[Steve Braker]

#3. Copy the clips to a Browser bin and export from there.

[Steve Braker]

I’m sorry Dan, I got that wrong… I was thinking of Inqscribe which does read source TC but doesn’t do you any good because it’s Mac only.

The standard treatment is to do a window burn… “Timecode reader” filter placed on each clip. A more configurable one with lots of data and display options is “FCE Timecode Display” (yes, it works in FCP).

[Steve Braker]

QTMovieNoteTaker – has PC and Mac version, and does a lot more than time code. Check it out.

[Steve Braker]

To be hones I haven’t done this in FCP, but play around with right-click on clip, Composite Mode, and anything but Normal. “Lighten” might actually be the most relevant, iof not a simple composite (“normal”) blend. THe idea being, if you can, to only add light to the background “plate” where it goes over a threshold. Not sure if that’s the right approach or not.

But as mentioned I’m pretty sure I’d be doing this with stills and in PhotoShop. Another benefit is that if the details are beyond you, there are more local PhotoShop geniuses to help you out than FCP ones.

[Steve Braker]

Shane O Shane, if you’re still tuned in I’d love to hear your take on these numbers from Rocco:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/8/923535?

It does seem to contradict the manual, but I’m sure that’s happened before. If this stuff turns out to be true again I certainly want to know about it. I will do some testing of my own when I get oput from under a big heap here.

[Steve Braker]

I agree that a “compression test” (take one plug out at a time, now!) would be a great way to hone in on this. I’m sure I’ll be doing it in a week if nobody has yet.

[Steve Braker]

And in retrospect I agree with Chris on doing the logos in post. The project really becomes fairly simple and much more controllable then.

[Steve Braker]

Consider something like this:

Lock down the camera and do your finest exposure for the scene normally lit. Do a few more full-length shots with it stopped down 1, 2, 3 stops in case you end up needing that. Keep the ceiling on the dark side; for that matter keep everything on the dark side.

Now shut down every light source in the place, including windows (ah, that could be the hard part). Set up your projection over each cubicle (never mind, that’s probably the hard part), and run it for 30 seconds.

Do the same for however you’re going to do these “glows”, in eash cubicle. Get a few stops difference here too.

Now you theoretically can do an additive composite of whatever logos and lit-up cubicles you want in post. You shouldn’t need to do any masking, though you’ll need to pay attention to how much the glow in one cubicle spoils the ceiling over other cubicles.

Now in retrospect I would think about doing the same thing except do it with stills. More tweaking in less time, and extra resolution will allow a camera move if you want it.

[Steve Braker]

You should be thinking about all this first:

> also if anyone of you know how important it is to have music permissions?

Very, very important.

> do i need to list the bands/labels in the credits?

Yes, but that would be the least important part.

> there might be 1000 copies of this made for skateboarders

“They” are spending considerable time and money right now looking for people just like you.

Now that you’re working on that, to the DVDs.

I use Compressor to prep for DVDSP so I don’t know exactly what the compression choices are within DVDSP. But the most important thing you can do for quality is to use CBR rather than VBR. VBR shaves corners to fit more material on a disc. With only 30 minutes you don’t have to do that. Use CBR.

[Steve Braker]

Wow, Rocco, you are dedicated!

I’m trying to wrap my brain around all those numbers. It seems pretty clear… In fact it seems very clear.

I had been thinking of (but not doing) another kind of test involving serious detail, such as a CG (or camera image) field of halftone dots receding into the distance. You would know immediately on opening the results whether they had seen DV or other compression.

I’m pretty sure at this point that a reference movie doesn;t get around recompression. The manual sez so, Shane sez so, and it kind of just makes sense. But that sould also be tested with the above. Afraid I don’t have time for testing for a while…

As for the difference between QT Movie and QT Conversion… I’m pretty sure QT Movies always include all audio at full quality. So even if you didn’t have any audio it may have saved a couple of tracks of silence with the QT Movie – which would take up just as much space as any other tracks ’cause they’re uncompressed.

I would really like this stuff to be True. But I definitely don’t want to Fake It.