SuperN00b question re: Video and PT

I have some questions regarding working with video on a HD2 system. 1. Do I need any hardware to do this? 2. What media and file formats should I be capable of handling? 3. If I use a dual head video card would I be able to run video to a seperate monitor? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers sonicbaz

Some more info from you may help. What kind of work will you be doing with video? Commercial spots? Full length dramas? Music videos? Is this in your basement, with the local music studio, or post house? Many people have been happy with just a video card to import with (you should do a search of this DUC for those cards/devices that work best), but you can go as far as getting an AVoption XL (or V10 is the latest version). What kind of formats to handle, again, depends on your clients. Will they bring in tape that you need to lock to/import, or DVD-r's with QT movies? Again, more info from you will help, and there are many answers already here if you do a search. Good luck

Mario thanks for your help! I'm offering composing and mixing services (home setup), I want to be able to start to score for TV, commercials etc. I'm definately at a starting point with the video end and looking for any advice with relation to specific hardware. I gather from your reply that I can't count on people supplying me with video files, if I need to be able to handle physical tape is there a common tape format and video machine that I can use as a master standalone playback device? I'm looking for a more mid range solution (ie cheaper) to the AVoption XL. I have a seperate high end PC that I can use for importing and playback of video, I have seen many capture cards and was wondering if you have any suggestions? thanks again sonicbaz

Well, I just bought a Pinnacle MovieBox DV FireWire Video Interface a few weeks ago, and it has served me well so far. Assuming you're on a Mac (this is after all the Mac OS TDM forum), you can record video into your computer into iMovie from several different sources, and then export the movie as a quicktime that can be played back in ProTools. In my case, the audio wasn't that demanding on the drive, so I exported the video as a "Full Quality DV Movie". If your session is likely to have a lot of Disk/CPU useage, you may want to crunch it down a bit... iMovie is so simple that even I was able to figure it out. Basically, your firewire video capture box shows up as a "Camera" in iMovie. You just hit the "Import" button, and press play on your video transport (VCR, camera, whatever) and load it in. Once you've trimmed up the segment you want to export, you just select it and go. There's lots of options for quicktime exports... Once you've created a quicktime, you can just do the ol' "Import Movie" in ProTools. I would highly recommend turning off the thumbnail view on the movie track, and just display it in "Block View" You can either display the movie in a window, or from the Movie menu you can choose to "Play back DV movie through FireWire Port". At which point, your firewire box will spit out the video to a TV. There seems to be about a 1 or 2 frame delay in the video you see when using the firewire box, but it's fine 99.9% of the time. To be honest, I'm so used to having dual monitors for PT that it really burns me to have to give up a whole screen for a video window (love having a separate monitor). Hope some of this helps... Cheers!

Thanks for your reply Mixchump, does the video get time stamped when you are importing it? Do you export a quicktime movie complete with soundtrack directly from Protools? If yes is this considered broadcast quality? Sorry if these questions are obvious, all I keep thinking is that if I have cut a series of hits and spots back to a client it has to be able to be relocked, not sure what keeps this all together and what format a client would want it supplied as. Cheers sonicbaz

Well, I would still supply your mixes with a 2-beep at the front just to make sure sync is OK. As far as I know, the quicktime movies that I have worked with have never had a timestamp before. You really need to make sure they supply you with a visual that has a burn-in for sync purposes. At that point, it's really easy to slide the quicktime movie to the right frame. And yes, you can choose the "Bounce to Quicktime Movie" option from the Movie menu. That'll give you a Video and Audio version of exactly what you have. Hope I haven't steered you wrong anywhere. Hopefully some more experienced video guys can chime in here... Cheers for now!

Mixchump thanks m8, that clears things up. Sonicbaz