Ideas for fast turnaround Project?

PeterWright wrote on 3/27/2005, 10:53 PM
In a few days I have to shoot bits of a benefit golf day, then have video highlights playing in the foyer before a dinner that evening.

I am therefore after any shortcut ideas so I can leave the golf course as late as possible, and I'd like to do it using Vegas & DVDA.

I'm shooting with a Z1 in 16:9 DV mode. Was asked for 20 - 30 min of highlights, but I may try and steer towards 10-15 mins for viewability and time reasons
I guess the fastest possible turnaround would be "crash editing" tape to tape from the Z1 to my Mini DV deck, but I'd rather do it with a looping DVD, which of course means first capturing then later encoding to MPEG2.
Including forty mins driving time, I think maybe ~4 hours between leaving Golf Course and Displaying video should be poss, but .....

I'd appreciate any ideas which may save five minutes here or there, an any stage from shooting to editing to outputting.

For starters, I'm intending having the Vegas Project and Vid Cap open and waiting before I leave home in the morning.

Peter

Comments

farss wrote on 3/27/2005, 11:11 PM
Capture and cut it in Vegas then PTT to a set top DVD recorder?
I've you're only using the Z1 in DV mode you could also record to a HD recorder to save capture time.
Use a laptop to save driving time.
PeterWright wrote on 3/27/2005, 11:31 PM
Thanks Bob,

Set top DVD - great idea, I may look for one - do you know if they have a loop playback facility?

I don't have a straight to HD device at present, but this may be a great time to buy one - any Names? (Especially if they're available locally).

I've thought about laptop & peripherals, but I'm not too far from golf course or hotel, and golf to home driving time will be valuable tactical thinking time!
farss wrote on 3/28/2005, 2:54 AM
Don't know about the recorders but some DVD players let you play something looped.
For HD recorders, checkout www.videoguys.com.au
Of course you could just play it straight out of Vegas on a laptop via say an ADVC 100 into their monitor.
Jameson_Prod wrote on 3/28/2005, 4:56 AM
I use WInDVD alot with projects and LCD projectors. I can run it on my laptop...full screen (no menu bars or anything)...and send it out to component through the camera or ADVC 100 or send it straight to the LCD projector through a video cable. It allows you to loop. And since it is on the computer, you don't have the extra time setting up and rendering DVD-A.

Quickest way I see is with a computer at the course (laptop or your desktop) with a second person to assist. If one person was doing most of the camera work and the second capturing and cleaning up the video....camera person could drop off a tape....hit the course and take more video while the second person captures and logs clips. Then it would only take a little while to drop the clips on the timeline and render out.

Good luck.....let's know how it went.
Cheno wrote on 3/28/2005, 5:29 AM
Peter,

Do you have a laptop in which you could edit at the golf course or dinner location? this would add driving time to your already limited editing time.

If not, perhaps you could use a runner to take tapes back to your editing location and begin to capture prior to your arrival there.

either way it would allow you to capture / shoot at the same time.

Mike
BrianStanding wrote on 3/28/2005, 6:45 AM
Boy, it'd be nice if you could capture direct to disk, instead of using tape, and save all that capture time.

I wonder if you could rent a couple of Firestores or Sony disk units and keep swapping them between the shooter and the editor. (Probably wouldn't be worth buying them for a single project like this)

Otherwise, if you are shooting from a stationary position, you might be able to get away with two laptops, a couple of firewire/usb drives and something like DV Rack or DV Rack Express. Won't work too well, though, if your shooter has to keep moving to follow the action.
Randy Brown wrote on 3/28/2005, 6:53 AM
Won't work too well, though, if your shooter has to keep moving to follow the action.
I'll bet they'd loan him a golf cart...maybe even one of those ones used for maintenance and set up a tripod in the open bed of it...ooooh, and then you could do some dolly shots and drive by in front of the guy that's about to shoot and...well maybe not the dolly shots.
Randy
PeterWright wrote on 3/28/2005, 3:53 PM
Thanks for the suggestions guys.

My shooter is me, and I'll be limiting what I can do regards mobility - mainly action on a couple of tees and greens. It's not meant to be any sort of "sports coverage" - just shots of various media and sports identities doing their thing.

I'll look into the feasibility of disc recording - laptop won't be practical whilst moving around.

I intend being as careful as possible not shooting "padding" so that capture and editing is simplified.

Thanks again for all the ideas.

Peter
BillyBoy wrote on 3/28/2005, 4:03 PM
Here's a silly idea to liven up the shots since golf is generally boring.

If its not too serious an event and done more for fun, do what they did in the "Jackass" movie, give some kid a few bucks to hide in the bushes with an air horn and blast a few of the players in the middle of their backswing. Hope you can run fast if they find out you set them up.

Just kidding, but it would be a funny vid I bet.
craftech wrote on 3/29/2005, 2:50 AM
Crash edit (as you said) to MiniDV deck. Remove from deck and insert into camera. Play back to new MiniDV tape in deck set to LP mode. Record as many times as you can using record/pause in between. Then just let it play.
It would be even better if your deck took Large DV tapes. I don't know how long the showing has to run, but even if you have to rewind once that shouldn't be a problem. The other methods rely upon absolutely nothing going wrong or any unforseen delays. Using the method I suggested the variable can be how many times you are able to copy it over and over to the deck. If you run out of time and only have it copied say 3 times you just rewind which takes maybe a minute.

John
PeterWright wrote on 3/29/2005, 6:11 AM
Yes, thanks John, I'm tending to go back to thinking this way - I have a feeling that if, say, I decide to leave the course at 3.00 pm, there could easily be something happening or about to happen that I wish I'd been able to stay and shoot.
By eliminating capture time and encoding time, I should be able to add at least an extra hour of shooting time, and, as you say, not having to worry about something going wrong.

Peter
BrianStanding wrote on 3/29/2005, 6:41 AM
FWIW, some of the Sony DV cameras and small DV decks let you set a number of in/out points in VCR mode, and then automatically dub the selected scenes over firewire to another tape.

I've tried it with a PD-150 and a TRV-19, and it works pretty well for a quick and dirty, straight-cut, field edit.

Might save you some time.

Even if you're doing everything yourself, you still might want to look into a disk capture unit. No shuttle time if it's already on hard disk.