Best Quality Settings...

Robert M Wright said:
For color correction, the biggest fundamental thing is "simply" getting neutral colors (white, gray, black) truly neutral (no color cast). Do that, and often color will fall into place nicely.

Personally, I wouldn't bother with Pinnacle. When I've tried it out, I quickly uninstalled it - struck me as just awful (overly simplistic, klunky and buggy as heck). I'd love to try SpeedEdit, but they don't do trial versions, and I'm not in the habit of blindly dropping a few hundred bucks on an NLE (or any other kind of software, for that matter).

You should have got a copy of Edius Neo 2 with the HMC40, which has some pretty nice tools for color correction. I'd suggest you install it, and start out by doing some experimenting using the "White Balance" tool. It's in the "Video Filters" under "Color Correction". Try experimenting with the color picker to point at portions in a frame that should be neutral (white/gray/black) to automatically remove color cast.

If you upgrade to the newer version of Neo 2 (should be able to get the upgrade free from Panny, but maybe a real PITA with the sucky website), you will have a solid basic NLE that is excellent for being able to work with AVCHD natively.
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Thanks..
I am dealing with Panny over the Neo 2 Booster (I have the old disk and the new S/N, and they aren't compatible).

SE has some really nice tools, but well don't get me started on the lack of a free trial. For a company that is normally so good to its customers, Newtek is really dropping the ball there. It has some powerful tools, and Bob Tsasa makes a nice plugin that lets you 'white balance' captured footage (if its all digital, isn't in 'bitage' instead?). It doersn't fix everything, but it seems to be a really nice start.

I wouldn't mistake Pinnacle for a pro solution, but it has a very convenient DVD authoring system built in, and some of the other stuff isn't so bad. Since neither SE nor Neo can do that, it is useful. Some of the cutsey transitions/wipes are handy for the kids, also... :)

But, for real color correction, you are correct. It isn't anything like SE and presumably Neo, Vegas, Premeire, or Liquid (or FC Pro for those of you on Apples)
 
Twake06 said:
...what type of shutter speed should I have used for a "promo" video like this with no quick actions really going on? thanks everyone for the "constructive criticism"
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Keep it simple.

Unless you are sure you have a good reason to use a different shutter speed, 1/60 for 60p, 60i or 30p, and 1/48 for 24p will pretty much work best more than 95% of the time for producing the most natural looking footage.

When you are shooting in dim lighting conditions, cutting the shutter speed in half might become a necessity (obviously a pretty good reason), but will blur motion (so move the camera extremely slowly, if at all). Do it only if the image is still unacceptably dark, after opening aperture all the way up and engaging gain (within reason).
 
v3rlon said:
I wouldn't mistake Pinnacle for a pro solution, but it has a very convenient DVD authoring system built in, and some of the other stuff isn't so bad. Since neither SE nor Neo can do that, it is useful. Some of the cutsey transitions/wipes are handy for the kids, also... :)
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If you find Pinnacle serves a purpose well for you, that's all that counts (and if it doesn't crash a lot for you, god bless ya!).

You can burn DVD or Blu-Ray from the timeline with Neo.

(Personally I never use cutesy transitions - makes the end result look way to cheesy.)
 
I agree with Robert.... I avoid the cutesy transitions/wipes, even with the kids (even more so with kids, surprisingly enough). Not only do you risk going down the cheesy route, but they can distract from the event you are filming. One of the best kid focused vids (a pinewood derby that a friend of mine took; his son was in it) I have seen recently was done with simple cross fade transitions and titles. I came away remembering the event and not the video.

If you have an editor that can support your storyboarding well and can do good basic transitions and titles, then you have a good part of what you really need.
 
I don't mean OF kids. I mean FOR kids.

When making home movies like the son's birthday party...he loves those things.
 
v3rlon said:
It has some powerful tools, and Bob Tsasa makes a nice plugin that lets you 'white balance' captured footage (if its all digital, isn't in 'bitage' instead?). It doersn't fix everything, but it seems to be a really nice start.

I wouldn't mistake Pinnacle for a pro solution, but it has a very convenient DVD authoring system built in, and some of the other stuff isn't so bad. Since neither SE nor Neo can do that, it is useful. Some of the cutsey transitions/wipes are handy for the kids, also... :)
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Neo has the white balance filter that lets you pick white/gray/black captured footage... It also has a DVD/Blu-Ray authoring system...
 
Bic Parker said:
I agree with Robert.... I avoid the cutesy transitions/wipes, even with the kids (even more so with kids, surprisingly enough). Not only do you risk going down the cheesy route, but they can distract from the event you are filming. One of the best kid focused vids (a pinewood derby that a friend of mine took; his son was in it) I have seen recently was done with simple cross fade transitions and titles. I came away remembering the event and not the video.

If you have an editor that can support your storyboarding well and can do good basic transitions and titles, then you have a good part of what you really need.
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I'm the same way, the only transitions I use are straight cuts and dissolves (cross fades). If people don't notice the transition, the better I did my job.


Bob Diaz
 
Looks like you shot with autofocus ON and the lens was "hunting". Colors looked fine. The pans and cuts are jarring and jump cuttish. You've got to polish up you editing skills.
 
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