Kieran Matthew
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Ajmetz,
[Ajmetz] “Well thats odd, as I can’t have that feature turned on when there’s video beneath the graphics, or the video flickers instead. For credits its plain black, so doesn’t matter, but when I tried it with my rotating polygons over a video, the jaggies in the polygons were reduced, but the video flickered like it had the wrong field order all of a sudden.
“That is odd, though to be fair I have only used it in the OSX flavours of the software/Media 100. Perhaps it is something they altered.
Just checking though, is the video beneath just “showing through” or are you using a video track within Boris? Are you using Boris as an effect, a comp or a title?
Check the preferences are set for “upper field first” for video as well, mine always seem to default to NTSC’s lowerfield.
K
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Hi Ajmetz,
[Ajmetz] “But I just solved the problem in Boris, by performing the following additional steps:
selected “Render fields as frames” in preferences
“Just FYI, Boris recommends that this is always on for use within Media 100. As you have said, some effects look decidedly dodgy with it off. It gets renamed “Better Quality Field Rendering” in later versions.
K
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Hi Bob,
[Bob Karsner] “Where can I find Compressor? Is it another program I will need if I purchase FCP?
“Unfortunately, yes, Compressor comes with FCS/DVDSP, but there are many other applications on the market that can encode your video from Quicktime Pro married with FFmpegX or Streamclip, through Cleaner, Episode etc etc. Also there are other DVD packages out there, even a few freeware ones.
It’s a little unfair to suggest it is Media 100’s fault that Apple make us buy FCS to get DVD SP, but I do agree that Media 100 could be a kick-ass end to end DVD solution, with Media 100 sorting the video, audio and subtitle assets, RED doing the menus, and a bought in third party encoder (Bitvice springs to mind!) to do the MPEG bit.
That said, Media 100 (the company and the package) has come such a long way in such a short time, from near extinction to a new product that is snapping at the heals of the majors, that who knows what the future may bring?
K
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Hi Bob,
There are many factors that influence DVD compatibility. The DVD player itself, as you mention, can have problems with DVD-R, but the main problems are down to the make of media you use, and the bitrates you encode at.
Most DVD authors will swear by a pparticular brand of DVD-R. I settled on one and have made DVDs for years with no issues – I recently was forced to use a different brand, and hey presto I had an issue with a disc. It is all probably superstition, but you tend to get a bit that way when computers are involved!
The Bitrate issue is a big one. I haven’t used it for a while but iDVD used to set its encoder to the highest rates it could. Bit rates need to be managed or they can exceed what the machine you are playing on can handle resulting in stutters and other issues.
Audio is also a problem as you should encode to AC3 to avoid the bitrate overheads of PCM sound. When I used it iDVD didn’t encode the audio, though that may have changed.
In my opinion DVD Studio Pro is a must for DVD creation on a Mac. FCS2 is a bargain for what you get in the box and remember, FCP can also run on your Media 100 HDe hardware, so it is a good investment. Once you use DVDSP you won’t want to go back to iDVD.
As you are using a HDe you can utilise the multi-codec support to create files that get around the old Media 100 colourspace/gamma problems and go straight into Compressor without issue. When I was using my v8s I used Bitvice (with its Media 100i friendly “studio RGB” button) exclusively, but I’m now on a Mac Pro and Bitvice isn’t universal.
Beware of older versions of compressor as they used to have real problems with variable bitrates etc and Bitvice won hands down. Now though Compressor is very fast and works fine.
Hope some of that helps!
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Hi Antonio,
I’m in the UK, so I’m a PAL kind of guy too 🙂
Off the top of my head, the most critical thing is to apply a gamma filter set to around 1.2 (There’s a mathematical reason for this figure, but I’ve heard of people going as high as 1.4 and above).
Other than that, adding contrast and lowering the brightness does the rest, but I don’t have exact figures (I’ve seen -5.6 brightness and +3.3 contrast posted by one cow-er, +16 contrast by another).
There’s a demo version of bitvice you can try to see if it cures your problems and works well for you if you don’t want to take the plunge straight away.
Hope that helps.
K
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Hi Eric,
DVDSP doesn’t do anything to the IRE level, but its internal encoder is expecting the media to be in a certain form.
What you are probably seeing is a levels/gamma shift resulting from media with a different colourspace than Apple’s codecs.
DVDSP is expecting media to be 1.8 gamma with levels in the 0-255 range (critically with black at 0). Some NLE’s work with Media at 2.2 in the 16-235 range. Encoding this through DVDSP leaves you with overbright low contrast video with blacks distinctly grey.
The options are to encode separately in Compressor with setting adjusted to add contrast and gamma shift, or to use another encoder like Bitvice, which has a “studio RGB” button for this.
Hope that helps,
K
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Hi All,
There seems to be an issue regarding cetain decks/cameras and Media 100. I can certainly confirm that the HVR M10E is a barrel of laughs when it comes to digitising (see my earlier thread on the subject)
However, the M25E works like a dream, as does the Z1E directly. The problem seems to be to do with how the deck identifies the media standard (NTSC/PAL) – Media 100 invariably decides the deck is NTSC and hence no pictures.
K
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Hi Tankboy,
I’ve just run into a similar problem with slomos rendering black. The issue seems to be with the codec set for rendering. I was using a bit of media captured in Media 100i Lossless, and it would only render if the render codec was set to the same.
I don’t know if this is true for other codecs, but assuming you didn’t find a work around, maybe this info is of some help?
K
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Hi Ajmetz,
I don’t know if this will do any good, but you could try converting the text to vectors to see if that helps at all.
As you’ve already tried the 1:2:1 option, then maybe the larger font is the only option.
K
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Hi Sheeplove,
[Sheeplove] “But despite M100 saying it’s in NTSC mode, when I digitise the clips are in PAL!”
That’s interesting – mine wouldn’t take footage in at all. The track buttons remained yellow the whole time.
K