[Todd Roush]

Theresa,

Great observations and I concur completely. I used to work in customer support way, way back and what we do when we don’t have an answer is flip it back on the customer by asking tons of questions. It puts the workload on the customer and makes them feel like it’s something with their system.

The online help concept was good on paper but it’s just far too vast now. There are far too many conflicts and one of the lists I recently received would have likely taken me 2 days to get through so I use Vegas as a workaround. Over the years I suspect I will become a full time Vegas user but the interface is very different.

I love CS4 when it’s running but I’m not into fixing computers anymore and I really don’t have the knowlege to do it anymore.

Priority #1 to me is that you install the program, and it works. I have a business to run.

Cheers,

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.

[Todd Roush]

I guess my point is that with Vegas, and from what I hear from FCP, you don’t have to do all this crazy stuff.

Very rough for a 24/7 business to have to stop and lose a day doing this kind of stuff.

I have never been an Apple person but we are strongly considering the switch as reliability is #1 for us.

Cheers and thanks for the tips.

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.

[Todd Roush]

That’s great news.

For some reason it was recommended to me to run an Adobe “cleaning utility” to remove CS3 completely BEFORE installing CS4. I was told if I had installed CS4 with CS3 on my machine that I would have to do a total uninstall plus extra steps, then reinstall CS4 after.

Somebody correct me if I’m wrong but there is a link somewhere here on the Cow.

Good luck.

Best,

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.

[Todd Roush]

Hi Andrew,

I will be doing a review for weddingvideodoneright.com shortly on all of these lights including the Litepanel Micro.

I agree that a good cheap solution is the Sima 20lx(?), not the 10, and although I get adequate results with it, I never get results that I love. It’s pretty green which can be white balanced out somewhat and it’s not quite wide enough or bright enough in my opinion to yield really great looking video although it’s not bad and probably better than the $300 Litepanel Micro aside from the color temp.

It may be a luxury for some (microbeam 128 from Flolight) but it’s an amazing feeling to be able to put a single battery on a light that fills the entire dance floor beautifully at full wide and know you can shoot for 5 hours (3-4 hours indoors is not that unusual in our wedding business) without worry and get really nice looking video.

I have been experimenting with lights for a long time and this is the first one that I am REALLY happy with for the $$.

Regardless, good luck with your low light settings. Unless you’re using a Sony the low light issues can be a bear with HDV so it’s all about practice.

Best,

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.

[Todd Roush]

CORRECTION:

Microbeam 128. Best bang for the buck in LED lighting right now.

Best,

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.

[Todd Roush]

Hello Sebastian,

HDV cameras are generally terrible in low light so assume the worst so you don’t ruin the wedding video.

1. Google Microbeam 185, contact them right away (you have to call, it’s a custom light) and buy one right away at around $330. You will also need to Ebay a cheap camcorder battery, the biggest you can find and it should last you around 5 hours with this light. This light kills the Litepanel stuff 10-1.

2. Settings. The obvious answer is to slow your frame rate to 30 when indoors and it looks fine. I have my B-roll shoot with the light and drop frame rates to 30-15 for really low light like dancing. 15-8 give bright, colorful looks but you get motion blur which is fine for me as the night goes on since I can cut back and forth. ***Experiment with your manual gain settings. The Canon XH-a1 is useless above 6db gain as it is too grainy. Shoot dark footage and figure out how much grain you can live with. Wide open on the exposure.

For me outdoors is easy, dark is OK but it’s those in between rooms that I fall down on. When I think the light is OK but later I realize the image is dull or too dark.

Good camera lights are the way to go but I also like to use the slow shutter thing for a fun alternative look.

Lastly, check online to see if there are any special low light presets for that camera like there are for Canon. The panny is likely no low light champ but from what I’ve seen it beats the Canon which is nothing short of terrible in low light.

Good luck!

Best,

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.

[Todd Roush]

If I remember correctly, you can’t run CS4 with CS3 and if you do you have to clean your machine and start from scratch. Others in here can give you more specifics. Not sure about 1.5.

Good luck.

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.

[Todd Roush]

PS, CS4 has been stable on my i7, 6 gig RAM, 5TB system, but suddenly I can no longer export ANYTHING. Not to media encoder and not to my HDV cameras. When I attempt it, all “set display” icons go blank along with all the arrows in that track section. I have tried reverting to previous setups in the operating system (system restore) but to no avail.

Too bad, this system was really rocking for a while but I have had export issues with 3 other systems so there is something up with the DLL thing.

I am no computer troubleshooter anymore and the time required is obscene so I keep buying new computers and working around things using other software. VERY frustrating but we’re behind and have deadlines. No time for BS.

Cheers,

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.

[Todd Roush]

Thank you both!

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.

[Todd Roush]

It’s not just you.

My gut is that they just tried to do too much. Adobe bought up and combined a bunch of software’s some time ago and have been trying to patch them together.

My issue with CS4 is that it does not play well with much of anything and I have 4 computers to prove it, 2 of which were bought band new with little on them.

I am running Adobe now with Vegas since I am new to the Vegas interface but I have to pass my projects back and forth to get them out of the computer.

Adobe is in trouble with this one and everybody knows it. If you build your own computer specifically for it to their specs you may do all right.

Good Luck!

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.