Dance Recital Video and stills
 

I just finished my first attempt at videoing a dance recital in HD with my new XH A1. My wife has her own dance studio and I got tired of the crappy home-video quality of the recital dvds so I convinced her the step up to HD would be worth it. I'm interested in starting earning some money with videography and this is my first crack at it. We sold about 70 dvds albeit for only $15.00. (I was nervous to charge too much on my first try.)

Anyway, I put up some still captures of the dvd on my wife's site at http://sahuaritadance.com/recital.html

You can also download a higher rez video of a dance my wife did at at

http://sahuaritadance.com/videos/Broken.wmv

There is a flash version on that same page, but it doesn't seem to be working for me at the moment. ARGH!

Any suggestions for the best settings for compressing to the web? I'm using PP2 and am open to better encoder prodcuts (cost considerations in mind). This forum is great for the newbie and I have learned a lot!

Kyle

I'd invest in Quicktime Pro. The best compression codec I think is the H.264.

My process is usually rendering out an MPEG4, full res, then exporting it as H.264 in Quicktime Pro. Use AAC audio compression and a bitrate of around 750-900. Should give you great results.

Good luck!

Kyle, it is solid especially considering your first attempt. The videography doesn't distract and allows us to see all of the movement. I've seen a lot of dance video that arbitrarily excludes dancers and/or body parts, especially on recital videos, so this is nicely done. $15 is a steal for a recital DVD.

Both the video and the stills look somewhat dim and soft, though not sure if that is from stage lighting or your focus/exposure. With lots of light and precise focus I imagine you could get extremely sharp images from that camera even in SD; but the encoding you've chosen might not be doing you justice.

I personally use Flash 8 Encoder for all the dance footage I put online but that is just my preference. If you start with good videography and just experiment with the encoder settings, you can get great web video regardless of format.

The video came out good, next time charge 25.00 at least. Did you use a tripod for this?

I only had my old crappy cheap tripod initally, but the stage director had one laying around with a fluid head. It was a bit better once I got the hang of it and the tension right. I'm in the market for a better tripod now that I've used a fluid head.

I would like to up the price next year. Especially considering the response we got this year. I was nervous to charge so much on my first try however.

Just curious where did you get those flash website video players from and do they have different styles and designs to choose from?

BTW the videos look great.. commercial quality maybe for future advertisement!


Have A Good One!

I made it with the Coffee Cup Web Video Player
http://www.coffeecup.com/video-player/
Not sure on the encoding quality, but it is pretty easy to use

Very nice video. I'm in the same situation. Just got my XH A1 and have been trying out many tests. I'm planning on shooting some dance recitals and producing DVD's for sale. In the past I've used high end consumer cameras (3 CCD Sony's and Panasonics) but I too got really tired of the limited control especially during intense lighting (multicolored spotlights). During the show you shot did they use a lot of lighting changes and how did the camera handle that?

I'd also be interested in knowing what settings you had. Any presets etc.

Thanks.