{"id":1910,"date":"2016-03-04T07:57:20","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T07:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigheadamusements.com\/wordpress\/?p=1910"},"modified":"2016-09-15T03:09:31","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T03:09:31","slug":"visual-effects-for-the-kqek-com-brian-reitzell-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigheadamusements.com\/wordpress\/?p=1910","title":{"rendered":"Visual Effects + Extracts from the KQEK.com Brian Reitzell Podcast – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"VV<\/a><\/p>\n

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Last week<\/a> I wrote above a video synthesizer called the Showtime Video Ventures Showmaster Video Colorizer VC-1 (whew!), with a few pictures of this unique gizmo, and mentioned at the tail end it would be used to create ongoing images for a podcast interview with Hannibal<\/strong>\u2019s Brian Reitzell<\/a> for my media site, KQEK.com.<\/p>\n

Well, the creature is done, but not without its share of odd technical challenges which I blame on a combination of Fake Day (Feb. 29), a full moon weekend, and Mark\u2019s World, my own brand of weirdness that stems from gremlins who decide \u2018Today\u2026 Everything will be annoying, and stupid!\u2019<\/p>\n

And so things were, but the podcast is done and can be heard on iTunes<\/a>\u00a0[note: feed should be updated shortly]\u00a0and Libsyn<\/a> as a straight MP3 file, and in the visual version via YouTube.<\/p>\n

I had to keep the final render under 1 GB as it takes about 4 hours to upload and transcode, and anything bigger would pushed the upload time into the ridiculous.<\/p>\n

Other reason: apparently there\u2019s an error message that happens when uploading to YT via Firefox. After the file\u2019s been uploaded, things freeze during transcoding, and an error message about expired rights or something pops up, making the nearly 3-4 hours of time spent worthless. You can\u2019t exit, refresh, or continue nor complete without having to restart.<\/p>\n

This was \u2013 and there\u2019s a reason I\u2019m using past tense \u2013 an issue in 2012, but it\u2019s the first time I encountered this head that isn\u2019t prone to Explorer nor Chrome. People indicated the issue was Firefox\u2019s Downloader Helper that buggers the upload, except I don\u2019t have it, which means maybe the issue stems from updating some meta details (name, tags, etc.) before the file\u2019s been fully transcoded. Either way, don\u2019t fiddle with fields until you\u2019ve hit the Done button.<\/p>\n

Second reason for extra time wasted: I\u2019ll get to that shortly.<\/p>\n

In brief, I wanted to use the Showtime Video Colorizer (SVC) much in the way I used the Atari Visual Music C-240 video synthesizer to render ongoing patterns during the audio for the bonus audio that\u2019ll compliment my upcoming review of Kino\u2019s The Mask<\/strong> (1961) Blu-ray \u2013 basically a test to see if the SVC is any good at what it\u2019s supposed to do.<\/p>\n

The workflow was something many video artists have done using oscilloscopes, but as these toys can be pricey (plus I missed out on a great one this past Xmas, so the wait continues for a deal), I used a waveform monitor which still provides sound waves when audio is fed into it\u2019s A and B channel inputs.<\/p>\n

Workflow was feeding the edited podcast audio into a Tektronix 1730 waveform monitor that allows for displaying A + B channels simultaneously (basically, both stereo audio tracks).<\/p>\n

Aim a video camera (a Sony CCD TRV-608 Hi8 camcorder) at the waveform monitor, and send the video footage plus looped out audio into the SVC to colorize the filmed waves. Output that footage to a Toshiba DVD-R recorder, and rip the footage for further processing in Adobe Premiere.<\/p>\n

Why DVD-R? Well, the Toshiba can handle hot levels better than miniDV or a direct sending into Premiere via Firewire. I like hot levels and oversaturated colours, and miniDVD has a stricter ceiling before the picture breaks up; the Toshiba can handle a lot of crap<\/em> before it loses sync and the footage goes bad.<\/p>\n

In terms of being able to record footage clean, it worked. In terms of being able to rip the video into Premiere, I encountered something wholly new: no audio within Premiere<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Easy steps done many times before: rip the CD contents as .vob files, rename the file extensions from .vob to .m2v so Premiere can recognize them and you can easily dragged them into the timeline.<\/p>\n

New and very annoying problem: although the files have audio when played back in VLC Media Player, there\u2019s no audio within Premiere, and none of my tests found the problem. I tried different ripping software, tried a different DVD drive, different computer and different software, and still within Premiere there was no audio<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Only area left to test are whether when recording to the Toshiba using XP mode (enabling lesser MPEG for 1 hour of video per disc) was the culprit. I\u2019ve recorded footage (with audio) many times, so maybe something bad?<\/p>\n

Something to deal with later.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, here\u2019s a short-short video illustrating the workflow as waves are captured by the Sony camera, displayed on its monitor, and displayed on the computer monitor as its recorded by the Toshiba:<\/p>\n

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Vimeo:<\/p>\n