Introduction
Capture Magic SD records video direct to disk and provides the tools so you can recording superior quality video. How does it do this? Capture Magic SD gives you a bunch of monitoring tools to help you record with good color balance and contrast. It also tests each frame and will highlight areas that need to be fixed for over exposure or for color problems. And then the video is written directly to disk rather than being stored on your camera's tape.
To help you understand the output from the Waveform Monitors, Vectorscopes and histograms, they are all producing output for the recorded image of the landscape in this image (shown in the preview monitor):
Video Source List
Capture Magic SD's main window will list the DV camera's attached to your computer. Let's take a look at this window:
The toolbar contains buttons to launch each type of monitor. You can open as many monitors as you want. And you can open the same type of monitor multiple times and set it up with different options. Let's quickly run through each of these buttons now:
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Add a pre-recorded file. It allows you to use the monitors and scopes on the recorded footage. |
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Remove the pre-recorded file from the list. |
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Start recording from all cameras. |
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Stop all cameras from recording. |
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Open a preview monitor. More information can be found here. |
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Open a waveform monitor. More information can be found here. |
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Open a RGB parade monitor. More information can be found here. |
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Open a vectorscope monitor. More information can be found here. |
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Open a histogram monitor. More information can be found here. |
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This opens the Inspector window. The Inspector window is very important because it allows you to control any monitor within Capture Magic SD. We will cover the Inspector for the Preview Monitor in detail below. |
If nothing is displayed in the list then you do not have a camera connected via Firewire to your Mac. So plug in your camera and wait for it to appear in the list, I'll just take a couple of seconds. To get started, lets open a preview window for your camera. Ensure that the camera is selected in the list and then press the Preview button on the toolbar. A quicker way to open the Preview Monitor is to double-click the camera's entry in the list.
Previewing
The preview monitor allows you to see exactly what you are recording. It allows you to also see what your footage will look like at different aspect ratios.
To aid in recording the perfect shot, you can also overlay title safe guides, thirds guides and center marks onto the preview. And these guides work with the selected final aspect ratio.
Lets have a look at the Preview Monitor window:
The window title tells you which device you are Monitoring, and the main part of the window shows you what you camera is currently seeing. I hope you removed the lense cap!
The window also contains a toolbar at the top that is standard to all monitors within Captre Magic SD. Because space on your screen is sometimes a premium, you can toggle the toolbar on and off to save space by pressing the pill shaped button on the top-right of the window.
On the toolbar there are six buttons. Lets go through what they do:
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If you to continue monitoring from the camera. |
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If you spot a problem with an image, then you can pause it for a closer look. This can be useful if the problem is intermittent. |
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Start recording from this camera. |
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Start recording from all cameras. |
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Stop recording from this camera. |
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Now this button is an interesting one. This opens the Inspector window. The Inspector window is very important because it allows you to control any Monitor within Capture Magic SD. We will cover the Inspector for the Preview Monitor in detail below. |
Remember that this is a standard window, and like any standard window on the Mac, you can move it, resize it, minimize it and hide it.
Now lets look over the Inspector for the Preview Monitor
As you can see, the Inspector is where most of the options exist. The inspector shows the options for whichever Monitor you currently have active, that is the last one you clicked your mouse on and highlighted.
The first set of options allow you to set the final aspect ratio you expect to use. By default this is set to what your camera is providing. When you select something different, semi-transparent black bars will partially block out the part of the picture that will not be visible. Now you can concentrate on a perfect composition for the final aspect ratio.
To aid in composing a shot, the next three options will help you. You can choose to have guides displayed in the preview. Title safe guides will place a box in the preview. Anything outside the box is potentially unsafe on some TVs. This is less of a problem nowdays as people move away from CRT based TVs to LCD and Plasma. However until everyone does, you have to worry about this and this guide will help.
The thirds guide will display lines that section up the preview into thirds. The thirds lines fit themselves to the final aspect ratio.
And the other option is to set center marks.
The next set of options allow you to display luminance and chroma zebras. This means you can have the preview highlight, using zebras, areas that are not broadcast safe.
The last options allow you to alter scale values. This is useful if you are using a lens that distorts or inverts the image.
Recording
Recording is very easy. From any Monitor that is showing output from the device you want to record from, press the red Record button on it's toolbar.
If the toolbar is not visible, then press the silver pill shaped button on the top-right of the window.
Where the recorded file is written to depends on your preferences. This file can be used with your Non-Linear Editor, such as Apple's Final Cut.
Waveform Monitor and RGB Parade
he waveform monitor is used to see the luminance of what you are recording. The example below shows the the waveform:
You would normally want to use the Waveform Monitor in conjunction with the Preview Monitor so that you can identify areas that need correcting. To help you locate problem areas, you can use a colored waveform monitor which looks like this:
Using the Inspector you can change the output of the waveform monitor from weighted to colored. Note that the colored display has no weighting, so it will not let you know how much of the image is at a specific luminance.
Also, you can switch the waveform to an RGB Parade. A waveform plots luminance, whereas the RGB parade plots the red, green and blue values separately.
For both the Waveform and the RGB Parade you can adjust the brightness of the display using the Brightness slider in the Inspector.
Vectorscope
The vectorscope is a great tool for analyzing color balance. Here is the output of the vectorscope, both a weighted version and a colored version:
You would normally display the Vectorscope with the Preview Monitor.
Using the Inspector you can change the Vectorscope to display a colored plot instead of the weigted plot.
Also you can control the brightness of the weighted plot.
Histogram
The histogram allows you to see the distribution of luminance; or of red, green and blue, in the video you are recording. Along with the other monitors you can use this to ensure what you record is of high quality.
Using the Inpsector you can switch the Histogram between plotting luminance, and red, green and blue.
Preferences
The preferences lets you set some useful options. If Capture Magic SD is having a problem determining the aspect ratio of your camera, then you can force it to use a specific setting.
Buffering helps if you are getting dropped frames. Increasing the buffer helps when the CPU has a lot to do. However the downside to increasing the buffer could introduce latency.
When working with HD feeds, you may notice poor performance on low-end machines. You can slide the sampling slider to the right to decrease the resolution of the monitored image. This will speed things up for you.
Registration
Until you purchase and license your copy of Capture Magic SD, you will see the registration page every time you launch Capture Magic SD.
When you purchase Capture Magic SD, you will receive an email which contains a license file. You will need have Capture Magic SD look at the license file so that it is fully licensed. To do this, save the license file from your mail program and then use the Select License button to navigate to the file. Once you have opened it, Capture Magic SD will become licensed
If you have a problem with the license file, please contact us using the support pages.