[Ryan Mast]

I used AIC quite a bit last year while I was still using Final Cut Express, which only allowed for HD capture to AIC, not HDV or ProRes. I didn’t notice a significant quality loss.

The quality difference you’re seeing is most likely the loss in compressing to H.264. Can you export it as a QuickTime Movie in AIC?

[Ryan Mast]

Could you post a still of what you’re talking about? And what camera are you working with?

To answer your question, no, more effects do not *necessarily* make the final image quality worse. However, If you start boosting the contrast of your image, it could reveal some of the camera noise that is in the shadows (or highlights) of your image.

Try this, though. Go to Sequence -> Settings… and click the Video Processing tab. Click “Render all YUV material in high-precision YUV.” See if that helps.

[Ryan Mast]

Don’t worry too much about it. It happens. Apple’s fixed some of the initial SmoothCam bugs with updates, but it’s still does weird things sometimes. 🙂

[Ryan Mast]

Different composite modes do different things. Using “Screen” worked with the muzzle blast because that takes just the light areas and applies them to the underlying track. Check out this page for more info about what different composite modes do:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/basic_composite_mode.html

For their blood spurt, I’d recommend using the Chroma Keyer to key out the white areas and change it to the “Normal” composite mode. Might need to tweak it with the Color Corrector, too, to make it match the rest of the frame. Adjust to taste.

[Ryan Mast]

This is a bug I’ve seen a few times (just again last night, actually). Did you try restarting? What codec are you working with?

[Ryan Mast]

Hi,

Can you post an image of what you’re talking about? It is probably just camera noise in your original image that’s becoming more apparent as you adjust brightness/color/etc. If there’s a specific hue that’s giving you trouble (e.g., red or blue), you could use ANOTHER masked color corrector dialed in to that hue to help attenuate it.

What camera did you shoot with?

[Ryan Mast]

Instead of putting an extra keyframe halfway through the travel path, you can just split the clip and make a cross-fade transition. No keyframes.

I’m assuming you did lock the white balance on the PD170… What kind of lighting were you shooting with? Any fluorescents in the mix? Shooting outside? I’ve noticed that the color temp of fluorescent light on video can drift over time. And if you were at the mercy of the sun, the color temp of the light hitting your subject can change as the sun/clouds/trees move and change how light bounces around.

[Ryan Mast]

Do you have timecode or corruption issues on the tape? That can cause it to still break up clips.

Are you capturing to HDV, or transcoding it to something like Apple Intermediate or ProRes?

[Ryan Mast]

If you like the concept of the quick cuts, you might be able to fix them a couple different ways:

– Reuse shots people have already seen earlier in the video. Especial close-up, unique, memory-catching shots. It won’t be as jarring if they’ve already seen them before — their eyes won’t be taking in new visual information, it’ll just be reminding them of what they’ve seen.

– Use shots that are very similar visually. For instance, CU’s of students faces who participated in RISE. Put a slight cross fade on each cut.

– Create a color scheme for each of the areas you highlight in the video — either in the graphics, or a color tint for the video section. Then flip through each area in the quick montage, with the colors to help quickly, visually, remind the viewer of what they’re seeing.

– Use graphics on the screen that stay constant for the whole montage, e.g., a big RISE logo, or “This is Rowan engineering.” Make sure the text has a big of a background, so it’s not too busy for their eyes to easily isolate from the quickly moving background.

– Use some quick cuts like that elsewhere in the video, to establish that as a convention, so it’s not so unexpected. Begin each section with a few quick cuts, to punctuate it.

– Add some motion to the photos — a slight zoom in can add some depth to it.

– Add a vignette, to draw the viewers’ eyes to the focal point of the frame.

Really quick cuts and fast motion can be hypnotic and jarring, and they can be effective depending on what you’re trying to do. It can pull their attention back, like a gong crash in a symphony, or draw their attention to something very specific on the screen by making everything else visual noise. Or it can reinforce a consistent visual concept — people’s faces, a logo, a motion (like running, or typing, etc).

[Ryan Mast]

You can get some G5’s pretty inexpensively right now. If you’re thinking of upgrading in the future — Kona card, more hard drive space, more RAM, bigger screen, etc — it’ll be easier and cheaper to upgrade than an iMac or PowerBook/MacBook Pro.