Sometimes you feel unstoppable, great, as if the world is only beginning, and you are at the center of it all.  You get ideas, schemes that you never dared consider before, and now that you have, you feel obligated to pursue them, to drive them as far as you possibly can.  At first you're not sure if you're up to the task; the first step looks hard and difficult.  Then you toss in the first challenge, the first dream, and then the second, and then the third.

  Pretty soon, you're not only tossing and catching all three, you are actually juggling.  You can juggle two at a time, worry about the third later.  Or you can juggle all three at once, perhaps without even breaking a sweat.  Over time, you get better; you've gone far beyond anything you ever hoped to do, juggling three when at first you dared not even juggle one.  You're ready for more; you want a challenge.

  And so you throw in the…[More]

Sony VCL-HGE07A Lens at Amazon. 
  Been looking for a wide angle lens for my camcorder for the longest time.  The recommended one (VCL-HG0737C) from Sony can cost upwards from $150 to $200.  Recently, I noticed the VCL-HGE07A, a more compact wide-lens available for $230 from the Sony site, but only $80 from Amazon.

  I guess really - you do get what you pay for.  However, I couldn’t figure if Amazon was just mispricing the item or if it’s really worth only $80.  Sony afterall priced it at $230 on their site, well above the $200 of the recommended lens.

  On opening the package, it seems a fine-quality lens.  Very strongly built.  However, there are details that just won’t do - at least for me.  First, there are no lens caps available.  The pouch is nice, but remember it’s a large lens.  Getting it out and avoiding touching the lens is a pain.  Next is using the lens on the camcorder - the quality is nice but you cannot zoom whatsoever.  I did not see this mentioned…[More]

From Amoverus by Plasmatic

  Strangely enough, I only just recently started noticing flicker when I slowed clips down in Adobe Premiere.  This is with interlaced video clips.  Generally you don’t notice them until after exporting to DVD and playing back.

  Did a bit of research online, and from what I gather, it’s due to the fact the interlacing is affected by the change in speed.  To solve this issue, you’ll want to make sure you de-interlace the clip you are slowing down.

  1) Right-click the clip in the timeline.

  2) Select…[More]

Heart of the Winter by Denny Schneidemesser

Christmas Medley by JohnWE

Been using the new Encore CS4 for a DVD the last few weeks, and just when I finished the editing and was ready to burn, the program returned an error claiming there was an invalid MPEG.  This happens during the build process (creating the DVD).  Took several days and many wasted discs for me to figure this out so I thought I might share.

Things to check for:

- Red frames in MPEG video.  Even those exported from Premiere can end up with problems.  Sometimes you just end up with a bad file and need to re-render the file.

- Bad Import. …[More]

  This has been a problem for as long as I remember (even in Premiere 6.5), but it’s only beginning to bug me again after CS3.  Not sure if it’s because of the version or if I’m starting to use audio effects more often.  In any case, I’m finding that exporting video with even slight audio enhancements (highpass, pitch, etc) often causes crackling.  It doesn’t happen all the time; usually it occurs with more complicated timelines (nested sequences).

  Although it may help to lower volume or lessen the effects, an easier method I’ve found is to export the audio by itself first (Export > Audio).  You’ll end up with a wav file (uncompressed I believe) which you can re-import into your timeline and use.  You’ll notice your wav file has no crackling; this you can use to replace your video’s audio.

  It’s a bit of a hassle, but at least you don’t have to get rid of your effects or lower the volume of your video.  Bit strange that it exports audio just fine but messes up when…[More]