Steven Bradford
Forum Replies Created
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I think the first question is, how many tapes does she have? If it’s less than a dozen of each format, it makes sense to just send them out to be dubbed to a single modern digital format she can work with.
3/4″ machines are very cheap, good condition betacam decks are under a thousand dollars now. So just a few dubs would buy a deck. If she has dozens of betas or umatics, I’d definitely recommend buying. If she has a dozen of each I’d rent.
1″ machines are very cheap. The last time I bought one, for someone in a similar situation, was five years ago, for $1500. At the time, they all cost $1500, no matter the brand model or features. But that producer had 100 tapes, it made sense. Also, a working 1″ machine isn’t that hard to operate and will probably be just fine for the lenght of the project. Again, if you only have a dozen tapes, I’d send them out for dubbing to DVCam or DVCPro.
2″ Quad is a whole nother scale, of size, hassle, etc. I’d send them out, There are a couple of places (VideoPax in PA??) around the country that have machines. You’d have to have hundreds, thousands even to justify setting up for quad dubbing.
I’d also make a backup protection dub of every new tape. DVCAm doesn’t take up much room.
Steven Bradford
http://www.seanet.com/~bradford/ -
Yes, my 3 month old “academic” version has a little sticker on the otherwise identical box o’ books and discs that says “not upgradeable”.
So you lucked out.
Steven Bradford
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It’s really worth it to get a Variable speed projector. They’re around. I paid about $75 for mine off ebay about 8 years ago. Of course a five bladed projector is even better, but you can get decent results with a variable speed that you can trim to just the right speed to go into the sixty fields a second.
I also had much better luck projecting onto a matte GRAY surface (not textured) then onto a white surface. It helps control the contrast build, making it easier to control over exposure and clipping in the white areas.
Steven Bradford
http://www.seanet.com/~bradford/ -
Seriously? UVW? You might get 30 hours. I’ve seen them have problems in that small of amount of time. There’s a reason they only had 60 day warranties.
Why are you buying a new one? You can pick up ten perfectly good used ones for the price of a new one.
Steven Bradford
http://www.seanet.com/~bradford/ -
A great response is to tell them you’ll consider letting them use their music choice if THEIR lawyer writes a letter saying it’s ok.
We just went through this with a big accounting firm which fortunately has a legal staff, and they freaked, with a big NO WAY.
They then discovered though that they had purchase through ASCAP or BMI a license that allowed them to play music in their offices for various reasons, during meetings etc. And that they were therefore covered.
But they still didn’t want to use copyrighted music for video that would be on the web, even the internal web site, because they weren’t sure they would always subscribe to that license every year.
Steven Bradford
http://www.seanet.com/~bradford/ -
Wow. I’m surprised. Sounds like an easy fix for Avid to make though.
Steven Bradford
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Well that’s annoying.
In any case, I can confirm that the XL2 manual zoom focus lens is slightly better anyways, at least in resolution and chromatic aberration, in our tests. I’m waiting till they either have a manual zoom package, or will sell the camera w/o lens before we buy more. Because otherwise we’re rather impressed with the camera.
Steven Bradford
Collins College
Tempe ArizonaSteven Bradford
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How about something like a Laird Firewire analog convertor? They have models that put RS422 control on the firewire I believe.
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I don’t believe you can do this yet. We’ve been promised this downconversion ability since before we purchased our Multibridge in november 04, and we’re still waiting on it.
Sometimes when you buy a product that seems too good to be true? You discover that it is.
Steven Bradford
FilmHD Program Chair
Collins College
Tempe Arizona -
This is true. However Rosco is actually the cheapest paint available. You don’t have to use Ultimatte Green though, you can use Chromakey green which is cheaper, unless you’re using Ultimatte Hardware for matting. Also, you can order the paint in five gallon containers.
Anyways, the one problem you’ll have with getting it mixed is that it may not be flat enough and may glare on you. Ask the paint store for their flattest formulation possible. The Rosco paints are very very flat. If you’re just painting the wall, this may not be an issue, but if you’re painting the floor, glare becomes more of an issue.
You might want to check out my web page on the subject.
https://www.seanet.com/~bradford/bluscrn.htmlSteven Bradford