foodie.tv

Long story, but I’m doing all my blog posting over on another domain:

http://www.digitalvideosecrets.com

Why?

Because it’s drupal. When I get some time I’ll move this site over to drupal too.

The good news… I’m using my drupal bookmarklet to bookmark all my cool sites now. So if you want the “pulse” of what I’m into at the moment, then go to digitalvideosecrets.com

You can add a bookmark to your toolbar that will allow you to blog post the current window. You need to remove all the line breaks to put this code on one line. Also, you need to change www.digitalvideosecrets.com to the url of your drupal installation

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I’ve added a meebo chat box, so if you see me online, then you’ll be able to chat to me in real time!!!

Just enter in the euge.tv box at the right of this page, and if I’m online I’ll answer…

So cool!

If you haven’t read my previous article, you may wish to read part one. In it I defined the 8 key reasons why video looks different to film.

I also put together an example of some raw video, that looks like video, and then I used some tricks (which I’ll show you in due course) to make the video footage look more “film like”.

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you watch the video showing the comparison. The difference is quite startling, particular once you consider that you’re looking at exactly the same footage.

The importance of frame-rate in producing “Film Look” video

In this article I’m going to go over the first “Film Look” secret. And that’s framerate.

As I touched on in my first article, frame rate is the number of images that get displayed per second.

For NTSC video this is 29.97 frames per second.

For PAL video this is 25.00 frames per second.

But for film, the correct figure is 23.976 frames per second.

The slower frame rate of film also creates more “motion blur”, so that each frame is not so “sharp” while in motion.

Whether consciously, or otherwise, this is a lot of the reason why when you look at film (or even video that originated from film) that you associate it with cinema.

Interlaced or Progressive – that is the question…

The other significant difference between film and video is that video is interlaced (showing alternate even and odd scan lines on the television), while film is progressive (full frames are captured and displayed when projected in the cinema).

As a result, PAL 25 frames per second video is actually 50 fields per second that gets broadcast from the stations, and captured to video tape. For that reason, PAL video is also typically referred to as 50i (50 interlaced fields per second) video.

And similar NTSC 29.97 frames per second is actually 59.94 fields per second. And because people can’t be bothered spelling out 59.94 they usually refer to NTSC video as 60i (60 interlaced fields per second) video.

And while we’re on the subject of framerates and fieldrates, the 23.976 progressive framerate of video is usually abbreviated to 24p (23.976 progressive frames per second) video.

Still with me? Suffice to say that the interlaced nature of video with a different framerate is a big part of the “video look” that many people hate (particularly if you’re an indie film maker!)

How do you create 24 frames-per-second video footage?

So, how do we change our 25fps (frames per second) and 29.97fps footage to be 23.976fps?

Good question. And the answer is not straightforward. You have a couple of options:

1. Shoot at 24p using a camera that natively supports this framerate.
2. Shoot at 50i, convert to 25p (25 progressive frames per second), then slow down the footage (and audio as well) by 4% to get it to 24p
3. Shoot at 60i, convert to 60p, and blend, interpolate, combine frames to get a motion-blurred 24p.

Option 1: Shoot 24p

The first option is the easiest, and most preferable way to create the “film look”, however, you need to get a camera that natively records in 24p. One popular camera that does this is the Panasonic DVX100. Because the whole camera is set up to record full progressive frames on it’s video sensors, a very high quality progressive picture is recorded and it produces the highest quality result.

However, cameras that record 24p are not available in the consumer camcorder category, and are at least $3,000 to purchase. 24p cameras also usually support “film like” color reproduction and light response (gamma), and are really the best choice if you are serious about producing a quality “film look” feature.

Option 2: Shoot PAL and convert

The second option is probably the best trade-off. You take 50i footage, “de-interlace” the footage to create 25p footage. If your target audience is PAL, then just use the 25p footage, as 25p is virtually indistinguishable to 24p to the end-user.

In fact, that’s how film is transferred to television and DVD in most cases in PAL countries. Studios scan the film stock at 24p, then speed it up by 4% to get to 25p, which is then duplicated to create 50i footage that is suitable for TV or DVD. The pitch of the audio is increased by 4% and is therefore slightly higher than the original, but most people would not perceive the difference unless they had the original audio to compare with.

If you are wanting to target an NTSC audience then you will have to go from 25p to 24p, slowing down the footage by 4% and lowering the pitch of the audio. Then you need to apply a process called “3:2 pulldown” to convert the 24p footage to 60i, suitable for NTSC televisions.

This sounds complicated, and in one sense it is. Basically you have to translate 24 frames per second to 30 frames per second (ie. 60 fields per second). This is achieved by turning every 2 frames from the 24p footage into 5 fields in the 60i footage. Therefore 24 frames (twelve times this) would result in twelve times five, or the full 60 fields present in the NTSC 60i signal.

Converting two 24p frames into five 60i fields means duplicating the first 24p frame into two 60i fields, and the second 24p frame is actually duplicated into the next three 60i fields. This process is known as adding a 3:2 pulldown. Because the way that the fields get “pulled down” is uneven, this is referred to as a 3:2 pulldown “judder”, as there is one too many fields in every five fields of video.

So, in summary, once you have your 24p footage from PAL video, you convert it to NTSC by adding the 3:2 pulldown to convert it to 60i video. In addition, because PAL has a higher vertical resolution (720×576) than NTSC (720×480), the vertical size of the video is also adjusted.

Option 3: Shoot NTSC and convert

The third option, which is to shoot in 60i NTSC and convert to 24p is probably the most complicated move. It certainly is possible, but of all the three methods, it is usually the most involved. There are many methods that can be applied varying from reversing 3:2 pulldown to recreate progressive frames, to converting to 60p (or even 120p) footage and then blending, interpolating and combining frames using sophisticated algorithms to get to an approximation of 24p footage, and also the characteristic 24p motion blur.

So, practically, how do you create 24p?

Ok, so that’s the theory of how to create 24p. But how in practice do you actually do it?

Well, if you’re after purchasing a 24p camera I’d recommend purchasing a Panasonic DVX100 for standard-definition content, or the much more expensive HVX200 for high-definition video.

If you’re reading this article, then chances are that you already own a video camera. In this way, regardless of whether you own an NTSC camera, or a PAL camera, I’d highly recommend purchasing a copy of DVFilm Maker

DVFilm Maker has all the smarts to convert your footage to 24P regardless of what time of video format it is. And for $145 it’s quite inexpensive.

Or, if you’re on a real budget and you’re prepared to put in a bit of time to learn some new tools and even write some “code”, I’d highly recommend learning AVISynth

AviSynth is a scripting language that enables you to manipulate video at a very low level.

When combined with the fabulous open source tool virtualdub and some user contributed scripts and the help of the Doom9 Community you will be able to do anything you can imagine with your footage.

However, AviSynth is not for the faint-hearted, and for the majority of people I’d recommend using an off-the-shelf tool such as DVFilm Maker.

For the more serious film-maker with a larger budget you might like to take a look at Magic Bullet

Conclusion

The entire independent film-making community changed almost overnight with the release of the first 24p camera, that enabled the shooting of “film look” footage on digital video.

The “film look” attributable to the 24p “cadence” of film can now be reproduced somewhat by either shooting in 24p or converting existing footage to 24p using software such as DVFilm Maker and Magic Bullet.

There’s much more to making video seem film-like than just 24p, and we’ll cover more of these techniques in upcoming articles.

Did you ever wonder why video looks like video, and film looks like film? Or why the 6 o’clock news doesn’t look like a movie?

Or, put another way, what can you do to make your video appear more cinematic?

Here’s the key differences:

1. Framerate – Film is shot at a framerate of 24 (actually 23.976) frames a second, video is either 25 or 30 (actually 29.97)
2. Progressive vs Interlaced – Film is progressive, in that 23.976 full frames are recorded to film each second. With NTSC video, for example, there are actually 59.94 (ie. 2×29.97) fields that get displayed a second. Interlacing means that only half the picture is shown alternatively. So first the even lines are displayed, then the odd-lines, then the even lines, then the odd, and so on. This “interlaced” appearance is often a big tip-off that you have shot on video.
3. Depth-of-field – Most cinematic productions make use of a shallow “depth-of-field” to focus the audience’s attention on objects and people. This has the appearance of keeping something in focus while the background or foreground is blurred out, leading to a pleasing image. Video is typically shot on lenses that provide a very wide depth-of-field where everything is in focus.
4. Exposure Latitute – Film has a greater ability to represent both very dark images and very bright images in the same shot due to it’s very high exposure latitude. Video, however, is not so flexible. If you have both very dark and light subjects that you wish to capture with video you’ll need to either expose for the dark subject and all the bright areas will be “blown out” and just appear too bright and washed out, or you expose for the bright item, and you lose all the detail in the dark areas.
5. Production Value – Most cinematic features have much higher budgets than television or other video formats. This manifests itself in smooth camera and crane moves, and also much better or artistic lighting than is typically found on video.
6. Aspect Ratio – The majority of television and video is still watched on a 4×3 aspect ratio. Even though more and more television is being released in 16×9 widescreen, most film is recorded these days in 2:35:1 Panavision which is wider again.
7. Gamma – Because Film is a very difference medium to video, it responds very differently to light. This often referred to as the “gamma” of the medium. Film is referred to as having a “cinegamma”.
8. Color – In general you’ll find that colors on film look richer and more saturated than on video.

I you want to achieve this coveted “film look” there are many things you can do. I’ll cover some of the easy “post production” ways in the next part in this series.

In the meantime, you can checkout a comparison between pure untreated video and video that has been tweaked to look more like film by clicking here

If you’ve ever wished you had a safe, secure place to store working files online, and you have a gmail account, then this post will be of interest to you…

Let me explain:

I regularly bounce between 3 different computers:

1. My work PC
2. My home workstation
3. My home laptop

As a result I’m often working on the same file, but on different machines.

To date the way that I’ve dealt with this problem has been to store the files onto a SD memory card, and remember to copy the latest version to and from the SD card before I move on.

Well, in laziness today I was looking for an easier way (and FTP is not an easier way).

Then I stumbled upon a cool little program called GMail Drive Shell

As the name implies, it allows you to use your gmail account (which has 1GB+ of storage) as an Internet file system.

After you install the program you get a new “Hard Drive” on your computer called your “Gmail Drive”.

You double-click on it, and it asks you for your gmail login details.

Then you just copy and paste to your Gmail Drive.

It then stores these files in your gmail inbox (or your “Drafts” folder if you set it up to do so).

It’s simple, easy, and it works.

Ways it could be better:

• You can’t really “work” from the gmail drive. You really need to copy and paste to it.
• I can’t work out how to use another folder instead of the inbox or drafts folder to store files in.

But then again, it’s free :-)

Give it a go.

If you like to watch online video you’ll understand the importance of bandwidth (particularly if you’ve ever tried to view video over a dial-up connection!)

However, one thing that most people don’t realise is that if you’re a video content creator, then, it’s not just how fast you can download your video that counts, but also upload.

Most people when shopping around for the fastest Internet connection only look at the download speed (8Mbit, 24Mbit, etc).

But they forget to the look at the number after the slash.

Ie. 2Mbit/128kbps

That number (the 128kbps) tells you how fast the upload speed is.

So… why should you care? Here’s why:

If you’re creating any video content for the web, and you need to actually upload it to a website, then you’ll care… bigtime!

Got a 100MB 45min video to upload. You’ll start to care… pretty darn quickly.

The common wisdom with Internet connections is basically that Cable Internet is generally the fastest, whether you are looking at standard cable (usually 10Mbps) or Cable2 (usually around 18Mbps).

But, given that cable is a shared medium, the uploads are often crippled.

For example, I’ve got cable broadband at home, and until recently I could only upload at 128Kbps (or 16 KBytes / sec).

So, you might be asking?

Well, last night I had to upload a 4.5 GB file to lulu.com

And at 16KBytes / sec it would take almost 2 days to upload the file. Whereas at 32Kbytes it would take about a day.

Big difference!!!

So in this respect, ADSL wins out.

So for online video content producers, perhaps ADSL2 is the way to go. Or get the best of both worlds, one of each :-)

If you’ve done anything in video for a while you’ll know how it’s so easy to be overwhelmed with the choice of codecs (or video compression systems) that are available.

Video is available in so many formats, and it is a common requirement to convert from one format to another.

For example, I own a PalmOne Treo 650

And the media player that I use can only play video of certain formats, and more importantly, only certain bitrates.

So, part of the challenge of getting video onto my Treo is getting it into the right format and bitrate (I can’t play files that are too big).

I used to use a program called VLC to do all my dirtywork. But it’s not really set up to be a transcoding program (that’s what changing one compression system to another is called)

But, I stumbled on a bit of software today that IS.

It’s called MediaCoder and from all accounts it is just what the doctor ordered.

You can convert from pretty much any format to any other format.

And the best part…

It’s FREE! (I love that word).

I haven’t given it an extensive test yet, but when I do I’ll do a bit of a review, and post up my pros and cons.

Happy Transcoding!

One of the most awesome secrets out there, is that you can easily produce DVDs on demand… for $0 (yes… that’s FREE) cost.

Having produced 10s of thousands of DVDs I can tell you that they’re not cheap to do in quantity.

Many places will have a minimum quantity of 1000.

So if you’re paying $2-$4 a disc that can add up to some serious moula.

Particularly if you’re also including printing costs for slicks and cases, etc.

Not to mention if you have a whole lot of DVDs to produce.

The solution is to use a DVD-on-Demand service, where you just simply pay “per unit” ordered. So you don’t have to front thousands of dollars upfront. You pay as you go.

The downside, however, is that you’ll probably pay more for each disc as a result.

But if you’re trying to boopstrap your information marketing business, or your’e an independent business, you probably want to conserve you pretty pennies.

The other downside is that a lot of the cost of creating a DVD using regular replication is that actual set up and creation of “glass masters”, that are used for pressing the DVDs.

Currently it’s not really feasible to “press” DVDs on demand due to the setup costs.

So most DVD-on-demand services basically “burn”, then print your label onto the disc’s surface.

Why is this bad?

Well.. several reasons:

1. Burned DVDs have less compatibility then pressed media.
2. The printing on the disc may not look as professional as proper screen printed discs
3. There is a real possibility of errors cropping up on your discs.

But for the most part these are acceptable compromises, because:

• Most DVDs made in the last 2-3 years can burn DVDs fine.
• There’s almost an inversely proportionate relationship between cost of the DVD player and compatibility. Usually, the cheaper the player, the more types of media it can play!
• DVD players are so cheap now, that for some products, if people have problems, it’s almost feasible to send them a new DVD player!

So, who do I recommend?

Well, there’s lots of services out there. But I like lulu.com because there is NO set up costs!

Yup.. you heard me!

It’s free to set up, and you only pay when you order your first disc!

One other thing to note, is that most DVD-on-demand services have a certain format that they require all the artwork uploaded in (eg. for DVD slicks and disc artwork).

The only drawback I’ve found with lulu is that they need a PDF file at a very specific width and height.

I tried creating the PDF with two or three PDF programs with no success.

Finally I had to download Adobe Acrobat, and then it was fine.

So, while lulu is free, it’s a shame that you need to get Adobe Acrobat (the full version, not the reader), which isn’t cheap, to create your artwork. It would be better to upload ad JPEG or PNG, in my opinon.

But, I guess you can download a 30 day trial from adobe.com so you can always do all your artwork in the first month, and then use your profits to pay for a legit copy of acrobat.

I’m setting up a disc as I write this, so I’ll let you all know how I go when it’s up and going!

For those who are interested in the status of my DVD series. It’s almost finished. For a lot of reasons it’s taken me a lot longer that I’d anticipated because I’m a bit of a perfectionist.

The video component currently will consist of 8 DVDs:

• Session 1: Why Video
• Session 2: Screencam Video – Video without a camera
• Session 3: Screencam Video (For DVD) – Video without a camera
• Session 4: Full Motion Video (Part 1) – Video with a camera
• Session 5: Full Motion Video (part 2) – Video with a camera
• Session 6: DVD – The Home Theatre Experience
• Session 7: IPTV – You Are TV
• Bonus DVD: Finding Music & Putting Video On The Web For FREE

I’ll be putting a sales letter up on my digital video secrets site in a week or so. I’ll post here when it’s ready.