Scott Sheriff
Forum Replies Created
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Hi,
I think you answered the main question yourself.
The first thing you need to get the best quality DVD, is to start with the best quality source material. This is a lot easier than “fix it in post”.Lots of reasons it is best to plan out your productions completely from finish to beginning, as you are finding out.
While you have included quite a bit of detail in your post, it’s hard to make suggestions without knowing your exact workflow, and the specific camera settings. You may want to consider spending some time in with another editor to help you get your workflow dialed in. IMHO it seems like you may have a bunch of little things that could be adding up causing workflow slowdowns, and quality loss. I can’t point to anything specific, but I get that vibe from what you wrote.
One thing I can say is that Color is a great program, but introduces its own set of challenges. You didn’t mention any attempt to color match your footage with the 3WCC. If you haven’t done this yet, you might want to bone up on it before you jump into learning a separate ap like Color. You also didn’t say how much time your budget allows you to spend on your project, which Color will add to if you use it.Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
Part of the ‘art’ is to not always cut on the beat. Cutting on the beat gets old fast. Good drummers use ‘ghost notes’, rests, and fills to break the monotony, while maintaining a rhythm. As an editor you can do the same. One example, you can cut on the ‘beat’, like on the snare a few times, then not cut the next time it comes around, then make the next cut on the kick drum, or making a bunch of quick cuts on the Hi-Hat. Avoid being predictable, to help keep it fresh.
Also what you do has to make ‘sense’ with the rest of the music. Don’t ignore the flow or emotion of a song, just to cut on a beat.Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
It wouldn’t be that difficult to make a short animation for this.
You could also just build your own in Motion. Except for the tear in the film, all the shapes involved are simple round edge rectangles. Or scan some 35mm negs to use as a template. The tear you can draw freehand.Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
Thomas,
“Forgive me if I’m wrong but aren’t they the same thing? Perhaps you could point me in the direction of a video of one or an article or something demonstrating the differences?”Yes, I think your right. To me there is much difference either.
Pretty much a lens flare minus the iris shape, or the big two point star you get when you overload a CCD, or some variation of that type of optical defect.
I remember when we went out of our way to avoid these things.I think this is more about being addicted to trendy plugins, then seeing things for what they really are.
Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
“yeah but i dont mean lens flares. I mean optical flares.”
No direct filter built in FCP labeled as such, but really, this is just a variation of lens flare, specular highlight, glow, glints. With a little compositing, multiple filters, tweaking what is already in FCP or Motion, or all of the above you can probably make what you want.
Pretty sure there are some ‘Optical Flare’ plugins for AE. But once you start using trendy plugins, then you end up with something that looks like everybody’s stuff.Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
“Which time? 😉 I tried doing it over the old one and it wouldn’t even launch after that, then after reading that I needed to remove it, I did that and did a clean install. Now it starts up fine but it literally just can’t see my deck. I have deck control over it, but I don’t see the video and the settings I normally use can’t be found, even though they are an option.”
OK. Specifics would be good, but I’ll just go on a fishing expedition.
I’m guessing you installed SL over Leopard, instead of wiping the drive, and starting from scratch with the new OS followed by the pro aps, followed by new SL compatible drivers.
Then when that didn’t work, you ‘removed’ FCS and tried reinstalling just that, and still just didn’t wipe the drive and start from scratch doing a clean install.“Yeah, I have looked a good bit, can’t seem to find one where it’s answered as it pertains to my situation, but thanks.”
This topic has been covered ad nauseam, and there doesn’t seem to be anything unique about your situation.Lacking more specific info about what you did, in what order, this appears to be operator error resulting from not doing a ‘clean install’. Nothing unique, and certainly avoidable due to the amount of info on this topic in the forum, about the correct way to do this.
Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
Did you do a clean install, or just update over the old system?
Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
Effects>video filters>quicktime>lens flare
Or in the button under the viewer where the bars/text/slug is located
Render>lens flareOr use Motion.
Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
Hi,
You should do a search of the forum. Clean install, updating drivers etc, have been discussed at length.Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
Film Group
“I have had sporadic issues with my JVC GY-HD 100 camera not recording properly. In the viewfinder everything looks fine while I am recording but when I check playback I will be missing approximately 2 minutes of footage”How footage looks in the viewfinder is not an indication of the recording. These cameras do not have ‘confidence recording’ type viewfinders.
Film Group
“It’s going to be difficult for me to feel confident going out on shoots now, even more so for the producer who hired me to shoot those aerials. Has anyone seen this problem? I can use some advice.”
The 100 is a first gen camera, and not quite as good as the later 110 series, as posts on other camera forums tend to support that. But tape, and the camera operator would be more where I would look.
You didn’t say much about tape stock, but here is my 2 cents:1. Don mix and match tapes. There are several different types of tape lube formulas that don’t play well together. These are left in the tape path, and cross contaminate later tapes. Stick with JVC ProHD.
2. If you have to use a different tape in an emergency, clean the heads with the JVC cleaner tape before, and after.
3. Sony tapes seem to be the least compatible, use Panasonic if you can’t get the JVC. This is not a slam on Sony. They just use a lube that is least compatible with the JVC lube, that is most likely covering your tape path.
4. Keep your heads clean, or at least clean the heads before shooting mission critical footage. If you are waiting for the ‘clean heads’ warning, you waited too long.
It is a myth that you can clean heads too much, unless you do it improperly. Back in the Quad and 1″ days, we cleaned the heads (by hand with Freon and Texwipes) before every tape thread, cassette machines once per 8 hour shift and still got 2000 hours from a set of heads.5. Tape is cheap, reshoots are expensive. Always use a new tape!
6. Treat tape like film. Shoot it, and put it it the tape case, and don’t mess with it until you get back to base.
‘Chimping’, or viewing footage you just shot in the field, is just putting more passes on the tape, and more oxide and hours on your heads. When you review your tape in the field it may look ok, but that ‘review’ may have just put a wrinkle in the tape, that wasn’t there before. So maybe you should review it again, to make sure your last review didn’t damage the tape, and so on…
The only time you can be 100% sure you ‘got it’ is when it is transferred to your editing system. If it is mission critical, use a B camera, or at least shoot more on a second tape.
IMHO ‘reviewing’ is the mark of an amateur and is the number one cause of broken timecode on tapes.7. Practice the ancient art of ‘cracking’ new tapes before using them. This means to fast forward (to the end) and rewind (in E-E, not over the heads) new tape before using them. This is best done before the shoot, on a deck, and not at the shoot in the camera.
8. Get a BR-50 studio deck to transfer your footage to the editor. It not only save hours on your camera heads, but the tape path is more robust and precise, producing playbacks with less drop-outs, and is easier on the tapes.
Since you generally leave a studio deck hooked up to your computer all the time, it eliminates the risk of zapping the FW port on the camera, or computer.9. All these mini tapes, and the machines that use them are not as tough as their predecessors like Quad, U-Matic, 1″, and the various flavors of Betacam. They are small and fragile, and need to be treated with a lot more care then I see most folks do. It is the price you pay for the small size of it all. Keep everything in a clean, padded case. Don’t let the gear bake in the hot sun, and don’t beat it like a rented mule.
Mark
“Sounds like it’s time to look at upgrading to an HM100.”
Solid State media vs Tape argument tends to get religious, but here is what I think:
SS media is certainly faster to transfer to the editing system, and is better for those that need to reuse their media. And in this case where the user is shooting aerials, where shock, vibration and G loads may be knocking the camera servo’s around, you may be on to something.That being said, tape is still a viable format, and I have shot plenty from small GA aircraft without a problem.
Tape is a proven technology that has been around for about 70 years, that when used properly works fine.
And when used improperly, often still works fine.
In our local UG, there is at least one guy at every meeting that has a story about SS media failure. And when SS media fails, it is an all or nothing deal, and it often gives no warning that a failure has occurred. An unseen static shock, putting the card in the wrong slot, or in crooked, and poof, you whole shoot is gone.
Tape is not that fragile, rarely fails completely, and often gives a warning to those who are paying attention.
Additional, tape provides its own archive, which is somewhat of a dilemma for the SS media users, who often have to go out and spend thousands of dollars on a tape based archival system, which seems ironic.Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com