Serious Magic DVRack

[Seth Bloombaum]

Ben - very inventive workaround! I appreciate the way you think.

Unfortunately it doesn't help me much, as I'm not in a position to devote any real estate to a burned-in display. However... there is a software product that burns in date code from captured DV/DVCAM.avi (not HDV, unfortunately) available at http://dts8888.com/

Guy Cochran at http://www.DVestore.com told me about DV Rack a few months ago and I just got around to having some time to purchase it on Wednesday. It arrived this morning and I just finished installing it a little while ago.

Now, after I used it for the first time, I wish I would have bought it the same day my XL2 arrived!

I hooked up the XL2 to my Sony Vaio (that DV Rack is running on) and used DV Rack for the first time. I recorded a dark shot of a close up of some blinds with the light coming through the edges. I then unplugged my firewire from my Vaio and plugged a different firewire (the pins are different for the two) into my Mac and captured the footage in FCP and the two are almost identical. And the only reason I think I have to use the word "almost" is because of the difference between PC and Mac screens. (In my opinion and with using both for the last 10 years, Mac screens tend to be a little brighter).

DV Rack is going to really allow me to tweak the XL2 settings on people for the look that I want to establish and it will be nice to know that I'm recording it right, so there will not be any surprises on my computer when I capture the footage later after shooting.

I can see why Mac users would buy a PC just for the sole purpose of using this software. I'm looking forward to learning all the stuff it can do and think that this software will really allow me to progress along much quicker.

I should say that I am a little biased because everything I do is for the web, so I'm cool with my footage as long as it looks good on a PC and Mac. So I can't rate this product based on preparing footage for TV.

Why did I post this? Well, for the last few months, I've learned a great deal from the people in this forum. Now, I may be getting to a point where I can start contributing back as well.

Here's a link to the EXCITING "blinds" footage that I took (ha ha). It's just about 20 seconds or so from my XL2 taping the blinds while going through three different presets that I had stored. That's why you will see the shifting in video of various levels. Like I said, the footage is boring - the cool thing is what I talked about above.

http://www.thisis24p.com/v-blinds.html

If any of you are using DV Rack, I'd like to hear about your experiences. If any of you have any questions about it, feel free to ask me.

http://www.seriousmagic.com

[Dan Euritt]

like that flash player!

pc vs mac vs lcd vs crt vs nearly everyone has their computer monitor setup incorrectly(typically way too bright)... there is no standard for setting up video for the web, so dvrack can't help you with that.

right now my biggest website has ~19k unique url's so far this month, and less than 2% of those people are using macs... so i don't care how my internet video footage looks on a mac, because there aren't enuf of 'em on the 'net to matter.

of course, you should always go by what your particular web logs say for platform useage... one of my small sites is nearly 10% mac users(!) this month, but even that isn't enuf to worry about.

i'd say to use dv rack for setting up your video to ntsc specs on a crt monitor, because lcd's do not go black enuf to be legal for critical video and photo work... and you need to pre-set the black level and contrast of the monitor ahead of time, in a pitch-black room, with a gray scale gradient on the screen... i ended up having to dig up the technician password to access the manufacturers setup dialog on my nokia monitor, because the consumer setup screens wouldn't allow it to go black enuf.

[Travis Maynard]

Oh please PLEASE say this rebate will last a while...

I'm a college student and I'm picking up a laptop for Christmas, so DVrack for 206$ would be a godsend.

So many expenses, such little money.

[Mark Mapes]

Sorry, Travis, but that rebate ended about 11 months ago, if memory serves--you must've misread the year in this thread's date. However, when we released the HDV PowerPak last Spring, we dropped the normal retail price of DV Rack to $295.

[Travis Maynard]

...Completely mis-read the year. I found the topic from a google search I did on some DVrack info, instead of coming straight through the website like usual. I looked, but I must've been too anxious and saw 2005.

What's even more confusing, is that everything in the posts kinda matched the situation now (today is November 27th, the same day as the post before mine just a different year AND last year a 200$ rebate would make the price tag 295$ same as the current price, correct me if I am wrong) besides the dates. So, just very confusing.

So, in this case I would get it for 206$ if you count the student academic discount!

Can't beat that.

Thanks for correcting my silly mistake.

Sorry for the mixup.

[Seth Bloombaum]

The long (for me) 4 day weekend finally ended and I got through to Serious Magic tech support.

Apparently this is not regular performance, not a known issue, but a bug particular to my setup - they are reviewing. Per S.M. HDV TC should be coming through and captured on the DVR just as DV TC is.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Au contraire!

A different Serious Magic rep has advised "Timecode is not currently supported in HDV PowerPak. I have added you to the growing list of customers requesting this feature."

Oh well, I guess tape has become the primary and DVRack/HDV has become the backup for my next shoot...

FYI.
SB

P.S. add your voice to this feature request by sending email to dvracksupport@seriousmagic.com

[Chris Hurd]

Can't find your answers here? Try the official Serious Magic user comunity:

http://www.seriousmagic.ipbhost.com/forums/

[Marc Colemont]

I use the 20m firewire cables from Unibrain. they work perfect.
www.unibrain.com

[Kim Kinser]

If I want a multi monitor system and I want to support ultra properly ... which of the nvidia or ATI cards should I buy?

[John Hartney]

I use Matrox Parhelia... here's a recent review. find out more at www.matrox.com..

http://www.matrox.com/mga/workstatio...ia_apve_vm.cfm

[Karl Soule]

Hi John,

To use the DV Rack and ULTRA programs from Serious Magic, you need good Direct3D performance. While the Parhelia is a great card for multiple monitor support, it lags far behind the ATI and nVidia cards in Direct3D performance, and will not provide good support for Serious Magic products.

To support ULTRA 2 the best, and take advantage of the super-fast GPU boost function, you need a video card that supports a standard called Pixel Shader 2.0. This has been in the ATI cards since the Radeon 9600, and all newer Radeons (like the Xxxx cards) will support it. For nVidia, the GeForce 5900 ULTRA was the first, and all GeForce 6xxx and 7xxx models support it.

In my personal opinion, the 6600 GeForce card is the best "bang for the buck," so to speak. It typically sells for around $100, comes in both PCI Express and AGP forms (so you should be able to find one for your existing motherboard,) and it typically supports 2 monitors out-of-the-box very well. Plus, it'll give you great performance in ULTRA. I have one in my home system (Pentium 4 820 2.8GHz) and a 1 minute DV file takes about 30 seconds to render.

[John Hartney]

Sorry for the misinformation.

I use it with DVrack. The Matrox card is among the best with color accuracy on mulitmonitor displays.

[Dave Campbell]

I use the Matrox APve and love it. It will work in a 8x PCIe slot also. :o)

Dave