Archive for March, 2011

Importing Cineform into Virtualdub, 601, 709, RGB issues

Monday, March 21st, 2011

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/cineform-software-showcase/133853-importing-cineform-into-virtualdub-601-709-rgb-issues.html Importing Cineform into Virtualdub, 601, 709, RGB issues

Print on Multi-Sheets (e.g. useful for large GraphViz diagrams)

Monday, March 21st, 2011

Suppose you have a drawing that is so large or wide (like a strip) that you’d prefer to have it printed onto several sheets that can be tessellated (e.g. sellotaped together) afterwards for viewing.  One way is to import the image (e.g. .png) into Visio 2003.  It even provides a useful small margin of overlap.  In that case the steps that worked for me are:

  • Open Visio 2003
    • (Haven’t tried other versions)
  • Blank drawing
    • (No need to size or orientate)
  • File > Open
    • (The .png file or whatever)
  • File > Print
    • (Select Printer)
  • File > Page Setup
    • Print Setup
      • Paper size (e.g. A3 or A4)
      • Landscape (say)
      • Fit to n pages across by m pages down
    • Page Size
      • Size to fit drawing contents
  • File > Print…

Slow Motion in AviSynth (with or without Sony Vegas)

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

http://wn.com/Avisynth__Slow_motion

AviSynth TDeInt – Performance Tests

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

Performance results for deinterlacing by TDeint plugin within AviSynth (2.5.8 32bit single-thread).  Other versions of AviSynth exist, including 64bit multithread, though not all plugins are compatible with these.

  • SD 720×576 50i  → 720×576 25p, duration 14.5 minutes.
    • MBP (2010): 9 minutes.

AviSynth & AvsP & Avs2Avi on Windows 7 on MacBook

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

They all work fine.  Initially there were some teething problems, due to a bad installation of AviSynth, though that cause was not immediately apparent (meaning I spent hours experimenting and Googling before the moment of that realisation…).  Versions installed:

  • AviSynth 2.5.8 rev. 2
  • AvsP 2.0.2
  • Avs2Avi (Created 6 July 2004, size on disk 84 KB)

The main symptom of the teething problems: An AviSynth [.avs] script ran OK inside AvsP, to save to an AVI file, but before the dialog could ask me what codec, it failed with error message saying it could not open the source (.avs) file. (more…)

Mac OS pre-update system-backup: OSX Feature

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/final-cut-suite/125182-how-update-your-os-apps-properly-save-your-system.html

svchost Viewer

Saturday, March 19th, 2011

svchost Viewer – sounds good, not tried it or recommending it, just noting it for possible future investigation.

  • http://svchostviewer.codeplex.com
  • A program to see what all those svchost.exe are running
  • Ever wondered what all those svchost.exe processes are running ?? Well here is an app
    to tell you. It gives you some basic information like the Name and description.
  • No installation required.
  • Only requirement is that you have .net installed (ver 2.0 or newer).
  • Work in Windows XP (sp2) and Vista and Windows 7.
  • Coded in C#

FCP: HD Footage to SD DVD: Best (& Worst) Practice

Saturday, March 19th, 2011

 http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1092244

  • DON’T:
    • Don’t edit HD footage on a SD timeline.
      • Pasting into an SD timeline is the worst thing you can do. FCP is terrible at conversion of HD to SD. At the very least send your HD Quicktime movie of the timeline to Compressor and have Compressor make the conversion.
      • A much MUCH better way would be to invest in something like an AJA Kona board which does full broadcast conversions in realtime.
    • Don’t ever down-convert HD to SD before encoding to MPEG2. It’s not only completely unnecessary waste of your time, it’s an unnecessary re-compression step that will make your DVD hideous.
    • Don’t “Export using Compressor” directly from the timeline.
      • you can keep editing in FCP while Compressor encodes
      • Compressor is faster when working from a single file, because it avoids the look ahead clip by clip encoding features of VBR encoding that pretty much creates more problems than it solves.
  • DO:
    • File > Export > Quicktime Movie.
      • Leave it set to “Current Settings”
      • You can export a Reference movie if you’d like, meaning leave “Make Self Contained Movie” UNchecked.
    • Take that Quicktime movie into Compressor.
      • Choose the DVD Compression of your choice, such as DVD 90 Minutes High Quality.
        • Compressor will create a Standard Definition 16:9 MPEG-2.
      • Also select the Dolby Digital Audio to create the AC-3 audio file.
    • Launch DVD Studio Pro and bring the MPEG-2 and AC-3 into your project.
      • Now create a DVD!
      • DVD Studio Pro will create a DVD in 16:9 widescreen format that will automatically play Letterboxed on a 4:3 TV and full screen on a 16:9 widescreen.

KiPro Mini

Monday, March 7th, 2011

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?239950-KiPro-mini

  •  <<32Gb CF card that is approved will …yield 18-24mins.>>
    • Surely depends on bitrate
  • <<be sure to review the “approved CF Card list”>>

http://neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com/

  •  Recording durations:
    <<
    32 Gb CF card
    – 88 mins of ProRes Proxy
    – 40 mins of ProRes LT
    – 28 mins of ProRes
    – 19 mins of ProRes HQ
    >>
  • Whereas for KiPro (bigger):
    <<
    500 Gb hard disk
    – 1384 mins of ProRes Proxy – 23 hrs
    – 637 mins of ProRes LT – 10 hrs 37 mins
    – 450 mins of ProRes – 7 hrs 30 mins
    – 300 mins of ProRes HQ – 5 hrs
    >>

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/aja-io-ki-pro/484627-ki-pro-mini-specification-request-3.html

  •  <<1080i 25 or 720p 50 Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) = 36 minutes, approximately 56.36GB>>
  • <<1080i 25 or 720p 50 Apple ProRes 422 = 54 minutes, approximately 56.67GB>>

http://www.aja.com/pdf/KiProMini_qualifiedCF_cards.pdf

  •  Largest is SanDisk Extreme Pro CompactFlash 64GB

Avid Media Composer – Secondary Color Correction – via Plug-ins

Saturday, March 5th, 2011

Although Avid Media Composer (MC) itself has no native Secondary Color Correction, that functionality can be achieved via plug-ins such as Boris (e.g. BCC Colors & Blurs) or Spectra Mate.

Rescuing a damaged file from a writeable DVD

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

A physical DVD could be played but not copied, despite attempts on multiple computers (each with own drive).  The main VOB file was corrupted.  The disk appeared to the eye to be in good condition.  Wanted to copy a repaired version of that file, maybe with gaps or truncations, whatever could be salvaged.  Workaround was to do a ‘dd’.  That’s a unix command to “convert and copy a file”.  Mac OS X is based on a variant of unix, so chose to execute it from there.  The successful command was as follows:

  • dd if=/Volumes/’DVD VR’/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB of=tmp/vts_01_1.vob conv=noerror

Prior to this, naively-and-unsuccessfully tried Windows 7 PowerShell (PS) ‘cp’ command with ‘-Force’ option, but that was “barking up the wrong tree”.  An alternative suggestion, not attempted, was to use a streaming video processor such as VirtualDub. (more…)