[Ryan Holmes]

Thanks Warren. I saw your blog post go up and I’ve only been able to skim it. You pack a lot info in there and I haven’t had the time yet to dig into it.

Seems like you liked it overall though. I appreciate the follow-up!

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

Does XF Utility see the card when attached to your computer?

Does Prelude see the card and footage?

Does Premiere see the card and footage?

If you can navigate to the MXF files on your desktop you can directly transcode those as well using AME. Sometimes I’ve found that after inserting the card into a computer the camera won’t read it again without formatting it. Not sure why that is….maybe the computer is writing something to the card that the camera can’t understand….but at any rate work with the card on your computer now.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[Heather Brown] “If the main purpose is to compress the living crap out of these files to 40MB…will the compression quality be better if the footage is shot to kipro in SD or 720 vs. 1080?!”

It probably won’t make a huge deal of difference. But I don’t think your final compression should be the arbiter of what resolution/quality you shoot either. I would say that you’re better off shooting 720 or 1080 so that you can reuse it down the road for other projects (or if they want it re-encoded at better resolutions later). I’m a firm believer in the garbage in, garbage out mantra. I always try to shoot the best image I can to start with, regardless of delivery format/codec/compression. You never know (especially in a corporate environment) when you may need to reuse or redeliver that footage. Having the added resolution is helpful. Plus you can pan & scan on the footage if necessary today because you’re going down to such small frame sizes….so it gives you more leeway in post.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

If you have the kit lens that came with the 60D then this is a property of the lens, not the camera. Your camera is fine and functioning normally.

I’m guessing that your lens is 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6. That means that at 18mm (very wide) your aperture will be at 3.5. As you zoom in towards 135mm your aperture will close up. If you reach 135mm your aperture will be 5.6. In the simplest terms it’s very costly to build a lens that stays at a given aperture as you zoom in because it’s hard to transmit light as efficiently as you zoom. So typically concessions are made to keep the cost of the lens down. Now if you want a lens that stays at f/2.8 throughout the zoom range then you’re going to pay for it (cf – https://www.amazon.com/Canon-70-200mm-2-8L-Telephoto-Cameras/dp/B0033PRWSW/ ).

From Wikipedia:
Zoom lenses typically have a maximum relative aperture (minimum f-number) of f/2.8 to f/6.3 through their range. High-end lenses will have a constant aperture, such as f/2.8 or f/4, which means that the relative aperture will stay the same throughout the zoom range. A more typical consumer zoom will have a variable maximum relative aperture, since it is harder and more expensive to keep the maximum relative aperture proportional to focal length at long focal lengths; f/3.5 to f/5.6 is an example of a common variable aperture range in a consumer zoom lens.

Here’s some additional info for you to read up on:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/indepth/photography/tips-solutions/variable-apertures-and-depth-field

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens_speed

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

Did you get a 5D2 or a 5D3?

If you have a 5D2, I believe you can run the latest firmware with ML on there. If you have a 5D3 you have to run firmware 1.1.3 (not the newer 1.2.1).

I would check the Magic Lantern website for more information regarding your particular setup.

°°°°°°And remember – Magic Lantern is a hack and is therefore not responsible for camera malfunctioning, breaking, or any warranty that may be voided. You are altering the cameras software in unauthorized ways. If anything goes wrong Canon will not help you out. Just be aware of what you’re doing.********

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[joey williams] “I feel like this is one of those, “did you forget to do this obvious thing”, but I’m stuck. “

Not necessarily…I’ve had PPro not want to read the card from C300 before. Not sure why. I’ve grown accustomed to using Prelude to ingest media. I’ve never had it not see the card (provided the director structure is in place).

You can also Canon XF utility to pull the clips out and make them self-contained MXF files. Then you can drop those into PPro or transcode to your codec of choice.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

@Gerald – if you’re running OSX 10.7 or later use the “Purge” command via Terminal to free up system resources. Does the same thing as a system reboot without the hassle of rebooting.

https://ryanholmes.me/cutcolorpost/2013/2/24/terminal-purge

I’ve long believed that either AME or Dynamic Link has some sort of a memory leak, because if I leave it working over night by the morning I’ll have about 200MB free out of 24GB of RAM. Doesn’t seem right.

@Alex – I’ve experienced some of this as well. You may also make sure that all your permissions are correct as AME may be getting hung on trying to access a file. You may also look at cleaning out your Media Cache Database. In any Adobe app go to Preferences–>Media–>Clean. That can help scrub some of the junk away.

If it’s an important job I’ve found that exporting out a self-contained movie from PPro and bringing that into AME in order to run my variety of deliverables works better than just queing a job from PPro (and using Dynamic Link….FCP to Compressor had some of the same problems in that regard).

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[Alex Udell] “Anyone done this?”

I’ve not heard of this for a camera in this price range. At $2500 nearly any repair is going to run you at least half of the camera cost (shipping, tear down cost, parts, labor, etc.). In another year or two the tech will be obsolete and not worth repairing for $1K or $2K when you can buy X that will likely be better. These types of cameras don’t have a long shelf life in my opinion. In fact, cameras in general seem to be having a short and shorter shelf life! The tech turns over so quickly that it’s almost not worth repairing a sub $5K camera after it’s 2-3 years old.

Just my $.02

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[David Baud] “and save that new still picture. On screen it will appear that nothing has changed. Now I can work with it in After Effects or Premiere without fear :-)”

You could actually make the resolution of your image 1 dpi and it would make no difference to Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, or Avid. All those apps care about are the width and height of the image

I think I was bit unclear in my previous post when I referenced physical resolution. What I meant by that was width and height of the image as you pointed out in your post, but I didn’t mean it to be taken as having anything to do with dpi. Again, your dpi setting is irrelevant to a NLE. It’s only working with the pixels as defined by the images width and height.

[David Baud] “72ppi or pixels-per-inch, or the equivalent of 72 dpi”

Pixels per inch, or ppi, is still a term derived prepping an image for printing. ppi is not “technically” the same as dpi, though they are similar, but for this discussion it suffices to say that neither matter to the OP’s point of view. And neither matter for us in the video world when creating graphics unless you need more width/height on an image so you can Ken Burns it (or if you want to print! 🙂

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Ryan Holmes]

[Heidi Perkins] “I have found that if you are moving on a photo the higher the dpi or res is better.”

Yes. That is where dpi matters because the higher the dpi the more physical resolution you have to zoom into the picture.

Per your original question, though about fuzzy text….can you post some screen shots of what you’re seeing? Maybe a shot in Premiere and a shot from the exported file?

[Heidi Perkins] “This show is standard DV.”

So what resolution are you building your graphics in? What codec are you using for your files? Are you viewing the playback on a computer monitor or a broadcast monitor? Don’t forget DV is lower field first, so you’re looking at an interlaced image being played back on a progressive scan computer monitor. For accurate results you’ll need to look at a broadcast monitor that properly handles interlacing.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost