Hi Dana,

When I said capture, I meant from the tape. We have one nNovia drive and we use it only for the ceremony. So we capture from tape for the prep. If we are using reception footage it is also from tape. The nNovia drive is not as small and light weight as the Firestore.

On this past weekend, Trisha was on the main laptop going through the A Cam ceremony footage, which had the wireless audio of the groom, while I was going through the b roll shots I had on my tape.

Once I had my shots captured, I trimmed them and made an AVI straight to a USB powered hard drive. It's a passport by Western Digital. Then Trisha would bring those clips in to her C drive on her laptop.

I don't know anything about a ethernet connection and transferring files that way. Is it faster? If so, I'm all for faster.

We don't do any prerendering. We edit the project without any rendering. When we are done editing, we go out the firewire into the camera. We then hook the camera up to the projector.

Two times we did not have time to output the project to the camera. In those cases, we played the timeline out firewire through the camera. From the camera we took SVideo to one projector and RCA to the other projector. I don't like projecting from the timeline to the projector. It's to risky for me. If the computer decides to freeze, I'm in trouble. I feel much better about playing the edit from DV tape.

When I get a chance, I'll post the SDE over on our site at MarkandTrisha.com

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask.

I'd love to see the end product.

Thanks for the reply. I see what you mean with going through the camera; you record to tape from what you prepared on the computer. I'll have to experiment regarding rendering. Before I render, my playback is fairly choppy in Vegas unless I've viewed it a bunch of times.

Three more questions: I'm assuming you run the audio mono out the camera as well? Do you use Vegas? Have you ever thought of shooting straight to your laptop since you're on a tripod for the ceremony?

For those of you regularly doing SDE's, how do you handle the additional risk/liability associated with them? In other words, a number of things can go wrong the day of the wedding and prevent you from being able to produce an SDE; how do you prepare yourself and your client for that possibility?

Hi Travis,

We plan for the best and prepare for the worst. We talk about the risks involved in a SDE. If we are unable to pull it off, they don't pay.

We do not make guarantees of including the vows, VOers, First Dance, etc, but our goal is to include all of those elements. We also talk about being flexible with the showing time. We want to show it before the guests start leaving, so the sooner the better, but at the same time, when it comes down to it, an extra 5 minutes can really make a difference in the finished product.

As far as backups, we bring two laptops. If one failed, we would have to start over from the last point that we made a backup, but we would be able to deliver something. I have seen one minute of wedding day coverage that was very effective.

I know you have already done a SDE, but when a videographer is considering doing a SDE for the first time, we recommend making it a surprise to the B&G. Look for a reception where there is going to be a video presentation. All of the projection equipment will already be there. If you are not able to deliver, no one knows.

Thanks for the info, Mark.

What size screen do you use with your projectors (and do you use 2 projectors?)? I have like a 5x5 portable screen for use with my projector.

I have never not shown one i was supposed to show but I cover myself . I have it explicitly stated in my contract that if anything should go wrong and we are not able to do one, we are not liable but that they get another creative option for equal or lesser value.

I know your question was directed at Mark But I thought i would chime in and tell you what I use because I just bought a new projector and I am very happy with it thus far.


I use both a Draper 16:9 (7 x 12) fast fold for SDE only presentation (if the venue is big enough). Because I shoot in 16:9, I prefer to use this one because it looks much more cinematic. I also have a Da Lite 8' Tripod for everything else.

The projector I just bought is the Optoma HD70. Sweet projector for the price. http://www.projectorcentral.com/optoma_hd70.htm

No, Dan, feel free to chime in. I'm here for information from everyone. Give it to me!! d:-)

I am the Vincent who Jason quotes in the first post. This thread is an interesting insight into SDE, thank you all for your input and shedding light on a service that is new to me.

I shot a wedding last Sunday, I used four 60 minute tapes, which you can guess took me 4 hours to download, I am not sure how I could offer a SDE service, finding the right clips and music etc. would probably take me several hours.

I have seen Jason's clips and they are indeed impressive, and as he says they are all SDE which is more impressive.

For me, well I am just starting on my 4 hours of footage - I have 14 days to complete the show, the Bride and Groom will have something to look forward to when they get back from their honeymoon.

Good luck to all you guys who offer the SDE service, but for me life is too short to rush about getting a 15, 30, 60 minute show ready on the same day. I guess my clients have enough excitement on the actual day and don't need to have a flashback hours after their big moment.

Ethernet.... only if you have Gigabit
 

Between workstations I get about 12% used for my gigabit network connection (only two computers through a switch). For 100Mbit network about 15% used. There is enough overhead and Windows slowdows that unless the network transfer is via gigabit, then the copy to USB2 / firewire might be faster. the downside is the wait for copy to external drive, then the wait for the copy from external drive.

Those percentages are just max throughput, ignoring an TCP/IP packet overhead. So as far as actual MB of data transfered.... I'd have to test it out again. My two systems are RAID0 (stripe) so it also might be faster than a normal system to system copy over gigabit.

jason

Hi Jason,

I'm sorry for the delay in responding to you. I spent too much time posting yesterday, so I had to get some work done today.

We have a screen that is 8 feet wide. I'm not sure how high it goes. It's a monster. We just have one good projector.

The SDE we did last weekend was for another videographer. I would guess the screens were about 6 feet wide. The ballroom was very wide, so he had one on each side of the room.

Hey Mark,

I was just thinking, since you have two laptops, have you considered mounting them to your tripods for DTE? To my understanding, all you need is a firewire port on your laptop, or a firewire card (very inexpensive). This would save you the need to capture via tape, and there is some good info on the forums about tripod mounts for laptops.

When editing later, I think an ethernet connection would be the quickest. Although since Trish saves to her hard drive, I would just unplug the WD and plug it into her laptop.

Hi Dana,

I have a DTE, the nNovia. Trisha has captured to her laptop when the conditions allow, but if she was able to mount the laptop to her tripod, she could capture to the laptop all of the time. That is a great idea. I'll check out the tripod forum.