| Sometime in the '80s I purchased a video camera to tape some of my work, in those days I was a licensed contractor in the Los Angeles area. For most of the 30 years I was in that business I relied on still pictures to promote my work. I finally reached a point where I wanted to do some editing to the video I had shot to make it a more pleasing presentation. I purchased some high-end S-VHS decks that were new at that time, and were capable of insert editing. There was no external control of these decks, you simply had to push some buttons on each back to get the process going. Within a couple of years this was no longer satisfactory, so I did some research and purchased the setup you see below. Pretty soon I had friends asking me to videotape their kids weddings, and I discovered I enjoyed the work. Before I knew it I was charging people to videotape weddings, parties and all sorts of events that people wanted to have a record of. Remember in those days very few people had video cameras, and they sure didn't have any way to edit the tape after they shot it. In about 1990 I had enough of the contracting business and being exposed to those hot summer days in Southern California, so I devoted all my time to the video business. In 1992 we moved to Des Moines IA, my wife's hometown for a slower pace of life and to get away from those monumental traffic jams on Los Angeles freeways. That pretty much leads us up to the present time and where I expect to be in the next year or so. The technology is moving so fast it's hard to keep up with, and digital video is quickly taking place of analog video. |
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The picture of me taken in 1988 in my first editing suite which was a straight cut edit setup. It was my first step in becoming a video professional. This picture was taken before my hair started to turn gray. |
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I created my special effects with a video toaster, housed in the Amiga 2500 computer which seems kind of antiquated by today standards, but in those days it was pretty hot stuff for a low in video guide. |
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The video toaster had a whole lot of special effects, and a character generator that allowed us to two transitions from still pictures to live video and to see text over live video. Sense we only had a cut edit system it was not possible to do A/B roll transitions. |
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In those days the two decks were controlled with a parallel controller that had no time code capabilities so it was not frame accurate, in fact I didn't even know what time code was. About the only thing it could do was to trigger GPI in the media computer to make a transition take place at the beginning of the edit. |
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The cut edit system only requires two decks a feeder deck, and edit deck. In those days as I still do today I pre-record a blank tape with a black burst signal. All of the editing from that put on is insert editing, which it is more accurate because is not constantly recording portions of the control track. |
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Foster video productions Approaching the year 2000 |
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This is a serial controlled video switcher and is capable of hundreds of digital transitions and effects. This switcher mainly does an assortment of wipes, where various patterns and soft edges can be applied to the video as it transfers from one to the other. It is triggered to transition at a given point in the edit by the edit control. It is also capable of feeding audio from one video source to the other to produce a seamless audio tracks.The keyboard is connected to our main computer that is the heart of our editing setup. |
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We are now using a GeniePlus special effects switcher, it can map a moving video image in real-time to any shape we can create. It generates high quality 3D special affects that are really quite stunning to watch. It also allows us to build a special affects from the ground up, controlling its movement and shape as it moves on the screen.The effect is built on a time line, where you determine the length of the effect, and at one point a particular event is to happen in that affect |
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This is the interface screen of GeniePlus, each one of those pictures represent some different elements of a 3-D affect. I cannot show you an actual 3-D affect on the Internet, but I have some still images that were captured in the middle of some of the effects. These are small images to be sure but knows the quality of the image that is being manipulated into periods shapes |
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This is the back view of our video computer, it contains the Genie plus board, the V LAN network board, and a black burst generator board that generates a reference or synchronize signal for various pieces of video equipment. |
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The control pod allows us to control and shuttle the video machines from one easy location, and can control up to 20 video machines at one time. In points can be set for all of periods machines from this location. |
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V Land universal controlled network is the television industries standard for machine control, allowing combinations of many types of video equipment to be controlled during an edit. |
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This is the visual interface for the editing controller which allows the direct input of time code tape positions. It is also capable of calculating various aspects of an edit and to save the whole thing in an edit list that can be brought back later to re-edit exact locations on the tape. |
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These are the three feeder or source machines of our A/B/C roll editing system, which allows us to do a frame accurate synchronized edit with three machines plus the record machine. |
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To this is our editing deck, which means this machine can cut into existing video tape and face a new piece of material there. Most editing is done a pre-recorded tape, meaning record tape with a black burst signal. All new material is applied to this tape as an insert edit, which is superior to what is called and assembly edit. |
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This is the back of our editing deck which has many connections. It has four audio ins for audio outs, reference video in and out, composites and S video in, ins in the four ground you see the RS 422 serial control cable from the computer. |
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Looking at a post production editing set up from the front looks fairly organized and straightforward. |
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When you look at the back side of a video editing set up you will notice that it takes hundreds of cables for video, audio, reference video, RS 422 serial controls, and GPI cables. |
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We now have the Matrox® RT2000 on line, it is a realtime nonlinear video editor that works in the native DV editing environment. It works in native digital video, and can output MPEG-2 for DVD and web video streaming applications, along with DV 1394 and analog video. Working in native DV maintains the quality of video from the camera until its output for distribution without generational loss. |
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It takes more than looking video and editing |
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Audio is very important to a video production, and the audio success and smoothly from one scene to another maintaining a constant level. Also having the ability to mix audio from a number of sources is very important. |
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High-quality professional equipment such as this professional turntable halp to maintain a superior level of quality even from old vinal records. |
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VU meters with peak indicator lights halp to maintain the audio level at a constant level from one scene to the next. |
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Two and eight track cassette recorders offer a great amount of flexibility when it comes to editing audio tracts for a particular production. |
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Editing audio tracks off a computer with special software designed for that purpose can add some real significant improvements to the whole process. This is particularly true when you want to key certain pieces of music to certain events in a production. |
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The use of wireless microphones can greatly improve our audio quality when there is opportunity to use them. |
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Digital consumer camcorder take excellent video for today's niche market production service. |
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Are S-VHS cameras have served us well for many years, and I'm sure they will service well for a few more years to come. They still produce a very excellent picture where there is adequate light to allow them to function properly. |
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In 1999 I had to start the process to convert to digital video because of its higher quality. The conversion started in an unusual way, when I was about to leave on vacation I discovered my hi8 video camera was not functioning properly. I did not have time to have it repaired so I had to purchase a new one. I purchased the digital 8 because it had backwards compatibility with all the hi 8 tapes that I had previously made. |
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I found the quality of the video to be quite good, so I immediately purchased a second one for shooting weddings. With the use of either a tripod or a rifle stock type arrangement, and it electronic image stabilization it was capable of shooting good stable video without the movement usually associated with very small cameras. With a 20 to 1 optical zoon capabilities they really get in for the close-up. |
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By the year 2001 we hope to maintain digital video all the way through the process |
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The first step in this says will probably be to purchase a couple of digital video source decks with RS 422 compatibility with my editing system |
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The next step would probably agreed to purchase a 3 chip video camera with a professional video lens that would add improved quality to the recorded tape. |
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The final purchase for the short term would probably be a Digital S editing deck capable of true broadcast quality video. I say probably because all of these items could be old technology in six months with something else displacing them in the marketplace. |
| The three pieces of equipment shown above have only been on the market a very short time, and just a few months ago when I was upgrading some equipment I made some choices that I would not make today due to the fact this equipment wasn't available than. | |
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