Recently I ordered a new Intuos 3 tablet, because I had outgrown my little 4×6 graphire and I noticed something peculiar about the conformation email. It remained at the top of my inbox for several weeks.

If you click on the image you’ll notice that its dated 2018! Perhaps Wacom is sending a message to competitors, “Hey- We’re really forward thinking!” or perhaps its a new marketing tactic. So in 10 years I’ll backup open up my inbox and say “Gee, I wonder what my old tablet provider is doing these days?” which will most likely be simulating scenes from Minority Report…

If you haven’t already read it, Scott Simmons of the Editblog, has a very insightful and useful post on young final cut editors published Studio Daily’s site.
Key Points:

• Many FCP users are button pushers, not editors
• These people lack fundamental broadcast knowledge
• Mistakes that seem impossible for professionals to make are consistently encountered
• Some folks appear avert to learning these standards.

A lot of people have written responses to it so I’ll be brief in my coverage. The key difference is I aim to create tips that help these young folks. (See Bottom) First off, as many have commented, I’m not sure that broadcast is medium that the majority of editors approach regularly. Secondly, the democratization of media means less regulation/education so more producers with little technical background are routinely creating nightmares for post houses. Examples being editing flattened audio/graphics then expecting post houses to just extract narration or edit graphics!

I think the availability of tools, scope of projects creates less need for standards knowledge among the base of editors, or all creatives for that matter. Unfortunately, fix it in post is becoming reinvent the wheel in post.

Tips and Tricks Pt. 1

• The tone generator in FCP comes out hot (by the standards I learned at least…) set the level to -20db.
• Make an EDL of your project, take it to a premier. Take it to a Media Composer, take it to an older version of FCP. Open it in notepad… The goal is get comfortable with file exchange. Yes people once wrote those by hand!
• Your show should start at 01:00:00;00 - Don’t ask me why, I don’t ask you why you stop at a red light!
• Name your clips, name your reels, organize your project. Add dates to names, etc. Just develop a standard system.
• When someone says “ink effect” they mean blending mode
• When a client asks you to edit a Chyron, that means text graphic. (Chyron once was the industry standard for inserting titles/graphics, I was in diapers at the time though)

I’ll post more as a think them up.

This isn’t a problem I’ve run into lately but a friend of mind called with this question the other day.

He was pausing a frame in Premiere Pro, yet even after a render the frame was flickering on the screen. When put played back on a monitor this effect was even more pronounced.

Export the frame to a still image file.

Solution: Go into Photoshop & go to Filter -> Video -> Deinterlace.

Eliminate either field, really doesn’t matter much. Set it to interpolation. Save your frame.

Bingo.

I consider the Sony PMW-EX1 to be a solid reply to Panasonic’s HVX200. Personally, I love tapeless but for some folks it’s a bit confusing. Like the P2 workflow there’s a few things you need to adjust to. Below are steps to get your system up to date, and a few “gotcha’s” you might encounter.

Ok, so you’ve got your footage shot and it’s time to edit. The Ex1 requires a new mindset! Don’t be fooled by conventional tactics… You can’t just search the card for the file and hit Command+I.

First off go download Final Cut 6.0.2.

Create a Login with Sony ServicesPLUS. Then download the XDCam Transfer Plug-in for FCP. This page also has SxS Drivers for Windows users who want to use the card drive on their laptop, say if you wanted to store media in the field and reuse a card.

From here you have a couple options. My guess is that the size of the project will dictate which works best for you. You can import media directly of the card, via a card reader or the USB output on the camera. Or you can use Sony’s Clip Browser Software (not exactly a really versatile app, yet prevents you from corrupting you fottage..) to edit Meta data and transfer the media to a hard drive first for importing purposes later.

Now that we are done floundering about the web downloading add ons, open up FCP and do the following.

• File > Import > Sony XDCAM
• 
• Add Source Folder (The folder that contains the BPAV folder)
• 
• You’re clips will import automatically. Metadata should carry over too. Withing the transfer App. there is actually a lot you can do. Before you do ANYTHING though I would take an overview of the preferences page though. (Shown Below) From here you specify a Cache location and a destination folder where your QuickTime movies will be created. This is your “Capture Scratch” so I would put it in the project folder. Note you can add handles (Useful with subclips), and set naming conventions. Another feature I’ve yet to explore is opening in another application. (Could a Mac Avid open the file created from here? If you have Express or something let me know.)
• 
• With the import settings set, and clips added to the App you can create subclips, this way you don’t have to import ALL the media . Simply mark an IN and OUT then the little plus symbol. You can also mark clips, and provide a status (Good, KEEP, No Good). If you look under the information tab you see all about the clip.
• 
• When your read, hit the Import button at the bottom or if you don’t want to import the entire media hold down SHIFT and the button changes to “Import All Subclips”
• Then you’re done, It will take a few minutes and convert the files into a QT format for FCP and import it into the project you selected.

Comment with any questions or areas that I have forgotten to address. Happy Editing!

I would say now is a good time to jump ship, roll your Java skills into a new career. With HD-DVD out Blu-ray authors are in. As a DVD Author I would have a hard time teaching myself object oriented programming. If I was a already knew Java and could be on the leading edge I’d consider it.

Blu-Ray utilizes a specific range of Java (Don’t ask me I’m a video guy remember?!) that’s to be used with the game development and I would assume web connectivity. I’m thinking, uh $$$$. I think for the right individuals this is the perfect challenge. I would find it very rewarding to pioneer something new in the media world. My guess is that after a few years of experience you’d end up realizing any shortcomings in the status quo and begin developing some software to aid the process.

For example, “Web@ccees” never really became a useful feature for standard DVD’s. I know several groups began to develop commercial products to resolve this but I don’t believe they ever came to market.

Where there’s a need there’s way. If your thinking career change consider Authoring Blu-Rays.

Hooray! Everybody go buy a Blu-Ray player, or PS3 for that matter. Check out the actual article here. Question- This argument came up between me and a co-worker the other day. Why do you think consumers prefer BDR over HD DVD.

My response, Bluray sounded cooler. The counterargument “HD” is a key word for selling media products right now. Very true. I think we techies know Blu-Ray has more real features with the BD-Java and all but what was in the consumers’ mind?

I got a tip a DJ on the radio the other day responded that he didn’t want to buy a Bluray player because he didn’t own a Blu-ray TV, and he had just spent money on HD Tv’s so it made more sense to buy an HD-DVD player. *Chuckle* (Thanks Stevie!)

I constantly have to generate size estimates and target bitrates at work and I recently have been called upon by several friends to do the same. If you haven’t heard of Bitrate Pro go to Pimley’s site and download it. This free little app has preprogrammed sizes (i.e. 4.38GB for Single Layer DVD) and sample bitrates ranging from HDCamSR to ProRes(HQ) all the way down to NTSC. I would encourage you to look at his other projects as well, pretty sweet stuff.

Last week I scribbled down my first impressions of the Ex1. After a little more play and some reading, I’ve taken the time to jot down my final review of Sony’s new product.

 

I wrote of my concern as to the ergonomics of the camera, as Rob pointed out there is already development of products to balance the camera. I was also concerned about having to shoot 720 to pull 60fps shots off. Well, the optics are amazing and I could see no difference when it was blown up, the footage was crystal clear. Focus is a little hard to hold while following an object but you CAN use the expanded focus whilst recording. (Thank You Sony). This camera is a solid little warrior, and packs a lot for the price tag. I would advise you try to get your hands on one!

I just finished messing with Sony’s new sub 10k pro(sumer?) camera, the PMW-EX1, which many have been anxious to use. At MVI we have a demo version for almost a week to test. Check back for more updates. I too had extremely high hopes for this model, but am disappointed so far.

 

I was really hoping to see a versatile cam that could blow the HVX out of the water. The EX-1 does carry several powerful features (below) but there are limitations. The camera seems to address most of the concerns I have with my Z1u. (24p, 720, iris ring, full manual focus). The addition of many picture profile settings is quite useful. We hooked up the HD-SDI out to a monitor for v-scope, wave… As you changed settings in the level and color settings we were able so see exactly what was happening (which is impossible on a tiny LCD screen). The camera is EXTREMELY awkward to hold, my arm quickly cramped up. This camera in my opinion belongs on a tripod. Under/Overcranking is limited by your shooting mode. You can’t shoot to tape and if you shoot to firestore you’re losing the quality of the image. I’ll post more on the camera over the weekend.

PROS

• Framerate Versitility
• Iris Ring, Full Manual Focus
• Picture Profile Settings
• Gain setting -3db
• HD-SDI out

CONS

• Ergonomics!!
• Weight
• Limitations of crank features
• Button Placement
• It’s still Mpeg-2.

I get this question a lot- Shortcuts for creating slideshows in FCP.

1. It is essential to name your files in the order you want them to appear, making sure to add at least 1 zero before your numbers to prevent picture 20 from appearing before picture 2.
   • Example: 001.jpg, 002.jpg 003.jpg
   • If you have A LOT of pictures, try batch renaming them
2. In FCP hit option+Q to pull up the user preferences. Select the “Editing” tab.
   • The first box “Still/Freeze Duration” set that to what you want the pictures length to be.
3. Import your files into a bin. Drag that bin to the timeline.
4. Now you have a slideshow. (Boring Huh?)
5. To add a transition between each still do the following
   

   1. Highlight the whole timeline, while it is selected drag it into the Canvas, hold the drag until the placement options appear (image) selecting overwrite with transition. This will put a dissolve in between each, all at once.

   How bout them Apples? If you want a different type of transition, change you default transition.

I would reckon I’ve encountered virtually every video Western world video format after 2 years professionally in Multimedia and 4 editing in general. Yet a client recently gave me DVR-MS files. Following from Wikipedia:

DVR-MS (Microsoft Digital Video Recording) is a proprietary video and audio fileformat, developed by Microsoft.

Need I say more?! DVR-MS is an Mpeg-2, an AC-3 and several lines of meta data. Someone tell me why it is so complicating to convert this format! Why on earth would create a proprietary format for a DVR! I just remembered why/how much I hate PC’s. Shit NEVER works and is far more complicating then it needs to be.

Anyways I’m converting these files in Digital Media Converter. I forked up the $40 and bought a license as it’s my only option. The program doesn’t seem to export Quicktime’s successfully (figures…) so I’m creating Mpeg2’s to edit in FCP. I read that VLC can transcode the files but that failed too.

I have 6 NCAA games to convert all about 2 hours in length- the conversions are taking about 12-14 hours per file!

Consensus: Unless you edit in Windows MovieMaker (puke.) on Vista (puke.) avoid this format at all costs.

As I was redesigning my website I read somewhere that Flash 9 supports playback of Quicktime files encoded via H.264. About 6 months ago a client had asked me if flash could play h.264 quicktime’s through flash video I discovered no. Well now you can.

There is a catch though– Not every video player has been rewritten to allow this functionality.

Though FlowPlayer has. Check out this HD FLASH VIDEO FILE

This has some serious, serious upsides. Now I just need Wimpy to update their Rave Player and I’m all aboard.

Apple’s released their cutesy little ultra-thin aluminum keyboards. For $50 I might just have to pick up one for each of my edit stations… There’s a wireless version for $80 but without the number pad. I think this would make the perfect extention to Axiotron’s Modbook , I mean who really wants to write all the time, anyway?

So now that Sony has stated that copying music you own is a crime (You’re outrageous Jennifer Pariser) what is that state of the Divx scene?

A coworker recently introduced me to Quicksilversceen.com a site which streams Divx files of all your favorite movies with links posted by users. What’s really amazing here I was able to catch all the new flicks still in theaters (No country for old men, I am Legend, Bucket List, Sweeney Todd…) right in my room wearing PJ’s!

I’m not sure as to the legality of the site, but hey it beats a large fine for being caught downloading movies!

UPDATE: The site has lost a lot of content due to Copyright Infringement… Greedy Hollywood again.

What’s that you say— FCP distorted the aspect ratio of your video?

Final Cut does it best to guess what you’re edit should look like. Yet perhaps you have a clip that is already letterboxed and the “correction” the program made to letter box that 16×9 file has now just stretched your video. Uncool!

The solution?

1. Double click the distorted clip on the timeline.
2. From the Viewer select the “Motion” tab
3. Find the “Distort” arrow and click it to reveal the options.
4. Go to Aspect Ratio and enter a value to correct it. Hint: (-50, -33, -12.5, 0, 12.5, 33, 50)

(fig 1. click to enlarge)

One of those values should correct you’re problem. It’s based on your pixel ratio (square, HDV, Various HD signals, CCIR 601) and your line resolution (1080, 1440, 720, 625, 525…)

I could go into more about it but I find it easiest to guess and check.