TV Report on 'Parkour' (Freerunning) with HV20

[Enea Lanzarone]

Hi there

I thought I'd post some of my latest work with my HV20, a tv report about the trend sport 'Parkour' (like Freerunning seen in the intro of 'Casino Royale'), produced for the local tv station's youth programme.

Some technical details:
25P, TV 50 (for the interviews), TV 120 or 250 (for the 'action' shots), no manual EXP correction (you gotta be quick as a tv cameraman...), Brightness -1, Contrast -1, Sharpness -1. Edited with Premiere Pro 2.0, the action shots have an additional Magic Bullet effect preset (with small tweaks) on them.

I do know there are some blown out highlights, in some degree worsened by the Magic Bullet effect (I simply didn't have time for more adjusting). However, being 'only' a a tv report and not a fictional film, I think it's not a tragedy.

Here's the clip in it's original resolution, converted to WMV with some extra sharpening (no subtitles):
http://www.rhenuspictures.ch/mash/ma...our%20(HD).wmv

Here's a downconverted DVD version in a .rar archive, containing standard DVD folders (AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS). This version has optional english subtitles (I apologize in advance for any english errors, not being a native speaker). A short sequence containing a YouTube video is missing here, by the way.
http://www.rhenuspictures.ch/mash/PARKOUR.rar

(I just noticed there's a missing subtitle line: when the one guy (Steven) is talking about the movie 'Babylon A.D.', he says "That's a movie featuring Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh and other famous actors.")

I'm still amazed what this little camera is capable of. For my tv work, however, the size of the cam is just to small for being taken seriously. I keep getting strange looks and being asked questions like "You guy's are really from tv???". But in the end I couldn't care less - it's the result and the image (ok, and the cameraman's technique as well...! ;)) that counts, right?

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

Nice reporting, thanks! Very interesting.

Only thing is, the downconverting for DVD video is 1024pixels wide, which is too much for DVD. Usually for Anamorphic DVDs (for NTSC at least) the right resolution is 852x480. Currently, depending on the application that you will use to create a DVD based on your .rar file, either it will have to re-encode and again downconvert, or it will bail out...

[Enea Lanzarone]

Now that's strange: all of my software players and encoders (Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic, Power DVD, Virtual Dub, TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress) are telling me that the video size is 720x576 (which is the standard PAL DVD resolution) with an aspect ratio of 16:9. Where did you get the width size of 1024 pixels from?

By the way, I do know I didn't properly convert the WMV file, which has encoded black bars (=waste of bitrate and size).

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

On my Mac with VLC is 1024 wide (1:1 zoom)... Sorry if it's not the same with other apps.

[Glenn Thomas]

This looks great, very professional.

[Miguel Quiles]

Definitely a very professional looking video. I didn't understand a word they said though! :)

[Peter J Alessandria]

Originally Posted by Enea Lanzarone

By the way, I do know I didn't properly convert the WMV file, which has encoded black bars (=waste of bitrate and size).

It actually looks quite good to me - nice job! (it took a while to download but I didn't even notice black bars.) What settings did you use for the .wmv render?

[Enea Lanzarone]

Originally Posted by Miguel Quiles

I didn't understand a word they said though! :)

That's why I uploaded the downscaled DVD version with subtitles. It seemed the easiest way to me to add subtitles after the editing process (unless you reimport it into your NLE and add them there). Anyway, I know it's a pain to watch a video and not being able to understand any word they say! I imagine watching a movie in Japanese...! ;)

Originally Posted by Peter J Alessandria

What settings did you use for the .wmv render?

I used TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress (a very cheap and versatile converting tool for Windows) and, as far as I remember, I set the video to a 2 pass avarage bit rate of 7000 kbps and the audio to 1 pass CBR of 192. Max. keyframe interval 4000 frames and full rendering quality. I just forgot to change the aspect ratio from 1:1 square pixels to 16:9 (that's why the video has black bars).

[Mike Dulay]

Enea, the video looked great. What did you use to stabilize the moving shots?

And I've always been curious, when I watch TV from Europe I notice the outdoor shots often have a blue tinge. Is that on purpose?

[Enea Lanzarone]

Originally Posted by Mike Dulay

What did you use to stabilize the moving shots?

Nothing but my hands! ;) I always hold the camera with both hands, it minimizes unwanted camera motion dramatically. Hand strap? Unnecessary. Plus, when you hold it that way, you can control the zoom lever nicely with your right thumb.

And I've always been curious, when I watch TV from Europe I notice the outdoor shots often have a blue tinge. Is that on purpose?

In this video it was on purpose. It's the "Punchy" color preset from Magic Bullet, which has a strong blue tint effect. I wanted to achieve a 'cool metropolitan' look for the action shots.

Besides, it might be the PAL vs. NTSC difference you're noticing. Your eyes are probably used to NTSC colors, which always look kind of red tinted to me. You probably heard before how some people are kidding the NTSC system by saying that the abbreviation stands for "Never The Same Color"...! ;)