Live music samples - links will be updated

[bluegrass]

I shoot every bit of video in HDV format and capture it to my RLE than render it in whatever resolution I want that is supported by my RLE(Pinnacle Studio 10.7 at the present time). I have noticed a great improvement in my latest video clips that I shot in HDV even though I render the video in a 640 X 480 wmv format for my website.

I'll post an example here via a link directly to a file on my site. If your ramp to the Internet is broad enough this wmv file should start streaming in a matter of seconds and you won't need to download it. I shot this last week at a campground in Indiana. I'm pretty sure I shot it in manual TV mode with shutter around 250. I also shot it with the Canon WD-H43 lens. I am presently shooting everything with the wide angle lens. By the way, I shot over 40 hours of video last week at this bluegrass festival, both on and off the stage. I'll eventually have hundreds of clips posted on my site. I'll try and pick some of the better examples and post links in the appropriate location on this forum. Of couse you can always work your way to the root of the site and explore all you want but I'm not pushing that option. I found that I liked the Cine mode so well, I shot almost all 40 plus tapes in this mode. Not 24P though. I don't want to go that direction until I have a smooth rendering path to follow.

http://johnhartford.org/Videos/beanblossom2007/BB-OliphantJamP1-OldJoeClark.wmv

It's been stated elsewhere on this site but I'll state it again, good lighting is really necessary when shooting high definition for HD to be realized by the viewer. I frankly am amazed at the quality improvement I'm seeing in this 640 render versus my last camera's SD rendering at the same resolution.

[Dodgy Nick]

Ze link...she is broken. :hv20-smilie119:

[bluegrass]

Ze link...she is broken. :hv20-smilie119:

ze link, she is fixed.

copy and paste is too literal with the ......

jkh

[Worley]

Nice. What mics were you using?

[Dodgy Nick]

I liked the blonde's smile (now see the # of downloads exploding!)

There were two serious camera wobbles when *somebody* bumped the camera. Did you have OIS switched on?

Loved the music! Reminded me of back to the future 3.

[bluegrass]

I liked the blonde's smile (now see the # of downloads exploding!)

There were two serious camera wobbles when *somebody* bumped the camera. Did you have OIS switched on?

Loved the music! Reminded me of back to the future 3.

I always leave OIS on and yes, I probably bumped the tripod. i'm a real amateur when it comes to this stuff. I had a mixer on the ground and eventually 3 mics positioned around in different places. I used a headset and adjusted the mic levels as I felt lke. I don't know what the h%^ i'm doing but I'm a "wing it" kind of person. I like what I hear with condensor mics so I had one of them in the middle and a couple dynamics on each side although I think on this clip I only had 2 mics. I'll have to look up the model/manufacturer of the mics but I can tell you that I only paid about $125 for the Condensor and about $75 to $125 for the dynamics. Some of my stage shot clips you'll see later was shot with a single dynamic seinhauser mic on a stand about 8' in the air in front of the speaker farm. I fed that mic to my XLR Pro adapter via cable and from the XLR Pro, into the camera mic jack.

[sp8ce07]

I've been impressed with your advancements Bluegrass. You have really taken this entire process and ran with it. Your attention to audio quality will pay off huge dividends down the road. On a similar level, I would say a large percentage of us are "winging" it. I've tried to make myself an expert on as many topics as I can retain -- eventually, like you, I'll start getting outside and learning just as many new things. Looking forward to viewing this clip.

Just reading this thread will now lead me to try and find out how to turn off - and even test with, OIS off and on.

[Dodgy Nick]

I always leave OIS on and yes, I probably bumped the tripod.

As a rule of thumb, can I suggest you switch the OIS off when using a tripod, and on when holding the camera by hand. That way you'll reduce the wobbles, especially when panning or tilting the camera on the tripod.

[sp8ce07]

Blue, great clip. What is your reasoning for the 640x480 resolution?

[sp8ce07]

As a rule of thumb, can I suggest you switch the OIS off when using a tripod, and on when holding the camera by hand. That way you'll reduce the wobbles, especially when panning or tilting the camera on the tripod.

Something I will file away in the "tripod settings" folder in my head. :hv20-smilie110:

[bluegrass]

Blue, great clip. What is your reasoning for the 640x480 resolution?

I started out posting clips on my website a few years ago at a lower resolution but as the capabilities of the majority of my audience to be able to handle a higher resolution, I settled on 640. I guess maybe the players advanced in their capabilities but I found out that Windows Media Player could actually view my 640 clips in a streaming mode thus allowing a lot more flexability for the audience to view even an hour long clip without the need to download it first. If there is a way of providing my audience with a better viewing experience, I am open for suggestions. I would post the wmv files or even switch to mov files if it meant the viewers had a better experience. I'll have to do some more experimentation but it appears as though viewing in the streaming mode breaks down when I post a higher resolution/bandwidth file on my site.

I didn't do it with this link but on my website, I've begun to post all my clips into an embedded player which doesn't allow downloading the files. Not that I'm commerical or trying to make a profit, but I have found that some folks will rip off my videos and post them on YouTube without giving so much as a mention to the source of the videos. With the embedded method of displaying my videos, it at least provides a degree of protection from people ripping them off. At some point down the road, I may decide, I have some marketable videos and would also like to have some degree of protection. That is also why I'm starting to randomly add some text content at the bottom of my videos to at least reveal the source.

[sp8ce07]

The text additions, opening/ending credits are great steps to providing that degree of protection. Why not just keep a watermark on a corner during the clips? I've seen WIDESPREAD and increased use of the free open source .FLV player that I believe plays .mov as well. It's highly customizable and I've really seen its use all over the web. Now quality wise -- you would have to find a good .flv converter on your own (something I've done with little success, freeware wise). Another method is uploading the videos to a service like blip.tv which automatically encodes to .flv or keeps it in .mov. Audio is still great sounding.

Here's the open source .flv player that really takes zero installation to feature on a site.

http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=Flash_Video_Player