[Richard Martz]

Buy all the Natress effects. Then consider Boris Continuum. After that buy for specific needs. The ones you mention are all great as well. Are you the Rick Neely in Atlanta?

Richard Martz
MagicMartz Media

Final Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff!

[Richard Martz]

I know that my company considered this camera at one point and were very impressed with it. However you might want to consider what kind of HD lens you will be able to purchase for $3K-5K. A really decent HD lens will sell for tens of thousands. In the price range you are talking about it really is amazing that you can get any lens for that price that proposes to be HD quality. I know that a good (not great) standard definition lens for a betacam camera used to cost around 8-10K or so. Reasonably good lenses in HD are about twice that and up. My JVC rep referred to the lens that JVC sells as a throw-away lens. I saw several tests of cheap HD lenses and observed incredible color abberation indicating that they may have problems with proper (expensive) coatings adn lens elements that prevent that problem. We may well be reaching a point where the real expense in purchasing a camera is in the glass – not the electronics.

As with all things you’ll want to consider the track record of amy company that you are about to spend several thousand dollars with. How have they done in introducing HD products before this one and how have they managed to handle problems that came up?

I suggest that you go tot eh HDV forum and look for comments there as well.

Richard Martz
MagicMartz Media

Final Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff!

[Richard Martz]

Looks like the display turntable will be great for the speed. Now for lighting.

I find that most people who do table top photography approach it as if they are lighting an interview. Nothing could be worse. For lighting table top objects you must abandon all other previously learned things you know about 3 point lighting.

Instead position a soft light directly above your subject. A large chimera will usually work pretty well for this. However a roll of 216 diffusion streched on a frame will work even better. The main thing is that your diffused source light must be very large and very even. Increasing the distance from the light fixture to the diffusion will even out the spread of the lighting – that is something that even the best chimeras don’t do extremely well. I usually use a 4×4 frame and 216 diffusion media. For larger objects I use 2, 4x 4s. If you don’t have a 4×4 frame you can make a trip to Home Depot and pick up some 1x2s and quickly nail or bolt them together into a large frame. Support them from C stands or any other safe means of support. That will work very well. This type of lighting will also make keying a piece of cake since nearly all shadows dissappear.

Richard Martz
MagicMartz Media

Final Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff!

[Richard Martz]

I guess I was looking for information from APPLE that would be more or less official. The Apple folks are particularly voiceless about a subject that everyone in the business is curious about. I know that AVID frequently will announce plans to develop “thus and such” or various new anticipated software releases in advance of them coming out. But Apple seems VERY reluctant to even admit they are working on this stuff. Obviously I would like to know for budgeting purposes and would like to know if I have to purchase a new machine with the new software. I’m about 16 months into my last hardware purchase and did not want to purchase new hardware more often than every 2 years or so. But that might not be possible if 6.0 / Extreme comes out sooner.

Richard Martz
MagicMartz Media

Final Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff!

[Richard Martz]

Thanks Walter.

Richard Martz
MagicMartz Media

Final Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff!

[Richard Martz]

Thanks Walter. How would I find that? I’ve searched under the obvious topics and nothing came up that addressed Final Cut 6.0. I did see a humorous exchange from about a year ago regarding pigs and such.

Richard Martz
MagicMartz Media

Final Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff!

[Richard Martz]

I know what you mean by futureproofing. I was at Crawford Communications in Atlanta when HD first became a HOT word and everyone began talking about the benefits of futureproofing. Local stations who do primarily news have an extrordinary situation that serial producers don’t have. News is extremely perishable and footage that was incredibly valuable to a story today is virtually worthless tomorrow (or maybe even later today). But those who produce serial tv will re-run that stuff for years. So it depends on your situation. Whatever the need you probably should be backing up those old 3/4 inch Umatic tapes to some digital storage format because you definitely won’t be able to play them back much longer.

Richard Martz
MagicMartz Media

Final Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff!

[Richard Martz]

Well it possibly could be a clogged head. I usually record a few seconds from every new tape and then play it back to confirm recording. Then I rewind it and reset the timecode. That way I know that the heads are clean and that I’m getting a good recording. Clogged and/or dirty heads are probably responsible for 90% of the errors in recording. Most brand name tapes are manufacturered at a very high quality control level so getting a bad tape is exceedingly rare. I recently got my first bad tape after using thousands – so these things do occur – but still hardly ever. Over time the head can clear itself as recording and the action of tape across the heads abrades enough of the clog or dirt to allow recording to continue. Unfortunately everything in between is toast. Sometimes even ejecting the tape and inserting a new one will clear the head. The size particle that it takes to interefere with recording is infinitesmally small (VERY VERY VERY small?). In fact a particle only a few microns in thickness will inhibit the recording process. And the smaller the head, the smaller the particle that is required to render your recordings useless. So when you use a DV format tape the heads are only about 1/5 the size of a Betacam SP head so it realy doesn’t take much to spoil your recording. I that this is incredibly frustrating but there is really not much you can do about it. If it is a bad tape the manufacturer will gladly replace the tape (thank you very much). But the thousands you spent on crew, equipment and transportation will be eaten by…you guessed it.

I recently rented a Betacam SP recorder from a reputable company and it came with a clogged head (at no extra charge). So even though you take every precaution this can still happen. It is what keeps me up at night. So thanks for reminding us all of everything that can go wrong and probably will at some point in the future.

Richard Martz
MagicMartz Media

Final Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff!

[Richard Martz]

The file says bit rate: 559Kbps
Media Type: Video
Audio COdec: Windows Media Audio 9.1 64 kbps, 44.1khz Stereo 1-pass CBR
Video Codec: WIndows Media Video V8

Hope that helps.

Richard Martz
MagicMartz Media

Final Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff!

[Richard Martz]

OK I purchased the program you suggested adn it says that the WMV file could not be opened. WHen I open it with Windows Media Player it plays fine. Ideas?

Richard Martz
MagicMartz Media

Final Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff!