My brain hurts, damn learning video is a mind numbing bitch

[Cleo]

Been learning FCP for about a week now and I'm finally starting to get the hang of it. I've edited 3 interviews and put them up and now I'm re-rendering MPGs that wouldn't play properly for Angel's members that her old video guy did for her.

Still making lots of mistakes but getting better with each one. I've never done any kind of video stuff before and didn't even know what was meant by non square pixels. This makes using learning Photoshop look like nothing. Angel stopped by and said my computer screens looked like something at a doctors office.

I just figured out what I was doing wrong with aspect ratios and realized this was the reason renders were taking hours instead of fifteen minutes. Still rendering is pretty boring and it makes my computer run slow while it is doing it so doing something else like reading the boards feels like swimming under water.

I am really looking forward to getting better at this and shooting new vids.

[tiny]

Yup learning videos isn't easy,not familar with that program being its probly for macs.
I get eye strain easier these days thats for damn sure.
Lets see a sample if ya got one handy

[Cleo]

Everything I have is over 50 megs so I don't really want to post them on a public board. I did have some smaller clips that I had put up when I was testing but I have since tossed them.

I will post some stuff after I get better at this. lol

This is what I'm using

[ladydesigner]

Wow - that software has a hefty price tag on it!

[tiny]

Yeah I hear that 50 m is abit much just for show.should be a learning experience for sure.What format is the final product.
Don't let it overwhelm ya before ya kow it you'll be sayin damn it was that easy hehe.
Too many damn codecs now days for windows and of course billyboy never wants anybody using other ones then his haha
I have a Canpus capture card retailed 2yrs ago 1700.00.I lost my mind afew times.
Takes alot of diskspace to render breaks it up in 4gig chunks

[Cleo]

Doing everything as mpg-1 288x240 at 105kps

The person that was doing the vids first did them as wmv files which caused nothing but trouble especially with her non Windows users and then did MPGs which would play about half way and the the video would drop out with the sound only playing. He was on a PC and I never heard of the program he was using.

I didn't shoot any of this and most of them are a real horror show of lighting, but my background is still photography so I'm probably being over critical seeing as it is porn.

Yeah it is expensive software. It is actually what all the local TV stations use down here. It is overkill for what we are doing and we bought the whole production suite not just FCP. Figured if I was going to teach myself this I wanted something that I wouldn't outgrow.

[tiny]

No your not being critical if your going to do it do it right.I hate alot of the stuff I see on the net.
Over staturated no color correction over compressed it goes on and on.
Sounds like that guy never looked at his work haha.I'm not the best but far from the worst haha.
I go source to avi to encode to mpeg 1 352x240.I've just recently started playing with WMV.
Sounds like your more streamiing with that 105kps almost like windows streaming media works
Not wmv just mpg1 hope i copies it right haha
http://www.mpgsites.com/sites/gsu/ad...tytalk105b.mpg

[Cleo]

That vid looks very good.

The three that I started off with tape are 320x240. Not sure what is up with the old mpgs that I'm re-doing being at 288x240 but that is what they were made at so not much I can do about it.

All the new ones will be made at 320x240. Now if I can just get Angel to turn off the overhead fluorescent lights while she shoots the models wont have green hair.

WMV files have issues with htaccess and software used to secure member's areas where mpg doesn't and everyone can play it without plug-ins.

[tiny]

Tanx,your probly better off not trying to do anything wiith the three old ones.
Unless you can uncompress them and if they didn't have sound and stuff more wasted work.
Atleast you know the person shooting the content and can make her see what you need her to not do.
I'm playin with wmv because we'll be selling the content and it'll be in 3 formats.

[JenC]

I edit/render tons of video daily. Final Cut Pro is the way to go. You're pretty courageous for learning it right away though, I'd suggest starting with iMovie or something easier to start off with. That's what I did.

[Greenguy]

If you were a man, you'd have thrown the video & directions out by now.

Mind you, you'd still have no understanding of the program

[Cleo]

Actually I found the 20lbs of manuals that came with the Production Suite pretty useless and did what I always do and went out and bought the Visual Quickstart Guide. I love these books and buy them for all the programs that I own.

[Cleo]

Instead of sleeping last night I ended up shooting a vid, using a cheap camera, and then editing 8 gigs of footage down to 300 megs that I then turned into a 50 meg MPG.

I'm only going to leave this up in a public directory for a few days but here is my very first attempt at producing a reality vid. www.foxyangel.com/casting-angel.mpg

[Surfn]

It looks as good as any other sponsor content, maybe better

Let me know the clips are available in the webmaster section.

[Cleo]

We are going to get a few more month's worth of MPGs in the member's area before we release promotional MPGs. I don't want surfers thinking that there is a lot more MPGs in there then what there is and right now she only has a few dozen MPGs in there. She does have two tranny feeds that are very good streaming feeds but they are not downloadable MPGs.

But speaking of MPGs for promotional use… Is 10 second vids about the norm?

[Surfn]

10 seconds are fine.

[tiny]

Good job Cleo I wouldn't leave that up to long you might wanna split it up and have say 1 minute up its just for show and 1 minutes enough.
If I can you might want to use less saturation and less contrast.
Sharpening tool also makes it night and clear just don't over do it
Don't use any kinda softing tool it kills it during compression.
Don't know how your program works but sometimes a higher birate will produce a good quailty vid its kinda a toss up .
What are you using to encode it to mpg aka compression tool.
BEST by far out there,it edit great also all kinds of filters
http://www.tmpgenc.net/
Chopping them up easiest and best batch process
http://www.doeasier.org/splitter/index.html
gget that choose batch set it to 60 or 120 sec and your good to go.

Mpg's for posting which I'm sure you'll do 12-15 seconds,which will put you over a mmpeg safely.How do I know thats all I ever posted for the most part being mpeg only sites hahaha.
Good job once again )

[Cleo]

I use an AppleScript GUI front end to open source *nic tools for splinting vids http://homepage.mac.com/major4/video.html
It's kind of an Army Swiss Knife of video tools. I've used it to do the handful of gallery MPGs that I've done.

If I can you might want to use less saturation and less contrast.
Sharpening tool also makes it night and clear just don't ov

Yeah I thought so too, but I think it is the camera as they looked like that before I compressed them.

Here is a copy and paste from the preset that I'm using to compress them. I left Deinterlacing and Noise Removal on since that was the defaults.

Name: MPEG-1 Web FA
Description: Deinterlaced with noise reduction and FA copyright
File Extension: mpg
Audio Encoder
Format: MPEG
Sample Rate: 44.100kHz
Channels: 1
Bits Per Sample: 16
Video Encoder
Format: MPEG1
Width and Height: Automatic
Pixel aspect ratio: default
Crop: None
Frame rate: (100% of source)
Deinterlacing
Algorithm: Odd
Noise Removal
Apply To: Chroma Channels
Iterations: 1
Algorithm: Replace
Watermark
Position: Lower Left
Scale By: 0.300000
Alpha: 1.000000
File Name: /Users/terri/Jobs/foxy-angel.com/•Stuff/FA logo for FCP.psd

[Cleo]

That odd my bit rate and stuff isn't in that copy and paste.

Here it is

[tiny]

go with interlace noise off,if you have a option to choose Pixel aspect ratio 4.3525 frame rate something to play with always shoot for 29.97 that NTSC.
that bitrate looks ok i'm still getting use to seeing them so highplaying with wmv file.
IIs that a apple only program or can it run on windows also

[Cleo]

The Final Cut Pro package is Mac only.

The *nix tools that ffmpegX uses are open source programs compiled for a PowerPC processor.

Pixel aspect ratio 4.3525 frame rate something to play with always shoot for 29.97 that NTSC.

Isn't that set in the camera?

I do see these setting in the capture prefs

[tiny]

Good question not really sure since it is mac. did a quick goggle this page seems pretty informative
http://www.mastincrosbie.com/mark/mo...echniques.html

[Cleo]

So that is what the Vectorscope is for. That looks like another good book to get.

[RawAlex]

Cleo, welcome to hell. You have finally embarked on a journey that makes learning Photoship look like a nice afternoon's work.

First off, get yourself photoshop cs (if you can for Mac). It supports non-sqaure pixels (the good 0.9 ones) that allow you to build and view overlays and other graphics in the correct size. Otherwise you will forever have to live with the stretch when you put things into the timeline.

Also, if you want to make things look like movies, spend the major cash (or steal) a copy of magic bullet. You will get the nicest coloring you will ever see in your life.

I am using premiere pro on a matrox X-treme setup, very powerful (although I had to change cards after a blowout nobody could really explain... I get very freaky when $1k cards die).

You will learn new things every day for the rest of your life - including finding out that your best edit is ruined by bad camera work, and the best camera shot is ruined by crummy editing!

Alex

[Cleo]

Originally posted by RawAlex
First off, get yourself photoshop cs (if you can for Mac). It supports non-sqaure pixels (the good 0.9 ones) that allow you to build and view overlays and other graphics in the correct size.

I've had Photoshop CS since it came out and finally understand what its non square pixels are for and even redid the FA logo using non square pixels.

Speaking of video cards my one year old laptop's video card is too old to run Motion so I've good it just sitting here until I buy a nice new shinny Powerbook and go down the street and borrow my neighbor's G5 tower.

But really what I want most of all is a decent video camera.