Not so quick question.

S

Scottish

Member
Well, a couple of questions actually...

First off, when you watch a piece of footage, opening in its most simple state, just opening the file through quicktime player or something, is what your watching a "dumbed down" sort of preview of the footage, or is it at its maximum quality. Because when i watch my footage it seems to have a pixelation to it, just a lack of sharpness.

When I film things, i usually try to keep it pretty simple as far as settings go, I usually bump the sharpness up to around +3, and pretty much the only other things i mess with are colour temperatures and things of that sort.

I havent put anything to disk since I've had my camera, but that is the goal in the long run. I have had a friend of mine use a couple of clips in one of his videos, and they just didn't look right at all. I send them to him uncompressed via an instant message program, from a mac to his PC, so i don't know if the difference in .mov and .avi had anything to do with that.

So I guess what I'm trying to ask is there something I'm doing wrong, or is it just what I'm seeing prior to compression and burning that is throwing me off?

Thanks,
Scott

ps. I know youtube isn't the best way to illustrate my issue, but it's an example at least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRyNEuNeiYI
 
Hmm, i can't say i know the problem with the sharpness of the video. I honestly wouldn't have noticed it if you hadn't said something about it.

But i film skateboarding too, and i'll tell you what i do and see if that helps.
I use the F1 scene file with OIS off and then i film with a shutter speed. (As high as the lighting situation will allow me to go) The shutter speed will decrease motion blur which is perfect for a skateboarding slowmo section. I don't touch any of the settings of the scene file, i just leave it on default.
Then i edit with CS3 on my PC. Maybe it has something to do with quicktime. I don't think the settings you changed in the camera would really effect the sharpness of the video itself. But i would deffinitely bump up the shutter speed when possible. (if you don't already.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w77bc-kqpI
This is a video i filmed BEFORE i knew about the shutter speed. Let me know if you notice the same "dumbed down" quality.
 
No I didn't notice it in your video, its hard to describe I guess, and its even harder to show because I cant provide an image without degrading the image quality anyway.

But it's something I need to figure out because when it come to skateboarding there are no takes, its a one time deal, and I don't want to be ruining shots that the skaters put so much effort into getting.

I've read that as a general rule of thumb, your shutter should be at twice your frame rate. I.E. 60i = 1/120. Which is what the majority of my footage is filmed at.

It's not something I notice when filming, or when playing back footage on my camera, only on the computer, could it be my capture settings, or something along those lines, I capture and edit in Adobe CS4 on my mac, and the computer aspect of this is definitely me weaker side.

Any second opinions or recomendations?

Thanks,
Scott
 
Ah, when you said you edit on a mac, i inferred you were using FCP.
I use CS3. I'll give you my settings and i'm pretty sure you'll find them easily in CS4's project settings.

Here they are:
Project settings. (General tab)
DV NTSC
29.97 framers per second time base.
And then i change my Pixel Aspect Ratio (this may be your problem) to:
D1/DV NTSC 0.9 (Therefor it changes it from a 16:9 ratio to 4:3. It fills up the screen side to side.)
Make sure the Fields section is on Lower fields first
Display Format is 30fps Drop frame time code

Then go to the Video Rendering tab and check the box "Maximum Bit Depth" at the top. (this may also be your problem. just a guess though)

These settings work for me the best.

And when i film the skateboarding with my DVX i use Letterbox because i film with a fisheye and i don't like it when its full screen.

And its good that you're shooting at a higher shutter speed but it doesn't HAVE to be double your frame rate. The higher your shutter speed, the less motion blur you will have. So when filming skateboarding, i would take your shutter speed up as much as the lighting will let you. So you can go as high as you want to. I actually filmed on 1/2000 of a second shutter speed yesterday to see how good it looked compared to normal, and the footage looks great. No strobing or anything. So just do what you can.

Anyways, hopefully this time i helped a little more haha.
Good luck!

EDIT: I noticed you using a fisheye also in your video. Yours looks good without letterboxing, so i wouldnt worry about changing it. However i did notice your on 16:9 ratio. If you switch it to 4:3 like i explained, it may make the fisheye shots look bad. So i would double check them so next time you'll know if you need to shoot letterbox when you have your fisheye on.
 
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Alright thanks, I'm unfortunately with out a capture camera right now, so I'll have to put testing those settings on hold until I can get my hands on one, but seems like pretty sound advice.

As far as letterboxing for fisheye goes, personally I don't like the look, it reminds me of the 16:9 fisheye's you see on the newer high-def camera's, which definitely isn't the look I'm going for. But thats all personal preference.

Anyone else have any second opinions?

Thanks,
Scott
 
Another question...

Is having my sharpness at +3 going to do any good for my overall image, or would my picture be just as clear leaving sharpness untouched?
 
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