Hey Charles, thanks for the compliments...I've read quite a few of your posts on dvxuser and it means alot coming from you, as you really know your sh!t...The reel on there is just the first thing I had compressed, and I'm in the process of sorting beauty spots from food spots and car spots and bla bla bla...It's funny you referenced food because I just sent in a reel to do a bunch of table top for a restaurant chain and the clients called the producer with, I loved his reel but I didn't see any fish..."Well did you see the long graphic crane shot of the 20 or so lobsters towards the end of the reel?" Oh we don't serve shellfish...
Best of luck with your overpriced secretaries...uhh, I mean agents j/k and I'd love to see some of your work online...Oh and thanks to all you guys for the praise...Scott, I just used a fischer 11 dolly for 90% of it...

Impressive stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Mickey Stroud

I'm in a small business venture that's going to involve exporting tons of different videos to DVD's in short amounts of time. That's the quick description of it. Basically we're going to be dumping tons of video into Premiere Pro each week and I'd like to find a program that might be faster in exporting to Mpeg2 for burning to a DVD. Premiere Pro takes awhile, and I know much of the speed issue has to do with the computer you're using but we have Dual Xenon's with Hyper Threading if it will make that much of a difference. I'd just like to find a program that will possibly export faster to Mpeg2 than Premiere Pro would. Any help is GREATLY appreciated.

Tim

are you just sending continuous clip to mpeg .. no chapters /fancy DVD things?

if straight clip to dvd (no chapters /background photo) then just get a HARDWARE device that converts DV avi to mpeg in real time ... any of the home stand alone DVD recorders ( not computer dvd recorder) that have a 1394 i/o should do it .. just export clip from TL to DVD recorder

Yeah, we have a commercial for vendors that just needs to be exported strait to a DVD. I was just hoping to find a program that would convert faster without me having to shell out more for another piece of hardware. Are there any stand-alone encoders that would do the work possibly in less time being that they would be designed specifically for conversion instead of Premiere which I'm thinking might be coded differently than a seperate encoder would be that would allow for faster time.

The only other thing I was thinking we could do is when I dump the tape to the computer is dumping it in Mpeg2 format already, is it possible to edit in this format, therefore significantly reducing the time it takes to render when I got to burn it. That way I could just click burn and it wouldn't envolve encoding.

commercial , how long is it taking to render to mpeg 2?

mpeg2 has more compression then DV.avi .. mpeg 2 looks very good 1st generation when you go from DV avi to mpeg 2 - don't know about premiere but Vegas can edit mpeg2.. if it is all just cuts no problem. the problem is when you apply FX's /transitions to the mpeg file then it has to uncompress it apply Fx's then recompress it back to mpeg 2 and that is where the weakness is in mpeg2 .. it doesn't handle that 2nd generation mpeg2 very well ...

I don't have all the details on the final production of the DVD yet but basically its an hour long "commercial" (or at least we're shooting the commercials but the final dvd's will be an hour with other productions done into it). I'm guessing we'll be doing fades, though that hasn't been figured out yet either. Is Mpeg2 DVD 2ng gen or 1st...I didn't even know there were 2 versions.

I was looking at DVD recorders but I began to think how exactly it would work...it doesn't seem to allow you to go strait from your comptuer to the DVD recorder unit. So you'd spend 60 min dumping to tape, then 60 min dumping to the dvd recorder while it burned real-time. Now that I think about it a nice dual xenon computer would probably be able to do that in the same amount of time. We're still looking at our options and since the first few times we start exporting to DVD we'll be using my existing 2.66Ghz P4 and DVD Burner so we'll get an idea of how long it will take to do this.

The problem is that MPEG2 is a complex compression. Any speed
increases will usually result in a lesser quality image.

With that being said the following standalone recorders are
available for which you can download demo versions. So try them
out and perhaps one will be faster then the current solution,
although I doubt it will be very much faster.

The best way to get a speed increase is to get a dedicated
MPEG encoder board for your PC, get an external MPEG encoder
for your PC (there are a couple) or get a standalone DVD
recorder.

Canopus ProCoder (www.canopus.com) (available in Express version, quite cheap)
TMPGEnc (www.tmpgenc.net) (cheap as well, free version available)
CCE (www.cinemacraft.com) (expensive)

Hi guys,

The first part of a small fun-experimental movie-project ARENAHOJ about deserted places is finished. You will find it at www.orphic.nl/odm/html/videoprojects.html
The QT compression is not very accurate yet, sorry for that.

Peter Sieben

Interesting Peter! Looking good. Let us know when part 2 is
available.

Any idea on where I might be able to purchase a external, or internal mpeg encoder (hardware)? That seems like the only other feasible alternative. Even with a computer with fast processors and lots of Ram I think the time improvement will be minimal, maybe even just a minute difference for another $1000 in hardware possibly.

I'll do some run-throughs and time them, then I'll compare the quality to see if its a noticable difference or not. I think in the end we'll stick with using the computer to encode and decode, because we'll be making multiple copies, but if a hardware MPEG encoder could speed that up significantly that might be something we can look into to invest in.

Hey, everybody it would be cool if you guys can post some of your films.

We have a place to do list where your films are posted. You have to find someplace to host the film though.

Hey guys--The trailer for my documentary is online as of about 30 minutes ago and I'd love to get everyone's feedback (and use up the bandwith from our internet service for this month). The web address is:

www.bicoastalfilms.com

Enter the site, click on "investors" and type in the password: bicoastal (password protected so that people who appear in the film don't see trailer before film is done...very touchy subject). You can read more about the story in the "press" section.

Tech specs: Shot with DVX100 over course of about 6 months. We have about 87 hours of footage and are editing on Xpress Pro with G5. No color correction on the trailer. The music is from the Hours so don't tell Phillip Glass or Miramax. The trailer is basically being used to keep those who have invested money in the film happy, and to attract other investors, though we've really aren't spending any more money. We will start submitting to film festivals as soon as the film is done editing (maybe about 4 months) and then see what happens. OK, curious to hear the feedback.

peter

Tried to access it, Peter...but it's attempting to link to a desktop file rather than a file on the server. Please check the link.

Canopus has three products in their line, check this link (http://www.canopus.us/US/products/Index/product_index.asp).

Two internal cards and one external box it seems. Do read
through the specifications thoroughly to make sure it supports
encoding from digital footage in the PC.

AOpen also seems to have a product, check it out here (http://usa.aopen.com/products/video/vx2000s.htm)

This forum (DV For The Masses) is where everybody is posting
about movies they have put up somewhere else. So take a look
through this forum to see what everybody is up to. As Mike
points out, this site cannot host the actual movie files for you.

If you are interested you can look at a Global Indie Series (www.ladyxfilms.com)
that I'm part of.

Actually it's linking to a movie over the network to another
machine which the internet user doesn't have access too,
ofcourse.

Hi everyone, Devin and I have been hard at work here at Ohio University and have a few new things to show for it.

First of all, our feature 15 minute short "10:17" is online. Please go check it out at : http://www.par-t-com.net/1017_feature.html, its been 6 months in the making and we would like some more feedback. Here is a post to leave feedback for "10:17" to: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20372

Next up is the video production course, 200c, that Devin and I are enrolled in here at Ohio University. This is the bare bones first hands on production course we've been able to take, and our first projects are just now online. For backround, the guidlines to project 1 were: to be a 2 minute narrative with music and video only featuring straight cuts.

Here's Devin's "She Sits So Close" : http://www.par-t-com.net/she_sits.mov
(Right click and save as)

And Spencer's "Redemption" : http://www.par-t-com.net/redemption.mov
(Right click and save as)

We were going for more difficult dramatic pieces, b/c we expect the majority of the class will make slapstick comedies. (You'll notice the use of the mini50s we made in some of the pieces) Please let us know how you think we did!

And as always, the rest of our shorts can be found by clicking here: http://www.par-t-com.net/media.html

Thanks, and enjoy watching,

Spencer Houck
Devin Doyle

I like them both. I've been watching your movies since you started posting links on here, and thought they were so-so. However, the latest two show big improvement. The most pronounced being that both held my attention throughout the entire piece. Its all about finding the right rhythm and sticking to it. Keeping a slow pace like that is sometimes difficult, especially with no dialogue, but you guys did a very good job.
The one shot that really stood out to me was the dolly-in from "She Sits." It added a slow, almost omniscent perspective to the whole scene, similar to the first dinner shot in "American Beauty." Excellent use of camera movement.
I don't quite understand what happened in "She Sits." Was he daydreaming? flashing back? is she just really clumbsy?
"Redemption" is a story that everybody understands, because we've all been there more than once. Even though it was a simple idea, again, you did a great job of setting a pace that defines the mood. I also like that the story progressed in a circle of sorts, referring to the end taking you right back to where you were in the beginning. I like that.

Good job, guys.

Thanks guys. I will notify the webmaster and get it fixed. I will post here once it's up. Thanks for looking!

Peter

I liked them both as well! Especially redemption. I thought she
sits was a bit like a "what if" kind of story?

Great work!

Nice work! Only thing I would have made differently is in "She Sits", when it flashes to reality I would have used a bright white flash or something. Other than that they were great.

Nicholi - Thank you for your kind words! It's great to get feedback from the community. It was, as Dustin wrote, a split between reality and fantasy. The catch on this assignment was that it had to be straight cuts w/ music only, nothing too flashy, no visual effects (but we'll keep that MB look suite and white diffusion I put in on the hush-hush!). I wanted to throw in the flash to sell that split, but was unable to due to the rules. I'll def. put one for the copy that gets dubbed to my reel.

Dustin and Rob, thanks for taking the time to watch our little shorts. We're on our way to shooting 2 more, this time the only catch is that can only be 2 mins max. Thanks everyone for checking out our work!

OOh okay I getcha. I should have read your first post more thoroghly. Well in any case, Good Work! Keep them coming.

Hey I'm new to the board just wanted to post a movie I made last fall the names loaded it's about a drug dealer that gets double crossed and comes back for revenge anyway it's about a 64 meg download in windows media video format. just go to this site and right click the loaded low file and hit save target as the download should start Tell me what you guys think

it's on a slower server sorry you'll have to wait a little while

http://65.29.54.30/loadedlow.wmv

Hey guys, great work and great site! 10:17 I thought was a good short but what I thought really shined and has always shined with you guys is the post work. Your special fx and titles really show some talent beyond your filming work - not to say that the filming isn't good but I think because the rest is at a different level, it may take away from the filming. Also, Edward's tracks really brought this story to life, it moved it at a perfect pace in places and I especially loved the outro song that kicked in with the title at the conclusion. The last song had a Traffic feel to it, which I love.

There were also at times I thought the steadicam shots were almost overused. I understand that you guys have the home made one that obviously is very nice and works extremely well, I felt like you were almost trying to find a reason to use it. Awesome work though, great stuff!

Hi Kyle,
I just watched your movie and wanted to give my two cents worth and hopefully help out a little.

This was obviously a low budget film, but you made very good use of your resources. You did a great job with the gunfire/bullet wounds. Add that to all the guns, hopefully borrowed, and I'm reminded of "El Mariachi." Definately a good job there.

I couldn't help but notice how shakey the entire movie was. You've got the right idea with following the action, but that should generally be used in moderation. Instead of constantly moving the camera, try using more cuts and definately a tripod to steady the shots. This can provide a faster, more viewer friendly, and even more informative approach. It also gives a "professional" look to the film as well as provides more control over shot composition (as a side note, it would be a good idea to check out a composition tutorial/tips like this one http://www.video-animation.com/vidcam_06.shtml).

You actually did a good job with the audio. I'm guessing you just used the on-camera microphone, and it picked up well. Although, I did notice some room for improvement with the audio edits. One good practice to get into is not cutting the video and audio at the same time. Maybe bring the audio in a little before the video, or leave audio in for a while after the shot has changed just to provide ambient sound. This will provide more of a natural segue between shots as opposed to just jumping back and forth. You really don't need to worry about this one just yet, its a little more down the line, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Overall, you did a good job telling the story.

Hey thanks for watchin',

Bryan, thanks for the comments on the post work, I'm definitely trying to hone my skills as an editor/effects man. I think you are correct that certain bits of the titles and such may pull you away from the story, which is totally not what they're supposed to do. In this way I'm both glad I got the experience, but sad that I may have overdone it.

Those steadicam shots you talked about were actually all dolly shots. We have the steadicam built, but unfortunately haven't had the time necessary to learn to fly it with the greatest of ease, so in actuality there are only 2 shots with the "steadicam". The first being the tracking shot where the lens flares up, and the second being an "unsteadicam" POV shot of Ben walking hastily to avoid the crowds. Anyway, we were definitely going for a ton of camera movement, hopefully that fact wasn't too noticeable.

BTW, Devin threw in some light flashes to sell that transition between real and fantasy in "She Sits So Close", (as long as the Prof. doesn't see this version he'll be ok)

Thanks again for the in-depth reply Bryan, please keep 'em coming everyone!

Hey everyone. I recently took my camera to work and attempted to make my job look interesting. I sliced together the footage taken on my XL1s and scored the music in Apple's Soundtrack after I edited in Final Cut.

Let me know what you think.

It's 5.1 mb and a QuickTime Movie

www.pixel-mesh.com/media/video/thedispatcher.mov


- Aaron

Looks good, you can tell it was shot on video though. You might try playing with the Curves function (not sure how FCP does this, I do it in AE) and putting it in widescreen.

Thanks.

It was 3 am when we shot it so it was a challenge to stay awake and play camrea / dispatcher guy.

My buddy Matt helped a lot.

I think some f the slow mo. stuff in the begining printout looks a bit fuzzy and amature.

Keep it coming all. I need the help.

Hey thanks for the input, my audio did need a lot of work, and our camera had way to much movement on it. I'm filming a short this spring and these are some of the things I'll get fixed. Anyway thanks for the reply and if anyone has a better server that would be willing to host my film that would be great.

I think the video quality is very good, especially the Quicktime compression. Much better than the stereotypical internet video we've learned to love.

I also really like the music and sound effects (radio). That provides a COPS sort of feel, but the music lets me know there won't be any guys running around with no shirt on :).
There's a couple things with editing that you might want to try next time. In a couple shots, the camera is zooming in or out during the first couple frames, then it stops. Its usually a good idea to either have the shot still, or zooming throughout the entire shot (as in the zoom starts before and ends after the shot so the movement is consistant). There wasn't much to shoot in there and it looks like you tried applying some type of motion wherever you could, which is a good idea.

You had a lot of nice tight shots of the keyboard and computer screens, but what about the dispatcher? Some shots of him/you recieving and answering calls would give it a little more pizzaz.
Sometimes its hard, but be as creative as you can. Use interesting angles or maybe a nice rack focus from the microphone/radio to the dispatcher. One time I did a project about dispatchers and was allowed to stage (they may or may not let you do that) an incoming distress call. The video started with a person calling the security office (just a flat tire, nothing big), getting an answer, and then cut to the officer answering the call.
Being limited to 3am shooting times would be a challenge, but I thought I'd toss out an idea or two.

Overall it looks good, but I think if you could get some action in there (dispatcher) it would turn out a lot better.

In my opinion you had a very good use of montage to suggest the job/machine/man relationship. I liked the music as well. Did you use dissolves to represent time compression. As if cutting to moments later? I also felt the sense of the dispatcher's enclosure created by your use of the camera angles.

Earlier today I was a little bit bored out of my mind so I put together this little piece. Its me riding my bike. All the camera work is done by other people (except the tripod shots) so its not the best. Also the clips of the wall smiths (where I hit the wall on top of the ramp with the back tire and front peg) had no sound because my friend forgot to turn on the mic so its all makeshift audio effects. Hope you enjoy.

http://www.bmxbums.com/videos/dustinsmix.mov

http://www.bmxbums.com/videos/dustinsmix.wmv

Do let us know what your professor thinks of the shorts!

I thought it was really good! I liked the mistery of not "seeing"
(too much of) the dispatcher. In the end I was quite interested
in what would be coming next. Liked what you did with the
titles as well. Any tips on that?

Good job!

So how far was that drop besides the road? <g> Was a funny
short movie. I liked what you did in the beginning where you
freezed the jump and displayed the "titles".

Hi.

I did the titles in Final Cut Pro with the standard text generator. I decided the flashy text you can create with Live Type just did'nt fit the mood I wanted.

I used the ripple dislove from CGM-Online (www.cgm-online.com) for incoming text and a regular disolve on the outgoing text.

The "bong" drum hit was done in Apple's Sound Track (all the music was scored with ST). I thought there needed to be something else when the transition of clips happend.

Made it more dramatic.

All the radio traffic was recorded from calls we had run.

The drop is approx. 15 feet. Thanks for the compliments.

I watched the film. I was impressed with the effort you put into this film. I mean, a people lose their limbs in this film!

You do need to work on the audio a bit and you probably could recut this film so that some of the edits on action don't look staged. In fact, i take back probably, you should recut this and retime everything.

Another idea is to cut the action sequences to the timing of the music, which will really make it jump.

Hey guys--The trailer for my documentary is actually up and working now. The web address is:

www.bicoastalfilms.com

Enter the site, click on "investors" and type in the password: bicoastal (password protected so that people who appear in the film don't see trailer before film is done...very touchy subject). You can read more about the story in the "press" section.

Tech specs: Shot with DVX100 over course of about 6 months. We have about 87 hours of footage and are editing on Xpress Pro with G5. No color correction on the trailer. The music is from the Hours so don't tell Phillip Glass or Miramax. The trailer is basically being used to keep those who have invested money in the film happy, and to attract other investors, though we've really aren't spending any more money. We will start submitting to film festivals as soon as the film is done editing (maybe about 4 months) and then see what happens. OK, curious to hear the feedback.

peter

Peter,

Looks great. Footage looks good except the scene w/the students. Interesting subject. I can see both sides.

Looks like you have a compelling concept. The trailer is scary in some ways - the last line where the older guy compares changing mentality to Hitler is shockingly ill informed. In fact, it's basically the opposite of what he says. What's your take on this as the director?

Its just me and my friends riding bikes. Again. Its a bit flashy with the effects but thats kinda what I was aiming for.

www.bmxbums.com/videos/dlwshort1.mov (mpeg4)

www.bmxbums.com/videos/dlwshort1.wmv

File size is kinda big. 15 megs and a little over 2 mins I believe.

not bad by any means, a couple things tho; The music is dated and dosent really fit the theme, when you make a video you are telling a story, what exactly were you telling? and the music should fit that. The font was simple which is ok, but it looks unprofessional just using the regular font MSwindows comes with. Your shots looked realy smooth G/J!, however I felt unattached to the film because you were far away for alot of the shots, but the ones where you did get closer looked good, I see you used a fisheye lens thats good but only when you get close to the subject. Your rider friends are pretty good, Im sure they had a few wrecks tho, those clips are great to include with the other footage. the night shots were the best so far, next to the light sculpture was cool, but very fast, didnt really have time to absorb how great the shot was untill I paused it. The night shots of the bowl under lights were great. The blue effects were ok but I would reserve the effect as a segway for the riders instead of having it as riding content, like remove the white fades and put the blue art effect there instead but dont show any riding, maybe have it introduce the rider with their face?

Im a hard critic, just one favor I ask; when I post a vid please be as honest as I was to you to me.

Oh yea, What camera/NLE/steadie cam? did you use?

Happy filming!

John thanks for the comments. The music is just something totally different than what you normally see in BMX videos. I get really sick of the norm easily so I try to throw in some weird stuff every once in a while and I just liked the laid back feel of the song. I didn't want to go too fancy with the fonts as I made this clip specifically for the web and in my opinion simple fonts are a must as the text tends to become distorted in compression. Everything else you mention is basically how the full length is going to be. This was just something I threw together with random clips just to pass some time today. The full length will have lots of crashes (dvd bonus!), and proper introductories to riders.

Shot with a Trv950 in all of the shots except for one, Adobe After Effects, Premiere, and Photoshop on a Dell Demension 4500, no steady cam believe it or not. I have a home made one but it tends to be more of a pain to use. Especially when I'm on the go and hitting up a quick spot.

You say you like the night shots best? Hmm. I hate them. I love the daylight shots though. The lights at that park are horrible and cause really bad vertical smears which you can see in the video.

Zwahhh...

That was awesome. I love strange movies. I'm looking forward to a part 2 as well.

I thought it was pretty cool those guys were really good on the bikes