Tonal Vision's Blog

Written by Kraig & Jacquie Greff | 07 September 2010

Audio Tips for Video Editors

OK folks, I have to admit I was kind of pushed into this one by my wife Jacquie. But to be fair, my little brain was a blank slate as far as good ideas for an article. She then told me of a few audio mistakes made by her editors and asked if I could write something basic that might help them.

Most video editors are so "into" their craft, they jump right in to all things video. But their mind is usually on the eye candy. They can get the audio basically in and out of the project, but don't know enough or have the tools to do any real audio manipulation.

Read more...

Written by Kraig B. Greff, with input from Jacquie Greff | 22 August 2010

When Voice-Over Professionals Aren't An Option

"Got to tighten the budget" is something we hear a lot these days. Unfortunately, it's true. People are trying to do more with less. We all would like to have Donald James narrate our next commercial, PR piece, or documentary, but often the budget won't allow it.

If you can't afford a top-name voice-over, or even a local voice professional, what else can you do? As audio professionals, we don't advocate the use of non-professionals, but it's the real world and sometimes the money just isn't there. As an audio engineer, I'm not in the habit of recommending this, but if this is the situation, then I'm still an advocate of the best audio possible.

Read more...

Written by Jacquie Greff | 07 June 2010

The Dark Side of DSLR Video

We do enough dance recitals in the late spring that the work pays for a good chunk of a video camera each year. This year was no exception. I read the hype, went to a couple of seminars, talked to people, did some research and decided this was the year to foray into DSLR video – this year’s camera investment, the Canon 7D.

Read more...

Written by Kraig B. Greff, with help from his wife, Jacquie | 01 April 2010

Planning to Upgrade?

Ok, it's sliding toward spring and all men and women's thoughts turn to, mmmph, new gear? Maybe that's overdoing it a bit, but not by much. You'll have that freshly issued check from your tax returns, and you can’t help but have thoughts. Why not let that kitchen remodel wait a bit longer. Hell, it's been put off for years and everything still works fine. This might be a great time to get rid of old, out-of-date gear and get some new, current stuff – just what the business needs to forge ahead in the upcoming recovery. Not so fast folks. Spending lots of money is not always the best answer.

Read more...

Written by Jacquie Greff | 04 February 2010

The Case of the Disappearing Technology

Having authored several commercial instructional DVDs, I view the ability to master DVDs for replication as a basic requirement of my business.  Therefore, when a client asked if I could do that for him, my answer was “of course.”

The last time I submitted a DVD to a replicator, several years ago, everyone required a DLT master.  A few replicators would work off of a DVD for simple projects, but copy protection features like CSS and Macrovision definitely required a DLT.

Read more...

Written by Kraig & Jacquie Greff | 04 January 2010

Sample Rate and Bit Depth in Audio Recording

Let's start with some common audio numbers. We see 44.1, 48, 96 and 192 sample rates all of the time.  We also see recordings as 16 and 24 bits.   A few years ago we never ran into those numbers.  We worked with tape to record audio. Things stayed in an analog medium.

Read more...

Written by Kraig Greff | 05 October 2009

Phase Issues in Audio Tracks

So I'm wandering around the house the other night after finishing some work, and I'm, no kidding, trying to come up with topics for this article. My wife is upstairs at one of our video editing stations and yells down for me to come up and listen to something. I went up and she had a video of our Governor Martin O'Malley speaking in front of a group of union folks.  She said, "listen to this."  The source was a DVD with a stereo audio track.  When played over a stereo system, the apparent volume was workable but the sound of the material was very strange -- my wife called it "irritating to my ears."  When she panned everything back to center to create a mono signal, the volume dropped to almost unusably low levels.  What she was experiencing here was phase cancellation, a kicked-around term now very relevant to her finishing her project.

Read more...

Written by Jacquie Greff | 01 May 2009

An Introduction of Digital Video Compression

To meet today's production demands for quality at the best possible price, digital video cameras need to cram as much information into as small a package as possible to allow it to be recorded quickly onto a tape, card or drive with limited space.  Later in the production process, these same processes are used to fit more information into a limited space cable TV or broadcast pipeline, or over an internet web space.

Compressing video almost always involves tradeoffs in quality, and what works in one situation is often inadequate in others.  Today’s media professionals need a working understanding of compression in order to make intelligent choices around equipment, software, work processes, and delivery of our finished product.

Read more...

More Articles...