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Great Tech Specs

Jun 1, 2004 12:00 PM

Wow. I just read the article “Uncompressed Digital Video” in the March 2004 issue of Video Systems. No wonder I love this magazine. I'm not an engineer, and I will have to re-read the article, but it sure helps understand the highly technical aspects of digital video.

How about a couple of articles on why this is important to those of us who put our faith in “the numbers”? For example, why is 4:2:2 sampling important, and better than 4:1:1 sampling? And why is 10 bit better than 8 bit? I know some of this is covered here, but maybe you could break it down into simpler terms for those of us who never had Engineering 101. This article has motivated me to look into this technical stuff even further.
Dave Courey

Getting up to speed

The article by Barry Braverman (“After Effects for Shooters,” January) really whet my appetite for After Effects. My question is, how does an non-editor get up to speed on such a program?
Al Magallon
Ten 31 Productions

Barry Braverman responds: Today's competent shooter needs to be reasonably proficient in a few key software packages, most notably Adobe Photoshop CS and Adobe After Effects. My advice for developing your skills in these crucial two programs is to either take classes at an Adobe-certified training center or purchase one of the excellent DVD training tutorials currently available.

I particularly like the Photoshop and After Effects series from Total Training (www.totaltraining.com). The lessons covering multiple discs are extremely effective. You might also want to seek out projects that force you to work in these two applications.

I'm a firm believer in acquiring specialized skills as I need them. A process-driven curriculum in which shooters seek a solution to a recognized problem (like an image with too much depth of field) is the best approach I know to learning skills outside your core expertise.

More SATA RAID, please

I just saw Bob Turner's videosystems.com article about Serial ATA RAIDs. Please print more on this subject whenever possible. I'm the operations director of the University of Central Florida Film Department. We are all trying to figure out how to replace the online capacity of ancient Avids without buying SCSI or going broke with XServe.

I'm hoping to convert a group of dual 1.25 G4s into online machines using a two-drive Serial ATA RAID while leaving another pair of drives on the internal 100 bus. Hopefully, the students will import at DV resolution and cut on the regular internal drives, then, when they're ready, use the RAID for an online.

In any case, the Serial ATA article is another piece of the roadmap explaining how to build inexpensive and truly functional systems. It's very helpful for folks like me who don't have the budgets of major motion pictures and who can't get the undivided attention of pros in the field to install and service our systems.
Rich Grula
Operations director
University of Central Florida
Film Department

Is HD too much to ask?

I am currently in the market to purchase a new Panasonic AG-DVX100A camcorder and found the review Barry Braverman wrote for videosystems.com most helpful. A friend of mine and I operate a small film company out of Chicago called Nebula Films. We currently only film documentaries, but hope to expand to shorts and eventually feature length.

We used the original DVX on a project last year and were very impressed. The 24p was nice, but because we only rented it for three days I'm sure we only scratched the surface of what the camera can probably do.

We were recently given a grant by a local school district to shoot a documentary for next year and have decided to use some of the money to purchase a new DVX100A. We were on the fence between an XL1S and the DVX, but all the reviews, including yours (which was the most helpful, I might add) keep telling us the DVX is the way to go. I just wish the DVX shot HD as well.
Is that too much to ask?
Drew Peterson
Nebula Films

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