Tom Laughlin
Forum Replies Created
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Again, if anyone else besides Dan has a comment or any input on this post, “we” would be much appreciated.
If anyone has any thoughts on:
1.) Compressor vs. Sorenson 6
2.) Some of the best Compressor recipes for H.264 QT
3.) Any additional notes on alternatives to Compressor, a mac-based software perhaps.
4.) I may think up some more questions later.Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel -
If you look at a lot of the articles being written in the “Streaming Media” magazine, or on-line magazine, the latest Compressor over-all H.264 compression reviews aren’t so great, in fact many other people in the magazine reference any other software or hardware, when faced with Compressor and it’s outputs, in comparison to other softwares out there, their speed, image quality, and what I’m researching out and testing with trying to find good bases or foundations to start from, as a ton of people do not have the time to try out and test compression software or build presets, which I’ve done as well numerous times as well. I’m having great success with Compressor, but want to get better. So, with regards to my original post, it’s just a matter of wanting to know who has used CRAM, and if there are “other” specific elements one needs to understand and master, before moving into advanced compression techniques with Compressor, using it to the max. I realize that everyone has to find out their own success with compression, but it doesn’t hurt to share or inquire about what other people are doing and how.
Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel -
Yea, all good info here, but I just needed the last half of your answer, thanks!
Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel -
Has anyone ever used and verified the quality of the “Compressor Pack” software setup plug-ins? I emailed Streaming Media magazine’s editor and he said that although he didn’t have any info, he told me to find my answers in the forums on compression, but I looked for about an hour and found no help or topics associated with my posted questions.
Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel -
I mostly shoot with the EX-3, in 24p, in the “SP” mode, which is essentially a higher or more glorified version of HDV, but when I’ve compared the images to the SP and HQ, the image quality, to me, looks identical. It’s a card space issue, I’d rather shoot with 160 min per 32 GB card, than only like 40-60 minutes or whatever, in the HQ mode. With that said, I fill 32GB cards fast and need to dump them fast. When I have transferred using a Mac, or Mac Book, it usually took me about 25 minutes per card.
When using the Sony USB, it took me the same time to copy the files from the card to a drive using the Sony USB, so it eliminates the verification process of copying the BPAV, and having the Sony Clip Browser verify as it is copying from a card to a drive, as the software does this, and the Sony USB drive seems to do this “internally”, one less thing to worry about. With my NEXTO device, I can dump a full 32GB card, to the internal drive of the NEXTO, in under 3 minutes.
When I used the NEXTO, I also found that it also preforms verifications while copying to the internal drive, so when I pull video files from the NEXTO’s internal drive, to another drive, it takes about 3 minutes as well, to copy from the NEXTO to a drive, you can actually mirror the drives to copy to the internal and the external at the exact same time, and still in about 3 minutes, as I’ve seen. But once you need to make another back-up, you can perform another copy to another drive using the NEXTO’s speediness, or if you plug it into a mac, the NEXTO will pop up as an external drive and if you manually drag and drop files from this to another drive, using the mac as your copying director, then it may take longer to transfer, but I’ve never done it that way.
Does this answer your questions? A full 32 GB cards dumps and backs up in 3 minutes or less.
Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel -
Yea, I think that in alot of ways, this film look developed by Panasonic does have that tinkle to it that makes anything you shoot have that film look, in which when people talk in terms of the film looks of other cameras, the one I’m using now for work, the Sony EX-3, when shooting in film mode, or in the 24fps, with settings speced out for film, it just doesn’t quite look like the “look”, you know? Especially where you have so many filmmakers still shooting films and going to DVD, if its going to DVD, then why not still use the DVX? I think that in terms of acquisition for the big screen, the DVX-users have had to battle out the best way to blow this video up, but as we are seeing now in theatres, more and more films are bring shot digitally on the RED or on other platforms that are non-film-looking. So, the audiences’ trained eyes are now becoming more and more aware as well as forgicing of this, and with the wealth of film grain filters and editing tools, anything can be done in post to make video look more like film. Do you know of anyone still using the DVX for feature films these days, or has this dog been run over for good? How does the HMC truly compare, image-quality-wise the the DVX, and will this DVX film look return to the ring, in terms of future cameras?
Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel -
This is great info, thanks!
Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel -
There are a few older versions and newer versions of this software on several Sony software support websites, and it may take a few trial and installs, before things start to work. I know I’ve done this in the past, and I also think that with Snow Leopard on my Mac, I had to find a few work-arounds with loading it. Snow Leopard, from some of the posts I’ve read, everyone has some problems with the thumbnails loading, so if previewing thumbnails is not important, then you should be ok. But avoid upgrading to Snow kitty, unless it is needed. Just my 2 cents.
Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel -
Thanks for answering my questions. No, what I meant was, when we playback the BPAVs on cards and using the cameras to playback the video on the cards, the video is clean from what I see. But, yes, it doesn’t mean the entire card is clean. I know the cameras don’t playback .mov’s, I meant when ‘we play cards with the camera’. But yea, we’ll be doing CRC-checking from now on. This CRC-info was never emphasized by the Sony work-flow dudes at NAB this year, the B&H guys, or anyone else up to this point, before hitting the forums to trouble-shoot this. This is a major issue, that needs to be emphasized more. I guess we’re part of the small minority of whom have not been so lucky as others – who’ve gone way longer and have never had these problems, with CRC-checking. It’s just so frustrating that we’ve been doing this for a few months now, and are just now seeing this flaw in workflow.
Craig, thanks again for your posts. I really appreciate your patience and time in answering. Have a great week. Look forward to your future posts.
Thanks,
Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel -
If you have a minute: tomyboy342000@yahoo.com. I’ll email you my cell number.
Thanks for your timely responses.
Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel