ScorpioProd
05-21-2007, 06:22 PM
Just an unsolicited review/reminder about Bob Tasa's great plug-ins for SpeedEDIT, they really do add a lot to it.
For anyone doing multiple camera editing, Bob's MCE plug-in is without
question the best way to do it. And Bob has improved MCE so much in
SpeedEDIT compared to the already excellent version in VT[4].
For anyone using the SpeedHQ codec, as John Perkins has pointed out to me,
it is important to have legal signal levels with it. Superblack can cause
quality issues with it. Well, since there's no "force legal" in SpeedEDIT,
that's a VT feature, Bob's Legalize plug-in is VERY useful to maximize your
SpeedHQ quality.
Another little plug-in that people don't probably think of as a big deal,
but it is, is Bob's Chapter Points plug-in. It's the ONLY way currently to
force I-frames for chapter points from markers in SpeedEDIT projects via
MPEG encoding in TMPGEnc. Heck, even if Newtek's MPEG encoder can
eventually force I-frames, Bob's plug-in would STILL be needed to put the
markers to chapter points in the DVD authoring application of your choice.
Many people think of Bob's plug-ins as mainly filters, but there are so many
other ones like I mention above.
Then there's Bob's 3Wheeler plug-in. Now we all know that the color
correction native in SpeedEDIT is much better than in VT, but Bob's 3Wheeler
adds animatable masking, which SpeedEDIT doesn't have natively. This is
very important to regionalize effects when the same color is in multiple
parts of your frame and you don't really want to affect every instance of
it. Bob's Color Replace ties in with all this as well, for some different
secondary color tricks from what the native SpeedEDIT secondary color
correction can do, again, thanks to masking, for one thing.
Then, of course, there's all the many filters that Bob has made. No one has
made more video filters for VT and SpeedEDIT than Bob. I don't use them all
the time, or for my needs as much as some of his plug-ins I've mentioned
earlier, but I'm certainly happy to have them when I do need them. Where
else are you going to find bloom filters, glow filters, strobe, SoftFX, etc.
Then there's the mightly LWC, which in many ways is the most powerful of all
the plug-ins Bob has written. VT users are spoiled by the amount of DVEs we
have bundled with our NLE, be they cheesy DVEs or not. Other NLEs don't
have anywhere near the DVEs that we get automatically. This may make Newtek
users not see how powerful and revolutionary a paradigm shift it is to make
your own custom DVEs on-the-fly in LW for a transition or other effect.
Last but not least, since it's not SpeedEDIT specific, don't forget Oasis.
WIth Apple having the lock on Live Type, Bob's Oasis program is an AWESOME
special effect CG program for the Windows platform, capable of correctly
working with ANY SD or HD resolution you need.
So hey, if you all want to enjoy the abilities Bob has given us into the
future, it's important to support him and buy his products. You don't see
other people writing these things for SpeedEDIT, do you?
And who knows what Bob could come up with next, IF the money is there to do it.
For anyone doing multiple camera editing, Bob's MCE plug-in is without
question the best way to do it. And Bob has improved MCE so much in
SpeedEDIT compared to the already excellent version in VT[4].
For anyone using the SpeedHQ codec, as John Perkins has pointed out to me,
it is important to have legal signal levels with it. Superblack can cause
quality issues with it. Well, since there's no "force legal" in SpeedEDIT,
that's a VT feature, Bob's Legalize plug-in is VERY useful to maximize your
SpeedHQ quality.
Another little plug-in that people don't probably think of as a big deal,
but it is, is Bob's Chapter Points plug-in. It's the ONLY way currently to
force I-frames for chapter points from markers in SpeedEDIT projects via
MPEG encoding in TMPGEnc. Heck, even if Newtek's MPEG encoder can
eventually force I-frames, Bob's plug-in would STILL be needed to put the
markers to chapter points in the DVD authoring application of your choice.
Many people think of Bob's plug-ins as mainly filters, but there are so many
other ones like I mention above.
Then there's Bob's 3Wheeler plug-in. Now we all know that the color
correction native in SpeedEDIT is much better than in VT, but Bob's 3Wheeler
adds animatable masking, which SpeedEDIT doesn't have natively. This is
very important to regionalize effects when the same color is in multiple
parts of your frame and you don't really want to affect every instance of
it. Bob's Color Replace ties in with all this as well, for some different
secondary color tricks from what the native SpeedEDIT secondary color
correction can do, again, thanks to masking, for one thing.
Then, of course, there's all the many filters that Bob has made. No one has
made more video filters for VT and SpeedEDIT than Bob. I don't use them all
the time, or for my needs as much as some of his plug-ins I've mentioned
earlier, but I'm certainly happy to have them when I do need them. Where
else are you going to find bloom filters, glow filters, strobe, SoftFX, etc.
Then there's the mightly LWC, which in many ways is the most powerful of all
the plug-ins Bob has written. VT users are spoiled by the amount of DVEs we
have bundled with our NLE, be they cheesy DVEs or not. Other NLEs don't
have anywhere near the DVEs that we get automatically. This may make Newtek
users not see how powerful and revolutionary a paradigm shift it is to make
your own custom DVEs on-the-fly in LW for a transition or other effect.
Last but not least, since it's not SpeedEDIT specific, don't forget Oasis.
WIth Apple having the lock on Live Type, Bob's Oasis program is an AWESOME
special effect CG program for the Windows platform, capable of correctly
working with ANY SD or HD resolution you need.
So hey, if you all want to enjoy the abilities Bob has given us into the
future, it's important to support him and buy his products. You don't see
other people writing these things for SpeedEDIT, do you?
And who knows what Bob could come up with next, IF the money is there to do it.