Capturing from the HV30

Having spent my half hour on Yonge shooting with the brand-new HV30, it was time to capture. I’m using Final Cut Studio 1, so Final Cut itself is version 5.0.4 on my 1.6 GHz G5 tower. I connected the HV30 to the G5 via the Firewire 400 port on the front panel, with my capture drive plugged into the Firewire-800 port to keep the two devices on separate busses.
Setting the in and out points for batch capturing is the same as regular DV, but doing the batch capture itself seems to run into timecode errors on a regular basis. I seemed to hit an error every other or every 3rd capture, but clicking on OK sent FCP back to work and it would capture everything okay during the 2nd or 3rd attempt. The capture window for HDV is different than the one for regular DV, and you don’t get the image mirrored in FCP as you capture. Not a big deal as I normally watch the camcorder’s flip-screen during capture.
Capturing the first shot, the 24p, took no more time than usual, once I’d gone through the first timecode error message. Putting the clip on the timeline prompted a red render line across the top of that window, so I started to render. FCP said it would take 9 minutes to render the 30-second 24p clip, but I think it was closer to 4 minutes. Exporting said clip to QuickTime (without conversion) took seconds—it must spit out the render file pretty much as is. Here’s the 24p footage after Youtube got its hands on it:

I exited FCP and set up a new project in order to capture the same clip using Apple’s intermediate HDV codec. The 30 second 24p intermediate clip didn’t require rendering, and the export prompted a warning of 11 minutes, which was probably less than 2 minutes in total. Here’s what the lower-res 24p footage looks like:

Exiting FCP again, I set up a 30p project file. As with 24p, FCP indicated rendering was needed. The 30-second 30p clip generated a 2-minute estimate but actually took about a minute and a half to render, so it’s clearly less complicated for FCP compared to the 24p clips. I’m no engineer, but I’m guessing that it’s easier to pull the 30p data off the 60i tape feed from the camcorder. Exporting the 30p clip took a few seconds. And here’s the clip:

The next setting was the plain-Jane HDV, the 1080i format. Capture wasn’t a problem, and putting the clip into the timeline prompted the red render line. FCP initially reported 12 minutes to render, but the counter fluttered between 10, 11, and 12 minutes in the first 30 seconds or so. In actual time, the rendering took about 10 and a half minutes, so for 1080i, FCP guessed fairly accurately. Again, the export to QuickTime took 4-5 seconds, and this is what it looks like:

Capturing a clip shot in regular 60i standard-def DV was problematic. The easy setup choice for DV didn’t work—I kept getting timecode errors. I went in and played with the manual settings (mostly by selecting something else and then going back to the proper setting), and it started to capture. I got the audio rate mismatch error message when it was done, so I’ll have to go back and try to match what is undoubtedly not a 48k sample rate on the camcorder. Strangely, I had to render the clip once I plopped it into the timeline—clearly it’s not pure DV or I’ve missed a setting somewhere (the clip appeared fine in the viewer, but was a tiny square in the middle of the Canvas view before and after rendering). I went back to the manual the next day and realized I had left the HV30’s export setting at HDV instead of switching to standard-def DV—I’ll do a another test with the other setting to see how it turns out. Exporting this first attempt to QuickTime took just a few seconds. Here’s what it looks like (don’t squint too hard):

Finally, I set up a FCP project to compare the 24p and the 24p Apple Intermediate codecs. FCP didn’t seem to like me mixing the two on the same timeline as the image sizes changed when I dropped the 2nd type into the timeline. I set up some graphics and some split-screen action to compare. Rendering took about 2 minutes, and the export took less than 5 seconds (clearly, those render files are going straight into the QuickTime files). Here’s the comparison as it appeared:

This clip took very little time for Compressor to convert to the Youtube settings as detailed at Ken Stone’s site (here’s the article that I followed to set up Youtube 4:3 and widescreen presets) compared to DV clips (it takes at least 3 hrs to render a 2-minute DV clip, so the two formats are clearly quite different). The other HDV clips took much less time than past DV clips I’ve converted using these settings, too.
The Youtube website itself took longer to upload those clips, so any speed gains in Compressor seemed offset by slowdowns with YouTube. I had assumed that HD footage would take longer for both steps, so it’s a fair tradeoff.
Next time, I hope to have my 2nd field trip tests and results, this time to explore the different manual and preset options, and to try setting the export settings to DV for the old-school shots.

Upgrade Update and Why DVD Studio Pro is Teh Suck

First, an update on my upgrade plans. I’ve eliminated one option from my ongoing post-production software. Way, way back in an earlier entry, I wrote about upgrading from Final Cut Studio 1 on my G5. I played with Red Giant’s Magic Bullet suite and came away impressed. I also played with Adobe AfterEffect’s demo (which I haven’t blogged about yet). Last week, I started to research my third option, Final Cut Studio 2. That’s when I discovered a problem with FCS 2: my G5.

I have a 1.6 GHz G5, the low-end model of the first release, the slowest G5 ever made. I have a stock model, with an extra gigabyte of RAM. The original graphics card is the stock GeForce FX5200 Ultra, a card that isn’t certified to power Color or Motion 3. The card I would need is the Radeon X1900 G5 Mac Edition, which is no longer available new (Amazon and eBay prices range from $250 to $350 for used and "new" cards. Apple carries an X1900, but it's the version for the Mac Pros).

My G5 turns five in August, so I have to ask, “Is it worth spending $300 to upgrade an old computer so I can spend another $600 to get Color and Motion 3?

I’m not convinced my colour-correcting or motion-graphics skills are worth $1000. And there’s no guarantee my G5 will run the apps efficiently. Therefore, I’m taking Final Cut Studio 2 out of the equation. And then there were two….

And now our second topic. Last week, we got the Ed & Red appearances dubbed from VHS to mini-DV. I was able to capture the footage, edit everything in Final Cut, use Compressor to convert the footage for DVD, and then set up a project in DVD Studio Pro.

I’ve always found DVD Studio Pro to be the problem child of Final Cut Studio. It works great up until I start a build or format a DVD. I don’t recall any projects where I didn’t have to trash all the build files and start over. Sometimes, each disk I burned required me to trash and start over again. Clearly, Apple doesn’t care about the DVD—it’s the interwebs, stupid!

The Sock DVD is just for friends and family who missed our appearances, so I did a barebones project, with four options: both complete shows, the excerpts of us, a main menu, a menu for each show, and a disclaimer video to make sure nobody plays it around kids or at work. Nothing fancy, or so I thought.

So as I started to burn a test disk, the app crashed. One moment, it was on screen, the next, I was staring at the Finder. This happened every time. I trashed all the build files and folders, rechecked the project—everything I’d done in the past that had worked I did. But nothing worked, even after rebooting, checking Software Update for anything related to Final Cut Studio 1, sacrificing a goat to the gods, etc., etc.

So I trashed the video and audio files and re-rendered everything through Compressor again. I started from scratch and reprogrammed the DVD. But as I started to drop the video from one of the shows into its track, DVD Studio Pro again vanished. This happened each of the four times I tried it.

A third trip through Compressor seemed unavoidable, so I went back into Final Cut and removed the chapter markers from the troublesome track. Compressor churned out new files, and I went back into DVD Studio Pro muttering things about Steve Jobs. I put together the entire project from scratch, for the third frigging time. Then, sure I was ready to toss the G5 off the balcony, I clicked on Build/Format again, but opted to build a disk image instead of burning directly to disk. Then I went into the next room and watched TV to bring my blood pressure down.

To my shock and horror, DVD SP actually worked. I had a working disk image on my hard drive. Using OS X’s Disk Utility, I burned the image to a blank DVD and, lo and behold, I had a working DVD. So… hopefully… this is a workaround that continues to work going forward.

DVD SP allows you great control over every aspect of your DVD, so I am frustrated by Apple’s inability to prevent it from blowing up real good….

Earth Hour, YouTube, and Web 2.0

We had a big media blitz for Earth Hour here in Canada this year, and I decided to do my part and shut off all lights and appliances for an hour on March 29th. This I did.

But I did run one electrical device: my camcorder. I put my trusty ol’ Canon Ultura on my tripod and parked it in front of my balcony window to capture the beginning and end of Earth Hour. I used my Canon wide-angle adaptor (similar to this but not the same model) on the Ultura to make sure I got as much of the landscape as possible, so the balcony railing and the ceiling above it are both curved—but I caught a much wider angle than I would have otherwise.

I captured it the next morning to my hard drive, used Final Cut to edit it, and sent it through Compressor to prepare it for YouTube. I sped the footage up to 1000%, so each minute of video became 1.7982 seconds. I must admit I was impressed with Final Cut’s abilities to do so—with frame blending, it became seamless. Watching the headlights of cars showed how smooth Final Cut can be.

Here’s the video:



You’ll see someone slide the screen door open and then the balcony door several times—if I do this again, I’m putting a moratorium on going out on the balcony until after the camera’s shut off!

After I’d rendered and exported the video to QuickTime, I used a Compressor preset I’d obtained from Ken Stone’s website. The tutorial you’ll find there (by Brian Gary) is quite thorough, and I’ve been really impressed with the quality after YouTube finishes rendering. One thing to remember—you can ignore title-safe and action-safe as your entire video ends up on YouTube.

As I was waiting for Compressor to finish rendering, I wondered what the world in front of my balcony looked like on video on any other night—would it be a noticeable difference? So 24 hours after Earth Hour, I shot more video, with the camcorder in approximately the same spot.

I captured the subsequent night footage, sped it up and exported it to QuickTime as before. Then I brought both clips into Motion, where I planted them side-by-side with a background and text to try to make things clearer. I considered doing a wipe back and forth between the two clips, but side-by-side made the most sense for quick ‘n’ dirty video. I sent it through Compressor and then uploaded it.



As of tonight (April 1), the first video has 137 views and the second has 98. Some people have added comments, the “honors” link shows that the videos were in the top videos for their category, and I feel I’ve made a small contribution to the Web 2.0 phenomenon. Interestingly, the first video I put up, Hotdog, has gone from my 3 test viewings to 22 views since the other videos first appeared. I have no idea how anyone wathcing environmental videos would respond to Hotdog’s somewhat scatological bent….

I have had some time to think about the impact of these videos given the comments people have made—there was a 2-person mini-debate about global warming in the 2nd one—and I think I should have made clearer that I was shooting a great swath of residential space, where streetlights from a few major roads as well as row upon row of residential streets, dominate the landscape. The busiest stretch of highway in North American, the 401, crosses just below the horizon as well, so a lot of those lights were not part of Earth Hour. If I’d been able to shoot the skyline from my tiny bathroom window, I would have cpatured the CN Tower and the bank towers downtown going dark, as well as parts of Riverdale and the Beaches. So, in hindsight, I would have put in captions or title cards to put things in context—I didn’t intend the comparison video to present Earth Hour in a negative light (no pun intended).

If I’m still in this apartment a year from now, I’m definitely repeating the experiment and I’ll post all 4 videos for comparison.