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DV Rack Documentation

•

The DV Rack Field Guide

 - This Field Guide is designed to accompany 

you on your shoot. It explains how to install the software and takes you 
through the steps of setting up and calibrating your computer and camera. 
It also teaches you about the software controls, (buttons and dials), guides 
you through your most common shooting tasks and provides a few videog-
raphy basics. If you’d like to find out more about a particular topic, press 
F1 to search the Help system by keyword for additional information.

 

•

The DV Rack User Guide PDF

 - The User Guide PDF file contains all of 

the information from the Field Guide and more. The User Guide also 
includes color images, clickable reference links, descriptions of less com-
mon tasks and additional shooting scenarios. The User Guide PDF file is 
installed to the DV Rack folder on your hard drive and you can also down-
load updates from the Serious Magic Web site.

 

•

The DV Rack Help System

 - When you don’t have access to the Field 

Guide or User Guide PDF, press the F1 key on your keyboard to access DV 
Rack Help. Help contains all of the information from both the Field Guide 
and the User Guide plus any updates.

Summary of Contents for DV RACK

Page 1: ...The DV Rack Field Guide ...

Page 2: ...e copyrights of others No part of this manual may be distributed transmitted transcribed stored in a retrieval system or translated into any human or computer language in any form or by any means without express written permission of Serious Magic Copyright Notice 2004 Serious Magic Inc All Rights Reserved All DV Rack software and documentation are 2004 Serious Magic Inc All Rights Reserved This d...

Page 3: ...ubts Am I really getting the shot I think is going to tape Is the lighting going to hold up through DV compression Was there a continuity change between shots Do I need to get one more take for safety Ending these doubts is one of DV Rack s most significant breakthroughs It dramatically elevates your confidence as you shoot and that one thing can change everything else The feeling of freedom creep...

Page 4: ...tem by keyword for additional information The DV Rack User Guide PDF The User Guide PDF file contains all of the information from the Field Guide and more The User Guide also includes color images clickable reference links descriptions of less com mon tasks and additional shooting scenarios The User Guide PDF file is installed to the DV Rack folder on your hard drive and you can also down load upd...

Page 5: ...ftware and Controls Overview 11 Window Controls 11 The Scroll Bar 11 The Right click Pop up Menus 12 The Field Monitor Buttons 12 The Settings Menu 13 Changing Menu Settings 14 Using Dials 14 Shortcut Keys 14 Managing DV Rack Components 15 Adding Components 15 Removing Components 15 Arranging DV Rack Components 15 Quitting DV Rack 15 About Projects and Files 15 Managing Clips 16 Selecting a Clip F...

Page 6: ... Clock to Time Your Clips 34 Additional Ways to Improve Your Video 35 Using the Audio Spectrum Analyzer to Analyze Audio Quality 35 Checking Audio Balance and Range 35 Using Hold and Freeze to Analyze Audio 36 Balancing Audio Between Two Microphones 36 Improving Clip and Scene Continuity 37 Using the Clip List to Check Video Continuity 37 Maintaining Consistent Color and Brightness Using a Green S...

Page 7: ... Next If your system requires the setup program will install or update DirectX and other system components that you may need You may be asked to restart your PC Setup will resume after restarting 3 Click Yes to restart each time you are asked This ensures that all system components are installed in the correct order When all components have been installed you ll see the License Agreement 4 Read th...

Page 8: ...on NOTE You can find your Installation Key on the DV Rack CD sleeve Activating without an Internet connection If DV Rack does not detect an Internet connection at the time of activation it will present a screen with 3 choices 1 Connect the current computer to the Internet and activate online 2 Activate from another computer that is connected to the Internet 3 Call Serious Magic Technical Support t...

Page 9: ...iew your clips for problems before leaving the shoot If you d like to learn about each component in detail see The DV Rack Components and see Arranging DV Rack Components Step 1 Connect Your Camera and Start DV Rack 1 Connect your camera s FireWire cable to your computer 2 Turn on your computer and ensure that your camera is plugged in or has sufficient battery power If you d like to simultaneousl...

Page 10: ...m your camera to the hard drive just as it would be recorded to tape in the camera less any tape dropouts of course TIP Position your computer screen at an angle which reduces the amount of glare When shooting in direct sunlight you may want to consider using a computer screen sunshade like this one for better visibility 1 To display Color Bars click the Bars button 2 Turn the Chroma dial to the l...

Page 11: ...ng are calibrated to record great dynamic range The fastest way to calibrate your camera is by using the DV Rack SureShot Camera Setup 5 Click the Blue button 6 Turn the Chroma dial until both top and bottom sections of the outer bars are the same shade of blue 7 If needed turn the Phase dial until the top and bottom of the center bars are the same shade of blue 8 Click the Bars button and the Blu...

Page 12: ...s the same dis tance from your camera lens as your subject 4 Now follow the remaining steps on the SureShot Wizard interface NOTE You can also calibrate your camera manually using the Waveform Monitor Vectorscope and other DV Rack components See The DV Rack Components to learn about these devices and how to use them Step 4 Select a Native DV Format Select a clip file format that is native to or co...

Page 13: ... during recording It s a good idea to have your talent test words that represent a wide range of sounds Especially important to check are the S sound and the P sound 3 If the audio is too boomy toward the left side of the range the micro phone may be too close to the sound source Try pointing the microphone slightly away from the sound source If the audio is too thin or reedy toward the right side...

Page 14: ...s every person and object present in the frame for a reason For tips on framing see Aesthetic Framing Step 7 Test Record Before you start recording take a moment to record a test clip and become familiar with the DVR buttons To read an overview of the DVR see The DVR Digital Video Recorder To begin recording click the DVR Record button To stop recording click the Stop button You can also click the...

Page 15: ...or areas that are too bright For example hot spots on foreheads reflective surfaces etc If you see the zebra pattern your video may be too bright in these areas Close your camera iris down to reduce the amount of light in your video or adjust the scene lighting If you don t see a zebra pattern either you don t have any areas that are too bright or your thresholds are set too low By default Zebra 1...

Page 16: ...nitor back to live camera input if a camera is connected and turned on To pause a clip click the Pause button To move to a particular spot in a clip drag the cursor to the frame that you d like to start with and click to move the Scrub Bar to that frame To learn more about working with clips click here Use Split Screen to Check for Consistency Between Clips 1 To split the Field Monitor window clic...

Page 17: ...lling wheel we recommend one If you are working on a laptop and don t have extra table top space spinning the mouse wheel is much easier than using a touchpad or regular mouse DV Rack employs the wheel for scrolling clips in the Clip List zooming in the Field Monitor and scrolling through components If your computer monitor is set to a resolution greater than 1024 pixels wide DV Rack is dis played...

Page 18: ...reen for clip to clip or clip to camera comparisons Freeze Freezes the video image in the Field Monitor Does not affect recording Blue Turns on Blue Only mode for Color Bar setup Red Green guns are turned off Mute Turns off audio output from DV Rack to speakers Bars Displays 75 Color Bars used for setting up the Field Monitor Click the right mouse button or touchpad equivalent anywhere in DV Rack ...

Page 19: ... value Default Light Auto Mute Camera Automatically turn computer audio output or speakers on or off when recording or monitoring live input Does not affect audio on playback Default On Shot Clock Slave Set to determine whether the Shot Clock starts automatically when you start recording The Shot Clock time will not include any Pre record time Default On Safe Area Size Select the size of the Video...

Page 20: ...s and Settings username Local Settings Application Data Seri ous Magic DV Rack Edit this file using the guidelines included to create your own key combinations Action Shortcut Key s Open the Help system F1 Record F2 Play clip Press the space bar on your keyboard once to play Pause clip Press the space bar again to pause Jump to beginning of a clip Press the Home key Jump to end of clip Press the E...

Page 21: ...g a component to a new position on the rack Instead of closing and then reloading the component click and drag it to the new location Arranging DV Rack Components You can rearrange the DV Rack components and change the order in which they are stacked in the rack Click and drag the edge or metal face of any component to it s new vertical or horizontal position on the rack Quitting DV Rack To exit D...

Page 22: ...our editing system If you are unsure of which format to use you may want to perform a test recording Try dragging and dropping the clip into your editor If the clip reads properly and doesn t require re rendering to preview then this is a good format to use To learn more about DV Rack clip formats see page 16 If you don t have access to your editor and are unsure of which format to use choose Type...

Page 23: ...ies of one or more clips and move the copies into another folder on your hard disk Using DV Rack Clip Files in Other Applications When a clip is recorded it appears in the DVR Clip List until you eject or delete it If you d like to use a clip in another program like a video editor eject the clip to the Ejected Clips folder When you create a DV Rack project a project folder with the name and locati...

Page 24: ...clip being moved to the garbage 4 When you exit DV Rack you are given the option of emptying the garbage or not 5 Click Yes to empty the garbage and permanently remove the clip from your computer Click No to leave the clips in the Garbage folder just in case Emptying the Garbage Clips Folder You can empty the Garbage Clips folder at any time by right clicking and selecting the Empty Garbage Clips ...

Page 25: ... miracle or possibly some advanced file recovery tools that you will ever see it again 1 In the Clip List click the clip you d like to delete from your computer 2 Hold down the Ctrl key and the Shift key while you click the Eject button and you will see a message You can also press Ctrl Shift Delete on your keyboard 3 Click Yes if you want to delete the clip from your computer immediately and perm...

Page 26: ...20 The DV Rack Software and Controls Overview ...

Page 27: ... post production work only to find when they start editing that the colors are flat faces are washed out and some shots had crept out of frame Using the DV Rack Field Monitor you now can quickly identify quality and consistency problems right at the shoot location The DV Rack digital Field Monitor is a native DV display meaning that unlike your camera s viewfinder or LCD screen it shows what the v...

Page 28: ...te exposure in a given environment not every situation calls for that high noon on a sunny day look Often a videographer will want to intentionally under expose or over expose certain regions of the image or even entire scenes to create a mood or convey an atmosphere DV Rack s two Zebras are useful for making these kinds of creative adjustments as you shoot A more typical use of Zebra is to make s...

Page 29: ...entify dark areas Dark Zebra makes it possible for you to introduce strong shadows into a scene but still have confidence that enough detail remains in the desired areas to still resolve an image To learn more about this different kind of Zebra click here 1 Click the Menu button 2 Click Zebra 1 or 2 Mode and drag the setting to Dark 3 Click Zebra 1 or 2 Value and drag the to the darkness level you...

Page 30: ...rscan and Letterbox to frame your shot 1 Choose whether you d like to view your video in Underscan or Overscan mode Click the U Scan button to view the entire active picture area The entire active picture area displays your video as it will be shown when it is played in a show like the ones that you create in Visual Communicator stream over the Internet or show on a projector Click the U Scan butt...

Page 31: ... naked eye viewing video on a monitor is not a very reliable source of information about your video signal Our eyes and brain make adjustments to what we see making us unconsciously forgiving of poor lighting To make matters worse the viewfinder and LCD screens found on many camcorders do not accurately reproduce colors brightness and framing Some of these LCD screens are little better than those ...

Page 32: ...es You may want to use them in conjunction with the Vectorscope to adjust a camera on a green screen shoot If you know what the R Y and B Y values should be for a certain camera viewing a particular scene you would be able to dial in a second camera and get results similar to the first camera Using the Waveform Monitor to check for dark and bright areas 1 Turn the Illum dial to the left or right u...

Page 33: ...rld not only could you improve the color and white balance of your video while you are at the shoot even the hopelessly color blind could pick out matching socks You can also use the Vectorscope to maintain color balance between clips and multiple cameras This is valuable if you are shooting a scene and the lighting changes Your subject may have one skin tone in an earlier scene and suddenly a dif...

Page 34: ...r camera A new clip the one that you are actively recording is added to the Clip List Reviewing or Scrubbing Through Clips You can use the DVR buttons to delete clips stop move backward one frame play pause move forward one frame and record Use the Scrub Bar to quickly jump to the scenes that you d like to analyze identify any Clip Alerts from the DV Quality Monitor and make quality improvements b...

Page 35: ...e a better recording environ ment by showing you the tonal range of your audio You can use this information to determine better microphone placement and orientation It can also be helpful in setting the audio input levels on your camera since most cameras only display the total volume of the signal The Audio Spectrum Analyzer goes further by dis playing how the audio energy is distributed across t...

Page 36: ...rabber enables you to capture still image files You can quickly grab high resolution stills from video clips or live video and save them to your hard drive Save still images to jpg bmp or png format and if you wish edit them in any standard image editing software Use them in an NLE application like Sony Vegas or image editing software like Photoshop or Jasc Paintshop Pro Use image editing software...

Page 37: ... to a file Grab files are saved to a Grabbed Stills folder within your current project folder 2 Click the JPG BMP or PNG button to select a file format 3 The name of the grabbed still is displayed in the Base File Name field 4 If you wish to change the name click in the field and edit the name 5 The name of the next grab file is displayed in the Base File Name field To grab a frame from a clip cli...

Page 38: ... Clip Alerts tell you when your video quality exceeds all three threshold settings Audio Popping Alerts Audio Pop Alerts indicate sudden or popping noises sometimes associated with p sounds in talent s speech or sudden level changes You set the level of pop sensitivity Turn Audio Clip Alerts On or Off Drag the sliders up or down to set threshold levels for Video clipping and Audio Popping Video Cl...

Page 39: ...the maximum area in the recorded frames that is allowed to contain pixels with over threshold luma by percentage Duration Drag the slider to set the maximum number of consecutive frames that can contain over threshold pixels before video Clip Alerts appear Audio Popping Setting Level Set the degree of sudden level change required to trigger an alert Audio Clipping Turn Audio Clip Alerts on or off ...

Page 40: ...he Shot Clock Slave to Off Click the Stop Run button to Start or Stop the shot timer Click the Clear button to clear the shot timer Click the Drop Frame button to set the clock to drop frame mode 29 97 FPS non drop frame mode 30 FPS or use PAL frame rate 25 FPS Click 12 24 to change between a 12 and a 24 hour clock Click the Net Set button to automatically set the clock via the Internet to the ato...

Page 41: ...io and try to achieve an evenly balanced range of audio You may need to change audio levels on your camera or change the orientation or position of the microphone Use the panels in Mono and Stereo modes to analyze your audio How to read Analyzer panels in Mono mode Viewing the audio wave in Mono mode allows you to view 32 bands or range sep arations This helps isolate problem sounds like ambient f...

Page 42: ... button to suspend just the audio peak markers in the signal Click the Freeze button to freeze a snapshot of all the bars in the panel Balancing Audio Between Two Microphones If you are using two microphones or other audio sources monitor each input sep arately by switching the Audio Spectrum Analyzer to Stereo mode Click the Highest Treble Lowest Treble Highest Bass Lowest Bass In Stereo mode the...

Page 43: ...you ve ever done a shoot outdoors you know what problems the changing sun can cause Even subtle changes in outdoor light can cause color balance to shift Run SureShot to recalibrate your camera Color Balance Check skin tones shirt color etc between shots to make sure everything matches If you are shooting out of sequence it will be very important that the camera has the same color balance from sce...

Page 44: ...ration This saves time in the edit suite by allowing you to use the same keyer settings for all clips Another valuable application for DV Rack when shooting chroma key is to use the Spectra 60 to detect background color spill onto your foreground subject Spill is the subtle color tinting on your subject from light bouncing off the floor back onto the subject It is particularly noticeable when the ...

Page 45: ...s it all This section is designed to cover a few basics In these short recaps we hope to give you enough essentials to understand how you can use some of the DV Rack components to improve your video and audio quality For example we believe that you can do a better job of using Zebra to adjust exposure and lighting if you have some idea of how Zebra patterns work Color Bars NOTE Calibrating to DV R...

Page 46: ...hose subtle cues about the hue of the ambient lighting in the environment This is why cameras have a clever function that lets them learn what hue the light is in a scene and adjusts for it This function is called Manual White Balance and it works by being shown something in the ambient light that is assumed to be white This function tells the camera Ok whatever this looks like to you adjust your ...

Page 47: ...t it can be particularly challenging to create dark or moody ambience in the DV format because the format can be quite unforgiving when areas of shadow get too dark Undesirable noise is often intro duced into the image which cannot be compensated in post production When lighting and adjusting your camera to create dark ambience you are often pushing the capabilities of your camera Fortunately many...

Page 48: ...ignals clipping is just about always a really bad thing When clipping occurs the most important thing is to detect it immediately since there is nothing that can be done to fix the situation later To stop clipping from happening you should use DV Rack to monitor the audio signal and adjust the audio recording levels of your camera so that the loudest sound that will come from the microphone will n...

Page 49: ...nundrum The electron gun could be recalibrated to fill the whole screen but this solution was time consuming and costly How could TV manufac turers prevent this from happening The answer was to crank up the electron gun to Overscan the picture beyond the borders of the picture tube This ensured that as the television aged the displayable area of the picture tube would remain full no black border w...

Page 50: ...sible to all your viewers If you have more than one actor do their positions in the shot support the scene The aesthetic framing of your shot can be as important as getting your camera properly adjusted For example a wide expansive shot may be appropriate if you are showing off a specific location but it doesn t make much sense if you are try ing to establish an intimate one on one talk with the a...

Page 51: ...o much is the number one source of visual cheesiness in home movies The next time that you watch a Hollywood feature film take note of how often you see shots that zoom in or out You will find that zooms rarely occur in professional films If you want your video to look more like Hollywood and less like a home movie try to resist the urge to zoom unless absolutely neces sary A slow zoom in or out t...

Page 52: ...me tape format It s how well the high end camera fills the available dynamic range with useful informa tion In many cases a prosumer camera can achieve the same results as a high end camera if you set up your shot efficiently using objective monitoring tools Seeing how the camera is using the dynamic range of brightness for example can keep a shot looking crisp instead of washed out This is one of...

Page 53: ...30 DV Quality Monitor about 32 DV tape recording to 3 DVR Slave to Cam Setting 13 DVR using 28 dynamic range improving 5 dynamic range the benefits of great 46 E editing clips in other programs 17 exposure improving 6 F feedback preventing 4 files recovering ejected clips 18 files where are my clip files 17 fluorescent lighting 40 focus improving 6 format selecting DV file 6 framing aesthetic tips...

Page 54: ... starting DV Rack 2 Stereo mode checking audio in 36 system requirements Please see Help T tape recording to 3 Tech Support web pages 12 timing clips 34 Troubleshooting Please see Help U underscan 7 underscan displaying 12 V video drivers compatible Please see Help Vectorscope about 26 Video Safe Area indicator 12 Video Safe area about the 43 video too bright 32 W Waveform Monitor Settings using 2...

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