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Veteran industry blogger and writer Frank Capria joins fellow Senior Product Designer for Editors, Greg Staten for a behind-the-scenes take in the product development process.

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Fast, Cheap Approval Copies

Only published comments... Jul 04 2008, 03:08 AM by fcapria

Filed under: Pinnacle Video Transfer, Timecode Plug-in

My favorite new feature in Media Composer 3.0 isn't terribly sexy. It's the real-time timecode effect plug-in. Burn-in timecode isn't anyone's idea of a good time, but the ability to spit it out in real-time out of the NLE while striking approval dubs allows me to start the weekend just a little bit earlier.

composer

Many edit suites have DVD recorders available for approval cuts. DVDs are fine, but often they can't get where they need to go quickly enough.

VideoCaptureHW_large I've been playing with a nifty gadget that encodes an H.264 MPEG-4 file in real-time. Pinnacle's Video Transfer takes an NTSC or PAL signal and outputs a .mp4 file directly to a USB memory stick, iPod, or PlayStation Portable. (If you've been looking for a tax-deductible way to upgrade your iPod, here's your chance.) I've been feeding it with an older analog Mojo, but any video player with a composite or S-video output and RCA audio outs will work. Just plug in the Video Transfer, attach it to a video signal, insert a USB memory stick, and press record. That's it. When you're finished recording, pull the USB stick and send the file wherever it needs to go -- usually via FTP.

There's a small catch. Like many consumer video devices, Video Transfer assumes all NTSC or PAL video is 4:3. It only scales images to 320x240 or 640x480. (There is a full raster, dual field option as well, but for web delivery it's not very useful.) To get 16:9 video to display properly, you will need to open the file with Apple's QuickTime Pro. Select Show Movie Properties (control/command j), uncheck the maintain aspect ratio box, and change the display properties to either 320x180 or 640x360. Save the file, choosing the self-contained movie option.

movie-properties

Of course you can choose to export a QuickTime reference file from Media Composer and create a QuickTime, Flash Video, or Windows Media file in Sorenson Squeeze, but the process will take much longer than 1x real-time because effects, even real-time ones, will need to be rendered upon export.

For the adventurous

Since Video Transfer creates iPod-friendly files, it's easy to deliver your approval copies to your client via a podcast in iTunes. It's even possible to keep your files in a password-protected space online. Here's an article on how to create an RSS feed to deliver your MP4 files as podcasts.

Comments

gbradley said:

My long-time realtime solution is to play back from the Media Composer, patch RCA audio & video into the Canopus ADVC, then DV into my PC laptop, where I capture on the fly in Windows Movie Maker (a free app). A file size of 3MB/min yields a movie far superior to any QT movie I've ever been able to export (admittedly, my compression skills are nil). As to TC burn-in, let's not forget that realtime has long been available with the famous Norwegian AVX.

July 6, 2008 12:58 AM

About fcapria

Frank is a senior product designer in the editors group at Avid. He was among the first Avid/1 editors at WGBH before becoming the Director of Post Production for American Experience. He has edited several documentaries since leaving WGBH. In between editing gigs he went to business school, ran a small web design firm, and launched Xprove – an online review and approval service. He also wrote and blogged for DV Magazine, Studio Daily, and the Pro Video Coalition.