OT-ish: Countdown timers (VT Clock)

TLF wrote on 11/14/2008, 10:55 AM
This isn't a wish list, but I would love to see a couple of countdown timers in Vegas.

Premiere has a variant of the Acadamy Leader (which to my eyes looks terrible - we're working with VIDEO, not FILM!), but I would love to see a VT clock, the type used by broadcasters when cuing video.

For the type of films I make, it is a requirement to have a 20 second lead in before the film, so, I've created my own variant of the VT clock.

If anyone is interested, I'll upload the source files - a series of 17 stills (PNGs with HDV aspect ratio) - so that you can tweak them and create your own AVIs.

The clock counts from 20 to 3 seconds (at 3 secs the screen goes blank). Add your own tones as necessary.

Comments

TLF wrote on 11/14/2008, 12:04 PM
You can download the source fies and a VEG file from:
http://rapidshare.com/files/163799145/VT_Clock.zip (661kb)

The VEG project settings are for HDV50i, so watch out all of you in NTSC land!

johnmeyer wrote on 11/14/2008, 12:32 PM
The number of things like this that could be in Vegas but aren't is a little discouraging at times.

Here is a way you can use the timecode generator to create count up and down clocks, but you are limited in the font available:

Count Up/Down Sports Clock Time on screen for clocks, timecode, etc.
Fredv wrote on 11/15/2008, 7:35 AM
Alchemy also has one, which can be a typical film leader, or a stopwatch.
rs170a wrote on 11/15/2008, 8:14 AM
At the risk of being anal, the countdown is supposed to go until the 2 sec. mark (but, as I recall, only 15 frames long), with the beep at this point being half the duration and twice the frequency of all others.

Mike
TLF wrote on 11/16/2008, 12:46 AM
Thank you for being anal!

I couldn't find a good reference to work from, so I had to make a hybrid based on the images I could find dotted around the internet.

Edit: I found some information on DV.info which says:
"Mostly you cued the tape at the 15sec to go mark and at the 3sec to go mark the clock cut to white for one frame with a 1 kHz tone. Thereafter it was black until the zero mark when programme content faded up.

"Just remember, the 2sec tone “blib” is an Academy standard = film and the 3sec “blib” is a Television standard world wide."

So, I was right to cut to black at 3 seconds, but my blip is in the wrong place.

Regardless, the source images and project file are there for you to do with as you will, so tweak them for your own needs. I'll upload to original Photoshop file, too, so the countdown can be made longer.