Quick problem need instant help please!

BlitzKrieg

Hey


Normally i dont have a problem with editing and what not...but i need to have a piece in by midday and its all set up to go. But this is the first time i've used my own computer to export a file to minidv and its just not doing it.

I'm using Adobe premiere pro, i use device control and tell it to export to tape, yet while it does take control of the camera and records no image appears and nothing gets recorded on.

The camera has dv in and out and it is a firewire cable...its just not working and i cant figure out why. please i know its something really obvious but i just cant figure it out.

Or if anyone else knows another way of putting a file to minidv without loosing too much quality it can be a life safer...cheers

americanCat

i'm not really good at this.. and i haven't used adobe in awhile... so, you're trying to export a file??? ummm... try compressing it and exporting as a huffy file.. i'm afraid that that's the best advice i can give... good luck!!

Lump

Are you using the "Dump to tape" tool.... (It might be called something else). If yes, try just manually recording on the DV and playing direct from the timeline. It might work.

If not, I have no Idea really. And I'm a little past the deadline.

John

mycroft

Just crash record on the deck and hit play on the timeline....

Lump

mycroft wrote:

Just crash record on the deck and hit play on the timeline....

Is there an echo in here

John

BlitzKrieg

well thankfully i got an extension but i still havnt figured out the problem...will try going the long way around later tonight (computer >tv.vr > digital camera via AV...prey it works)

mycroft

Lump wrote:

Is there an echo in here

John

smartarse......

Lump

I was only jesting.... jees, everyone is so jumpy today :P

John

formatman

so this wouldn't be the time to say you should have bought a mac !

Final cut pro rocks !

mycroft

Lump wrote:

I was only jesting.... jees, everyone is so jumpy today :P

John

so was I...

so this wouldn't be the time to say you should have bought a mac !

How is this a software problem. I'd be checking the camera, inputs, and stock first.....

Lump

Final cut pro sucks, as do macs. It only got a name for bring the first HD platform, that mattered in america. Now that avid have brough out their HD version, it's not such a big deal in the UK at least. TBH, if the solution to every problem was to by a mac, the BBC would be in the ****. They've got around 30-40 Avid suites. All run on Compaqs

John

mycroft

Lump wrote:

Final cut pro sucks, as do macs.

thems fighting words. I can remember when Symphony was the only avid product released on the PC, but seems the Mac/avid partnership is going the way of the dodo. Avid running on a mac is still the most stable OS and cutting system I know.

It only got a name for bring the first HD platform, that mattered in america. Now that avid have brough out their HD version, it's not such a big deal in the UK at least. TBH, if the solution to every problem was to by a mac, the BBC would be in the ****. They've got around 30-40 Avid suites. All run on Compaqs

John

Theres some interesting discussion on the Avid L list about the develop of the avid on PC, and large corporate and government clients using it.

Personnally more than a few major tv shows are being done on FCP, scrubs and 24 being two examples. And I know sky news uk are switching from avid to discreet in the next six months. I think if you (anyone) want to do this professionally you'll need to learn avid, fcp, discreet, and maybe even lightworks, to keep your hand in it as it were. And getting to grips with AE and photoshop while you are at it.

BlitzKrieg

thank you for hijacking my topic into a mac versus pc debate...but hey i guess the original topic is dead and buried...

And for the record...i dont think its the computer its the camera...and if you think macs are all great give me your address so i can send all the irrate film studants who are currently going insane because of final cut pro...

Lump

Can do after effects and apparently I have a cert in Photoshop.

Avid had a massive falling out with Apple, hence they don't run Avid on Macs anymore. To be fair, I agree with the point about Avid on mac being stable.

Also, I've used Discreet Fire and Flame.... also FCP. Just because I say they're rubbish, doesn't mean I dont know how to use them

At the moment, I have a decent understanding of Avid Adreline, Media COmposer and Symphony, Pinnacle Pro Edition 5 and 6, FCP, Discreet Logic Fire and Adobe Premiere.... Quantel to be added soon, as the BBC use it for their trail editing. I certainally don't like it as a platform. Collidia (Spelling) is in development.... might be using that soon too.

John

mycroft

Not to drag this further ot but

Lump wrote:

Can do after effects and apparently I have a cert in Photoshop.

Avid had a massive falling out with Apple, hence they don't run Avid on Macs anymore. To be fair, I agree with the point about Avid on mac being stable.

They do. Things like Mac Adren just they're dragging their feet on, and they're slowly dropping it. Just keep this in mind FCP is about 7yrs old tops avid has been going for ten years longer than that.

Also, I've used Discreet Fire and Flame.... also FCP. Just because I say they're rubbish, doesn't mean I dont know how to use them

Lump, mate, chill, not having a pissing contest, was making a point that anyone working at our level at the industry can't afford to be picky at the platform. Year and a half ago I worked with Jordan's editor this is a man so well respected in the industry he can say "i use lightworks" and the post route is tailored around the software he uses. We're just going to have to be more adaptable. it's no longer simple to say I'm an avid editor/avid assitant etc, you need a diver set of skills and adapt to variety of software that was point.

For example my loathing of FCP stems specifically for its trim mode this slip slide bull****, thats the fine cutting tool and I don't need the hassle. However Walter (I can make the legs of coffee table out of oscars) Murch cut cold mountain on FCP and this is the guy who got the oscar for the first film cut on a non linear means just saying mac's + FCP are crap is a seriously dangerous generalisation. I have a couple of horrifying stories about the piss poor level of understanding of tech that means we need to accept it's here to stay, it's too well funded it's too cheap and frankly it's too good to dismiss out of hand.

At the moment, I have a decent understanding of Avid Adreline, Media COmposer and Symphony, Pinnacle Pro Edition 5 and 6, FCP, Discreet Logic Fire and Adobe Premiere.... Quantel to be added soon, as the BBC use it for their trail editing. I certainally don't like it as a platform. Collidia (Spelling) is in development.... might be using that soon too.

John

Again with the pissing contest. Not in competition used my first two adrenalines last year and agree than it deserves the nickname qualuudes, a few months later I was on a feature using version 7 film composer on a a Os mac. Are you on the Avid L john, best resource in the world for avid tech guru stuff, had a newscutter unity go down a few weeks ago, and had tips from NBC and a variety of US post houses before my tech support got back be, Singularly the best resource for avid community knowledge on the planet.

And for the record...i dont think its the computer its the camera...and if you think macs are all great give me your address so i can send all the irrate film studants who are currently going insane because of final cut pro...

I think you're right, and no offence a few years back I went back to my own college to supervise the post on graduation projects and having students freak out about playing out, not realising the deck was in local. FCP is becoming a very solid and very relible system theres a great web based community (by great I mean people who have written books on the software) e-mail list out there. FCP is allongside avid (and I think it'll replace avid as the medium sized post house tool within five years, everyone will be using it and Avid Xpress, but FCP for film stuff) get used to it. I have tremendous issues but mostly it comes from a firewire input which is just too sensitive of t/c breaks.

Lump

I wasn't having a contest either. Just saying like

John

Lump

Not on Avid L.... What is it? How do I get on it?

John

sleepwalker

while we're going wildly off topic

for somebody just getting into video editing what do you think is the system i should focus on learning the most ?

all this final cut pro talk is worrying me

mycroft

Lump wrote:

Not on Avid L.... What is it? How do I get on it?

John

Avid L is mainly us based tech support community and discussion group for editors/assistants/post house techs.

I own books by people who post on this list, and am a convert after I phoned my tech support people one day and fifteen minutes later saw someone from that company post my query to the rest of the list. It's high end, very tech jargon don't post anything stupid and lurk for a while, but its the best source for avid tech support in the world. For example a unity went down on me a few weeks ago, and I had five responses ranging from head of post at NBC, to an editor in Joeburg giving me the same advice fixed the problem faster than any tech support I know. PM me' i'll give you the url it's very high traffic though it's worth setting up a gmail account just for it alone.

while we're going wildly off topic

You did ask some advice a while ago sleepwalker and never got back to anyone. Avid/FCP would be my recommendation. Had an assistant who only knew FCp and had her trained up on avid (as an assist mind) within six months.

sleepwalker

thanks for your answer.

yes i did ask for advice before and you all answered the question, i didnt realise you required me to reply again to the thread so i apologise if any offence was caused none was intended and your answers were very informative.

mycroft

sleepwalker wrote:

thanks for your answer.

yes i did ask for advice before and you all answered the question, i didnt realise you required me to reply again to the thread so i apologise if any offence was caused none was intended and your answers were very informative.

No offence taken, was just wondering had you given up or were there more follow up questions?

BlitzKrieg

right then seeing as this topic has gone wildly offtopic, please allow me to rant and rave over how f*cking pissed off i am at the moment.

I use Adobe Premiere Pro to capture and edit my piece, for some messed up reason regardless of which video camera i use i couldnt get the file to be exported back to minidv. In an attempt to save my piece (and my grade) i burn the uncompressed piece to dvd and take it into university to have the media department export it to tape.

1st i find the media department ony uses macs and hence a .avi file is useless with the machines (they spat out the dvd.) So then.

2nd we try and use a minidv deck hooked up to a dvd player, but of course dvd players hate .avi aswell, another failure.

3rd i try and use their video camera's with the only pc (not set up for video editing) they have, which failed miserable.

4th we tried it with a minidv deck. similer results.

5th. We take the file off the dvd and try to convert it to quicktime without destroying the quality. This also failed miserable.


Finally...I have to leave the dvd with the only lecturer who has a pc for video editing and see if he can do it tomarrow morning...*sigh*


I really hate adobe premiere.

Lump

Yea, sorry it went off topic. Myself and Mycroft have gone to PM with our conversation.

Sorry to hear you are having problems with the export. Will your lecturer not accept dvd? Even if you burn it as a regular DVD that will play in a regular DVD player. Like with the VOB files etc.

John

Lump

Plus if you did that, you could go back to the original idea.... Well your second method that you tried. Adobe Encore would do that for you..... if you could aquire it. Export from Premiere as an uncompressed avi then encode to a dvd file.

John

BlitzKrieg

see i need it for a presentation on thursday...they are screening the best of the year and they need all the projects on the same minidv tape so that they can be all screened in the cinema (my first film on the big screen) but mine is not on that tape so i need to get it on a tape hand it to him to tansfer over to the master tape on one of the macs...sigh its all so confusing.

Lump

Why not encode it to a quicktime out of Premiere.... I may be stabbing in the dark here. Haven't used Premiere in years.

John

BlitzKrieg

reasons of quality...i captured it uncompressed and i need it to stay at that level of quality, every attempt to compress it (see attempt 5) has resultedin the piece being of a quality that when blown up on a cinema screen will look horrible compared to the original.

formatman

so according to your post the final master tape is been prepared on a mac then ...sorry shouldn't stir it again

but if you get stuck with this sort of thing again there is a editing house ( can't remember the name ) ( street behind where that howl at the moon pub/club used to be or is ) ,
they converted a NTSC mini DV tape to PAL mini DV for me a few years back ( found them somehow after 25 phone calls to confused video shops

was about €60

they might come in handy in the future anyhow

Lump

BlitzKrieg wrote:

reasons of quality...i captured it uncompressed and i need it to stay at that level of quality, every attempt to compress it (see attempt 5) has resultedin the piece being of a quality that when blown up on a cinema screen will look horrible compared to the original.

Why capture it uncompressed, if shot on Mini DV it was compressed any way. If you blow mini dv up to a cinema screen, it'll look a little rubbish anyway. (I've had two projected onto cinema screens)



John

BlitzKrieg

well i did try and change it over to qucktime (it was the 5th thing i tried) but looking at the qaulity of the outcome (we used video stream i think its called) desipte putting the quality etc up full really looked terrible compared to what i originally had, and when we played it through the university projector it looked even worse and the lecturer said he couldnt show it at that quality (so back to stage 1)

it seems the problem has been fixed though, the lecturer got it off the dvd using his own equipment.