BTW. What about the Bella EZ Keyboards? Is it better to have a separate shuttle/jog with programmable buttons as opposed to the integral shuttle/jog of the Bella keyboards? Or is it simply a matter of personal preference.

Pretty much a matter of personal preference.

Almost all PAL dvd players will playback NTSC material, as long as the dvd is burnt regionfree. Converting NTSC to PAL is not so easy, so leave it NTSC. If it won't play at a PAL dvd player it will be an exotic strange dvd player not coming from the normal brands. I often see on commercial movie dvd's that part of the dvd content is in NTSC format and my Sony dvd player tells me that by showing a small 'ntsc' signal on the display.

Difference between vegas & Vegas Studio?
 

I was told if vegas 5 is to much for what i need i might try vegas studio. I've seen this availible in local software stores. What is the Difference? What do i Give up for Cost? I want to do biographies now but want the capibilities for more later. Photo montages are a must.

Try this to see the main differences:

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.co...FeatureID=7790

Consider Movie Studio a stripped down version of Vegas that is limited to 3 video and 3 audio tracks with many other limitations as well but is less than $100.

Vegas is the full blown NLE but, with DVD capabilities, is much closer to the $700 range unless you can find a deal somewhere or are qualified for academic software.

Central File Storage - Can I edit?
 

Hi all,

I'm back from pulling lots of video and shuffling files to make room for the 5 camera shoot I'm editing. This has made me start thinking about storage solutions...

If I were to throw together a machine that can handle a whole lot of hard drive space separate from my actual editing machine, would I have issues when editing via the network?

I'd be assuming that the network would be 100Mb/s and not GigaNet but if that's necessary then it could be accomplished as well.

Does anyone keep their files centrally located?

Thanks,
Kevin

Your speed of accessing these files will be limited by the speed of the network. Assuming you can live with the speed, it should work fine. I don't think I'd try capturing or printing over the network, though.

Instead, you would be much better off having a large amount of drive space connected directly to that computer (maybe a couple of large firewire drives).

Sorry can't help you much there. Of the camera shops I know in Toronto (with websites showing which cams they have in stock):
dvshop.ca
Vistek.ca (list prices are overpriced; I think you can hit em down)
Henry's (henrys.ca)

I've only visited Henry's for still photography stuff. They have some 3CCD video cameras on display.
I don't think DV Shop stocks any cameras in store to play with.

I'd probably try to figure out which cameras you are looking at, then find some shops that stock the camera so you can play with them if you like.

The biggest differences you'll face is the lack of Direct X plugs, scripting, and compositing tools. However, I just cut together a show using Movie Studio, took almost an hour to do, but it cut together great! I used Chromakey, etc from it, plus a voiceover, lots of motion pictures, etc.

I don't know the exact link, but the client's website is www.encoreattractions.com, look at the "Joyful Noise" gospel thing. It was done in Movie Studio

Right... I'd do the capturing on the editing machine as is the normal proceedure but I'm working with such a large amount of data for this project that I need more space than I can handle on that machine.

I've got 320 Gigs internal and 360 gigs external and belive it or not it's not enough space. It's an entire weekend music festival with multiple (5 for the most part) cameras on the bands and then interviews and other random activities.

Rather than pulling segments I'd rather spend a weekend or so pulling it all and copy the stuff to a network source over night each night.

So really, I guess I'm looking to see if anyone else edits over a 100Mbit network. I imagine that the initial loading of the files and the subsequent loading of the project will take a bit longer than when it's local but I'm hoping that the actual edits and playback wont be effected.

-Kevin

It can be done over a 100Mbit net, but Giganet is better. You can really tell the difference between our B and C rooms vs our A and B rooms. Of course it goes without saying you'll need a switch and not a hub to do this with..

thank you guys
i looked at the joyfull noise clip
looks good
don't know if i would ever get that in depth with effects
but i loved the photo montages.

The amazing thing is, remember that was done in a very short period of time, using a 99.00 software package.
Movie Studio is GREAT!

Thanks. What setting would do this effect in magic bullet?

If your footage is 16:9 then KEEP it 16:9 THROUGHOUT the ENTIRE
workflow (ie, editing, MPEG2 compression and DVD authoring).

A DVD player (that has been setup correctly!!) will auto letterbox
16:9 footage on a 4:3 TV (the DVD player must have been told
a 4:3 device is connected!), on a 16:9 widescreen TV (the DVD
player has been set to a 16:9 widescreen device) the signal will
be send as is.

It's not a question if this will work, it WILL work as long as:

1. the DVD player is setup correctly

2. you've kept everything 16:9

Might be a silly question, does Vegas "offline" at a lower rez? Can you capture all at say, 15:1. Do your edit then recapture at full rez?