Tom Matthies
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COW Coin
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DaVinci Coin
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I had to step back into Avidland today to cover for an editor that had a family emergency last night. It took a little while to get back into it, but it’s like riding a bicycle. A very weird bicycle. I agree with the above post about log & capture on an Avid. I do like it better, especially being to name a clip while it’s being captured. Ditto for digital cuts. But for the most part, I’ll be glad to get back to my FCP system tomorrow. FCP just makes more sense to me and I’ve been cutting on Avids since the early ’90s. Some things in Avidland just don’t change much.
Nothing more fun early in the morning than finding out that you have to finish the final edit on a project that you haven’t even had time to watch all the way through before the client arrives. That’ll get you going fast. Lots of coffee today…
Oh, I did a quick color grade on the project as well. I do like the Symphony’s color corrector as well. OK, that’s all…
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G5 to Aja LA to Beringer mixer to Sony amp to Sony speakers.
Also running a set of Altec/Lansing’s out of the line out from the G5.
Tom -
Ditto. We always output from AE using the animation codec and all of the keys are as clean as could be. Double check everything again.
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I use a Nikon D70s with Nikon’s $99 Capture software. Shoot RAW and you won’t have to worry about white balance at all. Shooting RAW allows you to add all of the processing normally done in the camera to the stills later. It’s pretty slick. Use the wrong filter for your shoot? Just open them up in the software and change it to whatever you like. RAW basically captures the information directly off of the camera’s CCDs without adding any processing. All of the processing is then added while in the software later. One warning though, RAW files are large.
One more suggestion…Don’t run the iso sensitivity up too high or the image will suffer. Buy a tripod or at least a good monopod. I usually have my video camera on a tripod so why wouldn’t I use on with my still camera?
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An even easier way to do fine adjustment of the position is to highlight the clip in the canvas or on the timeline, and with the view set to “Image + Wireframe” or “Wireframe”, simply hit the up/down left/right arrow keys while holding down the “Option” keys. This will nudge the image one pixel at a time in the desired direction making fine adjustment a snap. When you get it where you want, do check the motion tab and make sure that the positions are on even, whole numbers and the video will then look it’s best.
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Three systems and three AJA IO’s. Not a hic-cup among them. Good, solid products. Not internal cards but they just work as advertised.
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Interesting.
Guess I’ll keep my Nikon Capture software for a while yet. -
Lots of variables in the industry right now. I was watching the SD version, of course, off of DirecTV and upconverting it thru my receiver. It seems that some shows hold up well in this process and some do not. My local news, viewed by way of their digital channels and upconverted, looks good for the most part however it seems that much of the commercial content played out of their servers looks pretty bad. Anything with a lot or detail or fine titles just falls apart. I don’t know if this is due to higher compression used in their servers, the upconversion that my receiver is doing or some other reason. One of the stations here used to run their spots off of an Avid Air Play system. They had the compression cranked up so high (AVR70) that anything with any detail just fell apart. I remember a spot for a local greenhouse that had some nice shots of plants with a lot of very fine detail in the leaves. when aired on the Air Play, it just turned to mush. I shot the spot so I know what it should have looked like. When I inquired about the loss of quality, their engineering guy told me that they ran the compression up pretty high to get more content onto the drives and to not take up a lot of space. They really didn’t seem to care much that I and the client weren’t at all pleased with what the spot looked like when running on the air. That client doesn’t run their spots on that channel anymore.
Anyhow, I was just wondering about the show. It seems a bit “mushy” by the time it gets through the process of transmission and comversion and finally onto my screen. It seems that part if it is intentional and part possibly not. Ah, the digital Tower of Babel. Ain’t it wonderful?
Tom
PS: It is a fun show to watch! -
And not one comment on the “Alan Smithee” moniker…one of my favorate industry inside jokes!
Maybe our user base is getting too young?
Google the name for the story.
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It is still very necessary to speek in terms of “+db” levels in broadcasting these days. The difference between “digital” and “analog” audio levels is one of the big problems we face today in the changover to newer broadcasting systems. Last time I checked, the vast majority of TV broadcasting is still analog, and will be for a while yet. I’d guess that many if not most master controls are still relying on good old fashioned analog meters to set their levels. Acceptable (or legal) levels for analog transmission and digital transmission are miles apart. And the entire infrastructure of getting a spot from conception to air is loaded with technical land mines. How many times have you all experienced getting dubs of a spot that was mastered in the digital environment with acceptably “high” audio levels only to transfer those same levels (or try to at least)to the analog dub. Our audio sweeting guys typically run their levels up to very near 0dbfs to wring every last bit(get it? Bit) of information out of their tracks. That’s fine in the digital world, but at some point, at least in my market, those levels have to make it into the analog world for the dubs that go out to the stations. At that point, the levels MUST be brought into complience with the analog broadcast standards. Very often I have seen dubs that were not corrected from the original digital levels. The result is a set of VU meters that are wrapped around the limiting pegs on the VTR’s meters. (or a peak level indicator that could be used as a night-light)
There is a lot of audio compression still used in spot production today. As stated above, a given spot will sound very loud without ever exceeding “legal” levels when broadcast. There are a lot of spots, however, that do exceed these levels and are then clamped (or clipped or compressed) by the stations audio processing equipment before it hits the transmitter for broadcast. None of the TV stations I’ve worked at over the years, specifically compresses just the commercial content of a broadcast. Typically, the audio processing gear is downstream of all the sources of audio and is usually the last step before the signal is fed into the transmitter, or at least into the station’s STL.
Today, while deep within the changover from analog to digital broascasting, there are simply too many places for the audio level mismatching to occur to place the blame on any single entity. As stated above, a typical 30 sec. spot is pretty much a self-contained story, with all of it’s associated story telling and state of the art technology. The levels are much easier to control on a short 30 sec. spot than on a typical 30 minute TV show. Usually the average levels are much lower on programming. A TV show rarely contains the sustained energy found in a TV spot. If so, it would be exhausting to watch a show that crammed so much energy (both technical and emotional) for that period of time. That’s not to say that a TV program isn’t or can’t be ad loud as a tv spot however. The levels in a typical TV show are dynamic and vary greatly. They can range from very quiet to very loud and the levels on a show must be set with that in mind. Our local Public Radio station, here in Green Bay, typically has program levels far below the commercial stations. When asked, the radio engineers tell me it is that way on purpose to leave enough headroom for the times when the contelt gets loud, usually on a piece of classical music. They typically use very little processing in the transmission and little in the broadcasting either. They prefer to let the content control the dynamics of the signal. We all hate that pumping compressor effect, don’t we? The commercial stations, on the other hand, compress the living daylights out of their music amd make it as LOUD as possible. Louder is better in radio, isn’t it?
The bottom line is the loudness of a given spot often depends on the desires of the provider. Advertisers usually want their spots to cut thru the clutter and produce the audio track accordingly. I don’t think it’s fair to blame the broadcaster for purposly trying to make the spots sound louder on their end. Most stations are set up for unity gain whenever possible. Now, that doesn’t mean that somewhere in the ingesting process at the station, a mistake wasn’t made and incorrect levels were recorded (digitized?) into their servers. Human nature, being what it is, is full of shortcuts and most TV master control/engineering folks are a bit overworked these days, with all of the duties they are now responsible for that were unheard of just a few years ago. Ever try to take in program feeds while lining up a live shot while loading tapes for master control while answering the ringing phone while…well, you get the idea. Sometimes the attantion to detail get spread a little thin.
High levels on TV spots is nothing new. It’s been a complaint for years and will probable be a problem for years to come. I don’t think that there is or ever will be a Magic Bullet for this problem. Darn…Well, enough rambling…time to put in my ear plugs and get to work editing another really LOUD spot for you all to enjoy!
Tom