[Mark]

I have some low budget commercials to compress to windows media for streaming. I am in the process of writing up my contracts. Does 30$ cdn for the compression of a 30 second spot sound like the right price ?
I do not want to do this work for free, as I am already do the commercials for a very good price (Commercials are for DVD delivery for trade show)…

Thanks for any insight,

Mark

[Mark]

Now, I dont know the veriosn of Avid that you are using, but here are some ways that may help…
Apply the effect to the top track, then when inside Boris, delete that trackand replace it with the same media, but from your drive.
The reason that you are getting a black screen is that the the alpha is not passed onto Borisfx.
Another way to do this, is to create a new track over the existing two, apply the filter then once inside Borisfx, delete the newly created track. This will enable the title filter to be on its own layer….The alpha created in Boris will take care of the compositing.

Alphas are never passed onto Boris, the best way to get them into Boris is directly from your drive…don’t pass through the editor to get the alpha.

Hope this helps,
Mark

[Mark]

I use change color to achieve this affect. I duplicate my layer twice, then apply the filter to the top layer. I set the filter to view the color correction matte and use this as a track matte for the 2nd layer, then I remove the color from the 3rd layer using something like the saturation filter or tint. Why do I do it in this way, simple, it gives me more control. It allows me to play around with the black and white background layer to create more interesting looks, such as tinting and the likes.

Mark

[Mark]

If you want the rain to bounce off the text, then create a duplicate of your text…create a rain effect on its own layer, then in the controls window of the rain layer, enable the interaction track and drop one of the copies of your text onto the interaction track on the timeline.

Hope this makes sense…am typing fast as I am busy at the moment.

Mark

[Mark]

I also do promos for a sports network….I use Boris Continuum Complete, I also used to like Final Effects when we were on Mac, we are now PC and our license is too old for the upgrade….
The ultimate plug in for sports though, is the Magic Bullet. Sports look too damn good when they are film. F1 in film look is simply stunning.

BTW….who do you work for ??? I’m at RDS….we are an ESPN affiliate, french language sports station.

Regards
Mark

[Mark]

Ron,

That is great news about the PC. Often when you buy a big name, like Dell or HP, it is hard to get the system upgraded….I would definately go for this upgrade….if the company is a recommended Avid shop, then you should be dealing with quality folks.

As for the version you should be running…..well….I like having new software, that said you can save big bucks by running slightly older. I never worked with version 6 of Liquid…only 7….. So, I am going to point you in the direction of the Pinnacle Liqiud Edition forum here on the COW. Don’t get me wrong, it is not that I don’t want to help, au contraire, I think that you will have more opinions from editors who have run both versions…..you will be better served by them. By all means, post here anytime, but it would be better for the answer on the version to ask over there.

Congrats on the PC…

Mark

[Mark]

I’m sure Avid would be REALLY impressed with the store shooting down Liquid…..They have probably never seen the system, but because it is priced with some of the lower end editing apps they make the assumption that it is inferior….they are pc salespeople, not editors….they have no clue what they are talking about….
Earlier this year I trained some editors on a media100 system….they hired me because the training they were provided was by a pc salesman…he knew nothing about editing, but he showed them how XP worked !!!!

Have you thought about calling Dell and discussing this with them….Explain to them that you would like to have the Raid, and that you would like to have a seperate drive to boot from. They may be able to help you. If they can’t, then you may have to boot from your array. Not the ideal solution, but hey it would work.

Back to Liquid not being “pro”, well I work on Liquid Blue at my day job. It is essentially the same software, except a few more codecs, some hardware to speed up renders, and a bigger break-out box than Liquid… This year, I won two PROMAX gold awards with promos that I had edited on this system using the Liquid tools. Sure I did some compositing in 3rd party apps, but essentially the meat of the promos came through Liquid.

If you take the time to learn Liquid, you will love it. If you want to edit, effect, mix, burn to DVD….then Liquid is the all in one product for you….it will do anything you can imagine. As I said, I also run other software, but I do a ton of compositing, and use features that Liquid doesn’t offer. You can do a lot, but it is not a full-fledged compositing application such as After Effects and Boris Red.

Happy holidays,
Let me know how it goes.

Mark Harvey

[Mark]

Thanks….you too

Mark

[Mark]

Drop the final container into a precompose and crop that.

Should do the job quickly and painlessly.

Mark

[Mark]

I don’t know if you can boot from an external drive….I’m not sure if speed would be an issue. I would suggest that calling a good PC shop may be your best bet….to find a good pc shop in your area….I would suggest going to the Avid site and find local dealers. That is how I found my dealer…they are a PC shop, but they specialize in video editing worksatations…..they built me a beast !
Sorry I can’t help more than that…as I said, I am an editor, but love PCs…

All the best, and Happy holidays…
If you need more advice etc, please feel free to continue this thread.
Mark