OT: Dital Juice products

dhill wrote on 6/8/2006, 3:21 AM
Any of you use any of the Digital Juice products? I have purchased the Jumbacks HD and the ETK's due to their new lower price deals. I have always wanted to try them, but prices didn't make sense for me given my editing budject being a little on the lower side. They are quite good IMO. Worth every penny with the new pricing deals that they are running lately. I'm cosidering grabbing some of the video tracks stock footage too. I browsed through the previews and I could use maybe 1 out of every 15 clips for what I do. Derek

Comments

DJPadre wrote on 6/8/2006, 7:24 AM
for some reason ive never had much luck with these.. the ones that work sraight off tah back are all ok, but the majority (lower thirds, overlays and transparencies) have to be processed...
Each and every one needs to be rendered out into a targa sequence or uncompressed raw... which IMO defeats the purpose of a fast workflow and storage mediusm can become an issue as your newly rendered targas not only take up space, but u cant prview them as you would preview the MOV files..

maybe they shoudl have just provided the material as uncompressed AVI... .
Jimmy_W wrote on 6/8/2006, 8:19 AM
I use them all the time and very rarely use the juicer. Never ran across one that has not worked in Vegas. Preview is fine for me.You don't have to process transparencies they work right off the disc. I just drag and drop within Vegas and set the clip media properties for the alpha channel to straight or premultiplied. Works like a charm. I have been a DJ buying fool the last couple of months, the deals are hard to pass up.

Jimmy
Dach wrote on 6/8/2006, 10:19 AM
I agree with Jimmy, when DJ offers a deal its very had to not find the value in their products. I have a dozen or so of their products and have been very pleased with them. Their customer service is good as well.

In the long run they will pay for themselves.

Chad
Mikeof7 wrote on 6/8/2006, 10:43 AM
I've used several lower thirds, backgrounds and overlays. Like Jimmy says, I usually select a "straight unmatted" alpha channel rather than a painful targa sequence process. They've worked great everytime.

I can vouch for their customer service as well. About 2 weeks ago, I needed a background from one of the original jumbacks I had purchased about 3 years ago...I hadn't needed it 'til then and it would not register with Juicer. I called'em and received a new, completely functional one 3 days later.

I've jumped on a "Toolkit & SFX" deal lately, but these great temporary deals actually make me want to put off buying any others from DJ or eBay 'til I see what their deals for the product I want are (if I can afford to wait).

Either way, highly recommended.
Ben1000 wrote on 6/8/2006, 11:18 AM
I've used these a lot, most recently in my video podcast:

http://www.neo-fight.tv

I've scaled them in Juicer to the 480x270 resolution of the show, and saved them uncompressed. They import into Vegas just fine...

Best,

Ben
Pullmanite wrote on 6/8/2006, 3:40 PM
Making this even more OTish :), what mic are you two using in your podcast, Ben?
Ben1000 wrote on 6/9/2006, 5:31 PM
Howdy...

We're using Audio-Technica AT892C mics. They sound really good even in our pro-sumer environment, and are much more consisten than lapel mics, for amateurs like us. :-)

Best,

Benjamin
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.neo-fight.tv [The "Techno-Debate" Video Podcast]
Edward wrote on 6/10/2006, 4:29 AM
1) what does 'OT' mean?
2) digital juice is awesome. it's such a timesaver. when i don't have time to design, i use dj. when in doubt, whip it out!
3) our studio purchased all three video traxx. great stuff. only thing, not too many hawaii cultures reflected in the clips. mostly (not trying to offend) white people.
4) it's like DJ and vegas goes hand in hand. never had a prob with it ever.
5) they've been offering ALOT of deals lately, and I haven't seen any new product. are they closing shop?

anyone?
craftech wrote on 6/10/2006, 6:53 AM
I bought one of them way back when and used them only once. They were and remain way overpriced.

John
Dach wrote on 6/10/2006, 9:25 AM
John,

I would agree that DJ at regular price is "over priced", but their deals lately really have been attrative. I had ordered their Stacktraxx series (12 volumes) for less than $25.00 each. I believe this deal was extended having already owned the FX library.

* I don't believe DJ is closing shop.

Chad
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 6/10/2006, 10:10 AM
Hey Ben - I loved that little Techy lower third you had down there.

Btw - you guys seemed to be looking down a bit at the first few takes, do you have cues down there? if so - you may want to look into getting a Prompter for your studio that will allow you to keep from looking off camera - I did, and it's made a substantial difference with some of the talent I've shot.

Dave
ken c wrote on 6/10/2006, 12:17 PM
DJ rocks, I own virtually everything they sell - world class a/v materials.

now I've gotta get back to vegas for dvd renders...

ken
eyethoughtso wrote on 6/10/2006, 1:35 PM
I use them for the weddings. The Intros are nice and the brides appreciate the soft images.

Jeff
mjroddy wrote on 6/10/2006, 3:59 PM
"OT" means Off Topic. I don't really think this thread is that, though. Just answering an above question.
Yeah, I thought/think DJ products were seriously overpriced, but I recently purchased all 10 - TEN volumes of their HiDef products for $249. Absolutely amazing! As long as they continue to give deals of this nature, they got my money, I'm afraid. The product is good and the deals make it irristible.
kkolbo wrote on 6/10/2006, 7:00 PM
The correct quest might have been, who is NOT using them? I have had DJ products for a long time. Even at the list prices they have paid for themselves right away. Use it in one project and it has paid for itself.

The recent round of specials has been fun. No it does not signal a closing and yes they have been releasing new product. Some of the new Juice Drops have been great and I can't say, but there is plenty of stuff in the pipe for release. I think they made a mistake with the HD Jumpbacks with all 10 for $249, but Vic clearly found out that the market is now there and the price point was not right the way it was before. As proof of their customer service, DJ increased the staff to handle all the orders they have been getting and they continued the special until anyone who wanted it got it. I ran the math in a hypothetical way and the fact is, the specials mixed with the regular pricing is producing a solid business model. Most of the specials have paid for the development of a product. After that it is residual income. The volume that they have been moving is staggering.

If you have not been using the DJ print products like the Juice Drops and the stuff from the presenter's tool kit in your videos then you have been missing out. The recent Frames volume and the Flags are very useful and for just $69 it is a treasure. I will never run out of overlays and frames again. I word to the wise, the Presenter's Tool Kit is just $99 right now. It has clip art and backgrounds for days. It has unlayered versions of most of the Juice Drops in 1600x1024 resolutions. Some of them are a bit busy unlayered, but a through a matte on them and I have great backgrounds for corporate video.

As for the over priced comments...
There is cheaper stuff out there, that is true. As a whole, I save a lot of time using DJ stuff because of the makeup of things like the ETK's. They have already made the matching pieces for me. DJ is also a one-stop-shop for many things. The quality is first rate. For me, the price is based on return. An ETK saves me a lot more than 10 hours. For one project it may save me 30+ hours. That equates to almost $2,000 billable. When I use an ETK twice it is money in the bank.

Last note: Customer service from DJ is as good or better than any company I have dealt with. I am amazed. Orders have been taken care of with plesant knowlegable staff. Probalem have been taken care of with lightning speed. I called Friday because I have misplaced one of the discs for a tool kit I own. I have a project due Monday and I was hurting. I was going to order a new kit and pay have it shipped overnight for Saturday. While I was ordering, she said that she saw that I own it already and asked what was up. I told her. She said that DJ would replace the disc for a very low cost rather than me buying the kit and that I should not pay for the special shipping. If I would tell her what files I needed off of the disc, she would email them to me so I could finish the project. DJ saved my project and my wallet. How's that for service M$?

I forgot to mention, I have 5 ETK's, all HD Jumpbacks, PTK, DJ 2, DJ 1, SFX, 3 Jumpbacks SD, 4 Juice Drops, 5 StackTraxx, BackTraxx 1, and VideoTraxx 1&3.

End testimonial ****
dhill wrote on 6/10/2006, 11:45 PM
I believe their news letter said something to the effect of they are offering their products at these new lower prices to build a larger clientele (those of us who never tried them before due to budget constraints) so that we can see what great products they have and therefore become long time customers. They put it much better than that, but you get the idea.

Sorry about the typos in my original post (I just fixed)...stinking blue tooth wireless keyboard (Logitech) doesn't always work properly.

So, I haven't read a thing about how to "use them properly." It seemed pretty obvious. I installed the juicer and the video previews. Then, when I decide which ones I want to use after previewing them in the juicer, I copy the original, much larger files on to my hard drive, and stick them in the Vegas timeline and work away. This is correct yes? Sorry....I was just confused of why djpadre had troubles using them. Derek
farss wrote on 6/11/2006, 12:20 AM
The HD ones look like good value but now I remember why I haven't bought them before, they're all 30p damn it.
Come to think of it so are the Sony Vision loops and they seem to resample OK, still would it be that hard for these guys to render out at 25p or better yet 50p?

Bob.
Chienworks wrote on 6/11/2006, 3:12 AM
Bob, i wouldn't bother resampling. I'd just change the frame rate to 25. That way the frames match exactly without resampling and remain crystal clear. As a bonus, they run 20% longer before looping.
farss wrote on 6/11/2006, 6:14 AM
Good point,
thanks. I might invest in their HD library that they've got on special.

Bob.
Chienworks wrote on 6/11/2006, 6:33 AM
*Sheesh* now there i go pushing the competition. ;)
farss wrote on 6/11/2006, 6:52 AM
Ah yeah,
sorry I'd forgotten about your stuff. Just looked at it and it does look good. I think you should maybe have all the HD stuff available as collections rather than having to ferret around to find.


Bob.
Chienworks wrote on 6/11/2006, 6:55 AM
Yep. That's tomorrow's project. I've got about 20 HD clips ready now. I've just been procrastinating on collecting them together.
tbush wrote on 6/11/2006, 7:15 AM
I checked out your website Chienworks. Very nice work...you offer a lot to choose from. Tara
apit34356 wrote on 6/11/2006, 10:14 AM
Chienworks website is a vegas-child, well almost.