#Feral Effect TBC
17 messages in this thread
Has anyone used this new TBC from Feral.
" The Feral Effect "
It's advertised as being able to shrink video without degradation for over the
shoulder stuff with the toaster.
Price is quite a bit higher than TBCIV's etc. but that would be quite a feature
for the toaster.
Anyone using it ?
Is it available through Mail Order Houses or just through Feral Industries ?
Street Price ?
Thanks,
Rocky
Rocky, Although the Feral is probably way ahead in most regards, you can get a
really good compression out of processors like the Panasonic digital mixers
like the AVE5, AVE 7, etc. or Videonics MX-1 for less money. Regards, Gary
Gary,
Do I assume correctly that all of these shrink live video to be displayed over
the shoulder and without much loss ?
Also I am in need of another TBC anyway. I've been doing pseudo a/b rolls
enough.
Rocky
Rocky, Yes, they do quite nicely…WAY better than the toaster. BTW, I have a
DPS TBC I for sale. Not fancy, but will give you another video input. $295.
Regards, Gary
Gary or Anyone who knows about Feral,
Are you able to get rid of the pixelization effects of Toaster for various
DVE's by using the Feral.
Thanks in advance,
Michael
No, the Feral has its own image processing though. Gary
Gary,
Thanks. I am wonder if you can give me a more detailed response if I ask you a
clearer question. So here goes..I am relatively new to the Amiga world, having
taken the dive and hired somebody, bought a Toaster/4000 set up, ordered a
Flyer and got a couple of my day business type-clients to buy a couple of
projects.
In reviewing some of the product for one client, I noticed a tremendous amount
of Pixellization on some toaster effects, especially when they are reduced in
size or slowed down. I think one example would be flying an image of a face.
I am interested in finding out if there is any way in reducing the
pixellization. Will the feral board do it? Will Flyer do it? Will anything else
do it? Or does one work around the effects (whip them quickly by) or go into an
editing suite to do the final work at the end of the project. I also envisage a
scenario where I want to have a talking head in a quarter of the screen while
relevant images and bullet points are occupying the rest of the screen. Same
questions?
Thanks in advance.
Michael
Michael,
Excuse me for jumping in here on this thread, but I hopefully can answer your
questions.
1. The Feral effect TBC has a few of it's own effects, the one of primary
interest is the squeeze for over-the-shoulder type supers. As of now, none of
Feral's effects manipulate the video in any fashion that offers perspective or
flips on axis such as many of the more impressive of Toaster's DVE moves.
Feral's squeezed output is displayed over a black screen which allows you to
use Toaster's luminance key to display it over other video or stills. For the
bullet points scenerio you described the Feral unit would be ideal. The samples
of video I have seen done with the Feral are more than good enough for
over-the-shoulder type work.
2. There are no upgrades for the Toaster's DVE to remove or improve the
pixelization you spoke of. It's a hardware limitation of the Toaster's video
processing chips. Flyer utilizes the Toaster as a switcher, and no announcement
has been made with respect to a firmware upgrade to improve Toaster's DVE
pixelization. What I have done is to use a sperate DVE to accomodate these
moves and use the luminance keyer to bring them into Toaster.
One interesting option is to import your video into Lightwave and use it to
render your DVE moves. The results are very clean and smooth but take a long
time. There is a package called Hollywood FX that does all the front-end work
for you. The DVE moves are modeled after Abekas and Pinnacle, are quite
impressive although not "real time". It has excellent support for the PAR
board. If you are going to map moving video images onto Lightwave objects you
will need the TBC IV/PAR combination and a lot of spare time for renderring.
If you are already commited to your Toaster platform and you are serious about
upgrading the DVE (without using the Lightwave solution) you might want to
consider a dedicated DVE unit. I know of a few pro units available (including
one of my own, a JAZZ Ensemble). Email me if you would like more info or check
the BP (Broadcast Professional) forum under classifieds.
Frank
PMFJI,
But if I were you I'd try to do any ADO/compositing in Lightwave, if you
need cleaner edges.
I just completed a 12-second, multi-layered ADO sequence involving
headlines floating over PAR-digitized video frames. Worked great, looked
like the pros, and rendered overnight. Beats paying $?00.00 per hour at a
post house. Hell, consider yourself the post house.
Just my .02. Now, back to work <grin>.
S.G. Bailey
Chicago
Michael,
Lots of good advice here from the other guys; one more way to accomplish the
nice, clean talking head is to 'shoot for it'. I've used this method several
times myself. Just shoot the talking head in the upper (right or left) corner,
then design your graphic screen with a black or white square in the appropriate
place, and use the Toaster's luminance keyer. Pretty cheesy approach, but
works…
Jerry
Dear Jerry Hatchett, Stephen Bailey, Frank Vanella,
Thanks a lot for your advice. I really appreciate it as I move into production
on my first two projects, with a couple more in the wings, and a Flyer to come
in September. But I'm just the boss, not the technical guy, and my colleague,
Russ Spencer (should he pop up on the Boards) is at SigGraph. So, I am going to
get your responses to him, as he will be better able to fully digest them. At
that point, I may be back with more specific questions. Thanks again.
Michael Miloff
..from Toronto way…
Michael, 'Looks like the subject is pretty well covered here. When the flyer is
available, you won't need PAR/TBCIV to capture video as a sequence of files,
[.Regards, Gary
Gary,
You WILL need some sort of TBC to stabalize the taped video however. It doesn't
need to be a TBCIV, but since many people already have that model it's being
mentioned quite frequently as THE unit to have.
Frank
If you shoot for the over-the-shoulder, you should use the positionable
square wipe to cleanly reveal the talking head, better than the luma key.
Aki,
<< If you shoot for the over-the-shoulder, you should use the positionable
square wipe to cleanly reveal the talking head, better than the luma key. >>
You are correct.
Jerry
Michael,
I have one that I have had for about a month. Save your money. Use lightwave
and a PAR to do picture in picture. Basically that is all you are going to be
able to do with it. My boss thought it was a great idea to get it and I have
been using LW instead to do stills flying on and off and she thinks it is the
Feral. You can program it somewhat to do that but LW allows me to do much more.
You can't put shadows behind your "box" or a colored frame around it. It does
do away with the pixelization if you just want the picture in picture and the
quality of the picture is excellent quality. If you do news type work it would
be a good investment but if you did that type of work you probably would be
working on a different platform.
IMHO,
jmb
John,
Thanks for the feedback. I plan on getting a Flyer which probably means I won't
get a PAR. You might want to look at past comments from some others on this
thread as there were a number of suggestions, including the use of special
effects DVE equipment.
Michael