AG-DVC80 various topics

[John Britt]

Mike -- sorry the delay; I, too, have had a lot going on. Hope your wedding goes well!

Thanks for checking out my videos - I'm glad you liked them. In fact, the Secret Machines interview was helped in a way by some of the people here at dvinfo.net. As I worked on segments, I posted them here for feedback. The feedback for two previous segments helped me in editing the Secret Machines one.

Speaking of feedback, I actually first read your post a few weeks ago and visited your site at that time; I've checked it out again tonight. I see that you've added a Flash video on your splash page. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of video or animated content being thrown at a visitor, especially if there is audio, but that's just my opinion. I would suggest at least adding a very visible "Skip" button -- at my screen resolution I could barely make out the nav menu bar at the top of the page. If I were just a casual visitor, I would have just closed the window once the video started and skipped the site altogether. Making it easy for the user to just enter the site means you get fewer "drive-offs."

That said, I think you've got some good work on there. The 8 Kount video/ad looks good and fits the song. I think you've got some good advertising concepts as well, such as the In-Store Display and Media Coupons. The Dub Dash 3 piece is really good, as well -- the pacing and your choice of shots and editing work very well.

My only other suggestion would probably be that you need to use a consistent video file format for your Samples page. Instead of each video being offered in random formats (some are wmv, some are mp4, one is mpeg), pick at least two formats - probably wmv and mp4 or mov - and stick to them for all your videos.

But your stuff looks good -- I'm glad there's another DVC80 user out there doing good work with this great camera. Good luck!

[Mike Cornett]

Thanks for the comments. It's very helpful advise that I am going to take.

I'm trying to encode everything to wmv files. It seems that 90% of my clients have only windows. I still need to find the time to re-encode the other clips.

I don't like the splash screen anymore either. I'm going back to putting the promo on the front page with a play/pause button.

Thanks again for the taking the time to help me out. Please shoot me an e-mail from time to time and let me know if I'm driving off the road.

Have a great week!

[Monday Isa]

I just recently got a dvc80. I love this camcorder alot cause of the cool features that saves me lots of time. The prob I have is I'm capturing video through my optura 20. The optura 20 will not play the sound off my tape recorded by my dvc80. It plays the tape perfectly recorder by my pd150 just not the dvc80. Both tapes are the same brand. I play it through the dvc80 and it plays just fine. Is there another camcorder I could purchase very cheap to play the dvc80 footage I record onto tape and play the sound as well? I know it's a very similar camcorder to dvx100 minus 24p. What do you guys use? I want to save on the threads.

Thanks
Monday

[Matt Stahley]

Ive been using a canon zr-80 for a couple of years with no problems at all with my DVX footage.

[Monday Isa]

Many thanks. I'll look into that model.

Monday

[Matt Stahley]

i dont think the ZR-80 is in production still but im sure they have a replacement model.

[Monday Isa]

Thanks Matt. I was looking at a zr300 relatively cheap, you gave me a good lead with the zr models.

Monday

[Jheronimus Nunca]

Originally Posted by Monday Isa

Thanks Matt. I was looking at a zr300 relatively cheap, you gave me a good lead with the zr models.
Monday

It may not be the camera you are using for playback that is the problem. What I have noticed with the ag-dvc30 is that the normal panasonic tapes will not play correctly in other cameras. I now use panasonic ay-dvm63mq professional tapes and other camera's have no problems with sound or drop outs playing them back. I cannot tell you the reason for this, but that has been my experience. I also only use the panasonic brand tapes because there are some issues with switching brands due to different lubricants on the different tape brands and panasonic is what I started with. I don't know though if there are differences in the different grades of tapes within the same brand. Perhaps someone else knows this.

So using professional quality tapes seems to get better results when shooting with these pro cameras and playing back on other devices. Good luck.

[Mike Costantini]

Hi, I have this great camera but I'm not so sure about this white balance business.. When I try to set it manually like a good boy with the white card and all that, the resulting picture looks pale, the people look dead! So I've been using the 5600 preset, this makes them a bit too red/tan/hot, but it's better than the dead look of course - is there a way to get a good in between type setting? I feel like I'm half-assing it as of now.

[John Britt]

Well, there could be a number of variables here, from the type of lighting to your aperture setting. You may also want to try warm cards, which may help with the problem -- giving you a sort of "in between" solution like you mentioned (search "warm cards" here and you'll find a number of threads about it, which will probably explain them better than I can)

I don't recall having this bad of a problem with the DVC 80, but I do tend to tweak my footage during editing. If possible, post a frame or two (or a whole clip), and someone might be able to point out any other variables that might be in play, as well.

[Mike Costantini]

Well the shoot had to be put on hold due to sound problems, but I rendered a frame in Vegas under the uncompressed setting for AVI (attached). This looks like what it looks like on the timeline. I noticed that if I render to NTSC DV avi it's a LOT darker for some reason so I figured uncompressed is what I should post so you can see what I'm seeing. Also here is a picture of the halogen shop lights I'm using. I have two of them, one on each side of the subject shooting straight up at the white ceiling and this is what I got. I didn't have any warm cards but I looked at the site and looked around the place and found light light blue paper that looked similar to the warm card so I went with that to get the white balance. How does this look? What can I do to improve the shot?

http://82.165.178.48/de/catimg/small/L-850.JPG

[John Britt]

That's nowhere near as bad as I was expecting! The skin tones look relatively natural given the shooting conditions -- unless this guy is a lot tanner in person, I guess. I'd say this is on par with what I'd get out of my DVC80 in similar circumstances. In my amateur, layman's optinion, I'd say that's close to what most DV cameras (similar to the DVC80) would look like, given the lighting and set conditions.

The main problem I can see offhand with the image, though, is the wide range of contrast going on. Black shirt/black background with white skin and a light-colored guitar body is probably a greater range than you want. This may be causing you to use a wider aperture than is necessary for his skin, making his skin look lighter. Add in the limitations of your lighting and your video is going to look much like, well, video.

Again, this is all amateur, armchair opinion on my part. Perhaps a good question to ask would be, what did you want/expect your footage to look like?

[Mike Costantini]

well that's good to hear that I didn't do too bad! I guess I was just hoping for the subject to look more tan and less pale. But I'm not using pro lights so I guess these halogens are also what are causing the pale look.. The black shirt is intentional for the next part of the video where all that is shown is the left hand on the guitar neck, so there's no distraction for the student.

[John Britt]

Here's a thread from 2005, about how I found 3200K bulbs that fit Home Depot halogen worklights:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=37169

Combined with an inexpensive 3200K photoflood blub w/ reflector, this gives you an inexpensive lighting setup with a known color temp for you to work with. Note the caveats from other members, though. The site I used is mentioned in that link; they may have bulbs for your lights, as well.

I think it's also a matter of how you're lighting the area. As you'll read in the above link, I pretty much throw light around the same way you do. I think a more controlled lighting set up (be it 3-point or whatever) might also help -- even if your subject looks pale, he won't look flat and pale.

And if it's not too late, you still might want to consider a different shirt. Perhaps a solid blue or green (I'm sure someone here could tell you what colors would look best). That would still give you that solid background you need for the fretboard and hand, but without soaking up all the light. At the very least, a different colored background behind the guitarist might help ease the problem.

And don't forget your color-correction options when you are editing. That can really help bring out some of those skin tones.

And just for comparison's sake, here's a link to an interview I shot with the DVC80:

http://karatemedia.com/secretmachines/

The interview was lit mostly by exisiting room light (it may have been augmented by one of my lights, but it was basically similar in set-up to your video) and the shots are a mix of untouched DVC80 footage and footaged tweaked in After Effects -- but all the color footage was shot on the DVC80. I think the untouched footage looks much like yours, while the "tweaked" footage has some interesting tones that I would not have gotten naturally in that setting. It's nothing mind-blowing, but I think it shows the DVC80 in a couple of different environments.

[Mike Costantini]

That's pretty cool =) What is After Effects?