Micah Mcdowell
Forum Replies Created
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720 at 59.94 would mean likely mean 720p, which is 59.94 full progressive frames per second.
The 1080i HDV you’ve been working in is 60i, meaning 59.94 interlaced fields per second, which corresponds to a “framerate” of 29.97. Does that answer your question?
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We have XL1s where I work and I own a DVX100a; I agree with your suspicion that the XL1 has weird ergonomics and isn’t as user friendly. I also prefer the image of the Panasonic over the original XL1; it can mimic a great “filmic” look (as much as I hate that term) and is very versatile.
The newer Canons have improved much in picture quality, but they’ll be out of that price range, as are the newer Panasonics.
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It looks like you’ve got a good start from your samples there… everyone has to start somewhere.
In answer to your first question, I would say that it’s pretty easy to get a cheap camera that produces much better video than your Video 8 Sony; a popular really low-budget choice I’ve seen is the Canon HV30 and similar Canon HDV models.
Unfortunately, cheap cameras with decent manual controls and pro features are hard to find. If you can stretch your budget and don’t mind purchasing used, I would consider getting a nice used SD camera like a Canon XL-1 or Panasonic DVX100. The prices of these are now dipping down into the $1000 range used on eBay, and they’re great for starting out.
The “Ken Burns” effect is easy in FCP… you can use keyframes in the FCP viewer’s Motion tab to define image movement. In fact, after a quick search I found a video tutorial on it right here on the COW that you can watch here.
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Here’s an interesting thought… you can mount a second internal drive in a Macbook using this mounting adapter. Apparently you can even set it up as a mini RAID.
Of course it’s a bit impractical unless using an external HD isn’t an option and you don’t need your Superdrive with you, obviously. But, if all you use the Macbook for is On Location and transfers, this might be a sweet, very mobile, and slightly crazy setup.
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Well, your question is a bit broad, but here’s some suggestions.
The first thing to remember is that all built-in camcorder mics are generally very poor, so you will want to use an external mic (lapel mic or boom mic most of the time). Even a very good camera mounted mic will usually be too far away to be useful for dialogue and will pick up noise from the camera (fans/tape transport/zoom motors, etc.)
Most cameras have an external mic input and any DV/HDV or better camera will have adequate audio recording quality. Lower end cameras will often have a 1/8″ jack which must be used with an adapter to work with professional microphones with XLR connections. More expensive cameras will usually have XLR connectors, which is a good thing. For around $1000, you may be able to find a nice older miniDV camera with XLR inputs like a Panasonic DVX100, as long as you don’t mind buying used.
Having said all this, you should think of some more determining factors beyond the audio quality of a camera. Do you need HD? What are you going to use it for? Do you want it to record to tape or solid-state?
Don’t forget to add good mics to your budget, and check out the Cow’s audio forum.
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Your system “may” be a bottleneck, but it’s not terrible. Are your drives a RAID array or just four random separate disks? If they’re striped together, that will help your performance immensely. More RAM would be very beneficial as well.
Somewhat like you, I’ve always had issues with longer form projects in Premiere. I used to edit a 30 minute hunting show and had horrible issues daily; in my current position I rarely edit anything over 5 minutes and Premiere has been acceptably stable for some time. For whatever reason, it just doesn’t do well with feature length edits.
I’ve worked on low-end Avids, Premiere, FCP, and occasionally Vegas. My work system is Premiere on a PC and I use it daily, but my home system is now FCP and it seems to be the most stable of any I’ve used.
You could try Avid, but if you’ve always been a Premiere user the Avid interface and limitations of lower end Avids may drive you nuts, plus Avid needs very specific hardware or it won’t be fun. I’d just get a Mac and go the FCP route, but I’m becoming a bit biased.
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I’ve heard about Easy Worship, but have no experience with it. At my church we use MediaShout, which works well for what it’s needed for (we used to occasionally run videos from it, but now it’s only used for lyrics 90% of the time since we bought a Tricaster). It’s fairly stable but some users occasionally have issues.
At a conference this week I had some time to play with ProPresenter, another popular choice. It seems to be more user-friendly (good if you have untrained volunteers). From what I’ve heard it’s very stable and more efficient with system resources than MediaShout. It also has many cool bells and whistles such as overlaying lyrics over a Firewire video source. It’s Mac only, while MediaShout is PC only, so that may be a deciding point for you.
If you’re buying everything from scratch, I’d recommend the Mac+ProPresenter route.
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I would open both documents, drag the photo layer into the xray document, and then lower the opacity of the topmost layer to taste by using the Opacity slider in the Layers palette.
You may need to select the topmost layer and go into free transform mode (CTRL + T) and resize/reposition it so they match.
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It gets weirder when you have analog SD cable like I do. The HD news network feed is letterboxed to 4:3, so remote cams are 4:3 pillarboxed to 16:9 and then letterboxed again to 4:3. It drives me nuts.
I also saw a situation once where a show was shot 16:9, letterboxed for a 4:3 SD broadcast which was then pillarboxed for the HD network which was then letterboxed again for my analog SD cable. Ended up with a tiny distant rectangle of a show.
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The color coded keyboards are neat, but they distracted me after a while… I’ve had all the shortcuts drilled into my brain at this point.
I hate the jog wheels on keyboards… when I had a keyboard with one, it rarely worked right, and it required software running that took up system resources that I didn’t feel like wasting. JKL keys all the way.
I do have a Wacom now, but haven’t really gotten used to it yet; I think it’s the bottom of the barrel model and feels way too small for my screen size. It does have potential.