ConQuer Mobile at MoMoVan

Angela Robert, founder & CEO of Conquer Mobile gives an overview of how they develop new projects, including iPhone applications.

Xomo at MoMoVan

Ben West, Co-founder of Xomo Digital (or Experiences On Mobile), talks about their VanJazzFest app that provided scheduling, artist profiles, details on performances, and links to sample music. They are at it again for Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) and are working hard on their contribution to the 2010 Showcase & Service initiative.

From Mobile Monday Vancouver, September 14, 2009.

ANTS at MoMoVan

Colin Quon, CEO of ANTS Distributed Media presents a new take on digital signage based on ANTS' open and easily customizable digital signage platform. From MoMoVan, September 14, 2009.

Multiclip Tips for Final Cut Pro

Apple announced the new version of Final Cut Studio today. There are many improvements, but it appears that most fundamental characteristics of multiclips (and their limitations) has not changed. In the video below we show some tricks to get the most out of multiclips.

Along the way we answer some questions that we get asked frequently about PluralEyes, our product that automatically synchronizes clips without the need for timecode.

1. What if some of the cameras are turned on and off during the shoot? Will that still work?
2. Can I have an audio-only track? Because I made a separate high-quality audio recording. (This technique is known as dual-system audio)
3. How do I get multiclips to work? I want to edit while seeing all the cameras at once in a multi-angle display.

The script of the tutorial comes below the video.

(View larger version of the video.)
(iPod-compatible version)

For this example we shot a band with three cameras and a separate audio recorder. We've captured the clips and put them all into ProRes 422 at 1280x720 30 fps. They could be a different format, but they all need to be the same for a multiclip.

To start editing we first make a sequence called pluraleyes and arrange the clips onto the timeline. Each camera goes on a separate track and the audio goes on its own track.

We start PluralEyes. (It's a standalone application in the Applications folder.) We press the Sync button. After a minute we've got a sequence with everything in sync. So right away we have the answer to the first two questions: we see that having cameras turned on and off is no problem, and having a separate audio track works just fine.

Multiclips will take a couple of extra steps, but it will be worth it. Final Cut Pro is a bit fussy about multiclips but once you've set them up they work great.

First we notice that PluralEyes says it couldn't make a multiclip because of the audio-only track. But even if it could you wouldn't like the result. Final Cut puts every clip into a separate angle. We have three cameras so you would expect three angles, but Final Cut would give you 17 angles, one for each clip. This is not very useful.

So here's what we do. We're going to export the tracks as separate movies and make a multiclip from those. It's very easy. In the pluraleyes output sequence, make only the first video track visible and mute all the other audio. Option-click is a quick way to do this.

Now ctrl-click on the sequence in the Browser and choose Export > QuickTime Movie. Use the "Current Settings" and make sure the check box for Make Movie Self-Contained is *not* checked. We'll name the movie for the track it came from and click Save.

This makes a QuickTime reference movie. It only takes a few seconds and we don't have to worry about using up disk space because the movie just has references to the original clips and so is much smaller than they are.

Do this for each of the three camera tracks. We could do it with the audio track too, but we have other plans for that. We now import the reference movies back into Final Cut. We're going to put them into a sequence called pluraleyes. We'll reuse the existing sequence with that name. Put them on the tracks they came from and make sure they are all lined up at the beginning of the timeline. That will keep everything in sync.

We now go back to the PluralEyes application and press the Multiclip button. This looks at the clips in the sequence called pluraleyes and makes a multiclip from them, using their positions to determine the timing within the multiclip.

We now have a multiclip with just three angles and all the clips synced up. There will be times when a particular angle is blank when the camera was turned off, which is exactly what you would expect.

We could just start our editing with that multiclip but we're going to do something to make our lives easier. It's nice to have a multiclip, but it's also nice to have a view that shows when the cameras are on or off. Fortunately, we can have both.

Go back to the original synced sequence. We're going to add the multiclip to this sequence. First we make room for its audio by moving our audio-only track down. Option-down-arrow is a handy way to do this. Now we add the multiclip and position it at the beginning of the timeline. The only things we want in our final production are the video from the multiclip and the high-quality audio, so we mute everything else.

Finally we double-click the multiclip to bring it up in the viewer, set the Playhead Sync to Open and start editing. As we play, we can watch the playhead in the timeline to see when the cameras are going to go on or off. That helps us make the decisions as to when to switch cameras.

That may have sounded a little complicated but it's easy after you've done it once. To summarize, we really just did three things:

1. Sync the clips (using PluralEyes)
2. Export each video track to a reference movie
3. Make a multiclip from the reference movies (again using PluralEyes)

Synchronized Montage Serendipity

When R.E.M. released their Accelerate album last year, they posted several clips of the band performing Supernatural Superserious and asked fans to make their own music videos and post them on YouTube. There were some great efforts, but the current collection is a shambles because many have been pulled down or had their audio removed thanks to the overzealous automated copyright infringement police.

I recently got a takedown notice for my submission and promptly objected on the grounds that the copyright owners did in fact give their permission. My video has been restored but the whole incident brought the song to mind again and I thought I'd try something different with the material that R.E.M. made available.

Among the clips there were four that were live acoustic performances. I thought it would be interesting to see if PluralEyes could sync them up. The audio was pretty different, but it worked. This says something both about how robust PluralEyes is and how tight R.E.M. is as a band.

After syncing the clips I applied an ImageFlow montage generator with mostly random parameters. The result is a music video that works, thanks to some technology that gives serendipity a chance.

Update: HD version of the video available on YouTube here.

Citizen Media and the 2010 Olympics

Coverage of the Olympic Games is dominated by the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) contracted rights-holder and accredited major media conglomerates. However some feel there is a role for crowdsourced documentation of both sporting events and the cultural context in which it happens.

This expert panel discusses changes, challenges, and opportunities facing grassroots media makers around the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games.

From Northern Voice 2009.

iPod-compatible video. (Right-click to download)

Listen to the audio. (Right-click to download)

Pecha Kucha Vancouver: Erin Boniferro

Along with her tools for the revolution (yellow putty balls), Erin Boniferro displays her textile-inspired art works and discusses the importance of early childhood education. From Pecha Kucha Vancouver.



iPod-compatible video. (Right-click to download)

Listen to the audio. (Right-click to download)

Pecha Kucha Vancouver: Chris Bentzen

“Hot one inch action.” From button trading expositions to bike inspired tattoos, Chris Bentzen humorously presents the idea of community to bring together people and passions in the art world. From Pecha Kucha Vancouver.



iPod-compatible video. (Right-click to download)

Listen to the audio. (Right-click to download)

Pecha Kucha Vancouver: Dinka Pignon

Would you attend a dinner with virtual guests? Or be taken to a hospital where the disease and cure are both art? Dinka Pignon presents VIVO, a not for profit organization, as having evolved beyond just video production. From Pecha Kucha Vancouver.



iPod-compatible video. (Right-click to download)

Listen to the audio. (Right-click to download)

DSLR Dual-System Audio: The 99.9% Solution

What is dual-system audio?

Dual-system audio is one name for the technique of recording audio and video on separate devices, and then combining them in post-production. Since the quality of built-in mics and audio systems of cameras are generally not nearly as good as the video, dual-system is a convenient way to get high-quality sound. It is particularly effective for video coming from a DSLR like the wildly popular Canon 5D Mark II.

The price to pay for these benefits is a small one: you need to synchronize the audio and video in post-production. This can be done manually or automatically using our PluralEyes product.

The problem with Final Cut Pro

Many non-traditional cameras shoot video at 30 fps instead of the more usual (in some parts of the world) NTSC rate of 29.97 frames per second (fps). If you are using Final Cut Pro with such video there is one quirk that you need to be aware of. This has been discussed in recent blog postings (see, for example the comment at 9:45 of the Zacuto video here). The quirk has come to be known as the 99.9% problem: when audio is combined with 30 fps video, the audio speed (sometimes) needs to be adjusted by the NTSC factor of 99.9% (actually 1000/1001).

Fortunately there is a simple fix for this: use an Easy Setup for 30 fps. Details below, but first some background.

Background

Video from a DSLR and other still cameras is typically recorded with a frame rate of 30 fps. If you do a lot of work with NTSC video, your default settings in Final Cut might be something like HDV 1080p30 which has a framerate of 29.97 fps. When you work with 30 fps material, you might expect that ensuring that the sequence frame rate is 30 (and not 29.97) would be enough to make things work. But what happens is that when you add an audio track to the timeline, Final Cut retains some memory of the NTSC settings and applies an NTSC adjustment to the playback speed of the audio. This seems like a bug to me--I can't imagine any situation where I would want it to do this. Fortunately you can prevent this from happening by using the right kind of Easy Setup.

The pre-packaged, easy way

If you are editing video from a Canon 5D Mark II using the ProRes 422 codec, you can download the Easy Setup here and copy it to /Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro System Support/Custom Settings. Choose this Easy Setup, restart Final Cut and all should be good.

If you are using a different kind of video that is using a non-NTSC framerate, the following takes you through the steps to create the Easy Setup. You'll need to make changes that are appropriate for your video format, but they should be obvious.

The do it yourself way

1. Create a suitable Easy Setup
2. Select that Easy Setup
3. Re-start Final Cut Pro

Here are the details on how to create an Easy Setup for video from a Canon 5D Mark II that has been transcoded to ProRes 422 (which seems to be the consensus recommendation for how to edit 5DMKII video, at least, if you've got FCP 6). We're creating a new Easy Setup because none of the ones that ships with Final Cut is suitable. The following video tutorial shows both the problem and how to fix it. [Note: In the tutorial I suggest changing the audio sample rate to 44.1 kHz. It makes more sense to use the sample rate of your externally recorded audio, which is probably 48 kHz.]

Go to the menu item Final Cut Pro > Audio/Video Settings... > Sequence Presets. Pick Apple ProRes 422 30p 48kHz, because it's close to what we want to end up with, and choose Duplicate...

Type in something appropriate for the name and description as shown and make two changes. The important one is to change the Editing Timebase to 30 fps. Set the Audio Settings > Rate to the rate of your externally recorded audio (probably 48 kHz).

Choose OK and then go to the Summary tab and choose Create Easy Setup.

Type in an appropriate description,

and select this Easy Setup.

Restart Final Cut Pro. For any newly created sequences, the audio and video will play at the same rate with no need for a 99.9% speed change.