Hi-def capture, edit and output options

saltydog wrote on 5/8/2004, 9:15 PM
Here's my situation. I need to prepare two 1-minute videos for projection in a university auditorium during an awards ceremony. The first video is supposed to be a slow dolly-type shot around a statue (there is no motion other than the camera move), the second video will have movement, showing an artist starting working on a painting, morphing to the finished painting and then morphing again to a print of the painting on a shirt.

I'd like to deliver as high a quality a product as possible at the lowest price (sounds familiar, I know).

For the 1st video, since there is no movement, I am thinking of using a 16 MB Hasselblad camera I can borrow that has a digital back, importing the pictures into Vegas and doing Ken Burns style pans and zooms. The digital files are huge 16-bit mothers so the quality should be excellent.

For the second, since there is motion I need to capture each sequence on video and then edit it to do the morphs.

OK, here are my questions:
- What are my options for projecting the videos in the auditorium? I am thinking WMV at 720 but am I limited to this size or could I choose the larger 1080 template that Vegas allows and render it as WMV? Also, is Quicktime an option or not?

- For video capture, what are the camera options? Since the finished product is only one minute long, I was wondering if I shoot it with a DVX100 at 24p, and then upsized the frames with Virtualdub, is the quality acceptable or not? Or it this a loony idea? I am half wondering if I could send the entire 1440 frames to a Mac friend and have him upsize them with Goldberg using the Lanczos5 resizer (yes, he owes me one).

- If I rent a Sony HDcamera, does that mean I'll need to have the editing done elsewhere?

Sorry if this all makes me sound ignorant, but I am. I'd sure appreciate some feedback about anyone else's experience trying to put together a HD video clip. Thanks.

Andrew Hall,
Ottawa, Canada

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 5/8/2004, 9:25 PM
Quicktime isn't a good option, but the 1080p option is a good one, provided your projector can manage it. I recently saw my first (personal) project on a theater screen using 1080p. It's not film quality, but it looked damn good when projected to 50' wide. It was a series of time captured stills of Monument Valley, shot on a pair of Canon E20's.
If you use an HD video cam, you'll need to use some other device to get the media in/out of the computer, but Vegas can manage everything else.
farss wrote on 5/8/2004, 9:51 PM
What you're asking for is certainly doable but would seem to me to be very expensive for such a short presentation. First you'll need projectors not only capable of that resolution but secondly a way to feed such a high res signal into them. High end projectors will accept SDI or DVI, the later might be better as you can easily get video cards with DVI outputs. As for the rest of it I know how I'd try going about it but I'd rather defer to someone whose actually done it becuase none of this is going to be cheap. I would add though that your first shot you said is going AROUND the statue. Well that's not a still shot unless you used a sequence of stills with dissolves.

But here's a thought, why not use something has been done for years. 35mm or 1/4 frame slides? I know it sounds like stuff out of the ark BUT it's well tried and proven technology and even if you don't have the kit you can pick it up pretty cheap. Those silde projectors could handle dissolves as well and they were pretty reliable. Possibly the auditorum even has 35mm filem projection available, look into that as well, if you think 35mm sounds expensive then forget about real HD video kit.
I can only quote local prices but a decent HD projector will set you back around $2,500 per day. Bear in mind that you will not have a dark theatre so you'll need every lumen you can get and proper projection lenses.
Another thought, I've shown a LOT of movies off good old DV and well it doesn't look too bad. If the screens will only occupy a small area then I'd suggest DV will be more than adequate. If the audience is more than say 8 times the diagonal size of the sceen away then HD is probably a waste. Spend the money you save on projectors with enough light output. A bright DV image is going to look a LOT better than a dim HD one no matter what.