Just wanted to let you know how great this tutorial was. Not being in the market for buying anything at the moment, and knowing most of what i want to about premiere i find that a lot of CV doesn't really appeal to me anymore... but this feature was excelent - comprehensive, interesting, and aplied to a video production environment.
thanks,
mark.
Thanks for the kind words - I'm sure Peter Wells, who did all the hard work, will appreciate them.
Bob C
Yes most excellent. The last couple of issues have been worth every penny due to the tutorials.
Keep up the good work. Keep this up and I might stop buying DVME
The May issue has the second part of Peter Wells's Studio 8 tutorial plus an overview of 3D effects software and reviews of three of the latest big-name software contenders:
Lightwave 7.5 is compared directly with Discreet's 3ds max 5.1, while Discreet's Combustion is reviewed standalone.
The latest version of Combustion (2.1), which we looked at, sells for £852 - a massive cut compared with the £4,500 price-tag of V2.0.
The tutorial in June is being written by me and is a bit unusual in another way - it's looking at how to upgrade the processor in BX-motherboard-based PCs very cheaply, to give these machines a MAJOR mid-life boost.
There was a large number of editing PCs sold between 1998 and 2001 that used these motherboards (which take slot-style Pentium processors), using editing cards such as the Canopus Raptor, and Pinnacle DC30 and DV300.
Trouble is the processors sold for these motherboards were never very fast and, anyway, slot-format processors aren't available any more.
What I'm doing is using a PowerLeap slocket adaptor with a socket-type Celeron 1.4GHz processor (total cost under £100 - and time to upgrade under 1hr). This is with an AOpen AX6BC motherboard - a model widely used in DVC-built system and, I think, in systems from other editing specialists, including MultiMedia Direct.
I've not fully completed the post-upgrade render tests but those before and after comparisons I have got are impressive.
Comparing the Celeron 533MHz processor that was in there originally (in a slocket), which is already faster than a lot of processors people will have in their BX boards, render time is cut very significantly - typically by half.
However, when rendering DVD-compliant MPEG-2, render times are about one-third of what they were with the Celeron 533MHz, which rather shocked me. And this is in different programs using different MPEG-2 compression engines - Pinnacle's Studio 8, and Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video 3c.
The tutorial won't appeal to everyone, but I'd like to think that a lot of folks will find it VERY useful - since I'm pretty sure that many of these BX machines are no longer being used much, and that this would change if they were made faster.
And, or course, where they are still regularly being used, the speed increase will be very noticeable.
Of course, the results of the upgraded PC can't compared with, say, a mid-range Athlon (or even Duron) or Intel P4 - but the upgrade does have the potential to really give a boost to many existing PCs - and the cost, as I said, isn't much, and the upgrade itself is a doddle.
Bob C
>The May issue has the second part of Peter Wells's Studio 8 tutorial <
It had to be Pete's 'cos of the punkband illustrations but the poor chap seems to have had his byline left out! (Part 1 was the same)
Ray Liffen
No byline = no payment!
;)
Bob C
quote:Originally posted by bcrabtree:
No byline = no payment!;)
Bob C
Grrrrrr!
On the subject of "deliberate" mistakes...
...I've just spotted a great one on the cover of the May issue.
First prize to the person who spots it will be a week's residential growling lessons with Peter Wells.
Just in case there's two (or more) such mistakes, the editor's decision on who wins the prize is final.(So, tough luck Peter, again).
Bob C
Oh yes . . . . . the 'Pioneer' LF-D521 is made by Panasonic!
Ray Liffen
all this talk of the may issue gives me the impression that it may now be on sale... april seems to have flown by! A trip to WHSmiths is in order...
Ray,
Well spotted.
Peter will be in direct contact with you, I'm sure, to arrange the lessons.
===============
cstv,
The theoretical on-sale date for the May issue is March 27.
As for April flying by - well, it's the very unseasonal weather we're having, I'm sure, that's caused that!
Bob C
(working away and casting the only glance at the garden bathed in sunshine, yet again!)
The only good thing about British summers getting earlier and earlier (as I recall, it was in May in 2000 and 2001, and in April in 2002), is that by the end of the decade, it will be back in its rightful position sometime between June and August.