[Rick Mac]

[TerryAdrian] “Everything looked good on my cam screen”

If your camera has a “view zebra option” this can clue you in to exactly how high the brightest parts of the picture are and can help you from blowing out your video at aqusition.
Once you do blow out the highlights in camera it is impossible to restore that detail.

[TerryAdrian] “but when I viewed the footage on my HD screen he almost glowed to the point of looking out of focus (blurred).”

Explain how you were viewing this. Was it directly out of your camera into your HD TV? Which output on your cam?

[TerryAdrian] “I just rendered it down to a 24p DVD and the blow out look is gone. Now I’m a bit more confussed.”

Could be at your HDTV. Mine has individual video setups for each input. Could be it got blown out there.
Infact, many HDTV come factory set with a very high contrast picture setting.
Makes the picture look sharper (pops more). I have mine set with a bit less contrast. At any rate, you can take a properly exposed clip and have it look blown out on a TV that’s not set up correctly.

Others may have other ideas.

Regards, Rick.

[Rick Mac]

Thanks for the tip Edward.
Just installed version 8 and was
wondering about my favorite scripts.

Later…Rick.

Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network – Directv 377

[Rick Mac]

How about authoring a first play DVD to see what it does.
If it plays back good then take the time to create menues etc.

I’m with you on thinking that the recent upgrade may be the
culprit. I would tend the think the problem is with the software player since Vegas plays it back correctly.

Regards, Rick.

[Rick Mac]

[Robert Billings] “I’m having difficulty capturing DV footage in an HDV 720p project. Any suggestions? Thanks, Robert”

Robert,

Do you mean that you are having problems playing back DV footage in a HDV 720p project?

Please describe your problem, your workflow and project settings.

Regards, Rick.

[Rick Mac]

Did you try Spots advice?

“If the pictures/graphics are very large, you might want to consider reducing them to not more than 2Kpixels in either dimension.

Set Dynamic Preview higher than it normally might be set.
Keep Preview at Preview/Auto, or smaller.”

[Rick Mac]

[cfranklin_av] “The problem is that went I go to capture the video, there is no picture or audio in the preview window. When it starts to play, it just turns to a black screen, and therefore doesn’t capture anything.”

There is a preference settings in the capture program that can be set to always preview, auto, or never preview.
You may have accidentally ticked it to never preview.
I believe it is under prefrences. By the way, with it set to never preview it will still capture your footage, you just can’t see it while it is being captured.

Regards, Rick.

[Rick Mac]

[jason.a] “Can Vegas (v.6 in my case) manage FinalCutPro “uncompressed 8 bit” codec?”

At our shop we use DVCpro50 QT export in FCP with Vegas using the MainConcept DVCpro50 Codec to decode.

The quality is excellent.

You could download their trail demo to see if it would work for you.

I’m sure others will share other methods.

Regards, Rick.

[Rick Mac]

[Raymond Motion Pictures] “You’re all talking about ‘video to film’. Get a 4k camera for that.”

Your words not mine. I am talking about Video. Many directors are shooting HD and delivering to the networks and other outlets in HD Video. They achieve that film look in high resolution HD Video using some of the same techniques used when shooting film. In many cases they are shooting the highest video resolution possible and achieveing pictures that are very pleasant and not harsh. They got there not by lowering their resolution but with technique. The harshness that the poster is complaining about has nothing to do with resolution, but has much to do with compression/codec artifacts, lower quality lenses, and frankly poor technique. If you have good lighting chops and a good understanding of your camera and the post process you can make all of that glorious high resolution HDV video look very sweet indeed. Without resorting to droping your resolution.

Your line of thinking that resolution is somehow the culprit of harsh looking pictures is just flawed to the core.

I’ll give you the final thought here since this thread has run it’s course.

Regards, Rick.

[Rick Mac]

[Raymond Motion Pictures] “An outdoor shot is an outdoor shot – lighting is not the factor in those scenes – the resolution and scaling is.”

Outside film guys use HMI Lights, fill lights, diffusers, and reflectors. So lighting techniques still comes into play outside.

It still boils to down to technique. Lighting technique, camera technique, and post technique. That is how the big boys get the look of film using video cams.
They do not lower the resolution of their cameras. In fact they are all trying to get up to 2k and higher resolution, hince the big interest in the Red 2K Camera at all the shows.

Regards, Rick.

[Rick Mac]

[Raymond Motion Pictures] “Sure it is. The lower resolution of 720p appeals to the perception that one is watching a film that has been converted to video and not an HD video.”

The truth of the matter is that 35mm film has way more resolution that HDV or HD Video for that matter. The harshness described is not a function of resolution. If it were, movies shoot on film would look very poor indeed since film has way more resolution than our HD Cams. It is well documented that you can soften the look of HDV cams by lowering the detail setting and other internal camera settings. But, your lighting is going to have a huge effect on how hard or soft your end picture will look. At the network where I work, we can take our HD Studio cams and just by adjusting our lighting make the subject look hard and theatrical or soft and pleasing. It has been our experience that lighting the the single biggest factor affecting the way our picture looks.
I think we can all agree that a soft filter on the lens can make things look softer. But in my opinion ,resolution in and of itself does not give you that film look.

Regards, Rick.