In this earlier article, I mentioned trying out Paolo Ciconne’s Trucolor preset. I am pleased to say that I have used Trucolor on my XH-A1s for the last three weddings with great success. The colors and flexibility of this preset are amazing.

About a year ago, I tried using Apple’s Soundtrack Pro to do sound design on a wedding that I was editing. Unfortunately when I exported my mix back into Final Cut Pro, I found that the levels were all over the place and not what I had set during the aduio edit. Since then I have done all audio editing inside Final Cut Pro.

I am pleased to say that Apple has fixed these problems. I just completed sound design on a 25 minute highlight video with no problems. I will now be using Soundtrack Pro on a regluar basis.

Color, Apple’s color grading program included with Final Cut Studio 2, brings the ability to do professional (i.e. Hollywood level) color grading to video. It isn’t the best solution for every editing situation though.

When is Color better than color correcting in Final Cut Pro? If you have to do nothing more than simple levels adjustments or correcting a slight color cast, you are usually better off staying in FCP. But if more extensive color corrections need to be made, or if you are trying to achieve a certain look through grading (a term used for making multiple corrections on a clip), then Color is a good tool to use.

For the event videographer, there is one major limitation. Color doesn’t like FCP Multiclips. If you try exporting a sequence containing Multiclips, you might find clips out of place, or even footage that wasn’t even included in your sequence in the Color timeline. Sometimes the graded timeline cannot be sent back to FCP. The only workaround that I have found is to substitute clips from the orginal media for the Multiclips. This unfortunately makes grading multiclips, or even clips that originated as multiclips difficult and time consuming.

As a result, I am not using Color at this time. Until Apple solves the multiclip issue, color correcting in Final Cut Pro is the only viable option. I do a lot of multiclip work, and can’t afford to take the time to work around this limitation.

We have been experimenting with this remarkable little camera over the past two weeks, including using it at a wedding. First, this is not a “pro” camera. The HV30 is an HDV camcorder for the consumer market. Is is small, light, and lacks the some of the controllability that we expect in a professional camera. It also uses a single image sensor rather than the three that a pro camcorder would have. The major downside of this is that the HV30 doesn’t perform well in low light, relative to a three chip camera. However it’s low light performance is better than most single chip camcorders.

While the HV30 doesn’t have the controllability of a camera like the XH-A1 that we use, it still as a lot of control available. You can set shutter speed and focus manually. There is also manual exposure control, although you can’t easily set a specific f stop. There are zebras (70 and 100%), as well as magnification and peaking to assist in manual focusing. You can also shoot in 24p (24 fps progressive scan) mode for a more film-like look.

The best part is that in good light the image from an HV30 rivals that of the XH-A1. Last week I used it at a wedding as a balcony camera. It was no problem intercutting the footage from the HV30 with the XH-A1. After a little balancing of levels you would be hard pressed to tell which camera shot what. Considering that the HV30 coast only $750 while the XH-A1 is $3400, this is remarkable.

I also shot some action footage at a local horse show a couple of days ago. The camera was hand held the entire time, and looked great due to the excellent optical image stabilizer.

Among consumer camcorders, the HV30 is top-notch. You can’t get anything better for the price. You will be able to get professional quality images from the HV30 in many situations. Just make sure that you learn how to use it and know it’s limitations. And excellent resource for the camera is the HV20/HV30 User Forum.

In the last post, I talked about using Roxio Toast as a low cost solution for authoring Blu-Ray on a Mac. Here I will discuss another solution, Nero 8.

Nero is an application that only runs under Windows. This limits it’s use on a Mac to Intel based machines running Windows either in a Boot Camp partition or in a virtual machine using Fusion or Parallels. If you have an Intel powered Mac, Nero will provide a much better solution to Blu-Ray authoring than Toast.

Nero can run either in a Boot Camp partition (where Windows is running by itself), or in a Windows virtual machine (running in OS-X by using Parallels or VMWare Fusion). I used the VM method. This has certain advantages as you can access files on your Mac filesystem by putting them in a shared directory. You should probably avoid running in a VM however if you have a low-end Intel Mac, or one doesn’t have much memory. I was using a 2.66Ghz Mac Pro with 4GB of RAM running Windows XP in a Fusion VM. You will need to install Nero 8 Ultimate Edition and if you are authoring real Blu-Ray disks, you will have to purchase an activation code for the Nero Blu-Ray/HD-DVD plugin. This is not required however, if you are authoring AVCHD DVDs (This is Blu-Ray compatible video on a regular DVD).

As I don’t have a Blu-Ray burner, I decided to work with creating an AVCHD DVD. Authoring is done using the Nerovision appication which is part of the Nero Ultimate suite. This is an all-in-one video capture, editing, and DVD authoring package. After selecting AVCHD on DVD, the next step is to add media assets. Nero being a consumer app, does not have the flexibility of DVD Studio Pro regarding the type of media that it will accept. You must have both video and audio multiplexed into one file. It accepts MPEG2 and H264. MPEG2 should be saved as an m2t (MPEG2 transport stream). H264 can be a Quicktime or AVI file.

Although Nero is supposed to be capable of not reencoding Blu-Ray compatible files, this does not seem to work. Because you have to assume that it will reencode, it is best to start with best possible source file. Therefore I exported my HDV timeline in Final Cut Pro as a 25mbps (roughly equivalent to the full HDV data rate) MPEG2 transport stream. This can be done using Compressor. I also exported another timeline as an H264 Quicktime file in Compressor. Both of these were added to the Nerovision project. After importing, you can then create chapters (Nero will not import chapter markers from FCP).

Once you have added assets, the next step is to create menus. Nero provides as full set of templates to work with, and some of them are not bad looking (you will have to download them from Nero if you don’t have a boxed version). The nice thing is, unlike Toast, you are capable of doing a lot of customization. You can even create your own menus and save them as templates. While it is not DVD Studio Pro, you can still build some very nice custom menus. Just make sure that you click the advanced option on the menu creation screen.

After creating your main and chapter menus, you are ready to preview. Nero provides a preview screen where you can test things out. When you are satisfied with your menu, you will be ready to encode and burn your video. There are several options that you can set for encoding, and you can encode either MPEG2 or H264 (H264 is much more efficient). One note of caution. If you are using AVCHD to burn to a standard DVD, do not set the data rate higher than 1500kbps. While you can encode to a Blu-Ray disc at up to 4000kbps, you will get skipping if you go much over 1500 on a red laser DVD.

I found that even using the default encode settings that I got some very clean results which played pefectly in my PlayStation 3.

Before you create any Blu-Ray or AVCHD discs, you should read Phil Hinkle’s article in EventDV on Blu-Ray authoring with Nero, and the Nero Vision 5 AVCHD Authoring Guide in Digital Digest.

After reading Paolo Ciccone’s article on his TruColor preset for the Canon XH-A1, I began to rethink whether it is better to use a camera preset to obtain a certain look, or to get that look in post. The goal of the TruColor preset is to set the camera’s response as close as possible to neutral. To do this he used a calibrated target and monitored the output on a waveform monitor and vectorscope.

I like the idea of not introducing any bias into the image that I am capturing on tape. In photography, I almost always shoot raw, rather than jpeg, because I feel that it is better to be able to preserve as much data as possible, even if it means doing more work in post-production to get the right look. Nothing is “baked in”. In wedding video where we are often working under pressure and have little control of lighting, this makes a lot of sense. In Hollywood no expense is spared to get just the right lighting, and they can always reshoot. But they still have colorists who tweak the film in post.

As Final Cut Studio now includes an excellent color grading tool, there isn’t any reason to not to create the desired look in post. As long as we shoot with the right white balance, and exposure, we should always be able to get the look that we want, and if we don’t like it, we can easily change it.

I have been following the forums on Video University regarding the latest high definition camcorders from Sony, The EX1 and the Z7. These are remarkable cameras. They both record to flash memory rather than tape (the Z7 also records on Mini DV tape), and have many compelling features. But they are also expensive. B&H lists both cameras around $6500. With the EX1 you have to invest in some pricey memory cards to even record video which pushes the price up another $1500 - $2000. The Z7 uses (in addition to tape) the less expensive Compact Flash cards found in many DSLRs. But the reliability of these for HD video is unknown.

I am not going that route. We will be using the Canon XH-A1 ($3400 at B&H). The reason is cost effectiveness. While the A1 does not have the low light capability of the Sonys, it is still decent. It doesn’t record to memory cards, just tape. If we were doing a high volume wedding business, it might be different. The same with corporate video. It just doesn’t pay to spend that much money on equipment whose features we will not use. I want to make a profit in this business.

There is nothing that we can’t do with an A1 that we can with a Z7 or EX1. Yes we will have to use more light at receptions, but I have found that even the Sony PD170 whose low light capabilities matches the EX1, needs extra lighting sometimes. The XH-A1 is a capable, configurable HDV camcorder that does everything that we need to create beautiful wedding videos.

Getting the right white balance is one of the challenges that we have to deal with when shooting a wedding. Video cameras like film do not compensate the way our eye-brain system does for differences in reddishness or bluishness of light. If we set the camera for daylight and move indoors, we end up with video which is excessively red. The same happens if we have the camera set for tungsten light and we move outdoors. The resulting video is too blue.

Professional video cameras have a variety of ways to set the white balance. We can use a preset (usually either tungsten or daylight), set the balance to a specific color temperature, or we can balance to a white card, letting the camera’s electronics calibrate to a known standard. There is also an auto white balance in which case the camera makes an educated guess based on the light coming through the lens.

The problem that is often encountered is that the color temperature of the light that we are shooting in, may vary considerably with a single room. Take a church for example. There is daylight coming through windows, but they are often stained glass, thus coloring that light. There is also incandescent light from lamps inside the church. If we were shooting a movie we would light the interior so there is little variation in color temperature, using whatever Hollywood techniques are required to get it right. If you have ever seen a film being made, you know how much effort and special equipment is used to light a scene.

But wedding videographers don’t have that luxury. We have to work with whatever available light there is. Particularly when filming a wedding ceremony, we don’t want to use additional lighting. So what do we do? The bride might be coming down an aisle that is mostly lit by light coming through the windows. The altar area on the other hand might be largely incandescent lighting. Every situation will be different.

The first step is to analyze what you are dealing with. I usually eyeball the location. I decide first what the primary source of light will be in different parts of the room. I then decide how I will compensate.

Here are some ways to compensate for mixed lighting.

• Set the camera to one setting, either tungsten or daylight and leave it there. Then correct in post. While this has the advantage of setting the white balance to a known setting, it often requires considerable work in post to compensate, and the results will never be as good as if you had it right in the first place.
• Balance using a white card. This will give the the correct balance for the location where you are holding the white card. The problem is that it may not be correct for other parts of the room. Also if lighting changes you will have to set another white balance, not the easiest thing to do in the middle of a wedding ceremony. When I set white balance this way, I do it at the spot where most of the action is taking place, usually the altar.
• Use auto white balance. While modern cameras often do a good job with auto white balance, they can be fooled. It is like any other automatic setting, you are giving up a degree of control over your camera. That is not to say never use it. Many times using auto white balance will give you the best results in difficult lighting conditions. Just use caution and don’t rely on it.
• Set the white balance manually to a certain color temperature. Not all cameras let you do this (you can’t on a PD-170, but can on an A1). If you have the experience to know what setting to use and a good eye, this will often give you the best results. You can also change this setting on the fly as your subject moves from one area to another.

If you have a camera that allows you to preset multiple white balances, you can do this for different locations and switch between them as needed. As I mentioned, there is never one right way to white balance, you have to look at each situation individually.

There has been a lot of press lately regarding the imminent demise of Toshiba’s HD-DVD format for high definition DVDs. The entire war between HD-DVD and Sony’s Blu-Ray format wasn’t good for the industry, as consumers were not interested in purchasing the next Betamax. Wedding videographers have been following this closely. Many have invested in high definition equipment, but have only been delivering standard definition to their clients due to the fact that few had purchased either a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player.

Hopefully this will change. Toshiba is about to cease production of HD-DVD. Netflix and Blockbuster are only renting Blu-Ray. Best Buy and Walmart have announced that they will exclusively carry Blu-Ray from now on. The only thing in the way of mass adoption by the public is the high price of Blu-Ray players. It is hard to find one for less than $350, where an HD-DVD player can be had for $150. The Sony Play Station 3 has a built in Blu-Ray drive, but it isn’t the most popular game console.

Standard definition DVDs look very good on high definition televisions. With an upsampling DVD player (available for under $100), the quality is very good, not quite HD, but close enough for most people. If you have a really big 1080p television (over 50 inches), you will see a significant difference. If you have a smaller set, you may not. TVs are getting bigger though. I bought a 32 inch set 2 1/2 years ago for about $2000. That will get you a television twice as large these days.

So what does this mean for delivering wedding video on HD? I believe that in the future as prices drop on Blu-Ray, it will become the norm. There are those who don’t think that high def DVDs will ever catch on, that online delivery will take over. The problem with using the Internet is that the enormous bandwidth required for HD video may not be available. Also there is a significant portion of the population who still does not have broadband Internet.

Also people like to have something tangible. If everyone just wanted to rent movies, stores like BestBuy wouldn’t be stocking so many DVDs.

Since a wedding video is a keepsake, most couples would prefer to have a disk to keep. DVDs will be around a long time. As long as Blu-Ray catches on, it will too.

Our plan is to deliver both standard DVD and Blu-Ray in the future. This will allow our clients to watch their wedding on any DVD player, and also have a high definition copy to view on Blu-Ray.

By the way, lest you think of me as a Blu-ray fanboy, I bought an HD-DVD player in December. At least I didn’t purchase too many movies. I did get used to watching HD-DVD movies from Netflix. Now I will have to buy a Blu-Ray player to do that.

Even though we work in a visual medium, sound is very important. So important that some high end wedding videographers actually employ people a professional sound man for each job. Most of us don’t however. We do our own sound. More than anything this is what separates the professional from the casual person with a camera.

First, a microphone on the camera is next to useless for quality audio, unless the subject is only a couple of feet away (not the usual case). The most important thing in audio is closeness. If you can’t get a microphone close, you are not going to get decent sound, period. So in most cases that means multiple mics. In a controlled recording session, these mics are usually routed to a mixing board where an audio engineer mixes each channel and sends the output to a multi-track recorder. In the event videography business we are usually not able to do that. We don’t have a dedicated sound person, and we can’t run microphone cables all over the place.

So what we do is to use multiple recorders, and/or wireless microphones. This way we can have microphones where we need them, but without the need for a mixer, and without long cables.

I will place a microphone near all significant sound sources. For the groom and officiant I will use a small clip on mic. This is connected to either a small digital recorder or a wireless transmitter. As most brides do not want a microphone on their gown, the bride is not mic’ed. Instead the groom’s mic will pick up the bride’s voice during the vows.

In addition I will place a microphone on the podium if there are going to be any readings. Music is another issue. If the ceremony music is only from the church’s organ, a stereo mic near the rear is often all that I need. If there are instrumentalists I will put a pair of microphones in front of them. A singer will get her own mic.

The reception has it’s own set of audio challenges. I always try to connect a stereo digital recorder into the DJ’s board. This is often all that I need to pick up the music and the toasts (which are almost always through the DJ’s microphone). I will also mix in some natural sound from an on camera mic for applause etc. If I can’t hook into the DJ’s board, I will place a mic near one of the speakers. This a far from optimal, and can be a problem due to the high sound levels. In this case I always use a dynamic mic instead of a condenser mic, as dynamic mics are usually somewhat more tolerant of high sound pressure levels.

Recording the audio is done in several ways. One is a wireless mic. This has the advantage of sending sound to a receiver that is hooked directly into the camera. The audio is placed directly on the tape, and doesn’t have to be synced up when editing. Typically I will use the wireless for the groom or officiant. The other method is a digital recorder. There are a couple of types that I use. One is the iRiver 700 and 800 series mp3 player. These are no longer made, but have the advantage of a microphone input on the body. They are also very small. I will often use one on the officiant, as well as another on the podium. The other recorder is the Edirol R-09. This is a 48khz/24 bit 2 channel recorder that records to a flash memory card. I will use the R-09 for ceremony music, as well as at the reception, where it is used with live musicians. Recently I have been hooking the R-09 into the DJ’s board instead of using a wireless. This allows me to get CD quality stereo sound of all the music played.