[Ruby Gold]

Thanks a lot for this. I did leave the audio as PCM, assuming that’s what it should be to achieve the high quality I want. I don’t know what “AC3 audio encode” is. I’m assuming it must be a choice under “Dolby,” since there are no settings choices with PCM, but I couldn’t find it. Also, there are a host of setting choices, including bitrate, etc under Dolby–could you give me some pointers on what settings to choose? Lastly, but importantly–what impact will this change have on the quality of the sound?

The production is being screened before a large audience, so, of course, I want the audio and video quality both to be excellent, but I also don’t want it to stutter during playback. I’m concerned about the impact on resolution/quality by shifting video from the CBR of 8 to 6500 or 6800. What is the impact generally? Thanks so much for your help.

[Ruby Gold]

oh, now that’s embarrassing. ;-}

thanks!

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks for this. Let me just make sure I understand. Dupe the layer. On the new duped layer (which is below the original), apply the mask where I want the blur to take effect. Then apply the blur effect to the original (not masked) layer.

Then I use “M” to reveal the mask (but what is “M?”–sorry), and set the mask to subtract or check invert. Is that right? And if you could let me know what M is–that’d be great.

thanks-

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks for the response. It’s actually more of a tinny rather than a low-boomy kind of echo. What do you think?
thanks-
Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks Steve and Tom! My main concern, really, was any kind of “blown out” sound or bad artifacts from using audio gain/normalize showing up on these voice clips once they were played over a loud speaker at this premiere. It sounds from what you say that I don’t have to worry about that.

I have no moolah right now to invest, but also sounds like I should get something like Audition when I do. Since I have Win XP, it seems the best choice–do you guys feel that that’s a good audio editor (relative to what else is out there for the PC platform)?
thanks-
Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks Steve. Is there a way to normalize all the voice clips as a group in PPro 1.5 (since that’s what I’m working in)? Also, if clips are normalized as a group–does the normalization account for the variance in the loudness/quietness, different pitches, etc of the individual voices?

Also–on the last question–I’m not normalizing the music–it doesn’t need it, but I am normalizing all the voice clips. Problem?

thanks again-
Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks for your explanation of normalizing. I’m wondering then, why normalizing some of the quiet clips makes them too loud–if the peak is put right at 0, it should sound appropriately loud not too loud, right?

Also when you say I can normalize all the clips on the track–is there a way to do that other than right-clicking on each individual clip and hitting normalize? I still have to individually adjust these ones anyway thoug, because, as I said, just normalizing them makes some of them too loud.

And–is there no danger of a “blown-out” sound to the voices with all this gain on them when played over loudspeakers if they sound okay in the editing environment? Call me paranoid… Thanks again-
Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

Leo and Michael:
Thanks for your thoughtful (and thought provoking!) responses. I’m a bit out of my league here in that I’m not even familiar with Kino-Flo or Chimera lights, but clearly will need to educate myself. Thanks again-
Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

Wow–thanks for this response. I’m still a newbie in AE, so there are a couple things you reference that I don’t know how to do. If you have a moment, could you please briefly explain how to do the following from your response?

“Create a matte from the actor if you dont have it already.
“On the top layer set the transfer mode…”

thanks so much-

[Ruby Gold]

Okay, thanks. Why is it checked as the default?