On 2 Sep 1998 01:39:03 GMT, gngphoto@aol.com (Gngphoto) wrote:

>I recently bought the Buz, after I purchased a P-11 400 with UDMA 6.3, 128megs
>ram, 4meg Diamond card , etc....
>This was after I bought the Sony DCR-VX-1000. The point being , while it was
>fun to play with "The Buz" it left the alot to be desired as far as the video
>output quality. Not Lousy but not good. The transitions and the type was
>ok..... So even though I went and spend so much on the camera and the
>computer(My second just for video, by the way) I think I was really stupid to
>try and go cheap with video capture and editing. So here goes....... I would
>like to buy the Radius MotoDV for Win98. It comes with Premiere , which I have
>no clue as to how to use....I want the quality that I put in to come out with
>my editing software and capture card. I am not putting together a 2 million
>dollar production studio, but I am asking that the quality of the video that I
>have remains constant. AFter all that is why I bought a DV camera to begin
>with.....

With what you have for a camcorder and computer, FireWire capture
just makes the most sense. After all, the camcorder has already
done the hard part, the compression and digitization of the video and
sound... Now you need to get that info into the computer unchanged,
and edit it. BTW, DPS Spark comes bundled with Premiere, and the
Spark software has had time to become pretty well de-bugged. I have
no problems with this in a K-6 233 set-up - it works well.

>Question: Is it possible to produce excellent video with this card... I mean ,
>not out of audio sync, and clear pictures not fuzzy...????

A FireWire system will retain the original image quality and
sound synch unless you decide to change them...

>Is it dependent on the hard drive, the quality of the video ... For instance
>the AVI files that I did with Buz, which is going back tomorrow,.... are not
>crystal , like the original footage... is it the files itself, or the capture,
>the hard drive or what .

The Buz takes the analogue output of the camcorder and recompresses
and redigitizes it (quality is lost, even with the highest-quality settings).
This is an unnecessary step, and it actually can make
higher demands (for lower quality...!) on your HD. Keep the data
digital from the camcorder until it is returned to and then played
back from the camcorder (where them thar digits gotta then finally go
an-a-log...;-). With a FireWire card, you stay in the digital domain,
with no conversions, etc., and no losses in quality.

>When capturing, what files should it be made, MOV,AVI,MJPEG etc????
>When producing, what files should the output be , AVI, MJPEG etc??

DV-AVI, for FireWire and PC's...

>I am new to DV editing and producing.....I have another $1500 that will be used
>on the Radius Motodv and hopefully a SCSI HD, the Media are definately out of
>my extended range, or can I continue to use my UDMA HD. By the way I had no
>lost frames or dropped frames capturing with the Buz....

BTW, some UDMA drives work just fine with FireWire, since the minimum
sustained data rate is constant, and well within the capabilities
of the IBM Deskstar 8, 14, and 16 (gig) drives, and probably several
others. It is useful to have at least three drives: the "C" (program)
drive (where you can also transfer some AVI files while working...),
one for capture, and one to edit-to/play-from. Keep the last two clean
and defragmented... Your budget should about cover Spark and a couple
of big UDMA drives. (4 3/4 minutes/gig is the mini-DV storage rate.)

>Is the preview capability dependent on the HD speed, the capture or the file
>itself.. When I captured using the BUz, the preview was frame by frame...

I just switched from a Diamond Stealth 3-D 2000 to an ATI Xpert 8-meg
card (cheap!), and went from a 360x240 choppy preview with out-of-synch
sound to a smooth preview with good synch (sound keeps
good synch in the output, but it is harder to edit with bad synch in
the preview... [I would "make movie" of short clips to check my work -
I need to do this much less now]).

>For music and so forth, what is the best way to mix and produce music for
>video.
>Do I add music while creating, or can I add it after the video is done, by
>mixing and dubbing the music in....??

Once you are into NL computer editing, it is sure easier to just work
with music along with the other stuff you are editing... (you can open
up lots of video and audio tracks to edit with...).
BTW, Premiere is pretty easy to get into after the first couple of
minutes of mystification...;-) One not-obvious thing: "scrubbing"
along the time-line with the pointer can be done on two levels
below the yellow-line area (P-4.2 [P-5 requires holding down a key
while scrubbing...]) - one gives you sound but no transitions/effects/etc.,
the other gives no sound, but you can
preview the transitions/effects/etc. without having to render them first.
Also, BTW, P-4.2 saves the previews to speed final rendering,
P-5 doesn't, but P-5 has much better sound handling and control. Both
render only the changes, speeding final rendering compared with some
other programs.


On Wed, 02 Sep 1998 19:06:32 GMT, d_ruether@hotmail.com (Neuman-Ruether) wrote:

>.....BTW, Premiere is pretty easy to get into after the first
>couple of minutes of mystification...;-) One not-obvious thing:......

Um, actually, another not-obvious thing with Premiere: SAVE OFTEN!!!
Failure to do that WILL precipitate a crash, and result in much lost
work! (I hit "control-S" after every operation...) It is also a good
idea to save everything to two Premiere files every once in a while,
like "XXX-A.ppj", and "XXX-B.ppj" - so if there is a crash during
saving, all is not lost...