various Magic Bullet questions
 

It a millimeter article.

More Info at http://millimeter.com/ar/video_magic...uite/index.htm

Magic Bullet for Windows now.
 

Hi all you PC users, I just thought I would post that I saw a story over at 2-pop that announced Magic Bullet 1.1 for Windows 2K and XP.
As a Mac user I wasn't even aware it wasn't available for the PC, but now you guys are lucky too. (it says it's even got some optimization for Intel chips)

here's the link
http://www.uemedia.com/CPC/article_4798.shtml

Bummer... only a Mac demo available. Perhaps they will add a
Windows one later...

I'm sure they will as it was just announced last night. Patients grasshopper.

Magic Bullet demo now also for PC!!
 

The demo and manual can be downloaded from here

Magic Bullet Question
 

Ok, i've got a small question. I just rendered some footage on a friend's computer using magic bullet to 24p. But i need to get it to NTSC (23.976fps) for dvd production. How would i go about doing this? My guess would be to convert with TMPGEnc, but im not sure if slowing it down will affect the audio being on sync with the video (even though it's only slowing it down very slightly). Anybody have an answer for this? thanks

check out the demo of magic bullet at redgiantsoftware.com

if you bulleted your footage correctly to 24p, it should have told you to set your afx composition to 23.976 fps, which is what you are asking for.

Generally it's a good idea if you are going to video to cine-expand your edited footage back to 29.976 fps. There are a variety of ways to do this, and I like to do this on a dps perception. But one can do it in AfterFX.

Adrian

De-interlacing with Magic Bullet or Progressive mode?
 

I'm still fiddling around with Magic Bullet and the progressive mode on my Sony TRV-60. The dilemma consist of the choice between de-interlacing the out-of-cam 16:9 video, or using the 4:3 progressive mode and cutting out a 16:9 image without de-interlacing. (but losing pixels in that mode)

When the image is not moving, the out-of-cam 16:9 looks VERY SLIGHTLY sharper/better than the 16:9 cut-out out of the 4:3 progressive image. This is not a surprise ofcourse since the first image is simply stretched/interpolated by software to matcht the 720x576 resolution again.

A 16:9 image out of 4:3 progressive
http://home.planet.nl/~snuve011/bram/prog-norm.jpg

The original 16:9 out-of-cam image (not de-interlaced!)
http://home.planet.nl/~snuve011/bram/int-wide.jpg

I think there is more than one reason why the two image almost look the same:

-1- The first image is resized bicubically. For most of the time this interpolation is not a problem at all. On some (small) horizontal lines however, a slight decrease in detail can be noticed. (some letters on the upper left for example)

-2- Only the vertical resolution is stretched... The horizontal sharpness stays the same

-3- The human eye is probably not noticing every single detail/pixel that is saved in the AVI file when it's viewed on a monitor/tv. Enlarging the image slightly will expand everything including those details that were previously not seen because they were so small. To be short: The image gets a little larger and thus theoreticaly a little blurrier, but (to a limited extend) details are revealed

But what about moving images where de-interlacing is involved? Still frames are nice, but that's not what camcorders are for right? To find out I shot 2 times the same movie. 1 in progressive mode (and cutting out a 16:9 image) and 1 in interlaced 16:9 mode whitch was de-interlaced by MB afterwards. Both movies were saved as Mpeg2 @ 8000 kbit/sec constant bitrate.

Because of being rather new to After Effects it appeared that quality was set to "medium" in After Effects instead of "High". The de-interlaced image looked like crap as a result - Sorry 'bout that, I will never forget again ;) After setting the quality to high, render times have now multiplied and image quality has been improved (luckely!)

The question that rises (again) is: Does the Magic Bullet de-interlacer degrades the image enough to favor the 16:9 cut-out out of the progressive mode? See below two short example clips (Mpeg2 @ 8000 kbit/sec Constant Bitrate.

Interlaced widescreen de-interlaced by MB
http://home.planet.nl/~snuve011/bram/straat-deinterlaced-short.mpg

A 16:9 cut-out, out of the 4:3 progressive video
http://home.planet.nl/~snuve011/bram/straat-progressive-short.mpg

I don't know how to describe the differences, but if you open the first (de-interlaced) clip and take a look at front of the third car, you'll know what I mean. This effect is not visible in the progressive video.

The sidebumper of the second car seems to "float" in the de-interlaced video... Also this effect is not present in the progressive one.

In the upper left corner the edges of the bricks are just visible in the second (progressive) clip. In the de-interlaced one, the vertical boundaries seem to have faded and the horizontal edges look like to be much thicker

Note that these are NOT Mpeg2 compression artifacts. They also (and only!) show up in the de-interlaced shot.

Perhaps I'm still doing something wrong? Can anyone enlighten me? This way I'd rather go with the progressive mode and drop some pixels to get widescreen instead of using all pixels and getting magic bullet to de-interlace the video.

Magic bullet 1.1 doesnt seen to work in After effects 6.0
 

Hello, i tested recently magic bullet in AE6, but it didnt worked, i get an error message saying .

After Effects error: bad parameter passed to effect callback
(37 :: 57)

... well, that is too bad, and i hope 1.5 works again with it.

This will be fixed in v1.5 which is currently in beta :-) I'tll also be a lot faster.

Bar3nd

...split Look Suite out of Magic Bullet?
 

Has anyone heard if there are plans to split the Look Suite and Optical Suite out of the MB package for those who have 24p cameras or other options instead of the MB core module?

FCP after magic bullet - time issues ?
 

Hi,

starting work on a music promo. dv pal
pretty new to mb - love the look - but this is my problem.

after capturing footage clips into fcp4 - I then save & quit - so I can play around with various different looks , within look suite as well as mb'ing the QT clips as well.
Some Of the clips happen to be of "pov :driving thru motorways & road tunnels / subways etc" this type of material needs to be speeded up for a good look, so, - when I apply the magic bullet followed by the look suite in ae - I then render as dvpal footage at 25fps & import back into fcp - where I then proceed to the motion param's & change the speed of the clip from 100% to 300% & change aspect ratio to -66.66% for a squeezed widescreen look - render is then needed.
Now the problem is that after I render a magic bulleted clip that is speeded up - it brings back that dv interlaced look again - whats the procedure here - am I doing something wrong for speeded up clips ?

Should I speed up the clip beforehand in fcp then export as qt movie un compressed - ?

sorry for the detailed post - just wanted to know if I was using magic bullet correctly also - isit more of a finishing tool rather maybe ?
thanks for any help

It would make more sense to speed up the clip, save the sped up clip, and then apply the mb effects.

Ok - thanks,

But do I then export as : uncompressed 8 bit or dv pal again ?

I already sped up the clip in fcp then exported as self contained QT movie dv pal - is this ok ? then I import into AE & after MB export as uncopressed 8 bit ?

or should it always be exported as uncompressed to get the best quality ?

Cheers again

Problem with Magic Bullet: too stroboscopic 24p clip from NTSC footage
 

I did everything the Magic Bullet manual says, but my video was TOO stroboscopic after the rendering. The video was NTSC and I wanted to deinterlace for 24p.

Any suggestion os what might be happening?

what shutter speed did you use on the orginal tapes ?
some shoulder size camera's are set to 1/100 which will give you slightly more "strobic" feel then 1/60 ...
if by chance you had the shutter on auto then that would take experimenting in MBullet

I´m not sure I used a 1/60 footage. Almost sure I didn´t. If the shutter is fast it can cause stroboscopic effect? The faster the more stroboscopic it gets?

the higher the shutter speed, the more it will mimic film jutter, yes.

also, the more quickly you pan/move the camera, the more jutter you will see.

Magic Bullet Suite v1.5, filter order
 

Hi,

Had a chance to play around with MB and it looked fantastic... just a bit curious of the order to apply the filters

I used them like this

(Top to bottom)

1. Deinterlace ( MB )
2. Film Look
3. Broadcast colors

If I moved MB deinterlace from step 1 to 3, all other effect "vanished" - no big deal, but I'm curious of why?

The current AE version of MB is quite expensive, do we have any price indications of the new "stand alone" version?

// Lazze

Magic Bullet needs to be the top filter in order for it to do its thing. It gives you that little tidbit of info in the info panel if your filters are misarranged.

Your filter arrangement is correct. If you add any other filters I would sandwich them between the broadcast safe and the looks filter. That just seems like the common sense way to arrange them.

Eddie

Magic Bullet and low grade VHS video
 

I finally got around to posting a short film I did with Magic Bullet 1.5.

The short was originally shot with a GE VHS-C camcorder in a few hours back in 1993 - the camera lacked any manual controls of any kind. It was shot in camera (rewinding the tape for each "edit").

It lay in a drawer until last summer when I restored it (the tape was failing in a number of places).

I added a new narrative/experimental layer, a complete 5.1 score and used Magic Bullet, Film FX and lot of AE effects to completely alter the look of the orginal footage.

It's screened a couple of times on a 20 FT screen with nicely shot 16mm but still got very postive feedback about the imagery, much to my surprise.

Downloads at http://www.sevensmilingshark.com (film is the second listed - "The Golden Girl and Sea of Tranquility".

So don't throw away that VHS cheapo junker just yet :)

Link didn't work.

Typo - oops! Thanks for noticing. It's http://www.sevensmilingsharks.com

"The Office" how do they get that look is it magic bullet?
 

Does anyone know

1. What do they shoot "The Office" on?

2. I know they go through some sort of Deinterlacing program so What settings would you use for Magic Bullet and What way is best to light for that?

This is the BBC comedy? (which is absolutley brilliant in my opinion) anyway - it'd most likely be shot on a PAL camera so they wouldn't need magic bullet or anything - from memory I don't think it looks progressive or deinterlaced - just reasonable quality video -- on one of the DVD's there's a making of discussion with Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant but I think that's more to do with the artistic side of it than anything technical. There is a BBC web page for it - they might have more info

Scot

Most BBC stuff is shot on digibeta. The sitcoms are usually just interlaced (I guess that applies to The Office). They shoot some of the drama stuff on digibeta and adjust shutters and route the signal through things that make it semi progressive. But most of the drama is shot on super-16mm.

Magic Bullet or DVFilm Maker? Slow x Fast.
 

FOR 1/60i to 24p JOB:

Magic Bullet is slow rendering, DVFilm Maker is very fast. The incredible difference makes DVFilm Maker a better choice? Or the video quality is so different (MB´s advantage) that I should be a little patient and get used to loooong hours of rendering?

REALVIZ Retimer vs Magic Bullet - a test
 

Hi all,

I did some quick tests that don't prove much, but might be of interest to some. I took some interlaced 50i miniDV footage of me grabbing a juggling ball, processed with the following methods and cropped in Photoshop (and magnified so we can see what's happening easier)...

Original frame grab, interlaced (yuck!):
http://users.bigpond.net.au/spoonyau/BallOriginal.jpg

Magic Bullet in AE, default setting (No Deartifacting, Detail 4):
http://users.bigpond.net.au/spoonyau/BallMB25fpsdefault.jpg

Magic Bullet in AE, Deartifacting ON (default Detail 4):
http://users.bigpond.net.au/spoonyau/BallMB25fpsdeart.jpg

Magic Bullet in AE, Deartifacting ON, Detail 1:
http://users.bigpond.net.au/spoonyau/BallMB25fpsdeartdetail1.jpg

REALVIX Retimer in AE, using suggested settings:
http://users.bigpond.net.au/spoonyau/BallRetimer.jpg

IMHO the Magic Bullet default in this case wins, but we still have horrible interlaced artifacts - see the red dot on the ball.

Anyone have any better methods? (I know going from 60i to 24fps is a bigger and hairier monster - 50i going down to 25fps gives a nice filmic look without having to lose/merge frames)

By the way, when I watched the processed footage on a TV I couldn't tell the difference between them - they all looked great compared to the horribly-real-world-smooth 50i video yuck.

PS - nice DOF created by taking the camera further back and zooming in on subject, a nice little trick, and FREE!

Deinterlacing is always degrading to the footage. There is no way to create something that can compete with true progressive from an interlaced source. IMO Magic Bullet with deartifacting switched on does the best job.

If you shoot progressive to start with you're going to save weeks and month of rendering and your result is going to look much better.

Shoot progressive is faster? You mean shoot in 24p with the DVX-100 or shoot 30p with one of the cameras that do this job and after turning into 24p with MB?

Totally agree with you Martin - I wish I'd held off buying a camera until the DVX-100 came out, but I didn't! So I gotta make the best out of what I've got.

Gustavo, I'd shoot 24P.

I dunno about taking weeks/months of rendering (I know you were over exagerating!), but my 5 1/2 min short film renders in 2hrs - with MB (50i->25P, deartifacting, detail 4), Customised Basic Look, 1.85:1 Letterbox and Composite Broadcast-Safe. I think that's fair enough, I use a PC 3.06GHz HT with 1GB Ram - not too expensive.

I'll hold off re-investing in cameras until cheaper HDs come out with hard disk recording. Then we'll wonder why we were using dumb little tapes for so long.

Patience wins every time.

Why rush it?! MB is more expensive though. Time shouldn't be as important a factor as cost. Post is just as important as the pre & filming, don't rush it.

Have you tried doing your own 24p from 60i in After Effects? Check this article out, on this very site:
http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/filmlook/broadway1.php

Depending on your footage you might be happy enough with the results you can get from this.

Otherwise have a look at RealViz Retimer too... this was quicker than MB when I tried their demo versions out (Retimer's also great for slowing down footage, so you buy this plug-in, and you kill the MB and Twixtor bird with one stone).

AE 6.5 and magic bullet 1.1 error
 

I get a error message (in auto config in MB) that reads "After effects error: Bad parameter passed to effect callback" How do i fix this problem? (in other words HELP).

Shooting footage for Magic Bullet Editors
 

Hi,

Does anyone have any tips for shooting footage on DV with an aim to be treated with one of the bleech bypass variations in Magic Bullet For Editors?

A lot of my footage ends up too dark. So I adjust the pre-gamma and pre-contrast settings to get a flatter image ready for treatment. The result is often that the final contrast of the picture isn't much different to that which I started with from the raw DV footage.

What is the 'correct' (if there is such a thing) or rather a good example of a histogram for footage with the bleech bypass technique applied? Can anyone point me in the direction of any well done bleech bypass stills that have had the MB process applied and their resultant histograms?

Further, has anyone ever written a tutorial on prepping footage for such a filter to make sure that a) detail stays in the picture once the proces is applied, b) that it actually looks like bleech bypass rather than a straight desaturated image with a ton of contrast, and c) what can be done to 'problem' footage to correct it ready for the process?

XL1s shoot w/ MB post
 

I recently directed an 8 minute film short for the 48 Hour Film Project. I am not the tech savvy director, and can offer the basics of our shoot. My editor suggested 60i with no gain, sp, and ND filter for outdoor shots. We achieved the look I wanted with film lighting and the 16x lens. The only issue our production had was several scenes with soft focus due to the 16x lens back focus issue. My DP is a pro-ENG camera opp. He had limited exposure to the XL1s no solution for the back focus issue so we got what we got. I cannot tell, due to no side by side comparisons, if the Magic Bullet post intensified the soft focus issues.

I was satisfied with the overall look of the film and MB was a key factor.

I have just created a mini-site with examples of stills from some of my shoots demonstrating FilmFX against Magic Bullet For Editors Vegas Edition. www.freewebs.com/fallenangelstest/looks1.htm

Any comments on this site should be directed here.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...438#post207438

It seems that Magic Bullet really only comes into it's own when deinterlacing footage and converting it to 24p. If deinterlacing isn't needed and the original footage was shot on a Panny DVX100 or frame mode on a Canon for release onto VHS or DVD I am gradually growing the opinion that if film stock emulation is required then FilmFX may well be the best solution. There is something very filmic looking about some of FilmFX's specified film stock presets that Magic Bullet For Editors cannot obtain through quickly applying to footage.

Magic Bullet For Editors seems to be great if applying a coloured look on it's own is required. FilmFX however seems to excel when realistic grain is needed. And when I say grain, some of it, especially in the case of the low grain stocks such as Kodak Eastman 200T, is very subtle and does not degrade the picture in terms of clarity.

I am still torn between the two however.

PS, how the hell do I do embedded links in a message??

SIMON: your link is messed up, I get a 404 page. Here is the correct page from your other posting:

http://www.freewebs.com/fallenangelstest/looks1.htm


to insert a link, between a set of "[]" put the work URL and at the end of the link put another set of brackets with "/URL" and that will make a clickable link.

I tried shooting, as suggested by the manual for MB, some footage with my XL1S when I was going to have the chance to run it though MB on a client's system who owned it and honestly, the footage looked more 'filmic' straight out of the camera in 1/30 Frame mode then it did after going through MB with the suggested rate and normal mode.

I seriously doubt I will ever have anything transfered over to 35mm film so I"m not worried about the 24f stuff and if I have a project that requires it I'd probably go to a post house that specialized in it and work with them on how to shoot in advance. (shrug)

I've corrected the link now.

Thanks for the embedded link information. Could you give me a full example though as I've tried every combination of what I think you were telling me to do and I can't get it to work. :-)

As for Magic Bullet etc, as I mention on the mini site I made, Magic Bullet For Editors at least is only designed to give high end 'looks' to footage rather than to make something look like it was shot on film.

FilmFX on the other hand simulates film stocks. I have fooled people a number of times using FilmFX, particularly if aiming to simulate a colour cine camera (along with footage that was shot in the same way as that footage would have been, ie camera stabiliser turned off)

Many moons ago I made a DV feature that I managed to get rendered with Cinelook. The movie was projected through a very good projector onto a pretty large screen for it's premiere at a film festival. Honest to God it didn't look like it was shot on video. The grain structure was subtle enough not to draw attention to itself, but just kind 'there' enough to fool the eye into discounting any thought of video. In fact I've had a few comments since from people who have seen it on video or DVD that they thought it was shot on film.

An expert would be able to tell of course, but a lot of the time with these things if people aren't told otherwise, and are not told the budget of the movie, they will often assume it was shot on film.

The full Magic Bullet would only be useful for DV to film blow up although I would still like them to release the opticals suite for Vegas etc. But the Editors version is useful for applying certain looks without going to an external application such as After Effects. Although having said that I far and away prefer the FilmFX Saving Private Ryan bleech bypass look to the quite extreme Magic Bullet preset (even though it can be adjusted).

Shooting in frame mode or on a DVX100 takes away the need for deinterlacing ability. So the comparision between filters boils down to their actual film simulation and look abilities. As a result for such a comparison programs such as DVfilm can be discounted.

(edited)
Worked out the links thing now thanks!

You need Magic Bullet 1.5!

Frame mode or Magic Bullet
 

I have been looking through this section with extreme interest. I have an XL1s and want to shoot some short footage (60 secs) and give it the film look. What I`d like to ask is : In your opinion, is it better to shoot in Frame Mode from the camera, or shot in normal mode and convert with Magic Bullet. There seems to be conflictiong comments as to which looks best. Your comments and advice for the best settings would be much appreciated.