[Ryan Mast]

Hi Nat —

I use the SanDisk Extreme III cards (actually class 10) and haven’t had an issue yet — I’d be very interested in hearing what JVC finds out about your camera. Thanks for posting this.

[Ryan Mast]

Todd —

I don’t think that you’ll lose any respect or professionalism by posting your videos on YouTube in addition to hosting them on your own site. For a free service, their quality is respectable, and it’s now a familiar user interface to a web audience — viewers will immediately know how to share/favorite/embed the YouTube version. Plus, if it’s on YouTube, it’ll be searchable by YouTube and Google.

Start by getting rid of the frames-based layout. It can hurt search engine crawlability:
https://searchenginewatch.com/2167901

There’s some other basic things you can do, like properly alt-tagging photos, eliminating Flash as much as possible, making a blog with useful content, placing your address and phone number on your home page, etc. It might be worthwhile to get a pro to help you with it, but there’s no guaranteed magic bullet to search engine rankings. Any SEO company who tells you that they can absolutely get you on the first page of a Google search is likely a weasel…

If you’re interested, Tood, I can send you contact info for a couple of SEO companies I’ve worked with.

[Ryan Mast]

If you’re delivering in standard def, you’ll be fine with the lowest bit rate, especially since you’re not going to have a lot of full-screen motion that would require more data. If you’re in a situation where you’re doing more camera motion with a highly detailed background, you’ll see the difference in a higher bit rate.

If you want to deliver it on DVD as 60i, shoot 1280×720 60p. If you want to deliver it as 30p, shoot 1280×720 30p.

[Ryan Mast]

Online content is not worth very much. This may be a truism, but Rosenblatt has the hard, mathematical proof. It’s right there in black and white, in the Demand Media database — the lifetime value of every story, algorithmically derived, and very, very small. Most media companies are trying hard to increase those numbers, to boost the value of their online content until it matches the amount of money it costs to produce. But Rosenblatt thinks they have it exactly backward. Instead of trying to raise the market value of online content to match the cost of producing it — perhaps an impossible proposition — the secret is to cut costs until they match the market value.

I don’t think it’s even up for debate. For this kind of content, sinking money into production isn’t worth it right now — the market won’t sustain it.

Do you think there’s value in professionally-produced online content? How do you sell that to your clients, considering competition like this? Or is this an area where pros can’t be competitive?

[Ryan Mast]

In this case, MP4 is actually an MPEG-4 wrapper around an MPEG-2 codec.

MXF you should be able to log and transfer in to Final Cut with Sony’s XDCAM utility.

What’s your goal? What do you need to be able to convert to what, and why? Part of why the HM700 is so useful is that you can change your shooting format based on what software you’re working in. Shoot .mov if you’re going to Final Cut, .mp4 if you’re going to anything else…

[Ryan Mast]

Mark — WGAL (NBC) up here in Lancaster still uses linear editing systems for almost all of their news production. Faster, and more familiar to their staff.

I really don’t think it’s an old/young issue; I’ve gone to school with several kids who wanted to be editors/shooter/writers/whatever, but were unwilling or incapable of learning new tech or new processes. And I’ve worked with some people significantly older than I who are inspiringly eager to learn new tech or try something new. Merely anecdotal, but I suspect the root issue is more about the type of person you’re working, not necessarily their age.

[Ryan Mast]

Looks like something got borked with the embed. Here’s a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SItFvB0Upb8

=)

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[Ryan Mast]

There’s no difference in the information recorded. Higher-quality HDV cassettes are less likely to have dropouts, and are more likely to be readable after sitting in storage for a year or two. This has been discussed several times in the HDV forum — you can read some of those threads for more info.

[Ryan Mast]

“Why is she touching the wall? I dunno, that’s what depressed people do, right? DON’T JUDGE THE B-ROLL!”

BAahahahahahahaha…

No but seriously… Is there any value to commercials that are built almost entirely from generic b-roll? Infomercials aren’t pretty or high art, but for cost/benefit, they are effective. Are cheap generic commercials effective enough to be worth it?

[Ryan Mast]

Use the HD-SDI out to record to your capture card or an AJA Ki Pro. You can’t record 4:2:2 on HDV.