K and captures RAW footage (which I thought was a great idea – there were 11 f stops built in). The camera was at Adobe and the CineForm rep there said since it was a large single cmos sensor the data files are actually smaller than the ones coming out of my Z1.
One of the most inventive things I saw was a good sized hdraulic crane with great controls and features that used canola oil. The inventor, a guy from Canada, said he did it because there was no danger if anything spilled. It was edible and worked well. A buddy and I were looking at it. We asked the price. I was expecting the usual $20,000. The price – $2,400. The guy that built it was a mechanic. The link, for those interested, is http://www.dycortech.com They said they had sold 10 at the show. Someone bought one while we were there.
JerryW
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Is it possible you loaded the wrong file into DVDA? It sounds like you might have, perhaps a similar file name but avi?
JerryW
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I was standing in line for food at NAB and a Sony employee was talking to his buddy. He didn’t realize I was a user. The only thing I got was that handling DXCAM footage would be in it. I specifically asked if it would be 10 bit. He said he wasn’t sure but also said he could not say. DXCAM had a lot of space at the Sony booth this year.
JerryW
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I was standing in line for food at NAB and a Sony employee was talking to his buddy. He didn’t realize I was a user. The only thing I got was that handling DXCAM footage would be in it. I specifically asked if it would be 10 bit. He said he wasn’t sure but also said he could not say.
JerryW
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Vegas 7 comes out in the fall so don’t be surprised to see deals. I was standing in line for food at NAB and a Sony employee was talking to his buddy. He didn’t realize I was a user. The only thing I got was that handling DXCAM footage would be in it. I specifically asked if it would be 10 bit. He said he wasn’t sure but could not say.
JerryW
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I guess you are buying the Panasonic for 24p. Why aren’t you considering HDV? Everything is moving to HD.
JerryW
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CineForm – “Connect HD” for Vegas – does several things. It runs stand alone. It is much easier to operate than the system in Vegas. It will capture and convert to a great editable avi file and in the process scene detect. If your computer is not the fastest, it will first capture, then convert in a second step. If your computer is capable, it will capture, convert into avi scenes all in one step.
When working with their codec in Vegas everything runs as fast (as far as I can tell) as DV although you are working with 1440 X 1080 files. Their codec was designed for editing and you get a little better version than the one licensed to Sony for Vegas.
Their system is far superior to working with proxies and is well worth the $199. All my work is in HDV. I own a Z1 and an A1U and occasionally borrow a friend’s FX1. I am engaged in making a feature movie. We have over 500GB or captured footage (the avi files are larger than the m2t files delivered by the cameras) and HD Connect has been a godsend. Beyond this system are others that involve a lot of money, 10 bit, etc., but Connect HD is a great first step.
JerryW
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I’ve been shooting a feature length project with my Z1 and a friend’s FX1. Here is what I’ve learned. Basically, there are about 3 levels of handling the stream from an HDV camera. You don’t really want to edit an m2t file directly. It can be done but isn’t easy. Why? Because of the compression, frames that don’t have full data and the software having to handle it. M2t degrades badly if you have to reedit. This brings us to the lowest level of handling HDV — capturing the m2t file, creating proxies to edit and then substituting the originals for the proxies before rendering. Lowest form – worst idea — do this if you have a slow computer and can’t spend any money.
Level 2 is using CineForm’s “Connect HD” for Vegas – the best $199 I ever spent.
Vegas isn’t that good at capturing and has no scene detection. Go to CineForm (cineform.com) and get the trial version of Connect HD for use with Vegas. If you tried it the first way, you’ll think you died and went to heaven. CineForm captures the stream from the camera as a simple stand alone program. If your computer is real fast, it will convert on the fly to a great editable InterVideo Media File that Vegas edits easily – no proxy files. If your computer isn’t fast enough, just capture the m2t string as a file and then go to the “Convert” tab and it will convett the m2t to the editable files.
In the conversion process (in either of those cases) CineForm will scene detect. This means you can start capturing a tape, go do something else and come back to find one long m2t file. Then you convert and CineForm will break that m2t file down into a bunch a little files, one for each time you hit the record button.
There is almost no degredation with the CineForm codec. They say it is superior to the one CineForm licensed to Vegas.
Level 3 gets into using special cards like Decklink HD (about $600) or AJA Xena-LH. The first card is for Vegas now and also produces editable files, another codec, supposedly very good but I haven’t tried it. If you want to go 10bit, you have to leave Vegas but I imagine Vegas will be there soon (any big announcements at NAB?). Premiere will do 10bit now with the Xena card ($1,700) but you need a high end computer and the CineForm package goes up from $199 to $2k.
If you want to do some catching up fast, start reading everything on the CineForm site. I’m sticking with Vegas as long as I can. Premiere may handle 10 bit but my impression is you have to buy a plugin for almost everything you want in Premiere and it is already included in Vegas.
Hope this helps. It would have helped me a few months ago.