Patrick Cooper

That really sucks that you never got your first K3 back from the repair place. If I were you, I would be demanding the camera back. I used to have a K3 myself and I found it to be very reliable. I ran about four films through it total. I never had any issues with it until one day, it died. Would not run anymore after winding it up.

I used to use a program called HJSplit to join video segments together that were previously split. It used to work flawlessly but not anymore. Ive been doing some experimenting recently and it will no longer join the individual segments together. I gave the following file name extensions to the segments – .001, .002, .003 and .004. What happens is that these days, HJSplit will only produce video from the first segment (.001) and will ignore the others in the same folder – hence no joining takes place. I came across this extensive list of other splitting / joining programs. https://www.topbestalternatives.com/hjsplit/ I downloaded FFSJ and have that a try but I get the same result as HJSplit, even though it indicated that it had joined four parts. Though it did not. It just created a video from the first segment. When I view the video segments in their folder in Windows 7, the .001 segment has a different thumbnail compared to the other segments. It looks like a bunch of steps that are stacked vertically. The rest of the segments show a blank page as their thumbnails. There's something else I notice with the individual (split) video segments that I have. When I click on the file name of the first segment (the .001 file) it says: "WinRAR Archive". However, when I click on the second file, it simply says: "002 File." And the third file says: "003 File" etc. Not sure if this is related to the problems I'm having with the joining programs that only seem to work with the first file while ignoring the others.

With my Canon 1014E, I select the aperture manually, and I also have the option of adjusting the shutter speed also. I very rarely use auto exposure on super 8. There have also been occasions where Ive used my 35mm SLR's internal meter to take light readings for the super 8 camera.

Edit: I guess there could have been more than one minature helicopter used in the sequence. For example, different sized copters for different shots.

Glad you've got the viewfinder at optimal brightness again. By the way, I experienced something really strange in a thrift shop a few years ago. There was an old, manual Pentax 35mm SLR for sale there. I picked it up and removed the lens cap. Looking through the viewfinder, all I could see was black. I was puzzled as to why. I don't suppose the mirror could be in the up position?

Oh gosh, it's been a number of years since Ive seen that BTS doco. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me. I just seem to recall the helicopter model being really tiny. That is crazy what happened to that high speed camera - unbelievable.

I was watching Cliff Hanger on tv tonight. I had previously seen this film on the big screen back in the 90s. Ive also seen the making of the film some time ago and there was one particular segment which I found really interesting. There's a shot near the end of the movie where you see a helicopter slam into the side of a cliff which looks really dramatic. The BTS doco revealed that the filmmakers used a small, plastic toy helicopter for this which wasn't much bigger than a pencil. Certainly fooled me! It was explained that by filming the toy helicopter in slow motion, it added a sense of weight to the model during it's swing through the air. It was extremely effective. Ive got some super 8 50D left over from my brother's wedding and I was thinking of recreating the helicopter cliff shot with it. Ive got a Canon 1014E which has a top speed of 54fps. I suspect that the filmmakers in Cliff Hanger used a higher frame rate for the helicopter footage but I hope I still get some interesting results regardless. I do have an rc helicopter I could use and there is a steep rocky embankment very close by on the coast. All I need is some rope or cord to swing the copter and I'm all set.

I'm using a Windows 7 PC and I haven't made any upgrades. I once tried to use FFMPEG or something similar but it went over my head - couldn't make sense of it. Are there any easier to use freeware programs that you would recommend? Most of the time, I would want to use it for converting videos to .MOV with the h264 codec, change bitrate etc.

MPEG Streamclip refuses to work anymore. When I try and open video files within the software or try and render them, I get this message: "Your MPEG-2 Playback Component needs to be updated." It also says that the new version can be downloaded from Apple at the following address - www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/update. Problem is the link doesn't work. Ive done a google search and didn't come across anything worthwhile. Ive also posted this query on other forums and nobody knows of a solution. I downloaded MS again but that makes no difference. Same problem exists.

Recently, I shot some Vision 50D at a wedding with my Canon 1014E. Usually, I'm pretty careful with my metering but I think I may have been a bit careless on this occasion and underexposed it a bit in some parts. Obviously, not good for negative film. I know the camera will overexpose the cartridge but only slightly - about 1/3 of a stop, right? To try and 'save' the film, I was thinking of getting the film pushed by about a stop in developing. Just curious if anyone here has had 50D pushed (and by a similar amount)? This is the first time that Ive shot 50D so I was looking forward to the fine grain structure and punchy colours. Obviously, pushing the film will lead to an increase in grain and contrast though would the changes be that noticeable with a one stop push?

Oh yea I'll definitely include the edge of the frame in the scan. I'll probably also include the perforation as well. I admit Ive never used After Effects. I guess I could download a trial version. Would you know of any other NLE programs that have a point tracker?

I'm planning to do a DIY transfer of a short segment of a super 8 film for a family event coming up very soon. It's one shot on the reel that's probably less than 200 frames - shot 24fps. Call me crazy but I'll be advancing the film manually frame by frame. There will not be any automation at all. I'll rig up a crude but basic film transport system with a backlight behind it. And I'll use my tripod-mounted Panasonic G6 Micro 4/3 camera to photograph each individual film frame with a Canon FD 50mm macro lens and extension tube. Though I'm wondering about image stabilisation. Since I'll be advancing the film manually, each frame will probably be in a slightly different position. I'm going to try my best to line up the frame lines with lines in the camera's viewfinder but it's unlikely to be a perfect match every time. It's inevitable that in the transferred footage, the frame line will be jumping a bit. Not only that but the film footage is hand held so there is a little bit of camera movement but it's fairly acceptable / non-objectionable. I'm going to use some kind of image stabilisation like VirtualDub's deshaker plugin after assembling the stills into a video file. However, what I want is the software to stabilise only the frame lines and ignore my hand held camera movement within the frames. I think that's going to be tricky unless I can find some software that can distinguish between the two types of movement. Any suggestions on software that is intelligent enough to make that distinction?

Looks like I wasn't so lucky after all. I uploaded my MP4 file to Shutterstock as is. Over an hour later, it was no longer pending review and I discovered that it was in my rejected video files tab. It had the following rejection reason: "File Integrity -- File is corrupt, will not open properly or there was another technical problem wit..." So I don't know what's going on there....whether this MP4 container is at fault or something else. I also uploaded the same video to Adobe Stock so I'll wait and see if they have any issues with it. I'll also upload some other videos to SS as MP4s and see how they fare.

I did some searching online and supposedly, Sony Movie Studio's MP4 does contain the h264 codec so looks like I'm in luck.

Any ideas why MPEG Streamclip won't export the video? My only guess is that it's something to do with the AVC file or perhaps it's something else. Edit: the AVC file is an mp4.

Macks, thankyou for the offer. Unfortunately, skype is not practical for me because I don't have a mike on this computer. I ordered one from eBay some time ago but it never arrived. And I just remembered something negative about VirtualDub. It only accepts AVI files so I'd have to get my AVC videos converted to AVI first and that's just going to add too many conversions to the whole workflow.

Ive just thought of a crude workaround. In the past, there have been videos that Ive exported with VirtualDub that Ive imported into MPEG Streamclip and they were able to be converted to h264 MOV files just fine. So I could bring the AVC 1080p video into VirtualDub, create an AVI and then import that AVI into MPEG Streamclip. Though one thing Ive never been sure about is if VD retains the progressive nature of the video? That was my assumption - that if you import a progressive video into VirtualDub and convert it into an AVI, it would be a progressive AVI.

Ive just placed an AVC 1080p video into MPEG Streamclip to create a h264 MOV file. After typing in all the details and clicking 'Make Movie', I get an error message that says: "Error: Can't prepare the movie." This has never happened before. Ive converted heaps of Main Concept mpeg 2 / m2t files to h264 with MPEG Streamclip without any problems. I don't suppose the issue is that this is an AVC file? Ive never imported these into Streamclip before.

It worked. Thankyou! The only thing is the bitrate is still a bit low compared to what I'm used to. Usually, when I render videos in Sony Movie Studio using the Main Concept HDV presets, the bitrate is 25384 kbps. It did note some slight softening in some fast moving subject matter in the test clip I just rendered then as 1080 25p. Next time, I'll bump the bitrate up higher on that Internet template. By the way, I am planning to submit a whole bunch of 1080p clips to stock footage agencies. In the past, after exporting with Sony Movie Studio, I'd drop the clips into MPEG Streamclip where I'd convert them to h264 MOV and then submit them (after all Shutterstock and a few other agencies accept h264.) Though my clips are generally not graded. I know that h264 is quite compressed so would that cause any issues to clients buying the footage who want to grade it themselves? Or could they convert it to a less lossy format for grading?

Oh darn, I can't find the 'Internet' preset within the Sony AVC category. There is an Internet option in the Main Concept AVC / AAC category. It's 29.970 fps but looks like it can be easily changed to 25 fps. It lists a variable bit rate where the maximum (bps) is 24,000,000 and the minimum (bps) is 12,000,000. Maybe I'll change the minimum bitrate to 15,000,000 (as well as the frame rate from 29.970 fps to 25 fps) and see if that works.

Ah yes I do see Sony AVC and there are a few presets within this category like Memory Stick, AVCHD and Bluray. I'll have a go at changing one of the AVCHD options - the 1080 50i preset. Though in Customise Template, I'm not sure how I can convert it to progressive. In the top field where it says '50i' under 'Template', I guess I could change that to 25p but that might just change the heading (I'm not sure if it would actually change the parameters of the rendered file itself.)

To be honest, I'm not quite sure how to execute a screenshot but I can provide the details of some of the presets on offer on my copy of Sony Movie Studio Platinum 12. I usually use Main Concept (HDV) and the options here are 720 25p, 720 30p, 1080 24p, 1080 50i and 1080 60i. Within the Windows Media Video V11 presets, there is a 1080 25p option as well as 1080 30p. And the heading lists 25 Mbps as the bitrate which sounds quite respectable. However, when you go to Customise Template to view the finer details, it says that the bitrate is 7 Mbps. I'm specifically after a 1080 25p export option with a decent bitrate. By the way, in the past, Ive tried using Customise Template to change some of the Main Concept HDV presets to 1080 25p but I get an error message when I try to render the video. Ive pretty much come to the conclusion that if I want to render 1080 25p videos with a good bitrate, Sony Movie Studio is not up to the task. So I'm looking at other alternatives like Adobe Premiere Elements.

A few years ago, I was an extra in a movie being shot in South Australia. The shoot was taking place in a private home in the backyard. Specific instructions were given to the crew that anyone who wanted to have a smoke must do so outside the property to keep the home owners happy. Later that evening, I saw two crew members smoking within the backyard. One of them was happily smoking away while working without a care in the world.

Ive been using Sony Movie Studio for a while now for my video editing. It's quite a versatile program overall and covers most of my requirements. However, it does have one major flaw and that is a lack of a serious 1080 progressive export option. SMS does have a 1080p option but it renders the finished video at a shockingly low bitrate. So even though most of my videos are shot in 1080p, I'm forced to render them as 1080i after editing. Just wondering if Adobe Premiere Elements can export videos at 1080p with a decent bitrate?

I admit I haven't seen the film 'Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes.' Is it really as bad as people say?