DV for Teachers

Steve Mullen at Video Systems: The State of Editing HDV –
As you made your away around the nonlinear editor booths at NAB, it’s very likely you were presented with marketing messages that promoted each company’s ideal way of editing HDV.

The four techniques include draft, proxy, native, and digital intermediate. Let’s work our way through all these options. The use of FireWire and MiniDV tape makes it easy for folks to think of HDV as simply high-definition DV. There are, however, significant differences that make HDV editing very different from DV editing. There are three crucial differences. First, HDV uses inter-frame compression, while DV does not. Second, HDV audio is MPEG-1 Layer 2, not PCM. And third, the number of pixels is either 2.7X (1280×720) or 4.5X (1440×1080) the number of pixels employed by DV.

This reminds me of 7 years ago or so, trying to figure out what it would take to edit DV without dropped frames and system crashes. Once again there’s a lot to learn, and a lot to buy so we can focus our attention on editing in HD formats without worrying about the system’s capacity to handle it. Sigh.——-

High Definition Video for Independent Filmmakers – A How To Guide for indies on the cheap
Welcome all! This is my blog to share my latest research, thoughts, etc. on utilizing HD for independent filmmaking.

Specs and testing of the new H.264 codec, and what your Mac will need to play it back (it will need to be a very new G5, is what it will need). It’s coming folks; we don’t need to (and can’t, most of us) move to this yet, but we will. This blog looks like a guide the rest of us can follow as adoption and implementation of H.264 proceeds.——-

As is customary whenever a major release of Final Cut Pro is announced, my good friend Ken Stone begins his earnest lobbying efforts to secure an article from me covering the new features. My challenge is always the same; covering the features that will have the biggest impact on our workflow, though not necessarily the features that are getting the most press.”

Steve Martin’s a great trainer. I’ve linked to him many times in the past. He’s got an informal style that’s engaging and informative. Read this article to get insights into the new capabilities Apple has added to FCP. Multicam has me excited.——-

We just received a Panasonic AG-DVX100A. Excited? You betcha.

The title link above goes to the Panasonic info page; Adam Wilt has good technical info here and and several good links here; the Digital Filmmaker, a good-looking site I just discovered, reviews it here; and Google provides search results here.——-

Here we delve into some of the freshest techniques at work in music videos during the past year, highlighting glam-16mm, punched-up telecine, Flash -animation/MiniDV composites, varispeed motion effects, and cramming 150 effects into a three-minute video. We went straight to the creatives involved to get first-hand commentary on how they did it.”

The folks at (swollen-with-animated-advertising) Digital Media [dot] Net interview producers and directors of several recent music videos. Think of it as caffeine for your wild video creative lizard brain.——-

I learned years ago never to install an Apple upgrade right when it’s released. If my system is behaving properly – and it usually is; it’s a Mac, right? – there’s been no hurry. I have always waited for others more willing to figure out potential conflicts and risk their data.

Well, the reports, on Macintouch and other sites, about multimedia apps with the new system and with QuickTime 7 tell me I was wise to wait yet again. Read the many reports of issues that experienced users are having after upgrading, and I think you’ll agree. I’m in no hurry to see the H.264 versions of movie trailers, or to try to produce such things myself. Too many classrooms still have VHS, much less DVD or HD. I look forward to a time not far from now when such things are more common. That time hasn’t arrived yet, and I’m in no particular hurry.——-

Ulead has upgraded its VideoStudio video editing application to version 9. When an application reaches version 9, you know it has been around for quite some time. VideoStudio already has a pretty robust feature set, including features that were found on professional level video editing tools of just a few years ago. With version 9, the company has added more features to a feature laden application, including the capability to create chroma keys, 16:9 widescreen output, a DV to DVD feature that enables you to copy your DV tapes straight to a DVD , bypassing the editor altogether, and the ability to work with Flash Animation overlays on the Timeline. Within the scope of this first look, we’ll take a look at a few of the new features to this entry level, yet still powerful video editing tool.

I’ve often read that Ulead’s editors are good. This release sounds very solid, with many good features and a remarkable price. The author, John Virata, likes it too, but near the conclusion he has a caution for any video editor:

While the box says a minimum 800MHz Pentium III CPU with 256MB RAM (512MB recommended) running Windows 98SE or later, it calls for a mere 4GB free disk space is required for video. This is truly a minimum configuration, because for all the effects and other features to the application, you are going to need a lot more horsepower and disk space to run this application without frustration.

[...] All the players in this space are guilty of low balling the minimum system requirements, but video editing tools, especially today’s offerings with full blown special effects and such, require major horsepower. I created some videos with the VideoStudio 9 on a 3GHz Dell Precision 360 system with 512 MB RAM and 25GB of free disk space. While for the most part everything ran just fine, the rendering of the video to a file when I was done sprucing it up was wanting, and this was for an 8 minute video. People running this application on an 800MHz machine probably won’t have a very friendly overall user experience.

I added the bold emphasis above. It’s important to be aware of this, as video makes all your computer’s components work harder than most other applications. Your hard drive has to read and write a lot of data without losing any of it; your video card has to keep up with the changes in the image; and video processing is memory and CPU intensive. Apple’s minimum requirements seem anemic too. A stock low-end iBook comes with only 256MB of memory, and the Mac OS X operating system needs a lot of that. iMovie with so little memory would not be the snappiest, to be sure. So make sure your system, PC or Mac, is equipped well above the minimum requirements the manufacturer states, or you’ll be looking at the Windows hourglass or the Mac spinning beach ball, waiting for your computer to finish your video.——-

Magnificent Seven: What’s New for Users in QuickTime 7 by Chris Adamson—Tiger is cool, but it’s not the only new cat on the block. Apple has also released an updated version of QuickTime. Chris Adamson examines the user-visible features and changes in QT 7, including QT 7 Pro, renovations to the QuickTime Player application, and the implications of the powerful new H.264 video codec.——-

Thread at Mac OS X Hints:

• secure – didn’t want to pass anything in the clear over the internet. * free – I’m sure that Timbuktu and Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) Server are great products, but what can I say, I’m cheap. * built-in – I always prefer to use as many standard built-in tools as possible to keep things simple. * simple – wanted point-and-click simplicity on my dad’s end. Didn’t want him typing in IP addresses and such. * zero or at least minimal network changes on Dad’s end – I didn’t want to have him mucking around with his router and end up hosing himself so that he can’t get online anymore since I can’t fix that sort of thing remotely.——-

So there it is: A brand new DV camcorder . This is going to be great! You’re ready to get out there and spread your extraordinary vision to the rest of the world. But maybe you’ve never shot any video before. What do you need to know to effectively communicate your ideas to your audience? If you’re just starting out, there will be lots of tips in this article that will help you avoid the distractions that can ruin even a well-thought-out video presentation. If you’re a seasoned veteran, read along anyway, while smugly assuring yourself that you’re doing everything exactly right. Whatever your level of experience, I’m here to help.

Charlie reminds us of the necessary shooting tips for good-looking and edit-friendly video. It’s a shame, though, that on DMN’s ad-intensive site they can’t spare some bandwidth for some stills to illustrate his many (visual) points. Ah well.——-