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cartTutorials a Safe Harbor blogSaving Compromised MiniDV Footage
Sooner or later, it happens to everyone – you shoot that once-in-a-lifetime footage with your miniDV camcorder, only to find later that the playback is garbled. There are many reasons for bad recordings, including clogged heads and misaligned tape transports, so of course keep a miniDV head cleaning tape in your camera bag and run it at the first sign of trouble. My Sony cameras display a head clog warning on the view screen, and just playing the head cleaner for 10 seconds has always resolved head clogs in the field before they became a real issue. Having a reputable dealer do routine maintenance and cleanings is also a good idea to avoid disaster. I recently loaded several hours of miniDV wedding footage into my edit system via 1394 Firewire, and found a not-so-small problem when I began the edit process. I had 3 cameras running during the ceremony – one in the balcony, one at the rear of the aisle, and my main camera up front that I operate and which showed no signs of trouble during the actual wedding shoot.
The first several minutes of the front camera footage was totally unusable. The picture was almost constantly breaking up into blocks (you miniDV users know what I’m talking about!), and also had little gray and pink squares dancing all over the place. This ruined the entrance of the mothers and their lighting of the candles, and the entire processional, including the bride’s entrance and give away. I did of course have the two rear cameras running, but who wants to look at a wide-angle static shot of peoples’ backsides during these critical moments? The first thing you can do when encountering issues like these is to make sure you are playing the tape in the same camera you shot it with, as minor alignment issues between camera transports could cause playback issues. I’ve seen issues with trying to swap tapes between Sony and Canon miniDV camcorders, with tapes playing fine in one but not the other. I tried all three of my matching Sony miniDV cameras, and even my HDV camera, and got the same playback results on all of them. What to do? I remembered a video forum post I’d read online years ago, from a camera manufacturer rep I believe, which stated that digital transfers from miniDV did not have any error correction applied – the raw DV data was passed along "as is," warts and all, via 1394. The post went on to say that if using the analog video outputs of the camera, error correction was applied during the D/A conversion and this would often minimize or eliminate playback issues. Having nothing to lose, I connected the component output cable to my HDV camera and recaptured the problem footage into Premiere CS3 using the analog inputs of my Matrox RT.X2 hardware. I was very relieved to find the footage miraculously restored, with only a few minor hints of any issues apparent.
Of course, not everyone has analog inputs on their NLE system and may be limited to 1394 capture only. In this case, if you have two miniDV cameras and they have the capability to record video using their analog inputs, as do my Sony VX-2000 units, you could simply connect the two cameras and dub from one to the other using analog connections. Another option would be to use a converter box like those offered by Canopus/Grass Valley to convert analog video to 1394, passing the analog out of the camera through the box to capture DV into the computer. Once you’ve copied the problem footage to a new miniDV tape, and hopefully removed or at least minimized the issues, you can then capture that new tape via 1394 for editing. Understand that some glitches simply can’t be fixed, but this method is definitely worth trying at least. I’ve also heard that in the event you can’t recover the footage yourself, try to find a post house that has a high-end Sony DVCAM deck such as a DSR-45, DSR-60, or DSR-1600, as these have better chances of playing back problem tapes. They may be able to create a better dub for you to work with. There are also companies that specialize in recovering damaged tapes, which in some cases could be well worth the costs involved. I do occasionally get little dropouts on my miniDV recordings, but these typically last just one or two frames. My recent problem was the worst I’ve encountered in 12 years of shooting with miniDV. Some would say that shooting with the new tapeless camcorders eliminates these problems, but data can be lost as well, either on the camera memory card, or from the hard drive you dump it to, so nothing is ever certain. I’m just glad I was able to resolve my issue without a lot of hassle, and I’m very glad I didn’t have to explain to the wedding couple why there was no footage of the bride coming up the aisle! I hope this information can help someone else in their time of need. Keep those cameras clean, and happy shooting! Sonic BD PowerStation
The Sonic BD PowerStation is the ultimate professional encoding solution for authoring Blu-ray or DVD discs, based on the same core technology as Scenarist, the encoder of choice for Hollywood movie releases on DVD and Blu-ray. This suite is used to encode video, create DVD or Blu-ray menus, and run simulations on the result. Completed projects may be burned direct to DVD and Blu-ray, or compliant master files may be output for replication. BD PowerStation uses a USB dongle for security, but is very easy to install quickly using the online download and verification system. Three applications are included - Sonic CineVision for video encoding, Sonic DVDit Pro HD for disc authoring, and Sonic Scenarist QC for emulation/checking of projects.
The CineVision app is used to encode source video using the VC-1 or MPEG-2 codecs for Blu-ray, and MPEG-2 for DVD. CineVision provides unprecedented control over the encoding process, so advanced users will be able to tweak every aspect of encoding for optimum results. After an initial encode, the results can be analyzed and individual segments may then be optimized and re-encoded without encoding the entire video again. While working on a full 1920x1080 HD video for Blu-ray, I found that by simply pressing a hotkey during review of the encoded video, I could get a full-resolution HD preview on my 24" PC display! This is a welcome feature, and an NVIDIA Quadro FX GPU with SDI output can also be used for professional-quality output preview.
After encoding the video to either the Blu-ray or DVD specs, the DVDit Pro HD software is used to create custom motion menus. Many pre-built menu templates are included to get the user up and running immediately. Photoshop is the recommended choice to create the layered graphics necessary for the menus and buttons. Users can choose to burn direct to disc for one-offs and proofing, or create the proper files to send out for replication. The AACS and CSS copy protection schemes may be set up in the files for replication. If you wish to create both Blu-ray and DVD versions of the same project, you only need to author once and can then output to either Blu-ray or DVD as needed. Note that while CineVision only encodes videos to VC-1 or MPEG-2 for Blu-ray use, the DVDit Pro HD software accepts H.264 files as well, so all Blu-ray-legal formats may be used for authoring. Sonic Scenarist QC is then used to check the final composition to ensure that the disc will be completely within specifications for Blu-ray or DVD for the ultimate compatibility. Tracing and logs are available for advanced step-by-step troubleshooting and debugging. Sonic BD PowerStation is clearly aimed at professionals. While there are plenty of inexpensive options out there to burn DVDs and Blu-ray discs, the Sonic solution offers the tools necessary to create fully compliant Blu-ray projects for replication, something lesser programs just don’t offer. If you’re ready to move up to the next level of professional disc production, you’ll appreciate the features and power of the Sonic BD PowerStation. Realtime AVCHD editing with Panasonic and Edius NEO2
Grass Valley has announced that their EDIUS NEO2 software is being updated with the "Booster" package to provide realtime native editing of AVCHD, eliminating the need to transcode footage prior to editing. No other NLE software provides realtime AVCHD editing, so this is exciting news for users. The EDIUS NEO2 software has been bundled with the Panasonic AG-HCM150 and AG-HCM70 camcorders for some time now, and is also being included with the new AG-HCM40 units. Users that purchased their Panasonic camera on or after October 9, 2009 will receive their EDIUS NEO2 upgrade directly from Panasonic at no charge. Owners who purchased prior to October 9 can get the upgrade for just $49. If you don’t own EDIUS NEO2, a bundle is available with the Booster at $229. On a core i7 workstation, users can expect editing performance of 3-4 streams of AVCHD (full 1920x1080) in realtime. By adding the Grass Valley HD SPARK card, HD video can be previewed on an HDMI display to enhance the editing experience. Having to spend hours transcoding footage largely defeats the purpose of tapeless workflows, since solid-state recording eliminates the need to capture footage from tape in realtime. Panasonic AVCCAM cameras and EDIUS NEO2 with Booster provide a fast, efficient workflow from camera to edit unmatched by other AVCHD workflows, allowing users to finally realize the full potential of digital acquisition and editing. Matrox support for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 4.2
Adobe has recently released their Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 4.2 and Adobe Media Encoder CS4 4.2 updates. Matrox is working on drivers to support this new release and expect compatible drivers for the Matrox MXO2 Mini and Matrox CompressHD to be available next week. Drivers for Matrox Axio and Matrox RT.X2 are expected in December. Until the appropriate Matrox drivers become available, we recommend that users do not upgrade to Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 4.2 and Adobe Media Encoder CS4 4.2. You should turn off automatic updates to prevent auto-installs of Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 4.2 and Adobe Media Encoder CS4 4.2. Once the new Matrox drivers are ready for download, re-enable automatic updates again. Patching a Video Background Using Photoshop
You just shot a really exciting seminar and can’t wait to get back to the studio to review the footage. The guest speaker looks great – the lighting, framing and focus are right on! Then to your dismay, you see it – the unwelcome item in the background. It could be a glaring red "Exit" sign, a restroom sign, or anything else that you find distracting or annoying, including a wayward bystander. Well, there is hope. The technique discussed here works for video shots that are "locked down," meaning the camera is on a tripod and doesn’t move. Movement includes zooms – the scene must be static! This would often be the case for an interview, a speaker at a podium, or an unmanned balcony camera at a wedding. The idea is that you don’t want the background to move – it must be totally stationary for this trick to work. Also, no part of the subject’s body can move in front of the item you wish to remove. On a recent interview shoot, I set up some additional lighting off to the side of my subject. The light caused a bit of a reflection on the glass of a picture frame in the background, but I didn’t think much of it – until I got back to the studio and reviewed the clip on the HD big screen. My "little" issue was no longer so tiny. In fact, it was suddenly commanding a lot of attention, to the point at which I was considering a do-over! I then realized that in just a couple of minutes, I could easily "fix it in post," as the saying goes. In this example, I’m editing with Premiere CS3 and using Photoshop CS3 for the graphics work; however, any NLE should work, as well as other paint programs that work with layers and save to formats that include an alpha channel. The first step in the "fix" is to use your NLE software to "grab" a frame of the video clip that clearly shows the offending item. In CS3, just position the play head on the desired frame on your timeline, and use File > Export > Frame to create a still image of the video frame. The file format shouldn’t matter – I used the default .bmp file type. CS4 (and other NLEs) will have different methods of exporting a still, but just access the HELP menu if unsure of how to export a still from the video. In my example, the offending clip is 1080i HDV, so the frame size is 1440x1080 pixels. Note that 1080i HDV uses a PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio) of 1.333, so when I import the still grab into Photoshop, it no longer looks like 16:9 widescreen video – it appears more square like a 4:3 image. The reason for this is that paint programs assume "square pixels" with a 1.0 PAR, so video grabs may appear distorted. It’s important to realize that if you were to use the "Circle" tool in Premiere to create a perfect circle on this grabbed image, the circle would look oblong when viewed back in Premiere, since the 1.333 PAR of the video project would "stretch" the image horizontally. Not to worry – in Photoshop, just go to Image > Pixel Aspect Ratio and choose the correct PAR preset to match your video format. This tells Photoshop how to interpret your image shape and everything will then come out right.
I next use the Clone Tool to replace the area I want to remove with clean background from the surrounding area. If you don’t know how to use the Clone Tool, check the HELP menu or Google it and you’ll likely find many tutorials. Cloning allows me to "paint" using other areas of the image as my "color," so I can choose a clean area of wall for instance and paint that over an EXIT sign. In this example, I need to touch up the corner of the picture frame. It doesn’t have to be perfect, since I’ll be the only one that’s looking for it. The casual viewer is watching the subject and would probably never notice if the fix isn’t perfect.
Once the offending area is painted out of the picture, the next step is to isolate that area. I first create a New Layer, then turn off the Background Layer so it’s transparent. Working on the topmost image layer, I use the Rectangular Marquee tool to draw a box encompassing the repaired area of my image, then use Select > Inverse (Ctrl + I) to Invert the selection, thus choosing everything outside the selected area. Hitting the DELETE key removes everything but the repair area, leaving me a nice patch to overlay above my video clip in Premiere. For irregular shapes, you can define the selection with the Lasso tool and freehand a shape.
Next, SAVE the image using a file format that retains the alpha channel (the transparent area that was just cut out). I use the Photoshop .psd format since Premiere likes it. During Import into Premiere, be sure to choose the correct layer of the .psd file that you wish to display. In Premier, just put the overlay on any video track above your original video clip and it should mask out the offending area. Note that if the lighting should change during the scene, your patch may become visible since the surrounding area can become lighter or darker. I made a patch to cover a stain on a church carpet in a wedding video, and it looked great…for a while! During the wedding, some clouds moved in to block the sun, changing the lighting in the church, and then "the patch didn’t match" the surrounding carpet (I decided to leave the stain).
If you have the Photoshop skills, adding some transparency to the edge of the patch may help it to blend in better, though with consistent lighting, even a hard-edged patch should be invisible. Having put my patch over the glaring photo frame, it looks perfect and I can again sleep at night. Since I edit with the Matrox RT.X2 realtime edit hardware, no rendering is required. Premiere software editors may get a red render bar. There is another fix along these same lines that you may find useful. Say you have a great shot, then someone wanders into the frame in the background. Grab a still from a frame of the video clip that has a clean background, then another frame with the offender in the background. Open both frames in PS, then Copy and Paste the bad image over the clean image, each on its own layer. Using the Lasso tool, draw around the bad guy. Disable the bad layer and select the good layer. You should still see the "marching ants" of the Selection box (now over the good layer) – Invert using Ctrl + I and delete the background. There’s your good patch of background to hide the offending body.
Note that I would never remove the good Padre from a wedding video – this is simply an example video clip I had handy. As discussed, this will not work if your camera moves at all, but in many situations it can provide quick and satisfying results. If you have decent Photoshop skills, you could even use this overlay method for product placement, company logos, or whatever else you might want to add in to the background. Change the Cola can to a Root Beer, or whatever you need to do. Have fun with it! To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade - A Brief Guide for RTX2 Users
I often get questions from customers seeking advice about upgrading their RTX2 systems. If you are one of the many RTX2 users out there with an older system and Adobe CS3, there is one important consideration before upgrading your software. If you are running the RTX2 with Adobe CS3 on an older machine and you would like to upgrade to CS4, please make sure that your motherboard or system is on the approved list from Matrox. You can find the list by following this link - http://www.matrox.com/video/en/support/rtx2/design/computer/mvrtx2/. Select the tab of the operating system that you are running. If your motherboard or system is not listed, this does not mean that you cannot upgrade; it just means that Matrox has not tested your machine with CS4 and the latest Matrox drivers. Until your configuration has been approved I would hold off on upgrading any software. The feedback I have been getting on system upgrades has been mixed. One system configuration will operate without any issues, while another might not. If your system is not on the list, I would suggest posting in the Matrox online help forum. Perhaps the technicians at Matrox could shed some light on why your system is not on the list. Note: The list has not been updated for months. The same approach would also apply to anyone with the desire to upgrade their Windows XP operating system to Vista. It is always best to check out the approved Matrox configurations before updating the operating system. If your motherboard or system is not listed for the operating system you wish to upgrade to, please hold off. In my opinion, it is better to have an older system that works than an updated one with bugs or incompatibilities. Stick to the approved configurations and your system should be rock solid. Live Capture using Matrox MXO2 Mini
Today’s handheld HD camcorders offer amazing quality for their cost and size, but there is a price to be paid for the portability - the video is captured using compression. Without compression, the video files would be so large that the camera’s recording capacity would be used up in a matter of minutes! There are several types of compression that can be applied to reduce the overall size of the video file. The first thing to go is color resolution. When all the color information is kept in a digital video file, it is referred to as having 4:4:4 color. Depending on the HD recording format, color info may be reduced to 4:2:2 or 4:2:0, and the human eye doesn’t readily discern the difference. 4:2:2 color is an acceptable compromise for most work and is better than 4:2:0 color. Next, some formats actually reduce the horizontal resolution of the signal before compression. HDV reduces 1080 HD video from 1920 x 1080 to 1440 x 1080 pixels, while DVCPRO HD reduces the signal down to 1280 x 1080! The average viewer may not miss the extra pixels, but for broadcast work, it is preferable to maintain full-raster HD whenever possible. After reducing the color resolution and possibly the horizontal resolution as well, the remaining signal is further compressed, with MPEG-2 used for HDV and XDCAM EX, or H.264 for AVCHD formats. Compression uses a complex mathematical formula to get rid of redundant info in the video, reducing file size. If a large part of a scene has blue sky for instance, each of the blue pixels doesn’t have to be represented individually – they can be lumped together, as in "this whole area is blue". That’s a greatly simplified explanation, but that is basically what happens with compression. While the casual viewer may not notice that the color space is reduced or the image compressed, your editing software certainly will! While color grading, you may encounter banding in the blue sky, where the shade of the sky changes in large steps rather than finer gradations. For green screen work, you may have a hard time getting a clean edge on your key to separate the talent from the background. For instance, a Canon 1080i HDV camera might have a 1920 x 1080 image sensor, but only 1440 x 1080 pixels get recorded to tape, and that’s after the color space is reduced to 4:2:0 and the entire image is encoded to lossy Long-GOP MPEG-2 at a data rate of just 25Mbps.
Recording direct from the live camera to the computer using the MXO2 Mini not only provides a higher quality, but will also save you the time normally required for ingest of material from the camera tape or memory card. It’s important to realize that the higher quality uncompressed feed from the camera’s HDMI output is only available live during the shoot. Once material is recorded in the camera, any video played out the HDMI port has already been compressed at that point. I should also note that the MXO2 Mini is capable of up, down and cross-convert on capture, so maybe you’re filming with a 720p camcorder but need to deliver 1080p. Just set up the MXO2 Mini to convert the incoming video using the 10-bit dedicated hardware scaler to record as full-raster 1920 x 1080 to your hard drive. Besides its flexible capture options, the MXO2 Mini also provides an HDMI output for LCD monitoring while editing, and includes a color calibration utility for reliable color grading even on inexpensive displays. Analog i/o is also included, and the MXO2 Mini with the MAX option provides greatly accelerated H.264 encoding. Whether in the studio or on location, Mac or PC, laptop or desktop, the MXO2 Mini can increase the quality of your productions and offers flexible workflow options to help you get the job done – on a budget you can live with. HD to DVD Workflow for Matrox RT.X2
HD video has been around for more than a few years now, and HD editing has been supported for a couple of generations with Premiere Pro. One would assume then that all the kinks have been worked out regarding the HD editing workflow, especially with the latest release of Premiere Pro CS4. Yet for all its power and rich feature set, CS4 is still lacking in one fundamental area – it can’t do a decent export of HD material to DVD! Whether moving to HD shooting by choice, or by necessity of replacing aging SD gear, more and more videographers are shooting HD video today. With the slow adoption of Blu-ray by the public, DVD is still the delivery format of choice for most productions. Exporting a standard-definition MPEG-2 file for DVD from an HD project requires that the video be downscaled from HD resolution to SD resolution, and Premiere Pro just doesn’t handle the conversion very well at all. The resulting DVD video will look jaggedy, almost like it has a reversed field order, with horizontal lines flickering and an overall look of low-resolution. The viewer may not be able to say exactly what’s wrong with the image, other than "it just doesn’t look right." There are workarounds for Premiere Pro users involving 3rd-party applications and scripting, but Matrox provides an easier solution for RT.X2 users by doing realtime downconversion from HD to SD in hardware. In the CS4 Sequence Settings (or CS3 Project Settings), users can change the Master Output from 1080i to NTSC and the analog output from the RT.X2 breakout box can then be displayed on an SD display. 1080i video downscaled to NTSC looks very clean on a standard CRT display, meaning the Matrox hardware conversion works well.
RT.X2 users can benefit from this realtime downconversion to bypass the inherent scaling issues in Premiere when creating DVDs from Matrox HD projects. When you’ve completed the editing of a Matrox 1080i project and you are ready to export to DVD, follow these steps for good results.First, Export the HD timeline as a Matrox standard-definition .avi file. The Matrox MPEG-2 I-Frame HD codec is the default codec and needs to be changed. In the Export Settings dialog, change the compressor to "NTSC Matrox MPEG-2 I-Frame", then change the Pixel Aspect Ratio from "1.333" to "D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (1.2)." Optionally, you can bump up the data rate for your .avi file using the "Configure" button. The default setting of 25Mbps looks good, but I often just use 30Mbps to give it a little extra boost. This Export process uses the Matrox hardware to downscale the HD video to SD, using the high-quality Matrox codec which has a 4:2:2 colorspace. HDV video uses 4:2:0 color, so be sure to choose the Matrox MPEG-2 codec and NOT Matrox DV, which is 4:1:1. The 4:2:2 codec will maintain more of the color fidelity when converting from HD to SD, and ultimately to DVD. Exporting the HD timeline to the SD avi should be a faster-than-realtime process, so not much of a delay in the workflow. Once the file is exported, open a NEW Matrox DV widescreen project, Import the new video file and place it on the timeline. You can preview it and should find the quality to be very good. From the timeline, you can then use the Matrox Media Encoder (CS3) or the Adobe Media Encoder (CS4) to create an MPEG-2 for DVD file with good results. Be sure to check the 16:9 aspect box in the encoder to match the aspect of the original footage. Since Matrox did the actual conversion from HD to SD, the new file can be rendered to MPEG-2 as you normally would for SD files without quality issues since Premiere is not doing any scaling on the video. I’m confident that you’ll find this workflow to be a quick and easy way to achieve good results on your next HD to DVD project using the RT.X2. Making Money with Dance Recitals
I’ve been videotaping dance recitals for 15 years now, and it’s proven to be a lucrative segment of the event video market for me as owner of Digital Vision Productions. Parents spend a lot of time and money sending their kids to dance lessons, and it all comes together once a year at the big recital held at the end of the season, usually in May or June as school lets out for summer break. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles all come to the theater to view the performances, and it’s a big deal. Younger performers might only be in one dance, with the 3 year-olds dressed in little bumblebee or kitten costumes, but those few minutes on stage are precious and will be cherished for years to come, provided they are captured on video. Older, more experienced students might take part in several dance numbers, with the best students getting their own solo performances to "show their stuff". Parents often bring their own camcorders and attempt to capture the event, but the auto-exposure of consumer camcorders will typically ruin stage shots by overexposing the performers so their faces become unrecognizable white blobs. The hapless parents don’t know how to override the auto controls to correct this issue and end up with junk footage. Having to run a camcorder also keeps the parents from "being in the moment" and truly enjoying the performance. Most dance studios will offer DVDs of the recital, though the videos vary greatly in quality and coverage, with many being very amateurish. This provides an opportunity for professional videographers to step in and offer a superior product. When I was first asked to videotape a dance recital back in 1994, I had just started taping weddings and was fairly new to the business. I accepted the job and it actually went pretty well. I used a single Hi8 camera, and would start each act on a wide shot, then would smoothly zoom in for a head to toe shot and slowly pan across the performers so their faces could be made out, then I’d return to the wide shot to show everyone again. This worked well enough for a couple of years, and as my business grew, I added a second camera so that one camera was always wide showing all the performers, and the other camera would do close-ups and I could switch in post between the two. While I was doing nice work, with good exposure and framing and smooth motion, some parents were complaining that during the close-ups they were then missing their own child who might be out of the frame for several seconds. They didn’t want to miss a single second of their child’s performance, but if I used only a wide shot the entire time, it would be impossible to even tell who was who from a distance. By the late 1990s, I had picked up a second dance school and had switched to miniDV cameras and nonlinear editing and developed a new technique for shooting and editing my dance shows. I still used the two-camera close-up and wide shooting style, but rather than switching between the two, I combined both images using picture-in-picture and split-screen techniques.
While this did require more work in post, I immediately started getting great feedback from the parents – they loved it! Sales really took off after using the new editing style. If there are kids lined up across the entire stage, by the time I pull back far enough to get everyone in the frame, individual faces become unidentifiable. Meanwhile, there is a LOT of empty space in the frame, showing just background.
Rather than centering the talent, I frame them in the lower third of the screen, leaving the entire top two-thirds of the frame wide open for a PIP or split view from the close-up camera. By combining both images, parents can see their child at all times on the lower portion of the screen, and are also guaranteed some great close-ups as well. It’s a win-win situation for the viewers, and everyone is happy! When using this method, proper framing while shooting becomes more critical to minimize or eliminate repositioning during editing. If shot properly, I can simply do a split-screen effect and not have to reposition either video source in post – they line right up! I use Adobe Premiere with the Matrox RT.X2 hardware, which eliminates rendering, so I can do PIP and split-screen effects along with titling and color correction, with no waiting. One of my dance studios now has 4 shows, each almost 3 hours long, so you can imagine how much rendering time is saved when considering that almost every act uses some sort of PIP or split-screen view. Solos are of course a single close-up view, and some acts are so dynamic with everyone constantly moving about that it’s impossible to do any close-ups, otherwise I use the dual-view religiously and have never had a single complaint. In fact, parents go out of their way to tell me how much they love the DVDs because they never miss a thing! Before each show, I also get access to the dressing rooms/staging areas to get some fun shots of kids getting their makeup and hair done, waving to the camera, warming up, etc., and this is also well-received and asked for. For the guys reading this, just be sure to have a "stage mom" verify that everyone is dressed and announce your entry to avoid any surprises! Camera Setup I set the white balance to the indoor, or incandescent, preset since lighting will be constantly changing during the performance. By using the indoor setting on both cameras, they will match and I can always color correct in post if necessary. (See my April 21st article,"Consistent White Balance for Live Events" for information on color correcting in post.) It’s mandatory to manually control the exposure settings, since the spotlights on the dancers against a darker background will usually cause the faces and lighter costumes to completely blow out when using auto exposure. Use the zebra stripes function on your camera so you can identify hotspots and stop down the iris as necessary. If you get back to the studio and find that all the faces are overexposed, it is too late. The recitals I cover have loud, high-quality sound systems in the front of the auditorium, and I’ve gotten good audio by simply using on-camera microphones. Some videographers like to place a flat PZM mic on the stage to better pick up tap shoe sounds, but this would be just part of the overall mix and not the main mic. If using camera mics, make sure there isn’t a fidgety kid squeaking his chair or digging into a candy bag near you, as these sounds will be part of the production!
However, wiring your camera directly to the sound board, recording only the CD tracks played for the dances, might seem like an ideal solution, but it is not. There will be no applause, no tap sounds or ambience of any kind recorded and it will do nothing to enhance the video. Editing Once the clips are synched and the audio level set, I then go through and set In and Out points and use the Extract function to remove the dead space between acts when the curtain is closed. I also color correct if necessary, then add my PIP and split effects and titling. The end of an act will fade to black and silence, then I fade up a simple white on black title screen, and fade into the next act as it begins. The result is that when creating chapters for each dance act on the DVD, the chapter mark is right before the title fades up. No matter which chapter the viewer jumps to from the menu, there is no abrupt sound or picture coming in, it always starts on black then moves right into the title followed by the dance number. If the viewer skips through the disc with the "Next" button, it works very smoothly and cleanly. DVD duplication and printing is handled in-house for quick turn-around and quality control, as well as cost savings. If you do just a few events a year that require a lot of DVDs, a duplicator-printer setup can pay for itself very quickly. I use the standard black Amaray-style DVD cases just like the Hollywood DVDs and print my own inserts, normally scanning the recital program and using that existing artwork as the basis of my insert design, quick and easy. Sales and Marketing I come in as an independent contractor and handle the whole job. I take care of making the order forms available, and parents can mail me the form with their check, or they can just phone in a credit card order, which a large number do take advantage of. The studio in turn gets a certain number of free DVDs for their staff and families as a thank you for the opportunity to cover the event. Some producers will determine what they need to make as a minimum on the job, and will prepare a proposal that may require the studio to guarantee a minimum number of DVD sales, after which there may be a reduced rate for additional copies that allows the dance studio to make some money. When getting a studio to guarantee minimum sales, they will normally handle the sales and pay you for the DVDs themselves. In any case, get it all in writing with the studio to avoid issues later on in case there are any issues or disagreements as to who owes what. I’ve been getting $30 per DVD in the Midwest, while I’ve heard of producers in other markets getting as much as $45 per DVD. It may help to put up a table or booth in the lobby at the recital where people can view your work and place orders. I’ve been with my dance studios for so long that everyone knows me and I just make sure that plenty of order forms are available both at rehearsals and at the show. You might wish to offer a discount when customers order two or more different shows to spur additional sales. I do have a lot of post-production time setting up the multiple views and titling the acts. If you have the experience, equipment and crew to properly handle live-switching the event, this could definitely increase the profitability of the job. One method would be to record the live switch, as well as having tape in the individual cameras, and then in post you can just do clean-up up editing as necessary before duplicating. Another more aggressive tactic would be to live switch directly to a DVD recorder, and as soon as the program ends, start running copies on a DVD tower using pre-labeled blanks and make them available immediately to get the impulse buys. If you choose the latter route, make sure you’ve got the procedure down pat, as many things could go wrong. I believe I can always deliver a more polished product by editing in post, but that’s just my personal preference. Many successful event videographers offer live-switched productions and do very well with them. In these hard economic times, it makes sense to diversify your offerings. Maybe you’ve always done just corporate video or weddings, but if business is slow, call those dance studios. In larger metro areas, see if the city park district runs a dance program in addition to the privately-owned studios. I’ve gotten some nice corporate jobs from parents who’ve seen my recital work, so don’t discount the idea. There could be a gold mine in your own backyard, and it repeats (and should grow) every year! The Great Debate - NTSC HD vs. PAL HD
Technically, the title of this article is incorrect, since NTSC and PAL refer to standard-definition video formats. Nevertheless, you may see these terms come up in the various places, so please read on and it will soon make sense. As HD video was first gaining momentum a few years back, many videographers were excited that we might finally be able to have a worldwide video standard that would eliminate the incompatibility issues between the NTSC and PAL video formats used in different countries. In case you’re not familiar with the differences between NTSC and PAL, here's a short history here. In the U.S., the standard-definition video broadcast standard has always been NTSC, which uses 525 lines of video at 29.97 fps (frames per second). In the digital world of the NTSC DV format, popular in camcorders and computer editing applications, 720x480 pixels are used to create a frame of video. PAL video, used in the UK and many other countries, is a 625-line format at 25 fps. PAL DV uses a 720x576 frame size, somewhat larger than the 720x480 of NTSC DV. So, not only is the video frame a different size, but the frame rates differ as well with 25 for PAL vs. 29.97 for NTSC!When video editors need to combine NTSC and PAL footage for various reasons, there must be a format conversion to account for the differences in both frame size and frame rate. It’s more than a minor inconvenience, to put it mildly, and most video professionals would love to see these differences go away. As mentioned earlier, HD video was supposed to eliminate the incompatibility between videos from different countries, since the same frame sizes are used worldwide. For instance, full 1080 HD is 1920x1080 pixels, 1080 HDV uses 1440x1080 pixels, and 720p uses 1280x720 pixels in any country. The problem that arises is that many HD formats still have different frame rates between NTSC and PAL countries. While HD has unified the frame sizes, we are still stuck with "PAL" HD using 25 fps while "NTSC" HD uses 29.97 fps. With interlaced video formats, each frame of video is actually made up of two fields, meaning PAL video has 50 fields and NTSC has 60. This correlates to the electrical systems used in PAL and NTSC countries, which operate at 50Hz and 60Hz respectively – in other words, the video equipment gets its timing from the power source. Even though progressive-scan video uses only frames and not fields, we can still feel the effects of PAL vs. NTSC when looking at 720p video – 720p30 runs at 29.97 fps and is used in countries with NTSC, while PAL users shooting 720p will have 720p25 at 25fps! It seems that the only "universal formats" may be 1080p24 and 720p24, as these will be 24 fps in any country. Note that 24 fps is also the speed of movie film, which may be behind the universal appeal of 24p video. From now on, if you see "PAL" associated with an HD format, it means it uses 25 fps, while NTSC would mean 29.97 fps. While not really correct, these labels continue to be used, but at least you’ll understand the reference when it comes up. So as not to perpetuate the erroneous PAL and NTSC labels as you move into HD production, you should be familiar with proper HD format labels. While the exact syntax may vary from place to place, a typical designation of "1080i30" would equate to 1080 interlaced video at 29.97 fps and "720p24" would be 720 progressive at 24 fps. You will do well to forget about PAL and NTSC labels and pay close attention to frame rates when shooting and editing HD video.
Many HD cameras offer multiple frames rates, and some even offer both 1080 and 720 recording capabilities, so be very careful when setting up the camera for a shoot, whether for yourself or when providing footage for another company. If you choose the incorrect format, it could turn into a hassle as the footage may require conversion which takes time and could also reduce the quality.
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