Serious Magic/HVX

Hi all... back to the topic with a question... I just pulled the trigger on DV Rack with the HDV PowerPack (upgradable to the HVX support when released) from B&H (in stock and great price of $336 including S&H).

Then I realized that my first gig with it in mid September will be DVCPRO 50 at 30p ... will the upgrade handle DVCPRO 50 as well as 720 and 1080i? Please, please...

Thanks in advance...

Jim Arthurs
 
Thank you... one less worry...

Say, can/will you be able to use DVRack to build animations and time-lapse?.

Iit would be worth its weight in gold to have the large scale monitoring on your laptop screen and some sort of provision to step back through exisiting frames as you are animating...

Jim Arthurs
 
DV Rack / DVC Rack simply record the data coming from the camera, they do not have any interval or snapshot recording feature.

But you can click on the continously updating timeline in the Recorder window and move around it and review already recorded material -- it works just like scrubbing does in an NLE.
 
It seems dvrack gives you only a 4:3 field monitor. Is there a provision for 16:9? Also, it's worth mentioning that it seems the field monitor window cannot be expanded, so even with a 17" laptop you'll really only have about a 7" field monitor.
 
I recently ordered this cool product. Jim, talking about more features, would having DVC Rack encode to a 3rd party codec (on the fly) be desirable to you and others (like CineForm codec, etc)? Team Serious Magic, is this possible?

brianluce, perhaps try ALT+ENTER ?
 
Jim, DV Rack has a DV Grabber module, that grabs frames, in various file formats and automatically increments the base file name. How cool, I am just not sure if it has a playback/scrub tool for these files. We'll have to ask Wallace when he drops in, no, maybe Gromit will know. Now, programmable frame grab intervals (splines, time ramps, etc) for timelapse would be just grand!! :D
 
brianluce said:
It seems dvrack gives you only a 4:3 field monitor. Is there a provision for 16:9? Also, it's worth mentioning that it seems the field monitor window cannot be expanded, so even with a 17" laptop you'll really only have about a 7" field monitor.
Click to expand...
The existing soon-to-be-renamed HDV Powerpak and DVC Rack both give you a choice of 4:3 and 16:9 monitors. You can also zoom in on the monitor to 1:1 (and even beyond), or go full-screen to let the monitor fill the entire screen -- if you have a display that is large enough for HD content, you can easily use it for focusing.
 
telebay said:
Doesn't the Sony feature (which is similar to what I'm talking about) actually just manipulate the image... I mean, the lens itself isn't capable of getting that kind of DOF, is it? Wouldn't it be kind of like doing it in post with software? That's why I was thinking if the Sony does it by manipulating the image, like might be done with software (not the lens itself), then maybe a SM program could do it better.

What I'm imagining could be kinda' like a chroma keyer, in a sense, have the actor (or whatever) in the foreground step away -- program would either capture or remember (like tracking) the background -- then get focused on the foreground, to achieve DOP (albiet, artificial).

I mean, Serious Magic already has great vector keying technology -- and with DV Rack, to me at least, it seems possible to do something like this... again, maybe I'm being too simplistic and don't understand the complexity of what I'm asking.
Click to expand...

Aftex Effects 65. & 7.0 does it, try Action Movie Essentials, from Video Copilot page; they have great tutorials on techniques to obtain DOF and changes on DOF, see this, amazing!

http://www.videocopilot.net/videotutorials/dof/index.htm
:)
 
Quick question for those of you who use DV Rack. What is the lag like between movements of the camera and what is seen on the laptop screen in DV Rack? Is it bad enough that you can't rely on what you see in DV Rack when you are making camera movements?

Thanks.
 
jazo said:
Quick question for those of you who use DV Rack. What is the lag like between movements of the camera and what is seen on the laptop screen in DV Rack? Is it bad enough that you can't rely on what you see in DV Rack when you are making camera movements?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

It is noticable.

I was shooting some skaters who were passing at speed in front of me, about a 120 degree pan. I couldn't do it off the laptop monitor, it had to be on the camera screen.

Would depend on the speed of what you are trying to follow. You could compensate a bit I guess.
 
Milezee said:
It is noticable.

I was shooting some skaters who were passing at speed in front of me, about a 120 degree pan. I couldn't do it off the laptop monitor, it had to be on the camera screen.

Would depend on the speed of what you are trying to follow. You could compensate a bit I guess.
Click to expand...

how much of this lag is hardware dependent?
were you using a high spec laptop? duo core?
 
The delay on the field monitor depends on the format used and the laptop hardware. Standard def DV can be 1-15 frames. It's dependent on the IEEE 1394 card, and when you plug in the FireWire cable. (!)
HDV is the longest - it's twice the length of a Group of Pictures. (GOP) This is all dependent on the encoding - the camera typically delays 1 GOP, and DV Rack needs a full GOP to decode. 720p has a GOP of 6 frames, so the delay will be 12 frames. 1080i usually has a GOP of 15 frames, so the delay is usually 30 frames.
DVCPro50 and 100 is less than HDV, but I don't have the tech specs yet on what the delay is. In my informal testing, it's been about 7-10 frames on a good system.

As for any 'news,' ask me that again after Labor Day, and I should have some news. :)
 
Just purchased an Apple MacBook. I was wondering if DV Rack will have any problems working on a MacBook rather than the MacBookPro running Boot Camp. If problems are likely to occur, are there possible work-arounds.
 
Just wondering, what's the difference between using dv rack and just running vegas or edius? I'm mainly interested in the field monitor and capture functions. what is dv rack giving that the nle isn't? ability to properly calibrate the monitor?
 
Once I get setup, I will have to experiment to see if a PCMCIA FW card, in lieu of the Laptop's MoBo FW, improves or deteriorates the monitor latency issue.
 
brianluce said:
Just wondering, what's the difference between using dv rack and just running vegas or edius? I'm mainly interested in the field monitor and capture functions. what is dv rack giving that the nle isn't? ability to properly calibrate the monitor?
Click to expand...

See http://www.seriousmagic.com/dvrack.cfm there's a presentation video that gives you most of the knowledge you need.
 
martyjames said:
Just purchased an Apple MacBook. I was wondering if DV Rack will have any problems working on a MacBook rather than the MacBookPro running Boot Camp. If problems are likely to occur, are there possible work-arounds.
Click to expand...

The threads indicate that it does run in Boot Camp.

The issue of course is how well.

My understanding is the DV/HVX Rack needs a certain type of video card with drivers.
 
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