[Mike Smith]

This is tough for you. Editing HD is demanding on a older computer.

Your system is underpowered, sadly, for HD, and you could really do with 64 bit operating system, more RAM, and ideally an update to a 64 bit version of PPro (5 or later). You really need a fast second hard disc so you can keep your footage on it, away from your operating system A large fast Sata disc wouldn’t set you back more than £50 / $80 or so …

Vegas is a free download demo soCS you could see if it would cut HD in original format on your system: possible but not likely.

Or you could be thinking about transcoding to an easier format for editing: though you need to keep it compressed enough to run from a hard disc.

Canopus has an intermediate codec which is good – you’d then transcode the footage before editing. Edius from Canopus is a capable editor with a free trial version too.

In Premiere you might be thinking about transcoding to Cineform, but you’d have to pay for the codeec https://techblog.cineform.com/?p=1855 and whether that’s a good choice for you, when you really want to be updating your whole system, is your call.

Or of course you could transcode to DV, which your system would probably edit quite easily even without a second hard disc, and come back and redo it in HD later when you have a newer computer and software at your disposal …

[Mike Smith]

That’s a lot of drawing.

Something like ToonBoom, Stickman or Anime Studio would let you do that with simple figures with “bones” or skeletons that you can create, pose in key frames, and then hit render for output.

Though you could now probably get a decent effect from AE with its RotoBrush tool off pretty well any reasonably contrasty footage and save yourself the drawing.

https://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/17425-how-to-make-ipod-ads-rewrite-with-images/
https://chris.pirillo.com/how-to-make-an-ipod-video-ad/
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/rotobrush_ae_cs5_douglas.html

[Mike Smith]

Really, for it to look good – stylish, showing what you want to show – won’t you be wanting to hand draw the silhouette over the video as a guide in any event …?

If so, getting the details of whatever it is they want to show or see in the end product right, so that it will be visible in silhouette after you’ve hand drawn your animation, may be more of a concern than anything else.

[Mike Smith]

Why not pay the small fee to the musicians who create something you need for business …?

[Mike Smith]

If another page loads the player it sounds like the page has the problem, not the browser. If some browsers can manage the page and some can’t, that raises the thought of hmtl or script errors, which browsers handle in different ways: android isn’t handling such an error well on this page, if there is such an error.

For the javascript, you may do well to look closely at exacly what you’ve done differently between the two pages.

For the html, you can see your errors via the w3c checker, and correct them and see if that helps ….
https://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cascadepictures.co.uk%2Freel
https://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?profile=css21&warning=0&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cascadepictures.co.uk%2Freel

[Mike Smith]

To an extent, cut and finish is replacing offline / online as a working approach for lots of single-editor projects.

Offline / online workflow has benefits in reducing stress or load on system in long story-construction phase, using captured or copied low-res footage or proxies, and of course keeping the editor focused on story construction until that’s at least close to completed. Silly to waste a lot of time colour correcting and fixing material that’s not going to make it into the final cut.

Once picture cut is agreed and locked then you recapture in full resolution, but need capture or transcode only the segments of footage you require – usually a tiny fraction of what’s been shot.

You need to be sure that your software of choice can handle frame-accurate recapture and replacement (conforming). Testing this on a tiny sample project, end to end, is always worth considering; that way you can find and fix any gremlins before you’ve committed a lot of work.

Audio is not normally captured low-res for offline: the video takes so much disc space the audio file size seems less relevant I guess.

With offline / online, there’s often a whole extra stage at the end after picture conforming that handles the audio sweetening and mixing.

With most modern systems now able to edit most camera footage in its raw state, without transcoding, the DV-style approach of working at full resolution is now very popular. This has big plusses in creative control; you can test and see as you go.

Many people, I think, still favour a two stage approach.

The first pass through the material concentrates mainly on story, refining the edit until that flows as desired, refining the storytelling in successive cuts.

The “finishing” stage comes after the picture is agreed and effectively locked sees the editor go through and sort out all of the technical and quality issues, fully render any remaining effects, and apply colour correction or grading as needed – a complete visual polish, if you like, followed by a complete audio polish.

This can be called finishing, and is very like online, though unlike traditional online it’s quite often done on the same computer, perhaps using largely the same editing tools (not always), and even sees the same editor stretch from story construction to visual effects to technical polish to audio engineer …. a whole lot of highly skilled specialists being rolled into one person ….

[Mike Smith]

Can you shoot video for that long on a 5D these days …?

[Mike Smith]

Whatever you think, and double it, add a contingency, and consider the client relationship: how much time and input do you think he or she is going to want?

Perhaps an approach to consider would be to go onto a per-hour rate, and give a time estimate spelling out all of your assumptions, with the rider that if those assumptions don’t hold then the time and cost needs might change.

If you give an all-in fixed fee on an open-ended, unclear job spec then trouble may be ahead.

[Mike Smith]

This thread has an explnation https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/1/858989#858991

[Mike Smith]

Also consider

https://www.zenvideo.co.uk/

https://www.creativevideo.co.uk/