Capture video advice / trim the fat

Timpolo wrote on 2/6/2006, 5:13 AM
#1. Is there a way you can capture the video from your camera quicker or do i just click capture and wait, ALSO

#2. What technique do you all find the best when capturing: A. Capture the video then cut out the boring parts in vegas OR B. cut out the boring parts during capture?? Inquiry minds want to know. T

Thanks in advance guys and gals.

Comments

Grazie wrote on 2/6/2006, 6:21 AM
Excellent questions!

. . I'll address the second part . . more interesting for me!

Depending on project:

A: STRIAGHT FORWARD TIME<>NARRATIVE eg Weddings, Events . . : Project that is laid out in the time and space it was filmed. Just apply capture tape with Event/Scene detection ON. This gives the simplest of capture methods. You can then review and blast the boring bits. NB it aint a good idea to review going back and forth with a tape, nasty things could happen! !

B: NON-NARRATVIE SHOT WORK: Out of sequence, unplanned shots: Recently I have been doing video that has meant I've had to "wait" for something to happen - yeah I know - But this means that sometimes I'm on site with nothing to shoot .. . soooo... I shoot "B-Roll" stuff .. and keep adding content, more and more. This requires I keep a record of the 1 hour tape's content. I don't! Shame on me! I then review tape a get a further idea of what it was. BUT the best thing is to scene detect the whole tape and then review at speed.

C: PIMARY BIN ALLOCATION: Compiling & getting a "Sense" : I now use bins to truly "sort" the narrative out. I have A-roll and B-roll bins; I have Internal & External shots bins: I have A&B roll for interviews; I have Text for Interviews and Audio for Backgrounds! I have developed a method that is both flexible and intuitive enough for me to be both quick and alert to spontaneous possibilities.

. . there is more to this, much more. Sometimes "boring" bits speed-up or used as BGs can be very very useful indeed!

There aint no proper way. Often there are easier ways - but it really does depend on your nature, workload and your BOSS!

Grazie
johnmeyer wrote on 2/6/2006, 8:50 AM
1. You can't capture faster than real time. There is no "high-speed dub" mode like you get with cassette tapes.

2. Cutting during capture, by starting/stopping capture only makes sense if you are going to use a very small percentage of your footage AND you can easily identify in FF which portions of footage you want to use.

One alternative that you might very well find interesting is to use the capture application called Scenalyzer. It has dozens of features not found in Vegas (see Scenalyzer Features), but for your purposes the one that matter is the Index Capture. What this does is capture the whole tape using the fast forward scan mode of your tape deck. Most decks scan at about 20x, so a one hour tape is capture in about five minutes. This gives you low-res clips that you can "scrub" and view in Scenalyzer, and organize any way you want (including cutting out the parts you don't want). When you are finished with the "pre-edit triage," you press a button, and Scenalyzer goes back and captures just the parts you want, but this time in full resolution. Those parts still get captured at no faster than real-time, but if you only need 5-10 minutes out of a 60 minute tape, you are way ahead of the game, time-wise.
PierreB wrote on 2/6/2006, 10:17 AM
I recently took a DV making course in which the instructor expected the students to log their tapes and then to capture the "good bits" using batch capture.

Even though I know this is the way you're "supposed to", I've never felt comfortable doing this... it just feels counterintuitive, and also a waste of time writing down timecodes (when the computer could be taking care of that). Plus, as noted, if you subsequently decide that you want a clip, or part of a clip that you haven't already captured, you have to go through the capture procedure all over again (i.e., you don't really know if it's boring until you've looked at it, in context).

So I'll capture the whole tape, usually with scene detection on, and then slap the whole shebang up on the timeline. I'll then organize what's up there using bins and sub-bins, or renaming the clips, or using different tracks.

Pierre B.
Grazie wrote on 2/6/2006, 10:38 AM
Pierre! Man after my own heart!

What I also do .. don't tell anybody .. but I make "grabs" of the video as it flashes past my eyes. Afterwards I then print them to colour printer. I then have a hard-copy of the "slates" as it where . . very useful - VERY useful! I pin these up around where I edit . .or even "show" the client . . But don't tell anybody else I do this. LOL!

Grazie

Timpolo wrote on 2/6/2006, 10:50 AM
Excuse my ignorance: what does scene detection accomplish? Do i turn this on in Vegas Video capture?
Timpolo wrote on 2/6/2006, 10:52 AM
Excellent idea, never thought of that. How do you make grabs?

Tim
johnmeyer wrote on 2/6/2006, 10:54 AM
Excuse my ignorance: what does scene detection accomplish? Do i turn this on in Vegas Video capture?

Scene Detection, for DV footage, detects each time you start/stop your video camera. It does this by looking at the date/time information. When that information "jumps," this indicates that you stopped the camera. When this happens, the capture program starts a new file. Thus, you get a new AVI file for each time you start your camera by pressing the REC button. This can make it much easier to "storyboard" your video (even though Vegas doesn't provide very strong tools for storyboarding) because you can just move these clips around on the timeline.

You enable this feature in the Options section of the capture application.
PierreB wrote on 2/6/2006, 11:19 AM
Grazie... very clever, very clever indeed!

It might be possible to automate this somewhat. I believe that Excalibur lets you take a snapshot at every marker, AND lets you set up a marker at each new event. Hmmmm. Lots of possibilities there.

I won't tell if you won't.

Pierre
Timpolo wrote on 2/6/2006, 11:24 AM
Boy, you guys have been a ton of help here in this area, thank you, thank you and thank you, very much.
Grazie wrote on 2/6/2006, 3:20 PM
The real, REAL secret is to get real messy and intimate with your footage. Pour over it and look very closely for fabulous little clues . . it takes time but it IS worth it.

Grazie

Timpolo wrote on 2/6/2006, 3:41 PM
What do you mean by little clues?
Grazie wrote on 2/6/2006, 4:01 PM
Oh yes . . .

* Somebody moves left to right. Carry on this movement with say a car moving to the right too!

* Studying the way shapes may be repeated from one scene to another

* Complimentary colours

* The sound of gravel and the sound of the waves on a shoreline.

* Opening a box and the swivelling of a a door opening.

* The direction ans speed of the way a Subway train leaves a station and the reflections of an onlooker in one of the same trains.

* How a dumper truck depicts what the V/O is saying.

* If a person looks up, show clouds . ..

There are a gazillion examples ..

Bedtime reading? Walter Murchs' "In the Blink of an Eye" . . . get it, read it.

These are the little clues I look for . . There will be little and subtle stories being offered you ALL the way through your work.

Grazie


SonicClang wrote on 2/6/2006, 4:27 PM
In my experience, if you don't know the scope or direction of a video before you capture, don't chop it up. But if you know exactly what you're going for and you know what you can and can't cut out of the capture process, cut as you capture.

For example, I used to make skateboard videos. There's a lot of "follow this skater and hope he lands something" moments, where the guy you're following would only land 1 out of five tricks. In that case, only capture the tricks. Apply that theory to whatever project you're working on.
Timpolo wrote on 2/11/2006, 5:58 PM
Event/scene detection.......where is this selection?
Grazie wrote on 2/11/2006, 8:52 PM
What part of johnmeyer's reply above don't you understand?

1/- You must have the date and time SET/ENBALED in your camcorder. This will mean that every time you START and STOP or PAUSE the camcorder you are in fact creating and "IN" point - by starting your camcorder - and an "OUT point - by stopping or pausing your camcorder. You will now have a series of "INs" & "OUTs" points.

2/- Within Video Capture - the capture facility for Vegas - you have an option to "Scene Detect". Once this is enabled the capture program will capture "separate" events according to the "INs" and "OUTs" you created by STARTING & STOPPING or PAUSING your camcorder when you were videoing your material.

3/- You can "Set-up" Video Capture so that once these SCENES are detected you can save them directly to the current Vegas Project you are working on/with and these same Events will automatically appear within the Project Media.

Regards,

Grazie
dhill wrote on 2/11/2006, 9:40 PM
Grazie....you are such a great attribute to this forum. I love the way you weave your humor and knowledge together. Your enthusiasm leaps off the screen! Makes my late night reading much more fun. Derek