Edit Review: Adobe OnLocation CS4

Adobe OnLocation Creative Suite 4 offers Quality Monitoring, where you can set alert thresholds for exposure, video clipping, and audio pop. The yellow blocks beneath the monitor are exposure alerts for a hot spot.

Adobe OnLocation Creative Suite 4 (CS4)is a valuable — if not critical — component of the CS4 package, and it has been substantially improved for the suite's fourth version. If you've used it in the past, you'll love the new look and feel and potentially some of the new features. If you haven't, several of the new features may convince you to crank it up and give it a whirl.

As you may know, OnLocation started life as Serious Magic DV Rack. It served four primary functions when you connected your DV/HDV/DVCPRO HD camcorder to a computer. First, it let you use your computer monitor as a video monitor — with zebra stripes, positioning guides, and the like. While the product was invaluable for color and exposure adjustments and static framing, the half-second or so of latency between camera or subject motion and screen update made it tough to follow moving subjects.

Second, DV Rack provided waveform and histogram monitors and a vectorscope to allow you to fine-tune exposure settings and color adjustments. For many shooters, including me, this was the most significant value-add because standalone scopes are expensive and a challenge to lug around.

Third, DV Rack provided QC functions such as an Automated Quality Monitor that detected video and audio clipping. Finally, DV Rack could also serve as a digital video recorder, capturing video to disk and even controlling your camcorder's recording functions.

OnLocation CS4 offers multiple categories for shot lists, but no easy printing mechanism. For example, to record ambient sound, you would click Shot 9 and record your ambient sound, and OnLocation will name the captured file “Shot 9” and insert the clip-related metadata into that line. Later, when editing, you can search in Premiere Pro''s metadata panel for “ambient sound,” and Shot 9 should appear.

When Adobe bought Serious Magic, Adobe folded DV Rack into Premiere Pro and CS3 bundles as OnLocation with few changes other than branding. Because DV Rack was Windows-only, Mac users needed BootCamp or its equivalent to run OnLocation, even though all other CS3 modules could run natively on Intel Macs.

Since then, Adobe has clearly invested in the CS4 version by porting OnLocation to run natively on Intel Macs. In addition, Adobe completely revamped Serious Magic's clunky faux-hardware scheme into a configurable Adobe style featuring multiple savable workspaces and keyboard-driven workflow. Though there was an early miscue, most OnLocation users — particularly those on a Mac — will be pleased with the results.

Folks who were immune to OnLocation's charms in the past may be seduced by one of two completely new features. First is support for Adobe's Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP). A new Metadata window starts with extensive preconfigured, customizable fields. OnLocation automatically captures all available metadata from your camcorder and captured video files, accepts what you enter manually, and embeds the lot into the file header or a separate file if the designated capture format can't handle metadata. Other CS4 applications — Premiere Pro, After Effects, and SoundBooth — have similar Metadata panels, which allow you to supplement the clips' metadata within those applications and/or search for clips using the metadata.

The other major new feature is the ability to create a shot list and shoot in take-recording mode, which lets you record multiple takes of each shot. That's the overview. Now let's work through a typical project to analyze OnLocation's most important features.

It''s nice to know when any of these configurable alerts are triggered.

All good shoots begin with adequate preproduction planning, and working with OnLocation can help you followthis rule. Start by paying attention to where you set up yourOnLocation project file. If you follow the defaults, your capturedvideo files will be stored in the hidden swamps of your My Documents(Windows) or Documents (Mac) folder. If you prefer working from adedicated video drive, this typically means that you'll have to copythe bulky captured files to your video drive after capture, which istime-consuming and means you'll have to find the captured files on yoursystem disk to delete them. In most instances, you're better offsetting up the project in a folder on your video drive.

Once you've chosen the optimal capturelocation, you should consider setting up a shot list. That isaccomplished by creating a number of placeholders in the Shot Listpanel for each specific shot. OnLocation provides a fullscreenworkspace for this activity and a shot list template with a laundrylist of relevant columns. During the shoot, OnLocation captures allclip-related metadata — camera, format, duration, codec, etc. — andfeeds the lot into the information captured in the Metadata panel. Theonly negative is that there's no convenient way to export or print theshot list, though you can take a screenshot and print that. During theshoot, click the appropriate placeholder to start recording thatparticular shot.

Here are your options for IRE display.

Planning done, it's time to start setting up.Once you connect your camcorder, OnLocation should automatically sensethe aspect ratio and capture format and set itself accordingly. Then,using a four-step procedure, you manually calibrate the field monitorby adjusting contrast, brightness, chroma, and phase values as directedby specific instructions in the manual. Adobe also includes a SureShotroutine that uses a focus/white-balance card to calibrate the camcorder.

As always, you should consider yourconfigurable shooting options before it's actually time to press themagic red button. If you're shooting DV, you can record to yourcomputer in AVI Type 1 format, which combines audio and video into oneembedded stream, or in Type 2 format, with separate audio/videostreams. You can also record DV directly to a .mov file. The onlyoption for HDV recordings is MPEG-2 transport stream. DVCPRO HD can besaved as either QuickTime or AVI.

Beyond these format alternatives, you can setthe levels for the two sets of zebra stripes, though the factorysettings of 96 IRE and 75 IRE should work for many shoots. You can alsoenable a prerecord buffer of up to 34 seconds. When enabled, OnLocationcontinually writes the configured duration to a RAM buffer and adds thebuffer to the front of all videos that you shoot. That way, if youpress the record button a few moments late, you still get the shot.

With Splitscreen view, you can grab a frame from a previous shot and superimpose it over your live camera to ensure continuity.

Other preferences worth noting relate toQuality Monitoring, where you set alert thresholds for exposure, videoclipping, and audio pop. Using the default settings, OnLocation willalert you if 5 percent of any frame exceeds a 95 percent brightnessthreshold. During the shoot, these alerts appear as blocks in thetimeline, so you can correct the problem and reshoot if necessary.After you've stopped recording, the blocks identify potential problemareas that you can quickly scan to and assess.

With these preliminaries out of the way, it'stime to start checking exposure and color balance using the suppliedwaveform, histogram, and vectorscope. Interestingly, the first versionof OnLocation CS4 shipped without a 0-IRE-to-100-IRE-based waveform;the only available waveforms used RGB values from 0 to 255. There musthave been quite an outcry because Adobe released an IRE-scale waveformwith version 4.0.1. I don't think that it's the default option,however, so you'll have to dig into the panel menu to select it.

It's hard to overstate the value these scopeshave on your ability to perfect white balance and, particularly,exposure. Basically, if you control your exposure manually, thewaveform can boost your lighting- and exposure-control skills to a newlevel because you have information to support your adjustments anddecision-making. In comparison, zebra stripes seem like incrediblyblunt, relatively useless instruments. Suffice it to say that fewshooters exposed to these scopes would ever choose to work without them.

After exposure comes framing, which OnLocationassists with safe zones and a rule-of-thirds positioning grid. You canset the monitor to display 100 percent of the image coming in or selectthe Overscan option, which cuts off the outside 10 percent edge of theframes to simulate the cropping that occurs on analog televisions. Youcan also set up a 4:3 window within your widescreen preview if you'reshooting video that will, or may be, distributed for 4:3 displaywithout letterboxing.

When it's time to shoot, you have tworecording modes: Shot-Recording Mode and Take-Recoding Mode. InShot-Recording Mode, OnLocation creates a new shot with fresh metadataand an updated name that ties to your project name (“DCP-1,” “DCP-2,”“DCP-3”) each time you start recording. In Take-Recording mode, youstart by creating a placeholder in the shot list, which you can do onthe fly, and OnLocation will record takes of a shot. It names them insequence — “DCP-1 (01),” “DCP-1 (02),” “DCP-1 (03)” — and duplicatesany metadata entered into the shot placeholder. Once you have a goodtake, you create another placeholder to designate a new shot and startshooting again. In either mode, OnLocation can trigger the recordfunction on your camcorder so you're rolling tape whenever you'recapturing to disk.

While recording, you can click a commentbutton that ties a comment flag to that timecode in the video, but youcan't type in your comment until you stop recording. Oddly, commentmarkers are not included with the clip metadata, and they can be viewedonly in OnLocation and Adobe After Effects — not Premiere Pro. Incontrast, you can type into either the shot list or metadata panelfields during shooting, and this information gets stored with themetadata.

If you're shooting multiple takes over anextended period, you may find the Splitscreen view helpful. In thisview, you can superimpose a transparent frame from a previouslyrecorded video over the live camera feed, which helps to ensurecontinuity of positioning, framing, exposure, and other shot elements.

Related Links

Edit Review: Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 Adobe Premiere Pro Creative Suite 4 (CS4) is out and shipping in all its glory. You've probably heard lots about it. In this review, I'll pull the major... Onsite Workflow On Dec. 10, 2007, two people were killed and three seriously injured in a gas explosion on a main street in Fries, Va., which borders my adopted hometown... Configuring Your System for CS4, Part 1 This month, I''ll review how the number of processors and the amount of RAM impact encoding performance, and then find other, non-CS4-related fish to fry...

Once you've finished recording, OnLocation canexport all clips, clips marked good in the shot list, or manuallyselected clips to a new location. Of course, if you follow my adviceabout saving the project file on your video drive, you won't need thisfunction.

I use OnLocation for all shots in my office orany shots on the road where I can comfortably position my HP 8710pmobile workstation. (To read about how I used OnLocation for aquick-turn streaming shoot, visit digitalcontent
producer.com
/dcc/revfeat
/onsite_workflow.)

Particularly for setting up interviews andsimilar static shots, OnLocation is an incredibly helpful tool, and theCS4 version brings some significant functionality and usabilityenhancements.

Company: Adobe

www.adobe.com

Product: OnLocation CS4

Assets: Runs natively on Intel Macs;allows addition of metadata to video files; adds shot list;Take-Recording Mode allows multiple takes of same shot; new interfacedoes away with faux-hardware look.

Caveats: No convenient way to export or print the shot list.

Demographic: Cost-conscious video professionals without standalone scopes.

PRICE: $799 (FULL WITH ADOBE PREMIERE PRO CS4); $299 (UPGRADE)

To comment on this article, email the Digital Content Producer staff at feedback@digitalcontentproducer.com.