[Shawn Miller]

Ah, I completely understand. Funny how companies are sometimes willing to shell out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on some things (media production related), but they’ll often balk at the prospect of spending one or two thousand on software or hardware. 😐

If your company is willing to throw some training dollars your way, you might consider one of the compositing courses from FXPhd (https://www.fxphd.com/courses). For about $300.00 US, you can take 3 of their 10 week vfx/design/cinematography courses. Although these courses are usually aimed at particular software packages… the techniques, workflows and philosophies of compositing are about 80% applicable to any keying software. And with any luck, you’ll also find two other courses that are useful to you in your every day work.
🙂

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

I don’t think the Matrox DVCPro50 codec is available anymore, at least it wasn’t when I tried to find it last year.

FWIW, we now use the Blackmagic codec excusively for material that has to be trancoded from something else like HDV.

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

That looks like a practical glass shatter (i.e. real). Artbeats has a really good library of these kinds of elements, but they’re a bit on the expensive side. Videocopilot.net also has a really good library of these kinds of elements, but they are a lot less expensive AND available in higher resolutions (2k).

Thanks,

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

“What do you guys use to key?”

I’ve used DV Matte Pro and I think it’s good for some jobs… but for the bulk of my work, I use Keylight in AE or Conduit. Honestly though (great lighting aside) the best thing you can do to improve your keys is to learn more about the art of keying. Mark Christiansen and Steve Wright have both written very good books on the subject. There’s a lot of good information on compositing and color theory in general here, I highly recommend both.

https://www.amazon.com/Effects-Visual-Compositing-Studio-Techniques/dp/0321592018/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273684387&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Compositing-Visual-Effects-Essentials-Aspiring/dp/0240809637/ref=pd_sim_b_15

Thanks,

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

LOL – Bruce I love your passion. Unfortunately, the big difference in these cards isn’t the hardware, it’s the drivers. Gamer cards are optimized to be fast, the Quadro cards are optimized (driver wise) to be accurate. I’m not sure how the MPE “uses” the Quadro driver, but if you’ve ever done 3D work, then you know that this is an old discussion. I’ve used GeForce cards and Quadro cards for 3D/VFX/simulation work, and there certainly is a difference in performance between the two. Why Nvidia can’t use a unified driver model for consumer and pro hardware, I don’t know… but then again, I’m not an engineer. I’m just happy that more of my software will now benefit from my currently installed video cards.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

Syntheyes is VERY good and inexpensive.

https://www.ssontech.com/index.html

[Shawn Miller]

-1) Windows 7 – we have a copy of the Ultimate version will that work OK with Vegas. 32 bit or 64 bit?

Definitely 64Bit. I know it’s not officially supported, but I’ve used Vegas 8c on WinXP 64 and Win7 64 without issue. Although (admittedly), not extensively because I use Premiere Pro CS4 a lot more than Vegas these days.

-2) Intel Core2 Quad or AMD Phenom II 820 Quad-Core (HP has some deals on the AMD but I’m not familiar with them at all) – anyone have an opinion?

I personally prefer dual Xeon processors to single CPU machines.

My favorite vender to date is still Bold Data Systems – we just ordered two more 8 core machines from them.

Great customer service, good quality components and VERY competitive prices.

https://www.boldata.com/prod.cfm/view/1/model_id/478

-3) What should I definitely be looking at for editing HDV footage.

Fast CPU(s) are certainly a plus. But don’t overlook the importance of a fast RAID array. It doesn’t matter how fast a processor can decompress a frame of video if the disk it’s being read from can’t supply bits fast enough keep a consistent frame rate. If it’s in your budget (and workflow), you might seriously consider getting an eSata RAID (0) array for a working disk and an eSata RAID (5) array for data backup. But that’s just my opinion, others may disagree.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

“what about free options to convert on the PC side”

Microsoft offers three free encoders:

https://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

The Expressions Encoder is the newest and easiest to use of the three. But the series 9 encoders are the most stable, flexible and powerful (IMHO).

Thanks,

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

There are a lot of PC systems integrators out there; Dell is just well known (not necessarily the best). Personally, I’m not crazy about Apple’s selection of video cards and processors. For those prices, I want a Quadro FX or FireGL video card and the ability to choose from a wider variety of CPUs.

Coincidentally, I just bought a new workstation last week and compared between Apple, Boxx, Dell, HP and Bold Data Systems. A dual quad core machine with 12GB of RAM, 3 year support plan etc. from Bold Data was over $1,000.00 cheaper compared to Apple…. and for that, I got faster processors and a better video card.

Check out bold data systems. This is the second machine I’ve purchased from them. So far, they’re still my favorite SI.

https://www.boldata.com/catalog.cfm/page/workstations

Anyway, that’s my most recent experience buying a new computer, perhaps others have favored vendors they would like to highlight.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

I think it depends a lot on what you want to do. The good and bad thing about AE is that it’s a great motion graphics tool that’s good for VFX work and okay for compositing. I don’t know much about Motion, but I get the sense that’s mostly used for motion graphics. Maybe someone can correct me if I’m wrong here.

Another thing to consider is that there is no one tool that everyone uses to the exclusion of everything else. If I had to start my career from scratch today (in VFX), I would still learn AE, but I would also probably pick up Nuke, Fusion, Toxic or Inferno. I might also consider learning some Maya or Lightwave… Boujou, PFtrack or Syntheyes would also be pretty high on my list. If I were to start a fresh career (in motion graphics), I would learn AE without a doubt… and I would certainly learn Cinema 4D for its MoGraph module along with Syntheyes and Mocha from Imagianeer Systems…. but those would be my choices. I’m sure others feel differently. 🙂

Thanks,

Shawn