Need Advice on filming hs football FX1000

[Tim Akin]

Hi Tim, I don't want to make your head spin but something you might want to look into is adding a broadcast of the game to the video, if the game is broadcast live by a local radio station. I've been filming our local highschool basketball games for over 8 years with the radio stations broadcast and the coaches and fans think its great. It makes it much more enjoyable to watch for the fans and makes it easier for the coaches to figure out the opposing teams players. Just make sure to clear it with the radio station. I would always make sure I gave the announcers a copy too.

I totally agree to shoot HDV. The FX is much better at HDV than DV, IMO

Make sure you use a good professional tripod/head and not one of cheapo's. You won't believe how much better your video will look.

Good luck with the new cam!

[Adam Gold]

Originally Posted by Leslie Wand

...you get out of firewire what you want, is, hdv or dv to feed DIRECTLY into a dvd recorder.... she shoots, dupes, and distributes within a day with NO need at all for an nle - simply copying the necessary amount of dvd's from the 'live' recorded one...

Shooting in HDV mode changes that not a whit... the process is exactly the same whether the cam is in DV or HDV mode, so why not shoot the latter? No reason not to. All you have to do is turn i.Link Conv ON. Takes five seconds and there is absolutely no downside. At the very worst, they're equal.

Compared to DV, HDV (on the same cam):

--Uses the same tape
--Costs the same
--Takes the same amount of time to shoot and capture
--Does not change how or what you shoot
--Requires a better PC, but you can painlessly and seamlessly downconvert upon capture
--Has six times (roughly) better picture

The only scenario I could see where it would make sense to shoot in DV mode is if you are simply handing the tape to someone immediately after the shoot and they must play it right away and do not have any HDV gear to play it back on because you need your cam right away again and do not wish to lend it to them. Otherwise it makes no sense at all, and you've wasted your money on an HDV cam.

This same silly argument was made when color came in but everyone still had B&W TVs.

Now, if someone has a studio full of DV gear and it is serving them well and no one they know has (or ever will have) any form of digital or widescreen TV, and they were wondering whether to move up to HD gear... well, I still probably would tell them to go HD. But at least there the case could be made for staying with your old gear because of the expense of replacing everything. But to have an HDV cam and not use it for the purpose for which it was designed.... When I was an executive at Food Network way back in aught three, they were building a whole new studio and control room and had to buy all new equipment anyway. HDTVs were predicted to start reaching critical mass that year (they did) and I begged them to put in all HD equipment, but they refused because it would have cost about 10% more. Flash forward seven years and their HD channel is a joke... no one watches it because it's full of all the stuff they've produced since then in SD and has virtually no HD content at all, not even their flagship shows. And they're scrambling around wondering why.

And your huge truck uses more gas, is harder to park and pollutes more than your Smart Car, and for all I know may not be as comfortable or easy to drive. No such differences exist between HDV and DV, so the analogy doesn't work.

I'm sorry, but I just go nonlinear when I see someone advising someone else to shoot DV on an HDV cam. It's like telling someone not to wear a seat belt because the odds of getting in a crash are relatively low. Rant over... for now.

[Leslie Wand]

again, i repeat, in the scenario i described above where you shoot direct to a dvd recorder there is no point shooting hd - especially given the fact that a dvd recorder will only record sd.

as for the quality of the picture - i've no idea whether having the camera in hd and converting to sd for firewire is of any benefit in this scenario. if the picture recorded in sd is better then i stand corrected.

[Adam Gold]

But what's the advantage of NOT shooting HD? At worst, they're equal. There's no benefit to shooting DV at all. None. Why wouldn't you want the best of both worlds? Why wouldn't you plan for the future? I'm just so perplexed by this line of thought.

If you could choose between two cars that were absolutely identical in every way, including cost, except one was five years newer and would go faster with no performance penalties, why wouldn't you choose the faster one? Even if you thought you never needed to go that fast.

[Tim Akin]

The only disadvantage of shooting HDV to tape is 'HDV drop out'. In Tim's case with only one camera that could be a problem if it occurs at the wrong time.

[Leslie Wand]

@tim - i haven't actually checked any of my last years tapes (having shot tape and cf and simply archiving the tapes), but in the previous 3 years or so i i only ever experienced two drop-outs, both were on used tapes. i might add i was shooting sony 'premium' (the cheap ones!) - and that's shooting for a living....

@adam - i really have no argument with your opinion, other than in the case i gave, it would seem to make no difference if going direct to dvd recorder (i'm not talking tape at all). it would also make critical focusing (if needed) a little easier.....

all that said, i always shoot hd both to cf and tape (though as i wrote, only for archival purposes). the pics from my z5 and v1 are excellent, even though my end distribution (other than tvc's) is usually dvd or mp4 for web.

i shall now fade to black and enjoy the rest of a glorious end of winters day....

[Tim Akin]

I shoot weddings with two FX's. For a 45 minute ceremony using new Panasonic 63 minute tapes I will experience at least one drop out per cam, if not two. The third cam is a Canon HV30 using 83 minute run once tapes, usually runs over an hour with no drop outs. I don't like it but just work around it for now.

[Jay West]

Tim Akin (like me) is running a multi-cam set-up, so drop-outs are not as much of an issue as they would be for OP Tim Rogers who is shooting with only one camera. With multi-cams, you have other video to fill gaps (although re-synching can be a paid).

Many folks do not run into drop-outs when shooting HDV to tape. But many folks do. You do not know when it will hit you.

When I was multi-camming HDV to tape, I could count on having drop-outs from at least two cams but I never knew which two cams it would be. Except for my FX1000, which never had a drop out when shooting only to tape. Others, like Tim Akin, have had different experiences. Going tapeless avoids that problem. I use tape only as a back-up, and have had to resort to the tape only once. That was the result of a failure of attention on my part --- the third time I used my MRC units, I put a partially full CF card in one of the cameras. Although I ran out of space on the card, I still had the tape to fill the gap.

So, for Tim (Rogers), I'd suggest a couple of things while he sorts out DVD recording.

First, for the immediately upcoming game or two, switch your FX1000 back to DV (but shoot in 16:9) and follow your established workflow. The footage will be better than what you were getting with your old Handycam, and you do not have to try too many new things at once. Too many new things at once is too many things that can be troublesome under pressure. It is unlikely that many people will want a BluRay disk. Heck, our high school's game videos are still being shot with the school's D8 cam despite a lot of table-thumping and whining from the District's tech guy. When you get a bit more experience with the new workflow, then try a BluRay disk and see who is interested. Another game or two with the established workflow won't matter to the customers to whom you'll be delivering a regular DVD(or DVDs) anyway.

Even when folks know you can deliver HD disks, it will take a while for them to think they want a BluRay disk. Like you, I work in a pretty rural area. I've been offering Blu-Ray for almost two years now and I've had exactly three jobs where the customers wanted an HD disk instead of a standard DVD. It may pick up for me this fall. It may not. For ephemera like games disks, dance recitals, etc., many (if not most) folks will choose sharp and clear DVDs over more expensive BluRays.

So, why shoot in HDV? Well, one reason is that, when you make edited highlights and presentation DVDs at the end of the season, you have a lot more room to fiddle with the pictures. When you've got a wide shot (and with you using only one cam, I'm guessing that most of what you shoot will be wide shots), you can use your NLE to zoom in and manufacture a close-up or, at least, a closer-up. The HDV that the FX1000 shoots gives you a lot of room for this when you are delivering SD DVD video.
Where you may find that folks want Blu-Ray disks will be for end of season Highlights and

My second suggestion is that you test out the Adobe On-Location program that (probably) came with your copy of Premiere Pro. If you've already got a laptop with a firewire port (or one that you can borrow), you only need an extra firewire cable and an external firewire drive (which are rather inexpensive). You are in a fixed location where you probably have electrical power available via extension cord. Recording to disk speeds up processing --- no more hours of capturing the tapes and, even if its a borrowed laptop, you can move the external drive to your editing machine. You also avoid the possibility of drop-outs when shooting HDV.

[Tim Akin]

Good advice Jay. One thing I didn't mention is I have never had a drop-out in the first 15-20 minutes of tape, so if Tim pauses for stoppage of play, drop-outs may not be a problem. Heck, may not be a problem with his FX anyway, yours sound like there a lot better than mine.

[Tim Rogers]

I really appreciate alll the input and ideas. I dont consider myself a videographer but the people in this small town think that i am. i started out helping the school with their website and from there i went into building my own just for the sports. i create highlights for each weeks game and the dvd's for both the coaches and the college's that send out scouts during the season to check out prospects.

I dont know if any of you have ever heard of the State Farm Contest held for the past 3 years called "Friday Night Feats", but the first year that it was held, i submitted a few videos i had taken and won the school the grand prize of $15,000. Last year, one of the videos i submitted won $2500.
I am hoping that with a better camera and the chance of another great play i can capture another grand prize winner this year.
Hootens.com

Most of the videos i have taken of the games over the past 3 years with the old handycam are on my website, they arent the best i have ever seen but they give the community a chance to come back and watch the games at any time. they are in the video vault.
BeardenSports.Com | Home of Bearden Bears Football

I understand that most of you here do video for a living and know alot more than i do, thats why i wanted to post here and get some ideas from you guys. I am hoping that by following some of the things posted here, that i can learn to become better at filming the games as well as producing better output media.

[Jay West]

Originally Posted by Tim Akin

Good advice Jay. One thing I didn't mention is I have never had a drop-out in the first 15-20 minutes of tape, so if Tim pauses for stoppage of play, drop-outs may not be a problem. Heck, may not be a problem with his FX anyway, yours sound like there a lot better than mine.

Nah, I suspect I was just lucky with a new camera, I didn't have any dropouts with my XHA1 in the first year I had it, either. I went partially tapeless using On-Location (I was able to keep using my old laptop with CS2 and my new one with CS4, so I could record from two cams.) When I started seeing drop-outs on the tapes from my other, B-roll cams -- some in the first five minutes of recording -- that pushed me to going totally tapeless with Sony MRC units.

These may be a bit expensive for Tim Rogers's budget. Last time I checked, an MRC1k unit costs $750 and you also need to buy a battery(ies) and CF cards. I had a number of spare NPF batteries from the VX2000 cams I was retiring, so I avoided some of this expense. (Maybe the batteries for Tim's Handycam would work?)

It seems to me that On-Location might be the most economical solution for Tim if he has a firewire-equipped laptop computer available. Almost anything built in the last decade would work when equipped with an external firewire drive. My old laptop was a vintage 2001 Gateway unit. I ran it with OnLocation CS2 while running a later version on my new laptop, enabling me to record from two cameras. Although editing would have been implausible on the old laptop, I only needed it for recording and it was fine for that.

A DVD recorder set-up seems like a great thing to the extent it works with live recording --- you'd have copiable DVDs immediately after the game and would only need to make copies to hand out --- but, if live recording doesn't work so well, then you would be stuck playing the video from the camera to the unit. That would be real time while it burned DVDs, My editing system will encode video to DVD format in less than real time. Plus, encoding on my system allows me to use multi-pass variable bit rate (VBR) encoding. Most inexpensive hardware encoding --- what you find in stand-alone DVD recorders --- encodes on the fly with constant bit rate (CBR) which tends to give motion artifacts when encoding high-motion high-contrast action like a football game.

[Tim Rogers]

Will On Location work if im pausing and restarting the record? I always pause at the end of the play and restart as they line back up.

[Jay West]

Yes. You can slave OnLocation to your camera so that every time you hit the record button on the camera, On Location also starts recording, There is a little button in the "field monitor window" for toggling recording on and off with the camera if you have a tape inserted. (If you do not have a tape in the camera, you have to start and stop recording by pressing On Location's record button.) When you do this --- starting and stopping recording whether via the camera or the On Location button --- you will get a separate clip each time you restart. They will be sequentially numbered or named so it is easy to import them and drop them en masse onto a timeline in PPro (for editing) or Encore (for going even more quickly to DVD). If you do this in Encore, you'll get a chapter point for each play which may be handy for the coaches to skip ahead and back. PPro also lets you select all your assemble your clips, put chapter points where you want them, and then pass the whole thing over to Encore, too.

If you are starting and stopping like that, you definitely do not want to go live to DVD with any of the units we discussed above. They are made for continuous recording. Maybe somebody knows of a different kind of unit?

[Tim Rogers]

When i capture the HDV video from my camera in Premiere, it captures it as a mpeg. Is this correct? Or should it be as an avi? I dont see anything to change the capture format.
I am capturing using the 1080/60i.

[Adam Gold]

HDV is MPEG2, so that's the format it captures in.

You could convert to a form of HD AVI with CINEFORM, but Premiere doesn't do this natively.