Serato Video General Discussion

Forum
 Serato Video General Discussion
Remixing Videos...Your Preferences
Talk about Serato Video and Video-SL.

Remixing Videos...Your Preferences

Bren 1:00 PM - 27 September, 2009
Please note I've used British spelling (as to avoid any wasted posts about "coloured" being spelt incorrectly for example).

"Each to their own" will probably be the outcome of this thread, but what the hell let's find out what eaches own is.

There is no right or wrong way here, but I'm interested to find out what the general feeling is among other VJ's/editors, just because we're all "doing" video it doesn't mean to say we all agree on how it's done...

do you prefer:

Borders:

a) Black (standard)
b) Reflective (perhaps with an effect)
c) Coloured
d) Depends on the video, sometimes custom borders look good
e) Don't care, it's what's inbetween the borders that matters

Effects:

a) Minimal effects, respect the intention of the video director/editor, the VJ can do effects live anyway.
b) Added effects are cool on the intro/outro and to add intensity where needed.
c) Depends on if the remix is starkley different than the original, i.e tempo and audio effects etc.
d) Video edits should be full of effects because they're intended for clubs.


I've just put those two questions forward to get the ball rolling, feel free to chime in as you please...
dj_paulsmooth 5:14 PM - 27 September, 2009
i think the outcome of this thread will heavily depend on everybody's skill level. (novice -> intermediate -> expert -> a-swift)

i'm in between novice and intermediate and only have 3 remixes to my credit... all three i would consider Basic because all i did was build an audio remix using acid then synced that audio track to the video in vegas. as i become more versed at this, i can always dip into borders/effects/transitions etc. and add it later... but for now, i'm just enjoying learning more & more about video remixing
PopRoXxX 7:06 PM - 27 September, 2009
Quote:
i think the outcome of this thread will heavily depend on everybody's skill level. (novice -> intermediate -> expert -> a-swift)


Lol! That's the right stair steps!


Quote:
i'm in between novice and intermediate and only have 3 remixes to my credit... all three i would consider Basic because all i did was build an audio remix using acid then synced that audio track to the video in vegas. as i become more versed at this, i can always dip into borders/effects/transitions etc. and add it later... but for now, i'm just enjoying learning more & more about video remixing


I'm right there with you paulsmooth

Borders: a & d

Effects: a & b

Just to kick it off
a-swift 3:01 AM - 28 September, 2009
I have strong opinions on these topics.
DJ-Phat-AL 3:07 AM - 28 September, 2009
me too
Bren 6:39 AM - 28 September, 2009
Thankings for sharing that with us lol.
DJ-Phat-AL 7:06 AM - 28 September, 2009
he he...

Every video doesn't look like the last one...

so... each one is going to be different depending on the video content I am working with (aspect ratio mainly), the type of audio remix (dance remix, hip hop, etc)...

with all those things in my project I listen to the audio several times and watch the video separately and then decide which direction I plan on going with it. ...

so... it just depends on the everything really...


But... I have to say that I try not to go overboard with effects... sometimes less is more.
dj lad 4:20 PM - 28 September, 2009
Depends, but I really don't like going overboard with effects. I can't STAND when there are 500 effects on a video. It is often used to mask poor editing skills.

I've said time and time again - the most important things to have right on a video remix are the aspect ratio and interlacing issues Screw that up and I'm done.

I mostly try to remix it to match the original in some way. When I did the remix for "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" on CC, I made it basically try to mimic the original video as much as possible. Others, not so much. It all depends. I think it with older video sources (and consequently, sources of less quality) I try to do less effects because I think it takes away from the look of the old video.
DVDJ ©RUSH 6:48 PM - 28 September, 2009
As Swift stated, there is many directions this topic could go in. An many discussions on this topic. Mostly and i think Phat-Al & A-Swift would agree with me that a huge portion of this topic would be on aspect ratio.
Bren 9:00 PM - 28 September, 2009
Sure aspect ratio is what presents this question, but your desired solution as a remixer or customer...

As a general rule of thumb, do you prefer a black letter box or a custom background colour, or an effect such as mirror?

Let's take a widescreen video as an example, Pitbull's - Hotel Room Service.
djpuma_gemini 9:10 PM - 28 September, 2009
I prefer the black borders. Adding all the diff colours or extra video zoomed in is not needed IMHO. Now on remixes or mashes I have added the video of the other song to take place of the borders, but not on every video.
dj lad 9:52 PM - 28 September, 2009
It depends on the video. I'll do the black borders sometimes. Sometimes it looks good - other times it looks better to have effects.
a-swift 10:15 PM - 28 September, 2009
Quote:
As a general rule of thumb, do you prefer a black letter box or a custom background colour, or an effect such as mirror?

Let's take a widescreen video as an example, Pitbull's - Hotel Room Service.


first of all, i do not have any gigs that have 4:3 screens. all my gigs are wide screen so the letterboxing problem i do not have.

what to do with all the 4:3 videos is a problem though. i personally prefer the effect that ESPN HD uses. they take the regular video and layer it on top of itself, cut it and move the edges out to the edges of the new frame. they'll usually add an effect like desaturation and gaussian blur.

I've seen Niros and Twizzle also using this effect. Well it's not really any effect actually, but it does fill the black void around the frame nicely. I like this, it looks better than a black border and it is not at all distracting. It's kind of cool actually.

Here's what I do though. I leave the black,... black.