Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I don’t know for sure about the scrolling thing (I’ve only heard about it, never actually seen in person or used one), but a couple of companies make the spinning rain deflectors.
One of them is the Spintec system…
https://www.innovision-optics.com/prod/spintec.shtml
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Rich Rubasch] “FCP is pretty terrible scaling down HD in an SD timeline”
Premiere, on the other hand (CS3 and CS4) does an easy and absolute flawless job of scaling down HD to SD. Just throw an HD clip on an SD timeline and use motion effects to reduce its size down to either a letterboxed or centerpunched version… or even somewhere in between, if you want. The results are really perfect.
The only trick is if you are going from 24fps 1080p to NTSC (60i), which is what we are usually doing. There’s a certain order that you have to do things in to get the 3:2 pulldown exactly right (do it wrong and you get a funky 4:1, or full progressive, or inverted field order… depending on where the misstep is). It took me quite a bit of experimentation, but once I figured out the right combo it’s a breeze. Basically you just take your 23.976 fps HD clip and throw it on a 23.976 SD timeline (not on a 60i timeline or a full 24fps timeline). Scale it down with motion, then export as a 29.976 fps avi or mov or whatever (just change the framerate export settings at the step where you render the file)… and voilà , you have a perfect-looking scaled down SD 60i NTSC file with correct 3:2 pulldown and frame/field order.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yep, that’s for real… although I don’t know what the system is called or who makes it. I think they are usually used on open-wheel cars (Indy cars) rather than NASCAR where the cams are more protected. The rig has a roll of clear material (kinda looks like a roll of cellophane tape) which moves in front of the lens.
However, I’ve only seen those on little cameras, like lipstick cameras. I’m assuming you’re using a much bigger camera with the Tyler, I’m not sure if there’s a similar system for those.
But yes, that does exist… you’re not imagining it.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I think “organizing” or at least planning ahead for HD (at least on the network/national level) seems to be getting a little better.
About a year ago, the majority of commercials airing on networks during HD programming were still SD spots. Now, the vast majority of them are HD. It’s kinda fun to toggle back and forth between a station’s SD and HD signals to see how each particular advertiser handled the difference. With some, the 16:9 HD version is centerpunched for the SD version. With some, the SD version is letterboxed. I’ve even seen some HD spots that were pillerboxed so you still saw only a 4:3 image, but in HD. In those cases the HD and SD versions looked identical both cropping and ratio-wise… the only difference was the line count.
It’s the same for network programming… sometimes an HD show is letterboxed for the SD version. Other times the SD version is a centerpunch.
What’s funny is to see a SD commercial airing on an HD channel, but where the original SD production was letterboxed. In those cases, when it appears on HD it is both letterboxed and pillarboxed… so you get the spot small in the center of the screen with black around all sides. You used to see this a lot… now, not so much. I think people are finally catching on.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Just an addendum… and a pet peeve….
How many times have you been to a public place (doctor’s office, restaurant, bar) where there is a 16:9 set displaying a 4:3 picture all stretched out? I see that all the time and it drives me nuts.
Just last weekend we went to a sports bar/restaurant that had about 10 different monitors around the room all showing different things. Eight of them had the aspect ratio wrong. Grrrr.
Full conversion can’t come too soon for me.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Two of our three suites are HD, but to date we have produced exactly one HD project for broadcast… a 30-minute program for Public Television. All the rest of our HD productions have been for things like trade show displays, etc.
We have never produced a commercial that ended up airing in HD, as none of the stations that we serve can take them yet. All of the stations say they are HD, but really meaning that they just pass on the networks’ HD signals, nothing originating from them is in HD, it’s all still the SD Betacam world.
Sometimes we will produce a commercial in HD, if it’s something we think is going to be around for a while, or something good enough to put on our reel. In those cases though the broadcast delivery is still an SD version. We will either do a center-punched or letterboxed version for SD… it’s exactly the same amount of extra work with either version.
Strangely enough, about a year ago we did get a call from one of the advertising agencies that we serve saying that one of the stations that we regularly send commercials to (in another state) can now accept HD commercials. Which was very surprising, considering that particular station is in a very small market. The big market stations we serve still want Betacam only.
Not sure when that will change… although I will be glad when it does.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Just did my own test of that method, it works like a charm. Pretty smart.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I believe “The Office” is Varicam, but can’t 100% swear to it.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Devilishly clever.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I think it’s Mark’s way of telling you that, barring a written agreement spelling it out, that there could be a big dispute as to who actually owns the footage rights. If they chose to, the school could probably make a fairly good argument that they own the rights. For future work I would strongly suggest a written contract that spells out specifically that you own the rights, if you intend to try to re-sell the footage.
Presently, it may be simple though. There may not be a problem with the school… they may neither care, nor make any claims to the rights.
You won’t know until you ask them.
You might end up calling a lawyer… but ringing up your client first is much easier and cheaper call to make.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com