Assorted posts from 2002Q1
 

Has any one had any experience using Video toaster 2 (http://www.newtek.com/products/videotoaster/vt2_features/Bforce.html)
I need to be able to do some live multi camera shoots and this seems to be the best bet, but have found very little mention of it anywhere other than there own website. How are others handling live multi camera, will be using XL 1 & XL 1S

Sony NTSC Field Monitor Tint
 

I have a -small- puzzle that perhaps someone has already solved. I use a Sony PVM-8045Q NTSC monitor while doing my edits and, on rare occasions, while actually shooting. This is an 8" monitor which I purcasedd brand new (B&H) last August and which features numerous adjustments and modes. I feed video to it via the BNC video-in port from my RTMac external monitor port. (In the past I have fed it from a Sony video switch connected to my Panasonic deck, with the same results described below.)

The puzzle is that the image always appears just a bit green as compared to the same image previewed on my computer or on my Sony XBR direct view tv. I have walked through a basic calibration process and adjusted brightness/chroma/contrast against SMTPE color bars but to no avail. The last measure I see available would be to tinker with the R/G/B bias and gain controls but I am adverse to fiddling with those if I can avoid it.

Any ideas or thoughts?

Home studio - avoid noice and voice over
 

Hi,

this year I plan to perform my production at home. So I have to think about two aspects:

1. How can I prepare my NLE-system and room to get conditions that allow voice recording? As mic I am thinking in a headset.

2. I will build in a AMD Dual-processor two work either with Xpress DV or Fast Studio DV3. Any suggestions?

Markus

Canon firmware bug with Firewire drives?
 

Has anyone heard of a Canon firmware bug that prevents clean capture to a Firewire drive? After a couple of months of trying every update and fix I could find, I still couldn't get my Canon Elura to capture cleanly to my Firewire drive. I then got an e-mail from a tech support guy at Ratoc which said:

"This issue is belong to hardware of your camcorder. Earlier models of Canon DV Camcorder include Elura ware using Fujitsu FireWire PHY chip and this chip does not absolve control command from computer when data transfer is doing with FireWire Hard Drive at a same time. The result of time out will be occurred and encountered jerky movie. Fujitsu was improved this issue on next generation of chip and newer models of Canon DV camcorder work fine. I think another DV camcorder works fine on your system. Fore more detail, please ask to Canon. Unfortunately Canon is not fix or repair previous DV Camcorders."

I tried talking to Canon, but they just refer me to my local dealer, who doesn't know anything.

I borrowed a second Firewire card from a friend and capture works fine with the camera on one card and the Firewire drive on the other.

Mike

my-tv
 

Fifth round of web movies on my-tv, please vote ! :)))

www.my-tv.it

Performance test for edit workstations
 

Is anyone interested in developing a standardized test for editing workstations? This would consist of a standard clip that is posted on the internet for users to download. Maybe each user renders it the same way. Then each user that performed the test would post the time it took to render the clip, and the specifics of their setup. This would help those of us at the forum recognize what setups are fast and which ones are slugs. I am open to sugguestions on this. Or maybe this has already been done on this forum?

see my other post
 

I've posted an interesting article (I hope :) in
the other forum Let's Talk About Movies, the
post is titled "el mariachi / desperado (& a bit
on se7en)" and talks about cheap movie making
styles.

Enjoy!

Hackermovies
 

Hi there,

check out: http://www.hackermovies.com

it is a site about no-budget digital filmmaking and they have some awesome shortfilms online.

Most of the threads are german, but you can talk english, everyone will understand you :).

have fun and cya
Ulrik

final cut pro3
 

anyone experiencing scrolling text that is unsteady on screen text seems to shake some fonts worst than others.

GL1, infrared
 

I want to use a GL1 to shoot in near/total darkness by bathing a scene with infrared. I plan to shoot with the camera in full manual mode. What I'm wondering, in more of a qualitative than a quantitative way, is how much IR I'm going to need in order to get a nice (better-than-recognizable, yet stereotypically grainy and surreal) image out of the camera.

Ideas?

/j

High Def Information
 

Several folks have recently asked about HD-related issues here. If you're one of those folks you might find this brief article from the January Videography magazine to be of interest.

http://www.videography.com/article/mainv/0,7220,32402,00.html

Also of interest is Sony's Cinealta web site which is devoted to information surrounding Sony's HD system.

http://www.sonyusacinealta.com/

Certainly, few of us are in the market to purchase or rent this equipment. But it's safe to predict that many HD elements will soon find their way into the high-end of the prosumer market, particularly as sales of HD-capable televisions increase (which they are).

Enjoy!

DMA editing tip for windows 98
 

I apologize if this is novice information but it may help someone. I searched the DV site and did not see any discussion of it accept briefly in a DVD discussion. My pentium III 733 and studio 7 DV software were a little jerky downloading and creating a clip. At the pinnacle website they suggested enabling DMA, direct memory access. It allows data transfer to the hard drive without passing thru the CPU, thus making data transfer faster. It solved the problem and now everything works great. They also said that few people will ever experience side effects from enabling DMA (pioneer AO3 DVD burners might). Here is the description to get to DMA To enable DMA on a Windows 98 / Millennium system:

Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel and open the System icon. Click to the next tab called Device Manager. Open the Disk drives category. There should be an item called GENERIC IDE DISK TYPExx (xx can be any number). Highlight this item and click on Properties. Click on the Settings tab and locate a checkbox called DMA. Check this option and press OK on the warning box that follows. Press OK on the Properties box and close the device manager. Restart the system.

How to view 16:9 images
 

I took 16:9 pictures and edited them in Adobe in which I can
view them in 16:9.

But, I can not view them in 16:9 in MS Media Player, or Quick Time player.

Do you know any video viewer that I can view 16:9 images?

Integrating GL-1 frame w/ Sony footage
 

I am working on a project shot with the GL-1 in frame mode almost exclusively. My problem is I have one tape shot with a friends Sony.....this tape looks like video....and of course the GL-1 has a look and feel of its own.

Has anyone had any luck filtering Sony footage in FCP to make it a bit more compatable with the Sony look? Whether through contrast, saturation etc?

I'd very much appreciate your experinces with this.

Catalog MiniDV library?
 

How do you catalog your video library?

I read Nathan01's post and the software was ok, the labeler was great, but does anyone have a great way to catalog. I am starting to get swamped with all the MiniDV taps laying around and I can't remember everthing on them. I prefer to have something that allows me to capture a photo to attach to the data on the tape.

Right now, I'm just capturing a photo from each clip on a tape, giving it a file name related to the tape it is on and saving the montage of captured stills in my computer and using the thumbnail feature of windows me to "see" what is on a tape. It gives me an idea of what is on the tape, but, it doesn't help me in quickly locating the clip on the tape since I don't have the time code information.

Just wondered how the experienced people handle all the tapes they have. Thanks.