What am I missing??

Q

Q56_Monster

New member
Ok, so I'm a newb. I know nothing about film making. My hobby is building computers and overclocking the snot out of them.

So I buy this 7D...Why? Because it seems everyone has a DSLR now, I always wanted an HD camcorder, I don't want carry around a camera and a video cam, and the purchase was so completely unnecessary, I thought I'd better just go and buy it!

Now onto post. I don't get it. I bought Pinnacle Studio 14 and started to make some real nice productions/music vids/family bits, etc. But then I see these "filmy" shorts on Vimeo, and I think it must be the $90 software I'm using, right?

So I downloaded the trials for Vegas Pro 9 and Cineform Neo Scene and started my fun!

I tried rendering out the original 24fps .Mov file to 1080-24p, 720-24p, 1080-30p, 720-30p, 720-60. The quality of that output looks almost identical to the cineform .AVI file rendered the same way. (Although the .Mov file renders faster than real time, the cineform file renders almost twice as fast! Nice.) I did the same for footage shot at 30fps & 60fps. Same results...using cineform just speeds things up, no real difference in quality output.

I compared the Vegas output to the Pinnacle output, with no real difference in quality! Pinnacle is much more saturated, that's about it. (I also viewed the final product on my Sony 52" XBR4 with no real difference either). To me Vegas maybe handled 60fps (59.94) better, as I can't find how to output to 60fps in Pinnacle. So it renders at 29.97 and produces a less impressive "video". (Hate that "video" look anyway).

So, after fiddling for the better part of the day, I've come to the conclusion that the Pinnacle product is just as good as the expensive route.

An advance thank you to anyone who would be so kind to educate me. What am I missing?
 
This is like looking at a Ferrari and a Firebird, and noticing that because the seats are similar, the Firebird is essentially the same as the Ferrari.

You haven't even turned the key on yet man....
 
PerroneFord said:
This is like looking at a Ferrari and a Firebird, and noticing that because the seats are similar, the Firebird is essentially the same as the Ferrari.

You haven't even turned the key on yet man....
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Then why did Smokey and the Bandit kick more a$$ than Cannonball Run?

haha...i like your analogy though, and i agree, now that you know i'm a Vegas Platinum user...i can hardly argue your theory.
 
Also, the filmic look has much more to do with what you have in front of the camera than it ever will with what you use for post.
 
Aint that the truth

Aint that the truth

I've got to second Perrone on this one. You haven't even scratched the surface here. One thing is for sure; if you do not see the difference, go to add/remove programs and trash Vegas. Don't get what you do not need. On that same note, where did you get the money for a 7D and a 52 inch TV to doodle and make home movies?
 
Thanks Perrone, I kinda figured that.....that's why I asked the question. The way I see it is, for 15k, I can have Sally Fields and Lonnie Anderson ridin' shotgun in those seats! (70's versions of each, mind you). Sure beats spending 100k on the Ferrari. I get what you mean, was just hoping for someone to show me the next step in workflow.

Sowlobro, my business is completely unrelated, but I've always been an electronics freak, and spend my money accordingly. I usually dump it into PC components, but have been thinking HD vid for so long now. The TV is for the family.
 
David Jimerson said:
Also, the filmic look has much more to do with what you have in front of the camera than it ever will with what you use for post.
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But even if you had perfection in front of the camera, you wouldn't film it in 60fps, would you? Don't frame rates have "something" to do with it?
 
Q56_Monster said:
But even if you had perfection in front of the camera, you wouldn't film it in 60fps, would you?
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Why not? I film plenty of things at 60p. And I'd film at 120p in some instances if I had it. It's all about using the CORRECT tool at the correct time.
 
Q56_Monster said:
Thanks Perrone, I kinda figured that.....that's why I asked the question. get what you mean, was just hoping for someone to show me the next step in workflow.
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There's nothing wrong with your workflow. There's just not much "work" in the workflow which is why you don't see the difference in products.

So, let's say the general home user buys a camera, shoots their kid's soccer game, goes home, cuts out the half-time and the warm-ups, and then creates an output file for youtube or whatever. If you do this properly on Pinnacle or on Vegas, the two videos should be indistinguishable.

Now let's say a filmmaker wants to create a feature film. There are three cameras. They shoot 6 days a week for 45 days. They are shooting either on a 1 film camera, 1 RED, and one HD camera. They have lav mics on all the talent, a shotgun on a boom, and a few plant mics where appropriate. All in all they have 12 audio sources.

They shoot some greenscreen for visual effects, they have some CGI work to do, the sound has to go to a house to have orchestral music layed underneath, the titles are going to be done by a different house, the film needs to be graded, have the effects come back in, and all of it synced.

8 months later all the pieces are reassembled in the NLE. The final assets total 45 terabytes. So, do you think Pinnacle is up to the job? Or would you rather use Vegas (or Avid or Final Cut Pro) or any other professional NLE?

My documentary shot in 2003 had 72 tracks of video and nearly 40 audio tracks. Along with titles, overlays, music, and other pieces. Think you can do that in Pinnacle?

If all you plan to do is some quick cuts on a 20 minute video, then you don't need a professional NLE. But when your work AFTER the shot begins to dwarf the work during shooting, then you'll find you need to do a step up.
 
PerroneFord said:
There's nothing wrong with your workflow. There's just not much "work" in the workflow which is why you don't see the difference in products.

So, let's say the general home user buys a camera, shoots their kid's soccer game, goes home, cuts out the half-time and the warm-ups, and then creates an output file for youtube or whatever. If you do this properly on Pinnacle or on Vegas, the two videos should be indistinguishable.

Now let's say a filmmaker wants to create a feature film. There are three cameras. They shoot 6 days a week for 45 days. They are shooting either on a 1 film camera, 1 RED, and one HD camera. They have lav mics on all the talent, a shotgun on a boom, and a few plant mics where appropriate. All in all they have 12 audio sources.

They shoot some greenscreen for visual effects, they have some CGI work to do, the sound has to go to a house to have orchestral music layed underneath, the titles are going to be done by a different house, the film needs to be graded, have the effects come back in, and all of it synced.

8 months later all the pieces are reassembled in the NLE. The final assets total 45 terabytes. So, do you think Pinnacle is up to the job? Or would you rather use Vegas (or Avid or Final Cut Pro) or any other professional NLE?

My documentary shot in 2003 had 72 tracks of video and nearly 40 audio tracks. Along with titles, overlays, music, and other pieces. Think you can do that in Pinnacle?

If all you plan to do is some quick cuts on a 20 minute video, then you don't need a professional NLE. But when your work AFTER the shot begins to dwarf the work during shooting, then you'll find you need to do a step up.
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Thanks, WoW! That puts it in perspective alright. 45 terabytes...Where do you archive that? Oh, and is there a link to your documentary? I looked at your Vimeo page, but wasn't sure if it was there.
 
Well, uncompressed HDSDI output is roughly 500GB per hour. So two hours per terabyte. If you were shooting for 45 days, and only wrote two hours of footage per day, It's very easy to see where 45 Terabytes could be a low side number. Especially on a multi-cam shoot. It's also easy to see why video compression is used so much, and why no one wants to shoot uncompressed HD unless they have to. It's a very expensive workflow. As you say, having to back up and archive all that uncompressed data is a pain and it's costly.

There is no link to my documentary. It was never finished. Maybe one day.
 
Q56_Monster said:
But even if you had perfection in front of the camera, you wouldn't film it in 60fps, would you? Don't frame rates have "something" to do with it?
Click to expand...

It would still look more filmic -- more cinematic -- than crap shot at 24p. The frame rate is part of the equation for its motion cadence. Everything else is up to you.

But I did say "what you use for post," not what you shoot with. If you get something that doesn't look filmic, it's not because of what you edited it on.

And, as others have said, the advantage of a professional editing app over a consumer one is what goes on, what you can do with it, before you get to the rendering stage.
 
David Jimerson said:
It would still look more filmic -- more cinematic -- than crap shot at 24p. The frame rate is part of the equation for its motion cadence. Everything else is up to you.

But I did say "what you use for post," not what you shoot with. If you get something that doesn't look filmic, it's not because of what you edited it on.

And, as others have said, the advantage of a professional editing app over a consumer one is what goes on, what you can do with it, before you get to the rendering stage.
Click to expand...

Ok, thanks David. So, if you kind of have the vision in your head while you're shooting, it has a whole lot better chance of having the look you're going after while in post. Post then puts the cherry on the top. Starting to make sense...

Now that I've had another day to dig into Vegas, I find that it is quite involved, and it is nowhere as simplistic as Pinnacle.

Thanks Guys!
 
I think what everyone is trying to say is that the filmic look has a lot more to do with lighting, camera position and movement, even sound and acting, than it does editing. Not that editing doesn't have some involvement too, but first get filmic footage -- then worry about editing.

As for me, I love Vegas! And I'm still just scratching the surface.
 
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