So now that you know how to use the SureShot Camera Setup module and if you are using your own camera it should be calibrated perfectly, let's scroll down once again by using scrollbar on the right side of the interface and just take a quick look at some of the other components down below.
Well, first we have an Audio Spectrum Analyzer which is really useful if you want to test your audio as it's coming in to make sure everything is correct and then beneath that the DV Grabber which is great for doing still image capture from your camera or even stop motion animation and again it's very self-explanatory, you can simply click the Grab button and it will save a JPEG, a BMP or PNG file, and also beneath over here the left is a module called the Spectra 60 which actually shows you image analysis using the RGB and Luma values and you can also change over here on the right to view in different color spaces including CMYK.
So if you are shooting video where a still frame maybe used for a print piece later on, just click this button here CMYK and those values will be revealed as your watching your video. So these are useful monitoring tools to have inside of OnLocation.
Now let's go ahead and capture some video using the DVR. So let's scroll back up, so we can see our Field Monitor as well as our DVR and you can simply start recording from your camera by hitting the Record button right here in the DVR, but I do want to show you a different way. So let's go to the Menu button in the Field Monitor, and this is where most of the settings or preferences for OnLocation are kept and it works just like the menu on a hardware version of the Field Monitor.
Let's take a look at a couple of options here, starting from the top go ahead and click to the right DV File Format where it says AVI T1. So by clicking and selecting anything inside this menu, you will get some options. So over here on the right you can see a left and right facing arrow. Go ahead and click on either one and it simply cycles you through the different option in this particular menu pick.
So you can capture in either the QuickTime format or the AVI format. What OnLocation is going to do is capture the native format of whatever it is your shooting. So if you are shooting DV, you will wind up with the native DV file and either the QuickTime or AVI format whichever you select here. And then if we go down one more you will see some options for HDV. So again it's going to capture native HDV it doesn't do anything to that signal and if you click here on the arrows, you can cycle through either saving as an MPEG file or M2T.
For most of you, you will keep this at it's default settings of M2T. Let's go a few items down. Now you can see we currently have it setup for DVR Slave To Camera. So what this means, is that as soon as you hit the Record button on your camera, OnLocation will start capturing your video. So it's a great workflow to take OnLocation on your laptop, put it in a shoulder bag, have the FireWire cable running out to your camera and you can now shoot tapeless in the field very, very easily.
But let's just click on either the left or right arrow here to cycles to the selections. You can see there are actually three. So the first one DVR Slave To Off. This just means that it's going to turn that Slave capability off and you will have to record by manually clicking on the Record button below in the DVR.
Now this option, Motion, is very interesting because what you can do is have camera on a tripod and as soon as it detects that there is motion in the frame, it will start recording automatically for you, and this is a great a feature. But we are going to want to leave this on DVR Slave To Camera, eepecially for those of you that are doing this lesson with your own camera attached.
Now let's go down to that Next Page button at the bottom of the menu. Let's go ahead and click that and you can see it brings us to the next page of the menu. I just want to show you a couple of more options here very quickly. The first one is at the top the Pre-Record Time and you can see on my system it's currently set to 5 seconds. Go ahead and click that and then use the right facing arrow to increase this number.
Let me explain what this is. Right now we have this at a setting of 10 seconds, that means that OnLocation is always capturing and caching 10 seconds from your camera as long as your camera is plugged in. So as soon as you hit the Record button either on your camera or here in the DVR itself, not only are you going to get your shot captured, but you are also going to get the previous 10 seconds and this is great. This is something that is impossible with tape and if you click on that right facing arrow, you could increase this amount. Now it depends on the format you are shooting and the speed of your computer, but you can see on my system, I can prerecord up to 34 seconds. So this is great. If you have a camera setup and you are waiting some action to happen, you hit the Record button and you get the previous 34 seconds as well.
One last settings here before we go ahead and capture a clip in the DVR and that's right down here below. If you are capturing lots of lots of clips, there is a good chance you could wind up running out of drive space. So what you want to do is make sure that you are getting a warning here and you can see when there is 4 megabytes left on our drive. It's going to give us a warning and then you don't want to accidentally completely fill your drive up, because that you can cause you a serious problems on your computer.
So go ahead and click HDD Record Stop. And you can see now that when there is one megabyte left on your drive, it's going to stop recording, but I actually recommend setting this a bit higher. Let's go ahead and set this up to 10 megabytes and let's also go up to HDD Warning and maybe set that up to 12, so that way we will get a little warning beforehand. It's never a good idea to completely fill up a drive. So this will prevent you from doing that.
Now let's go down to the Menu button and click it to turn off our menu. So now it's time to record our first clip using the DVR. Again, if you have your own camera attached, you can capture your own clip or if not just follow along with me here in the training. So whenever you are ready hit the Record button on your camera and I am going to hit Record on my camera right here. So the clip start capturing and if look in the DVR below, you going to see a count in the time code and you see a green line there.
Now as you are capturing you can also enter a clip name and a note. So if you want, come over to the clip name double-click it. We can select it as we are capturing and let's just call this First Test Shot and then in the Note we can also do a log note and just say, This is a test. Great.
Now you may notice a little yellow line running across the DVR and that's indicating that right now OnLocation is telling us that, hey, your level are too hot and this is happening because we are adjusting the iris and our camera isn't balanced.
So those are little notes that will let us go back later and review the clip and we can identify the problems and correct them with the reshoot, if necessary. This is one of the benefits to this workflow. Once you are finished shooting, go ahead and hit the Record button on your camcorder and I am going to hit the Stop button here. Now I am going to show you how you use your captured clips in Premiere Pro or whichever application you want to use them in.
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