R. Hewitt
Forum Replies Created
-
Steadyshake is no substitute at all. It WILL worsen your image quality unless you use a camera that use the lens and NOT the camera electronics to help reduce shake.
All electronic versions reduce the resolution of your image by reducing the captured image size and then make use of the picture area outside of this reduced image to allow the frame to be re-positioned slightly and expanded out again.
The optical version (on higher-end cameras) moves an internal lens to compensate for motion detected by the camera. This doesn’t effect the image quality as greatly but can lead to some ‘lag’ in the viewfinder image.
The primary purpose of the current DVD cameras is to reduce the cost and open up a new budget market by eliminating most of the mechanics in the camera. The MPEG2 format used by these cameras was chosen not for editing but for the convenience of being able to play the DVD straight away in a normal DVD player at home.
If you really want to edit, go down the DV route. The cost isn’t any greater right now and Premier Pro will be able to edit the footage natively as will After Effects.
-
In short yes.
The camera head in the DVD camcorders is near identical to a DV camera. However, whereas the video in a DV camera is compressed at a fixed 5:1 ratio and on a frame by frame basis the MPEG2 from the DVD camcorder is more highly compressed.
It is difficult to compare the datarates produced by these formats (DV: 25Mbits. DVD: upto 8Mbits) as it doesn’t tell the whole story. Both formats rely on lossing data to enable the compression. In DV that is on a frame by frame basis and cannot accurately take account of fast moving objects. MPEG2 works across many frames and applies least compression to moving objects and maximum to static ones.
Both have their benefits. DVD is convenient and can be played straight back in a DVD player. Editing requires decoding the video, which introduces more compression when it re-encoded to MPEG2 again. DVD cameras are for the consumer market but has the benefit of being transferable with a PC DVD-ROM drive. DV has the benefit of being able to buy tapes almost everywhere, is supported by almost all video editing applications without further loss of quality. DV and its derivative DVCAM, is being used as a professional format for a huge number of broadcasters around the world. DV requires injesting by the camera deck or an external DV deck and they aren’t cheap.
The choice is obviously yours but I would still go for DV everytime.
HTH,
Richard.
-
I’ve just downloaded the app – very impressive. Thanks for the heads-up ghobii.
Richard.
-
-
It’s not the software that’s the problem. Processing video is a massively processor intensive task and requires plenty of horsepower to work well. The hardware used is very important and Adobe specify the minimum and recommended specs for Premier Pro.
Windows Movie Maker can’t really be compared to Prem Pro – they’re in entirely different leagues.
There are many reasons for the programme not running as expected but there are many thousands of users that are using Premier Pro for professional use on a daily basis.
-
In short, no.
The only way around this is to buy a software codec (Main Concept) that will convert to a format that the Adobe apps can work with. For the money the codec will cost you’d be better buying a DV based camera.
-
A standard SX machine will only play SX and BetaSP. The Digi-Beta option is available on the J30 series players.
BetaSX is MPEG2 based but gives a far higher quality recording than the fixed compression of DV. The DV format compresses each frame in it’s own right (intra-frame) whereas SX is inter-frame and takes multiple frames into account during the compression process. This enables the encoder to make far better motion compensation and high detail preservation than the DV format could ever produce.
You cannot use the data rates between these two differing compression formats to compare the output quality.
DV and DVCAM format cameras are far cheaper to manufacture than SX primarily due to the expense of the MPEG2 codecs and licensing costs. The DV codec by contrast is common to both professional and many high-end consumer cameras and mass production dramtically reduces costs.
-
We’re using the NewsCutter Adrenaline with the HP workstation and an LSI Logic SCSI controller. The controller is required in our case because we also use stripped external drives in addition to Avid Unity.
If you don’t need internal/external SCSI drives, it can be disabled in Device Manager. It is quite likely that the SCSI board/driver is causing the crashes.
Let us know how you get on.
-
BetaSX hasn’t proven to be as popular as Sony had hoped. It was a half-way house between the outgoing BetaSP format and Digi-Beta. I doubt BetaSX will remain in ue as long as BetaSP did. Many news channels have already made the move to DVCAM to enable lowcost aquisition and editing. A decent DVCAM player/recorder (DSR-45) is a fraction of the cost of a basic SX machine and connects via firewire direct into your chosen editing application – it also prvents wear and tear on your camera.
SX has a slight edge in terms of quality but you pay the price for this; more expensive tapes, repairs and player/recorders. SX has a compression ratio of around 3:1 compared to DV’s fixed 5:1.
For programme production Digi-Beta is the choice of most production facilities but the cost of players/recorders is as high as the quality it produces.
A good, well lit and well shot DV production from a DSR-450 camera can closely match the capability of and SX shoot. Just make sure you go for the broadcast lens rather than the professional lens usually sold with the camera.
-
Did you shoot on DV?
What is it to be used for? DVD? CD? Web?
Let us know and we can suggest the best compression settings for you.