[Rick Wise]

I did side-by-side comparisons with a Panasonic GS400 and a PD. The better result was to shoot 4:5 and mask later. (On the Panasonic, there is an option to mask the top and bottom to emulate 16:9.) Unless the camera is “native” 16:9, masking in post seems to produce the best results.

But try for yourself. Shoot both, and look at in post.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Bingo! That’s it: maintain OUTPUT aspect. My duh. But my duh led me to info about track motion I didn’t know, which offers the option of drop shadow — most useful for the project I am working on.

Thanks!

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Edward, I am using just pan-crop. Still getting the “wall”. However, thanks for the track motion idea — that does it.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Mike,

That solution is not working. It’s as if there’s a wall on the left side. When I shrink the picture to the correct size, no problem. But when I slide it so it is moving toward the left side of the frame, when I am about 1/3 to 1/4 away from the left edge, the picture starts to disappear as if it is sliding behind a wall. That “wall” is the rectangle outlined in pan/crop. If I grab the handle on the box and slide it left, I just shrink the picture further, but the wall remains at the same relative place.

There must be something obviously wrong I am doing here. I’m stumped.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

I’ve been using On2Flix Pro for some time and recommend it highly. As far as I know (I could be wrong) the watermark X is the main difference between the free trial and the full version. There is one other difference: the free trial won’t let you both render your file to FLV and also make a SWF player.

I have found for web posting, you have to weigh speed of play vs quality. Compromises, compromises. The On2 settings I’ve been using are:
–File tab: default preset of 512 (VP6E-FLV)
–Vid tab: Video dimension: maintain aspect ratio; width: 320 (but when I put the SWF player on the web page I increase the width to 550 which makes the video play larger without increasing the file size though with some loss of quality); encoding mode: 2-pass; Rate Control Mode: VBR; max bit rate: 440; everything else as defaults
–VP6 tab: click on “enable”; use defaults
–create player icon (little TV or monitor): click on “export player while encoding”; select player from list on left; click on “close”
–on File tab, click on “encode”.

Note: I render in Vegas to an avi file, best quality. I then encode from this avi file to Flash using On2.

I do not use any of the other tabs.

Other users probably have other methods. You can see a couple of samples at: https://wisevideotours.com/sample_tours.htm.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Thanks very much, guys. I’ll have to try both ways to see which works best.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Update / errors:

The settings I gave above were for version 8.5 of FlixPro. I just updated to version 8.53, and there are new options on the first, File page menu. Flash 8FLV is gone as an option. I presume — but don’t have time right now to find out — that the new default of VP6-E FLV, 512K, is the way to go. Other settings on other pages seem to stay the same.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

The On2Flix settings take some figuring out. For instance, you can make a SWF file, or a FLV file with a SWF player. The latter seems to work the best, at least for me.

There is a distinct conflict between quality, size, and speed of playing. To get the fastest play for the potential client, you need to compromise size and quality.

I’ve found that what works pretty well for my Video Tour clients is:

File menu:
–512K Broadband Flash 8 FLV
–export: Flash 8 FLV
–export audio

Vid/Audio menu:
–maintain aspect ratio
–width 320 (height adjusts automatically
–video framerate 30
–2 pass encoding
–rate control: VBR
–max bitrate: 440
–Audio settings: all default

VP6 menu:
–enable advanced features
–quality: good
–all the rest: defaults

Then click on monitor icon to pick the SWF player. I prefer”Minimal 2A”

I encode to my FrontPage2000 “tour” folder. Opening FrontPage, I drag and drop the SWF file to where I want it, and enlarge the size (properties) to around 515 pixels width — makes the image larger without enlarging the file size

For a sample tour: https://wisevideotours.com/sample_tour.htm

Note that this solution does not give you the large screen you are looking for. I have not found any way to do that and get a quick play for the potential clients. Speed is of the essence. If potential buyers can’t see the video quickly, they will go on. If you surround your window with something — frame it — it appears to the mind larger than it is.

Rick

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

There is no good way to answer this question. Traditionally, Directors and Shooters make quite a bit more than editors, though editors can end up working more days and hence actually earn more total money.

So much depends on the relationship between your two people. I assume you are one of the people, and the other is not a family member — strictly business. What’s tough is the amount anyone can make on a wedding — which is a tough, tough job — is relatively small. I shot two of them for free for friends, and would almost never consider doing so for a fee, unless the bride were willing to go very, very high end.

That’s not much help. Sorry.

[Rick Wise]

Perhaps I’m missing something here. It seems to me that most of the effects of these plug-ins can be created just using Vegas itself, if you know what you’re doing.

Rick

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com