For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd

People all across the planet have reported hearing a strange humming/droning noise at the dead of night usually in their bedrooms like my wife and myself heard last evening.

This is a bit off topic but as I am in an industry that makes a living out of recording sound and vision I feel obliged to report this weird phenomena that has occurred a second time over the last two years.

I was in the edit suite which is right next door to our bed room when my wife came in and asked me what the humming noise was, it was about 1.30am. I switched off all the equipment and could still faintly hear a low, almost mains hum in our bedroom, it is officially reported to be between 40-80 Hz.

I decided to see if the noise was only in the house or outside so we drove round the local area in Burnside, Rutherglen stopping and listening, strangely the noise could also be heard a quarter of a mile up the hill from my house facing south but going the same distance north, nothing.

I looked for the obvious train line maintenance or any kind of construction but once again nothing, the same happened about a year and a half ago and we went through the same exercise.

This strange low frequency hum has also been reported from Canada and England all with the same story only noticeable at night, we don’t have any overhead pylons anywhere near us so it remains a mystery.

Is mother earth being mined under our very feet ?

For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd

Here is a list of Applications that I deem necessary for editing on my iMac…

1. FCPX is essential for HD video editing version 10.0.7 is very responsive on the timeline, I have over 14 hours of HD 720p video footage ingested into my Thunderbolt Raid 5 Pegasus R6 and the speed also helps Motion 5 when sharing (exporting) your footage.

2. Motion 5 is essential for producing classy looking graphics on the Final Cut timeline though a lot of the 3D is produced elsewhere due to time constraints in producing this level of medical detail.

3. LittleSnapper is a great wee app for snapping anything off the computer or a web site.

4. Safari is used to upload sections of work to Vimeo and download external Shutterstock 3D animations and 3D stills like the one seen above.

5. Email is essential for keeping clients updated with the edit and sending them links to view work in progress.

6. Screenflow is a tool that allows you to record everything that is happening on your computer screen then edit it on it’s very own timeline.

7. iTunes is where all my copyright free music exists which can be accessed direct from FCPX, this has become invaluable allowing me to preview various tunes to suit the mood.

8. A great wee application is ClipWrap this allows you to import that all important AVCHD footage that for some reason FCPX will not look at.

9. Photoshop CS6 cloud edition is the backbone for graphics and photo manipulation for any video work.

10. Audition is my audio editing package of choice as FCPX does not come with soundtrack, I do hope Apple will fix this in a future update as I do not want to start learning Logic.

11.Lightroom is great for upgrading certain JPEGS that are not colour correctable in Photoshop.

12. Encore is the only professional encoding tool for DVD and Blu-Ray DVD production, an essential tool.

13. PDF editor allows me to edit clients PDFs, usually to add my signature or to send them a script or JPEG as a PDF.

14. The Sony XDCAM browser is essential for importing SxS footage into FCPX.

15. Compressor is the number one tool for turning self contained quick time .MOV files into various flavours including MPEG2 for DVDs.

16. BlackMagic Media Express is the number one app for importing older analogue and digital tape for use in FCPX this app comes free with Ultra Stuido Express (Thunderbolt) and the Intensity Pro card.

17. FX Factory is the defacto plug-in package for FCPX, this is an essential purchase for cracking graphics and effects.

18. System Preferences is also essential for tweaking the likes of BM Ultra Studio.

19. iCal is used extensively to add filming, editing dates and reminders.

So there you have it a whistle stop tour of my essential applications needed to produce first class HD productions using FCPX.

For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd

Rick has been busy, not only producing a 222 page book all about FCPX but today launches his new book all about the new BlackMagic Cinema Camera for a fantastic price of $9.95.

Here is a link to the download page on Ricks web site…

 

http://www.moviemachine.tv/article/now-available-95-page-book-shooting-with-the-bla/

 

For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd

 

It’s not quite finished but my new 27″ Thunderbolt enabled iMac runs as sweet as a nut with my Pegasus R6 Thunderbolt raid attached.

My mammoth edit about Type one Diabetes is almost loaded with some residual filming still to do and how good are those Canon C300 pictures, every interview bar two was done with my C300. The other two were done with a Sony FS100 and a JVC HM650.

The 27″ iMac has 32Gig of RAM and a 768GB SSD drive, the iMac is up and running in about 5 seconds with all apps instantly available.

FCPX is now ready for serious editing and with the ability to add Keywords to specific footage it’s become way more accessible than FCP-7 ever was, no more trawling through the footage to find interviews, you just add a Keyword and a name…it’s that simple.

FCPX does still need some extra sound tweaks but it’s now head and shoulders ahead of FCP-7, Premiere Pro CS6 and Avid…in my opinion. Having USB-3 is also a major for ingesting you footage off card, I bought a Lexar USB 3 reader (CF and SDHC), mind you the upload speed depends on the transfer speed of your memory. NOTE : The SDHC part of the Lexar Professional card reader is far from satisfactory as it’s very footery to insert the card.

The good thing for me is having one computer for editing and one for Motion 5 graphics, speeding up the whole process and best of all having two edit suits with the older MacPro as a good back up if needed.

 

For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd

Just remembered I had this…a brand new boxed wide angle lens for the Canon XF100/105 camcorders. It’s in mint condition and selling for £200 less than major retail outlets.

Send me an email to hdwarrior@me.com and I will send you a PayPal request. UK sale only please.

For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd

For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd

Matrox® Video Products Group has announced the immediate availability of a unified Mac driver that provides support for the latest Adobe, Apple and Avid editing apps for Matrox MXO2™ and Matrox MXO2 MAX™ families of I/O devices and the Matrox Mojito MAX™ I/O card. Key features of the release include support for audio punch-in using Avid editing applications as well as support for recording voice-overs using Adobe Premiere Pro.

MXO2 family
Support for Mac OS Mountain Lion 10.8.2 and Lion 10.7.5.
Support for Adobe, Apple, and Avid software:
Adobe Premiere Pro 6.0.2, After Effects 11.0.2.11, Encore 6.0.1.013, Media Encoder 6.0.2.81, Photoshop 13.0.3, Prelude 1.0.2, and Audition 5.0.2.
Apple Final Cut Pro X 10.0.7 and Apple Compressor 4.0.6.
Avid Media Composer and Symphony 6.0.3 and 6.5.2.
Support for a Matrox CompressHD card on the same system.
Support for the I/O hardware release feature in Avid Media Composer and Symphony 6.0.3 and 6.5.2.
Support for recording voice-overs using Adobe Premiere Pro.
Support for audio punch-in using Avid Media Composer and Symphony.
New Matrox MAX H.264 encoding presets in Apple Compressor and Adobe Media Encoder for Apple iPhone 5.
Support for the new Matrox MXO2 Dock docking station.

HDW : It’s a disgrace that Matrox have taken this long to bring video editors up to speed, I covered this topic back in June 2012 then decided to jump ship during August 2012 and bought a BlackMagic Design Intensity Pro card and sold my Matrox MX02.

If you need to ingest anything other than card like an older SVHS tape you still can’t do this with a Matrox MX02 that’s where BlackMagic play a big part in giving you the added software of Media Express that allows you to import footage from any analogue and digital tape source via a break out cable.

For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd

I am working on my update for the JVC GY-HM650 video this week but having worked with the camcorder over the last few weeks am now looking back at my footage and reflecting on how the camera performs.

I had a couple of the boys in last week, Sean and Graham having a look at the JVC 650 against Sean’s Sony NX5, the main difference is the amount of light the 650 soaks in at 0dB compared to the Sony NX5.

Secondly the sharpness of the LCD was streets ahead of the NX5 which was slightly blurry compared to the 650. Sean decided the JVC GY-HM600 was the camera for him as the extra features on the 650 were not enough to justify the extra cost.

I was watching back my two camera funeral using a JVC GY-HM650 and the Sony PMW-EX3 tonight and came to the following conclusions…

The Sony EX3 had the edge over the 650 when it came to low light but the EX3 does have the advantage having 1/2″ sensors.

The Sony also scored with it’s 14x constant aperture lens.

The JVC with it’s massive 23x lens needed an extra 3dBs of gain to compensate for the drop in light levels at the tighter end of the lens.

The two cameras were very well balanced colour wise but the JVC has a deeper and more natural colour.

The JVC was far superior noise wise but it’s a compromise…the Sony is certainly noisier at 0dB but the JVC uses a Digital Noise Reduction (DNR) circuit to get rid of the noise which although had 3dBs extra it still performed better than the EX3 but caused a very slight image smear in pan shots only noticeable in lower lighting conditions. Update. Once again this DNR is a version one firmware (FW) as per the pre production model and JVC will be updating this in an up and coming FW.

On the whole the JVC performed exceptionally well compared to the Sony EX3 and is still one of the best 1/3″ camcorders on the market today with the Panasonic 160A coming a close second.

Firstly the JVC GY-HM600/650 is very good at 0dB and outperforms the Canon XF305 and the Sony NX5 at 0dB. My GY-HM600 review only tested the camera up to 6dBs because thats all I needed to get a properly exposed night shot at my local shops with street lighting.

The camera is more sensitive at 0dB than most of the 1/3″ competition, if you want noiseless pictures at 18dBs then use a large sensor camera like a Canon C300.

NO 1/3″ camcorder performs at 18dBs you are kidding yourself if you think otherwise  

Please do not miss quote me on DVINFO as Mr Chris Hurd does not allow me the right to reply due to banning me a few years ago

 

For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd

We went to Sean Fallon’s home during 2011 to do an interview with him for my son’s blog The Footy Blog.net and today I discovered he had passed away this morning.

Sean was a good friend of my fathers which gave us access to a Celtic legend that would have been impossible otherwise. Sean was a very kind man, when I was a wee boy my father was best friends with both Sean Fallon and Jock Stein, we used to visit their houses at least once a week and thought nothing of it.

My love and best wishes to Myra and all her children in these hours of sadness.

Today I would like to share this 20 minute tribute to Sean Fallon as he was one of Scottish Football’s true legends. It was filmed with a Sony NX70 and a Sony FS100.

For a different account of this interview why not go over to Scotts blog… http://www.thefootyblog.net

For all your video production needs in Scotland, get in touch with Small Video Company Ltd