[Mark Suszko]

This won’t solve the problem either, but I thought I’d share this to help commiserate, to show that everybody makes mistakes.

Some work buddies of mine took a freelance gig outside of work shooting high school basketball finals one afternoon for a local Fox affiliate. They fed live signals by cable into a production truck where it was live switched to tape for a delayed broadcast that same evening. Game turned out to be a barnburner. Don’t they always, when something goes wrong?:-)

Anyhow, the guys in the truck stopped the decks at halftime to conserve tape so they didn’t have to double the tape stock cost. (Sound familiar?) These were betacamSP decks, where to record, you must press record PLUS play. If you just press the record button, you get movement of your time code display (which is what they were doing on purpose I suppose, running time of day jam synched decks for later editing to the notes taken by the hosts using their wristwatches to remotely log important plays) and you can even get audio meter movement and confirmation of video signal on the meters set E-E… but you’re not REALLY recording unless BOTH buttons are pressed. Cue the forboding music…

You got it: they shot and switched the best second half of the season and never recorded an inch of it. A quick glance over at the decks showed timecode numbers advancing and meters twitching, good enough… Didn’t catch it until the game was over. Worse, the time and advertising for airing the show was all bought up and scheduled. They were committed to airing *something*. In about three hours.

The station got a lot of press for the goof; they ran many apologies, and played the unremarkable first half that WAS recorded, then filled time for the rest of the scheduled program *describing* the second half that was lost, like an oral history documentary. I give them credit for grace under pressure, but MAN I’m glad I wasn’t part of that shoot!

“Oh, you wanted to RECORD that?”

[Mark Suszko]

I perused the 650 manual and what I get out of it is that it is *possible* to record using DVCAM tape but certainly not recommended, nor do they guarantee a useable playback, likely for the reasons Tim gave. Kinda like using beta oxide in a betacamSP deck that was only designed for metal tape. You can trick the machine into accepting it for a recording (I managed that one time by some accident, don’t remember how) but the playback had a lot of dropouts.

Maybe they can salvage a playback, maybe not. The tape incompatibility, on top of the too-large of a load for the capstan and takeup motors to pull, that I think may be the major problem, well, that’s two strikes down on them already. I’ll be as surprised as anyone if they get a picture out of it.

Of all the things we spend money on in production, tape stock is the cheapest thing. Until you get the wrong kind or bring it back from the shoot with nothing on it. Tape stock is not a smart place to pinch pennies. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were expecting a DVCAM deck, that’s all they had bought tape for, and the rental house or some reason didn’t supply the proper stock when they delivered the DVCPo deck, and then the event was starting and it was too late.

We can still hope for a miracle, but it is looking more bleak I’m afraid.

This also points up the fact that a pro events shooter should have insurance. Because the upset bridezilla’s lawyer is going to go hog wild when he discovers the wrong tape was used. Could wind up being one of the most expensive cassettes ever.

[Mark Suszko]

Now all that’s left is to cram it into an HVX 500 and I’m a happy guy….

[Mark Suszko]

I disagree with your initial premise.

Blank DVcam tape is the same tape and basically the same DV25 format as DVCpro. Recording on it should not present a big problem, IF you recorded it in DVC pro mode and are playing it back in DVC Pro mode. (Don’t be surprised: unless you set the menu correctly and lock it in, the machine will continue to default to a native or previously set playback mode instead of what you want it to do)

I use this model Panasonic AJ-D650 DVC Pro deck daily, as well as the smaller “shoebox” sized DVC Pro decks. The problem is more likely the same one we’ve had: that the deck has some age on it and the motor is having trouble pulling against the torque of the very large tape load of those supur-long cassettes. Our shoeboxes struggle mightily to record on the dvcpro 120 minute tapes and often give up playing them after a few minutes… We sent the 650 in for maintenance and they seem fine now. The shoeboxes are not recommended to run those huge loads, but will do it for the first year or two…

What I’d try in your case is to fast-forward the cassette without allowing head contact, to the middle of the tape to unload the tape path a little, and see if it plays okay from there. Also try putting it in still and then slow advancing it. If that works, my diagnosis is confirmed.

Perhaps unpacking the tape by repeated fast forward and rewind end to end will loosen it up enough to get a playback. Or… Grab another deck, even a DVCam deck that can switch to DVC compatibility playback mode, and try to lay off the tape to shorter 66-minute cassettes. The rental company should probably send the deck in for service to the tape path, guides and motor, genral lube and clean too. It’s what we had to do for ours at the 6-year mark. At least we don’t have the bad capacitors anymore!:-)

Best of luck, please report back either way with results.

[Mark Suszko]

Trying to fix echo is very hard, no answer is perfect. But something you mighty try if you have Sound Forge or similar DAW program, is to set a noise gate on the audio with a rapid attack and decay time. You are going to have to fiddle with the knobs quite a bit to get a setting that clamps the reverb without hurting the rest of the sound too badly, but it can help.

What this gating in effect does is duck the audio down immediately after the initial instant each word is said, as the gate detects the slightly less loud echo part’s level. As the next word is said, the gate rapidly detects it past a preset threshold and brings the level up within a microsecond. The gate does this over and over for every microsecond of audio.

Don’t expect a miracle. Try a gate and maybe some downward expansion on some of the lower frequencies, then play with EQ to sweeten the mids and highs a little. Don’t know what these are? Check the help files or wikipedia.

Next time you’re shooting in a big, echoey church space, prepare ahead. Go to the rehearsal and shoot test footage and listen to it. Check for hearing assist: If the minister or rabbi or priest is on a mic, chances are the church or temple has an assisted listening system for the hard of hearing members. These are pocket sized radio receivers with disposable earphones, usually your standard mini jack in mono. Buy a $2 cable at radio shack to connect mini-male to your camcorder mic input, and boom, you have wireless reception of every house mic in the church. Bring plenty of AA alkaline and 9 volt batteries BTW, usually the units in a church are not changed out too often and you don’t want to run out of juice in the middle. By recording the close-miced sources, you avoid trying to capture from a distance in a very “live” room. This worked surprisingly well for me a couple of times, and it avoids getting any difficulties from a difficult officiant regarding your mic placement (though I would always mic the groom with a wireless hidden in the lapel regardless).

Other mics that are somewhat noise-cancelling include Boundary type “PZM” mics that are relatively easy to hide on or around a lectern or altar.

[Mark Suszko]

Did you have the camera on power while you swapped the little battery? Did you put the little battery in backwards? It happens to all of us sometime.

Try putting the camera on AC power supply, remove the little battery, check polarity AGAIN, then power down and restart witha back of the camera battery. You might also try a hard reboot by finding and resetting the breaker button, it’s usually hidden somewhere ont he bottom of a camera.

But I’ll bet you a donut you put the memory batery in backwards.

[Mark Suszko]

They must have fixed the FCP bug because the legal limit filter works fine in ours. However, that’s not always the best way to “solve” a problem that likely occurred during the ingest stage of the project or even the shooting stage.

Also if you use the legalizer filter on the whole program timeline, it does a couple of things. One is it makes you lazy over time, lazy and sloppy, trusting the filter will “fix” everything, until the day it doesn’t.

Secondly, the filter applied globally to the entire timeline is going to have some small but real effect on the video that was ok to start with. And you can create worse problems for yourself matching footage when compositing or laying-back into an existing master- NOW which footage was clamped and which was not?.

[Mark Suszko]

Copyrighted music like top 40 popular love songs? You are SOL.
To do it legally you’d have to get several clearances, each of which is highly variable in time and money to aquire. Don;t bother telling me the alleged justifications, I’ve heard them all and while I’m not a lawyer I can read the statutes clear enough that I don’t see how most of those excuses could ever pass muster before a judge. If you take money for making the product, and you use someone’s copyrighted materials in the making of the product, you have to get the rights. Period.

If you go ahead and use the popular track, you are playing Russian Roulette regarding getting sued. Most times you’ll get away with it. The one time you don’t, well, are you willing to bet your gear, your car, your house, on the outcome of the court case? Which may take over a year to litigate? You have the time and money to waste on that? Even if you win, you lose.

You can find “sound-alike” pieces that are cleared, it takes a lot of work auditioning web sites from needle-drop services and the like. Sometimes, you’d be better off hiring a composer to make something like that for you that sounds close but is legal, best of all you’d own it afterwards as part of the deal and could charge OTHER people to use it.

Or you just wonder if you fired six shots or only five.

Do you feel lucky?

[Mark Suszko]

Those stats, if you can find them, are always out of date or inapplicable for some reason. They are IMO typically used by academics and shysters trying to make a point that needs no defense of itself: everyone knows TV is effective and popular.

Like the old joke in advertising, though, “I know I’m wasting half of my advertising budget, I just don’t know which half”. Meaning, your ad spending is only as good as your knowledge of the target audience and how well you’re tailoring your message to them.

Stats too are misleading when used as the justification to apply video to a problem that may not be best handled thru video. I have several times told clients that the video they proposed would not do the job as well as a simple email or PDF or interactive web site that can be self-navigated. Not to mention that web sites can be updated way faster, cheaper and easier than recalling and redistributing updated videos organization-wide. When they ignored my advice they’ve usually regretted it. I’m not saying don’t do video, I’m saying leverage the strengths of video to the strengths of other media in a more effective, synergistic combination. Oh-oh, too much guru talk…:-)

I saw a web site for a local bank recently that really doesn’t “get it”. They hired a guy to put videos on their web site. Trying to make them hip and modern and youth oriented. So what does he do? He applies video, of all places, to the FAQ page. The questions are one line long. Things like how to log into your account, what the penalties are for overdrafts, etc. The longest answer the bank had back is three sentences long in simple text.

This guy removed the text of the answers and replaced each text answer with an embedded streaming video file of HIM in jeans and t-shirt and yellow wrist band, slouching in a chair across from the camcorder, reading the answer. For each question, one clip per question. The same answer you used to just be able to read off the screen in three seconds.

Whisky…. Tango…. um, Hotel.

So now I get on my slow dial-up browser and get to his bank’s web page so I can wait five minutes to listen to him read me on camera the simple answer that should just be up there in text. No, I’m not doing any business with a bank that approved that. Neither should you. Yes, video enhances learning, in that a message that is heard and illustrated visually is more effectively retained than one that is only read or only heard. But obviously, the useage has to be apropriate to the subject!

You should worry more about being able to measure YOUR program’s success after it is watched. There’s a couple of ways to do this, depending of course on the type of program it is.

If it is a sales piece, why not use a brand new phone number or extension, or custom web site for taking the orders after the piece airs, and boom, there’s your metric, number of calls after first, second and multiple month’s worth of viewings. Number of site hits on the counter.

If it’s educational, you can put together a test audience of ten or more people and give them a simple quiz before and after they watch the show. Compare answers to see if they are mostly correct afterwards or not.

Something I always push for people that run teleconferences, particularly ones involving training, is to create a simple free email listserv group or Yahoo group, moderated thru one person in the organization, and let the audience and hosts discuss the program between each other for a couple weeks or whatever time is appropriate afterwards. This is a great way to gauge audience involvement, reinforce key messages that may have been misinterpreted, and to get great feedback on where you hit and where you missed, so you can improve the next one. It also lets you add more content than the program had room for, and even to create new content for the update or next chapter of the project. Your rules are that the group is limited to the topic of the program only, and that all messages are read and approved by a moderator who acts to filter out extraneous stuff and keep things on task. They might also strip out names of posters to keep things impersonal. When the comment period is up, you archive the best discussions to a website or distribute a PDF booklet back to the audience. This is truly interactive cooperative group learning.

PS if I were you, I’d lose the guru, they sound like they are more about dropping buzzwords than figuring out strategy.

[Mark Suszko]

A fundamental question is, do you even have a business case to do this?

Seems to me this is a horrible time to start up a boutique, the tech changes faster than you can amortize the capital costs, kids working out of their mom’s basement with academic half price versions of FCP and Premiere are undercutting you on price, (talent or lack of it notwithstanding,) the big ones are constantly merging or consolidating on the high end, and on the low end the tools are cheap enough now most anybody can buy their own complete suite on a whim to edit cheezy intra-corporate stuff and the like.

What’s left for you in the middle ground? What’s your business plan, your market?