In My Image feedback

[Scotness]

You're right Matt the sound does need a major work over - I'm not sure though if it's really worth it - we'd have to ADR heaps of it and the bloke who plays Jainantu now lives about 3000kms away from me! - I've entered it into the Melbourne Underground Film Festival and maybe if they are interested in it I might redo something for them - but other wise I might just put it down to learning. All the dialogue was actually normalised but some of the scenes unfortunately have digital clipping on them so there's not too much I can do about that - except re-record them.

I'm already working on ways to make sure the sound is better on the next feature I do - I'll run the mic into a compressor first and then see if I can actually record it at 24 bit too - my next thing will be on DV but I'm going to look at building a blimp for my R16 for other projects.

What are the vertical lines you are talking about ? - there are a few blue scratches - most noticeable in the 2nd scene where my character meets Dr Evans - do you think the lines you are talking abuot are scratches or some kind of compression artefact? Perhaps you could grab a still and post it here.

Thanks for the complimements guys - there's good and bad in everything! - I certainly want to know and learn about the problems in the film - but I've really got to weigh up what to do with those things in terms of gain/outcome for this project - or whether it's better to just put all of that knowledge into the next projects.

Scot

[MovieStuff]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But how about them airplane shots! ;)

Roger

[Scotness]

Hey has the disc arrived yet Roger?

Scot

[Scotness]

BTW

sometimes when people talk you can only hear their chest resonance and breathing into the mic

I think this is caused by the parametric equalisation I put on it to try and squash the camera noise in certain scenes - I don't know if the only way around that is re-recording it?

I'm getting the film classified at the moment so I can get some reviews in papers and get it stocked in a few video shops - so maybe I should try and look over the sound before that - I did a mix that was just for a computer or TV - and just basic stereo - I'll have to think about it, though I'm still inclined to leave it if it means alot of ADR etc. - although you did say

but i think you've got more than good enough audio to get a *much* better mix than this

- any advice on how to do this?

Scot

[mattias]

do you think the lines you are talking abuot are scratches or some kind of compression artefact?

definitely a digital artefact. whether it comes from the stabilizer, premiere or the dvd encoding i can't tell. i haven't seen them in any of the dv stills you've posted though.

Perhaps you could grab a still and post it here

i'll try. neither dvd player nor vlc can take screenshots, and quicktime doesn't open vob files, but there are workarounds...

/matt

[S8 Booster]

.... definitely a digital artefact. whether it comes from the stabilizer, premiere or the dvd encoding i can't tell. /matt

I get this problem in Premiere 6.5 for the MAC.
The Lawn Mower movie I posted have this problem in full Size MinDVwhen exported from AP.
MAC iMove has not this problem (Absolutely perfect) exporting film from the same source file.

Also AP comes up with |u]huge[/u] magnified pixel artifacts on diagonal straight oljects (Although not relevant it also manages to set system preferences too - for some f.....g reason).

R

[soundboy]

I haven't watched all the DVD yet , but also think the sound needs a lot of work, even if you can't ADR, there needs to be balance between dialogue, EQ sweetening and some perspective.

Some added atmosphere sfx would also help knit the audio together.

The Pictures have come fantastic.

[S8 Booster]

Perhaps you could grab a still and post it here

i'll try. neither dvd player nor vlc can take screenshots, and quicktime doesn't open vob files, but there are workarounds...

/matt

FFMPEG for the MAC Handles non-encrypted VOB files and (I am pretty sure) it can turn them into usable formats - for QT too.

R

[mattias]

but i think you've got more than good enough audio to get a *much* better mix than this

- any advice on how to do this?

first you should be in a mixing studio or at least use real reference monitors. this will let you hear all artifacts and then cut them out. you can easily find any frequencies you don't like by sweeping a band pass filter across the spectrum and listening for the noise bumps. then you should shape the dialogue spectrum by amplifying the frequencies containing the actual speech information, the vowels and hard consonants, found by the same method and different for every voice (400hz and a few khz are good starting points). and then you normalize -- *after* you've shaped the spectrum, or it will normalize the bass noise for example which can even lower the volume of the clip, and then optionally compress it. that should bring you close. and i would lose the jungle noises almost completely, even if it reveals camera or wind noise. it's just a bit tiring to listen to and it blocks out the dialogue. if you want to leave it in, you should eq out the voice frequencies from it.

summary: find somebody to do this for you. :-) anyone familiar with music recording for example should be able to help you out. have them show you their methods on a few scenes and do it yourself on the rest. good luck.

/matt

[mattias]

FFMPEG for the MAC Handles non-encrypted VOB files and (I am pretty sure) it can turn them into usable formats - for QT too.

yes, that's the kind of workaround i was talking about. an even better way if you have the qt mpeg-2 playback component is to demux the m2v from the vob on the dvd, open it in qt pro and export. this doesn't involve any conversion, but i'd love to be able to save a frame straight from the dvd though without having to copy it to hard drive at all.

/matt

[S8 Booster]

Pretty sure I did that coincidentally on one occation 8) .

Anyway - here are the FFMPEG menu options - possibly some manual settings avail as well - if it is of any use:






R

[mattias]

ok, i feel a little embarrased now. first quicktime pro does open vob files, you just can't drag and drop or double click, but have to open from withing the player, something i rarely do in any program. second these artefacts aren't lines at all, but squares, i just didn't see the horizontal lines on my tv, probably since they get lost in the scan lines. anyway, here's a screenshot. it's not the best example but it comes early in the film and it clearly illustrates the problem. these may just look like compression blocks at first, but if you look closely every block is surrounded by a thin dark line, with the vertical ones actually a little thicker or darker, something a decent mpeg encoder absolutely should not put there...



** RELOAD IF THE IMAGE IS TOO DARK. I LIGHTENED IT AND REPLACED IT FOR CLARITY **

/matt

[MovieStuff]

second these artefacts aren't lines at all, but squares

if you look closely every block is surrounded by a thin dark line, with the vertical ones actually a little thicker or darker

Yes, I noticed the very same thing when I watched it on my computer.

Roger

[Scotness]

I haven't got much time so I'll have to be quick - yes I now know what you are talking about Matt - I've noticed it too and it is annoying - I thought it was just part of the compression - I used Cinema Craft Encoder as a plug in to Adobe Premiere to render it - which I thought was good - perhaps I better recheck my settings (ot was a 4 pass VBR) or try something else - tpmgenc perhaps

Thanks for the sound advice too - whew! - I'll look into it all

Scot

[mattias]

perhaps I better recheck my settings (ot was a 4 pass VBR)

no, this is an error/bug and not a result that it's possible to get from just a bad encoding. the artifacts you get even at very high compression setting and low bitrates don't look anything like these. do they show up when you export in other formats using other export plugins in premiere?

/matt