[Mike Smith]

Hi Jen.

// Motion blur + wider / bigger shutter angle .. + maybe slow the speed of motion a little? //

Sounds interesting. If you’ve seen it done, it must be possible.

Just to check I’m clear on what you’re seeing: the ghost effect is only visible when the animation is played, and it’s on both your computer screen and your video out (and these aren’t LCD screens, not able to refresh quickly? Of course they’re not!? But if you stop the After Effects playhead and examine a still frame, the ghost isn’t there? So if you export a still frame from a moving part of the animation, it isn’t showing the problem?

If so, then maybe you are on the right lines with motion blur. What happens in you combine motion blur with a much bigger shutter angle?

Also, just in trying to test the limits, what happens if,as a test, you slow down the animation speed across teh screen – how slow do you have to go for the effect to disappear …?

Just checking – are you working with with field rendering enabled?
Of course there’s a limit to how fast things can travel across the screen before the movement looks harsh – and it’s faster with interlaced footage than progressive-scan frames – but this doesn’t sound like it’s your problem here …

I’d be interested in any solution you find.

[Mike Smith]

Hope it’s gone now.

If not, what sort of echo – a visual ghost of the letters? And if so, do you see that on all outputs / a video monitor / a computer monitor? I’m wondering if it’s a video / screen artefact, addressable by using effects / video / broadcast safe colours ..?

Or is the echo / stil visible in an exported still frame, opened with Photoshop ..?

[Mike Smith]

Hope it’s gone now.

If not, what sort of echo – a visual ghost of the letters? And if so, do you see that on all outputs / a video monitor / a computer monitor? I’m wondering if it’s a video / screen artefact, addressable by using effects / video / broadcast safe colours ..?

Or is the echo / stil visible in an exported still frame, opened with Photoshop ..?

[Mike Smith]

High-end HP workstations are widely used and can make stable edit platforms. Dell I’d be more cautious about.

I take it from your post that you’re thinking to edit DV / firewire << no third party hardware >> so most decent machines with 2Gb of RAM, a fast, sizeable data disc e.g. a SATA drive (or RAID) and a basic firewire card should do.

A good graphics accelerator is also probably worth it. Non-standard sound cards can cause conflicts, but a decent Creative card should be plenty good enough.

Other thoughts?

[Mike Smith]

Of course there are other HD options, including Avid DS Nitris, Sony Xpri, Leitch Velocity HD, Discreet Fire, Canopus Edius HD, and of course FCP HD, (with apoliges to whatever others I have ignored), if you want to escape PPro. They’re all just tools to do a job …

[Mike Smith]

On the other side of the coin, my experiences with an RTX 100 were not good, and I’ve reverted to editing without it. (On a fast dual xeon, it’s not a hardship.)

I was attracted by the realtime 3D – which works, but with aliased edges, only disguised in the default set-up by subsrtatnital edge softening. Not an unattractive look, but not one you want all the time.

And for those of us in the PAL world, the RTX100’s inversion of standard DV field order in PAL is unfortunate. I found it made for tougher co-operation with other software.

Just an alternative view – you could put the extra cash into a speedy system (twin opterons, twin xeons) and storage …!

[Mike Smith]

DSR 500 is nice camera for DVCAM / standard definition: I’ve hired crews using it and had very good results.

You can obviously switch to edit in full broadcast uncompressed standard definition, capturing via an (expensive) dvcam deck with SDI output, or the DSR45 I think has component out. You will need a lot more disc space and a very fast RAID to handle the speed you need for data in and out.

Your footage will not improve at all. Your colour correction potential will improve only a little. Your chromakeying in PPro will improve, though I much prefer to use Keylight in After Effects to key, and have found it produces excellent results even from DVCAM.

Unless your final output is to broadcast tape (or film), nobody but you is going to see the difference.

I have set up to use uncompressed standard def from digitbeta via a decklink card alongside a firewire fast-and-cheap, and have found, to my surprise, that the differences in final output to tape or DVD are very, very difficult to spot.

BTW, the Decklink card I find very good, even if the Windows drivers are still evolving very rapdily and perhaps have a little way to go – e.g. as of yet your only editiable windows capture is in uncompressed or DV. On the Mac, Decklink will reportedly capture offering a range of Quicktime codecs.

I suspect that PPro is not to blame for your feeling of lacklustre quality, and probably nor is the DV codec. Interesting stories well told, striking photography, action, composition, lighting, great audio, editing … Does the DSR500ws not let you play with the image set-up to produce different looks …?

Hope it all works out.

[Mike Smith]

Ogilvy on ADvertising … David Ogilvy. A classic.

Technique of FIlm Editing – Karel Reisz and Gavin Millar – perfect intro to manipulating story through images.

Influence – Science and Practice – Robert Cialdini …

[Mike Smith]

Conoa has a pay-for plugin called sphere, or something similar, which may do what you want. Don’t know if it will work on text or whether you may have to pre-render the layer ..

[Mike Smith]

Thanks Shane.

Needless to say, her local dealer is recommending on the pricey side : a Power Mac G5 Quad 2.5GHz – I don’t know whather that is delivered here in UK yet – two 23″ Apple Cinema display screens, and an external terabyte Raid5 (for more than a decent base system). It would be a shame if over-speccing were to drive her out of the FCP camp, where she wants to be.

My own guess / feeling is that a decent system drive, a second internal drive (300Gb SATA? 500Gb SATA?), 2 gig of RAM should make the system work. On the monitoring side – is one 19″ enough? Or one 20″ or 23″ Apple Cinema display? Would two 20″ displays be easier to work with than one 23″ … Are 2 23″ monitors really necessary ..? And the DSR 11 seems like a decent deck to me ..

But I could do with expert / experienced input. Any other thoughts much appreciated !