magic bullet at DVinfo.net

Miguel Lopez · October 6th, 2004, 08:20 PM

Hello everybody. I just downloaded the magic bullet to see what was its magic...

And i found nothing but easy image adjustments that are easily produce in any video editor. For example, the Bleach Bypass, it is the same that if you just add contrast (or little play in curve levels) in vegas and a little desaturation.

Could anyone explainme where is the real magic of this program?

Glenn Chan · October 6th, 2004, 08:24 PM

One thing that's special about it is 16-bit rendering. Try boosting saturation all the way in MB and in Vegas, MB should look slightly better with less "banding".

MB does black and highlight diffusion, which takes stacks of filters/layers in Vegas to do.

That's what I can figure out. Can you download a demo or free looks from somewhere?

Miguel Lopez · October 6th, 2004, 08:31 PM

Yes, in the magic bullet website you can actually download the demo version either for fcp, premiere or vegas. It has a too big watermark that won´t let you see too much but moving the track to one side should help.
I looked around to find a free program just to check the effect without the watermark being so big but there is nothing.

I think this magic bullet is great when you do not want to spend too much time with color or level adjustments. But, is it worthy when you can do the same with levels and color correction?

Besides, it is VERy slow.

Rob Henegar · October 15th, 2004, 03:55 PM

Magic Bullet is a great product, as is many other products, but your source footage has to be created correctly in the first place in order for it to provide the most benefit. You'll get the best results from Magic Bullet if your source footage is 29.97 interlaced video where the camera shutter speed was at 60fps. You can push it to 30fps if need be, but the end product isn't quite as good.

When your source footage is in that format, MB provides a good clean deinterlacer and nicely-smeared motion blur. I prefer Algolith's adaptive deinterlacer and anti-aliaser for what I do -- seems to work better for me most of the time. But I use MB as well. It just comes down to which product performs better in each particular situation.

October 6th, 2004, 08:20 PM	#1
Miguel Lopez Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Madrid, Spain Posts: 187	magic bullet Hello everybody. I just downloaded the magic bullet to see what was its magic... And i found nothing but easy image adjustments that are easily produce in any video editor. For example, the Bleach Bypass, it is the same that if you just add contrast (or little play in curve levels) in vegas and a little desaturation. Could anyone explainme where is the real magic of this program?

October 6th, 2004, 08:24 PM	#2
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	One thing that's special about it is 16-bit rendering. Try boosting saturation all the way in MB and in Vegas, MB should look slightly better with less "banding". MB does black and highlight diffusion, which takes stacks of filters/layers in Vegas to do. That's what I can figure out. Can you download a demo or free looks from somewhere?

October 6th, 2004, 08:31 PM	#3
Miguel Lopez Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Madrid, Spain Posts: 187	Yes, in the magic bullet website you can actually download the demo version either for fcp, premiere or vegas. It has a too big watermark that won´t let you see too much but moving the track to one side should help. I looked around to find a free program just to check the effect without the watermark being so big but there is nothing. I think this magic bullet is great when you do not want to spend too much time with color or level adjustments. But, is it worthy when you can do the same with levels and color correction? Besides, it is VERy slow.

October 15th, 2004, 03:55 PM	#4
Rob Henegar Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 33	Magic Bullet is a great product, as is many other products, but your source footage has to be created correctly in the first place in order for it to provide the most benefit. You'll get the best results from Magic Bullet if your source footage is 29.97 interlaced video where the camera shutter speed was at 60fps. You can push it to 30fps if need be, but the end product isn't quite as good. When your source footage is in that format, MB provides a good clean deinterlacer and nicely-smeared motion blur. I prefer Algolith's adaptive deinterlacer and anti-aliaser for what I do -- seems to work better for me most of the time. But I use MB as well. It just comes down to which product performs better in each particular situation.