Josh Meredith
Forum Replies Created
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I’m very pro-Vegas, so that’s my vote. Vegas is the only NLE I’ve used that allows me to focus 99.9% of my brainpower on creativity, and .1% on the mechanics of the program. Other NLE’s render me at least 50% less effective, it seems, even after I’ve gotten past the learning curve.
I know several people who use Avid at work, and none of them like it. They all use other NLE’s for their own projects. That tells me something.
I used to work as a cameraman for a production company that used both Avid and Premiere, and the editors used to joke that the only reason Avid is considered “pro” is because it’s a b*tch to use. All of them chose to use Premeire at the office, unless the boss insisted they edit a specific project on Avid *merely* because he wanted the client to see them using it. I guess he didn’t want the client to think “Hey, I could do this!”. If the client wasn’t going to be there watching them edit, they always went with Premiere.
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Nice video with clean edits. I always like the 16:9 aspect ratio. Not much to complain about. It would have been nice to hear what the artist was saying, by turning the music down a little bit when he talked. Maybe add some on-screen text identifying the situation, location, date, the music, and the people involved. Lacking any audible conversation, the video seems like it runs a little longer than it has to. But that’s about all I’d change.
You’ve made a good choice by picking Vegas as your editor. I’ve used a number of PC based editors, including Premiere Pro, and I could never go back to anything less than Vegas. In fact, Vegas is literally the only PC software that my two Mac friends get jealous about. I think that says a lot, expecially if you know Mac people!
I don’t know anything about schools or classes, but I’m sure they exist. For me, simply becoming obsessed with NLE editing was enough to result in a rapid accumilation of skills. Get obsessed, stay obsessed, edit ALL the time, watch TV & movies with an eagle eye for techniques you can use (or avoid!) and have fun.
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I think you understand what I am saying. We would just prefer to be able to see the mov on a separate screen, not just at the bottom of the vegas video screen, while still staying in sync.
Then if you haven’t already, try the technique I described in my initial reply. I do this all the time, and it works very well.
Just to clarify that if you do this, you’ll have Vegas displayed on your main computer monitor, and you’ll have the preview screen displayed in full size on the monitor attached to your camera. That should be just what you’re looking for.
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I might not really understand what you need, so I hope I’m not just adding frustration to your problem.
Are you talking about having Vegas running and also having the Quicktime player running at the same time, with both programs staying in sync? If so, I don’t know how you’d do that.
But if what you currently have is a Quicktime (MOV) file, and you want to change something about the audio portion, why not just put the Quicktime file in the Vegas timeline and edit the audio track the same way you would with an AVI? Sync wouldn’t be an issue doing it this way.
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Vegas exports the preview screen through the firewire port. Keep your camera connected to the computer via firewire, connect the camera to a TV, and click the “Preview on external monitor” button just above the Vegas preview screen.
I’ve never edited Quicktime files, but this works perfectly with AVI files. I assume the same will be true for MOV’s.
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Adobe After Effects would be one suggestion. I have used AE, and thorougly did not enjoy any aspect of it’s user interface or workfow, but I could tell it was a powerful program. I wish I had the discipline to revisit AE and really learn it.
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This is something I’ve done on several occasions
What are these services called ?
I’ve called them Video Biographies in the past.
How do you advertise and solicit business?
For me it has been word of mouth. It has been suggested to me that I hang fliers on bulletin boards in retirement homes, but I haven’t done that.
How many projects do you get per month and what size is your market?
I thoroughly enjoy doing these types of projects, but I couldn’t do more than one a month. The interview itself can take a whole day, and the editing takes forever when you’re starting with 6 to 8 hours of footage. Most projects I do take a couple of weeks, but a video biography can easily take 3 to 4. A lot of effort goes towards getting still photos from the family to add to the video, not to mention license free archive photos and video clips, and period music.
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Mistyped the original post’s headline
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You could render the section of your timeline containing the blue line to a JPEG sequence (Tools, Scripting, Render Image Sequence). Then you could take each of the JPEG’s into Photoshop and fix them, one at a time. Then reinsert the JPEGs into the timeline, making sure the duration of each JPEG is correct for the framerate of your project.
I assume this would work. I have rendered to a JPEG sequence before, but I haven’t gone to the trouble of repairing a series of frames in this manner. It sure doesn’t sound like fun!
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If I output to MiniDV for the purpose of transfering to DVCAM, wouldn’t that negate whatever bennefits provided by DVCAM? I assume DVCAM can handle higher resolution than MiniDV.
For an experiment, last night I rendered a 30 second uncompressed AVI file, which turned out to be over 1 gig in size. Then I rendered the same project as an NTSC DV Avi file, and it was under 200 MB. This tells me that NTSC DV standards are obviously lower than “full quality”.
Then I tried to transfer the uncompressed AVI back to my MiniDV camera, and it wouldn’t accept it, whereas it did accept the NTSC DV version. I’m wondering if I plugged the DVCAM deck into my computer, perhaps it would accept the transfer of the uncompressed AVI. In which case, I’d have to cede the TV station’s point that DVCAM provides higher quality.
But I still wonder if the difference is of any significance on broadcast TV.