Chapter 7

MOVIE MODE

This is how Steven Speilberg got started.

There’s more to taking movies than just pushing the red button and shooting. Great movies involve

pre-visualizing the shot, tight editing, good light, and in some cases manual control. This chapter gives

you a good primer on making movies that are enjoyable for others to watch (including the topic that’s

often intimidating for beginners to learn about: Video Formats!)

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Introduction

One of the things that really shook up the camera world when the NEX cameras were introduced was the video capability – specifically the NEX 5 with it’s AVCHD video recording. On paper the image specs were so good that people on the internet discussion forums were starting to compare this tiny and affordable camera to very expensive DSLRs costing many times more! That in itself is impressive. And while the AVCHD cameras may not have always come out on top in these comparisons (the biggest complaint came from video professionals who pointed out that the output is converted to interlaced format and you can’t choose your frame rate -- yeah, I’m sure you were complaining about that too), one capability was consistently labeled as being superior to the competition: the fact that this camera could autofocus while shooting movies. (Many of the more expensive DSLR alternatives can’t).

Video can be a big topic. And there’s a very good chance that you may not care about the technical details that I’ll go into in this chapter. That’s OK. For you, I’ve created this four-bullet user guide:

• When you want to take movies, just press the red “Movie” button on the back of the camera. (Figure 7-1)

• To stop taking movies, push that red button again.

• The front shutter release button actually can perform two different functions while a movie is being recorded: It can act as an exposure lock (covered previously in Chapter 5) and it can also force the camera to autofocus (it’s less aggressive about autofocus during filming – see TIP below for more details).

Figure 7-1: Movies can’t get any easier. Press

this button to start, press again to stop. In any

mode.

Movie Mode 243

• When it comes time to uploading your camera’s contents to your computer, you must have Sony’s “Import Media Files to Picture Motion Browser” program (the software that came with your camera) import all the files for you. Picture and movie files are spread all over different directories of the memory card, and PMB harvests them all and puts them into one directory. (Mac users: iMovie handles the movie import process correctly, so PMB is not needed.)

If you’re the kind that used to schlep a point-and-shoot AND a video camera with you on family vacations, the fact that this tiny NEX camera does the job of both and shoots higher quality images and video than either of your previuos cameras will be welcome news!

TIP: All automatic exposure variables (such as focusing, white balance, f/stop and shutter speed

change) happen very slowly during movie mode. This was done on purpose, as having fast changes in

these variables can be jarring for the viewer. So if there’s ever a time that you feel that the camera is

just a little too lax in autofocusing (like in this video made by David Kilpatrick, the editor of Photoworld

Magazine http://tinyurl.com/3298e6w), pressing the shutter release button halfway will create that

jarring experience and force the variables to right themselves immediately.

TIP: You can extend the clip length of .mp4 files beyond the 16 minute thermal limitation by flipping

the LCD screen UP during filming. This lets the heat buildup behind the sensor dissipate a little faster.

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Tell a Story

Before we get into the technical stuff, I’m a firm believer in content over all else. When taking stills it’s all about light and composition (see next chapter). For movies it’s all about light and telling a story. Even in one shot. Here are some simple ideas and/or suggestions which work well for Hollywood filmmakers:

1. Pan first to get an “establishing shot” before zeroing in on your subject.

2. Leading your viewers. If you want to tell a story instead of just shoot a home movie, think about the shot first before turning on the camera.

3. If you’re in a room full of people, make sure you capture them all at one time or another. This serves two purposes: 1) You have something to jump to so you can avoid “jump cuts”; and 2) 30 years from now, you’ll want to have a closer look at who was in the room. (I know this from experience. Document everything – even the stuff you think is quite mundane. The pictures on the wall. Etc.)

4. Jumping back and forth between wide views and close-ups keeps the viewers engaged.

Movie Mode 245

TIP: I’ve never been a fan of these fancy programs that imported your images for you once you inserted a memory

card into your computer. (I’d much rather drag the images to wherever I want, thank you very much!) However, in

the case of movies the importing software such as PMB or iMovie are essential. Not only do they pull the requisite

information from many different locations on the memory card, but they also perform a file conversion and merging

which you just can’t do manually.

For example, here is where the NEX cameras stash the raw information for movie files on the memory card:

MP4 Videos: MP_ROOT\100ANVXX\*.mp4 and *.thm

AVCHD Videos: AVCHD\BDMV\STREAM\*.mts

Images: DCIM\100MSDCF\*.jpg and *.arw

There’s also a database on the memory card somewhere which is reportedly needed for generating the video files.

(Why put everything into so many disparate and unintuitive directory names? Don’t blame Sony – they’re just

adhering to industry standards. They’re designed so that if you insert your memory card into a kiosk or inkjet printer

or other device, they will all know where to look for things, regardless of what kind of a camera shot it.)

When PMB or iMovie imports the movies to your computer’s hard drive, everything changes. For example, AVCHD

videos appear as .mts files on the card, but after PMB imports them they appear as self-contained .m2ts and .modd

files.

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Focusing and Exposure

As mentioned in Chapter 1, one of the benefits of the completely new E-mount lens platform is that it was designed from the ground up to work well for video. This means the focusing can be smooth, rather than abrupt like the lenses designed for still pictures. It also means that the aperture mechanism can be smooth, quiet, and continuously variable, something the old still camera lenses weren’t designed to be.

But shooting videos with the NEX will be a slightly different experience than shooting videos with a conventional video camera.

One of the biggest changes is that you have very, very little control over the exposure variables. Unlike shooting pictures in P, A, S, or M mode, you don’t have any control over shutter speed or ISO. (Nor did you have any control over Aperture when the camera was first released – thankfully this was corrected with Firmware Version 3.) Nor do you have any control over the autofocus area (you can’t specify spot focus, for example, like you can when taking stills.) It’s either fully auto with an extremely wide focus area, or manual focusing mode. (Note to beginners: Manual focusing isn’t so bad – that’s all the Hollywood studios ever use. They operate solely by measuring distances to the subject and calculating depth of field.) Same with exposure metering – you can’t select spot focus even if you wanted to.

Zooming in is a different experience as well. Most camcorders have motorized zoom lenses for a smooth zoom, be it slow or fast. When shooting still images, though, experienced photographers strongly prefer manual zoom because it’s faster and doesn’t drain the batteries as quickly. This is an excellent example of the kinds of tradeoffs the engineers faced every day when making a camera to be “perfect” for so many different uses.

Okay, so enough negatives. What parameters do you have control over when shooting video?

1. White balance

2. Exposure Compensation

3. Creative Styles (you can shoot in black-and-white or “vivid”, for example)

Movie Mode 247

4. Autofocus type (autofocus, or manual focus only). Direct Manal Focus (DMF, where you can override the autofocus mechanism using the lens’ focusing ring) gives you no manual control when shooting movies.

I’m probably making too big a deal about all of this control – after all, if you bought this book it’s highly likely you’ll be using the video to take home movies of your family and not expect to make any professional videos. In that case you’ll be very happy with what this camera does – it is probably a higher-quality output than any consumer-level camcorder you’ve ever owned.

External Microphone

Believe it or not, your NEX camera has a stereo microphone built right into the body – it’s on either side of the Smart Accessory Terminal (Figure 7-3). It’s quite good.

But as quiet as the NEX’ focusing and aperture mechanisms are, there are still some people who say they can hear those mechanisms do their job during movie mode. (You may or may not be one of them.) Probably a more realistic scenario is wind noise -- the built-in microphones are just too susceptible to it.

So Sony has introduced the optional ECM-SST1 stereo microphone which mounts onto the Smart Accessorry Terminal. In addition to having a windscreen (which works quite well!), it also has a selectable coverage pattern: 90 or 120 degrees. Think of it as a zoom for a microphone.

TIP: As of Firmware Version 3, you can now specify the Aperture when shooting movies. Just put your camera into

Aperture Priority mode first, select an f/stop, and the camera will adjust the shutter speed and ISO to make things

look good (or at least 18% grey).

Figure 7-2: External Microphone option

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The File Formats

Okay, time to get technical. Both NEX cameras can shoot HD video, but there’s a wide definition of what “HD” means. For example, the NEX 3 shoots “720/25p” MPEG4 HD video, whereas the NEX 5 can shoot something called “1080/50i AVCHD video”. (The actual nomenclature varies by country.) What does it all mean, why are there different standards, and more important, why should you care to know it?

To explain all this, let’s take a deep breath and explain a little history.

The earliest form of video was television, and the standards for television were actually based on the electrical current that was available in each country. You probably know that the old fashioned TV didn’t use the concept of pixels like today’s computer monitors do. They divided the image into a series of horizontal lines, and swept each line onto the screen from the back of the TV tube.

For North America and other countries which used 60 Hz power, it was technically easiest to design the video standard that was in sync with the power mains: 60 updates per second. And to save on bandwidth the engineers

decided to split the image up into odd and even lines, so first the odd lines would be swept onto the screen, next the even lines. It took both an odd and an even update to get one full frame. To the eye it looked like one continuous image. This is called “interlaced”, and the resulting NTSC video standard, which was updated 60 times a second, resulted in 30 full frames per second.

Europe and other countries who had 50 Hz power lines, and so their PAL video standard had – you guessed it - 50 updates per second. (This made it very easy for the receiver to synchronize with the signal being broadcast.) And because it, too, was interlaced, the PAL system was able to deliver 25 full frames per second. (There’s more to the history and the differences than that… but this is where the nomenclature comes from.)

Figure 7-3: The internal stereo microphone appears

on either side of the smart accessory terminal.

Movie Mode 249

The two video standards also had a different number of lines (nowadays we call that ‘resolution’ ☺ ): NTSC’s picture was comprised of 486 actual lines, whereas PAL had 576. If we were to label these characteristics in modern nomenclature, we’d call NTSC “486/60i” (486 lines, 60 updates per second, interlaced) and PAL would be 576/50i (576 lines, 50 updates per second, interlaced).

So that was the old video. Let’s see how modern technology has improved things.

The NEX 3 can shoot at “low” resolultion of 720/25p if you have a camera sold to the European market, and 720/30p if you’re in a country that formerly used NTSC. Yes, that’s 720 lines of resolution – much higher than the old days, and generally anything that’s 720 lines or higher is considered “HD”. The “p” in 720/25p stands for “Progressive” – the opposite of interlaced – and means that all lines are drawn on the screen sequentially, without all of that “odd” or “even” nonsense. Computer monitors use progressive scanning. Because it’s progressive, you get the entire image at once, resulting in 25 frames per second.

The NEX 5 can shoot at even higher resolution – 1080/50i or 1080/60i (depending on the country designation – see Figure

7-4). Not too shabby.

TIP: Once you press the playback button to play back a movie, something strange happens: the camera will ONLY

let you scroll through and view movies from that point on. If you want to see the still pictures that are on the

card, you have to do one of these: MENU ���� PLAYBACK ���� STILL / MOVIE SELECT ���� STILL. What were they

thinking?

Figure 7-4: Your NEX 5 can only work on one

video standard – either 50i or 60i – depending

on how it’s marked. (The NEX 3 can auto-sense

and work with both standards.)

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Many in the press have called the NEX cameras the smallest HD video cameras ever. Sony’s product brochure says it’s the world’s first interchangeable lens camera with 1080/60i HD movies (probably because nobody else produces interlaced files in this day and age – this is one of the complaints against the NEX cameras from video professionals).

TIP: Some professional videographers have complained loudly that this tiny camera aimed at primarily at point-

and-shoot consumers can shoot HD internally but outputs it in an interlaced format, whereas progressive video is

the preferable way to go. Well, it turns out those high-falutin’ critics are wrong. The NEX 5 actually DOES record in

progressive, but uses what’s called "Progressive segmented Frame" format (PsF) – it’s stored as progressive

internally, but appears as interlaced to the outside world. (Confused yet?) Programs that know how to read this

format (like Final Cut Pro) can automatically pull it in as a progressive movie, and do fancy things like dissolves

(which are much harder to do with interlaced footage).

The format used by Sony in the NEX is technically designated 29.97PsF. You can read more about PsF at Wikipedia

here: http://tinyurl.com/2cc86nv. (Or not – one can really live a happy and fulfilled life without needing to know all

this stuff.)

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Video Formats for the NEX 3Video Formats for the NEX 3Video Formats for the NEX 3Video Formats for the NEX 3

Okay, enough of the technical stuff. If you have a NEX 3, your video choices are quite simple, and they are accessible via MENU ���� IMAGE SIZE ���� MOVIE: IMAGE SIZE:

1. 1280 x 720 Fine which is actually 720/30i.

2. 1280 x 720 Standard which is the same resolution as option 1 above but with more compression, so you can fit more video footage on a memory card. (This is very similar to “JPG Fine” and “JPG Standard” choices on MENU ���� IMAGE SIZE ���� STILL: QUALITY menu.

3. VGA (640 x 480), which is ideal if you only want to upload your video to social networking sites like Facebook and never want to view them on an HDTV set ever. The files are very small (as is the picture).

Which to use? My personal rule of thumb is to always shoot in as high a resolution as possible. If you need it smaller, you can always make it smaller on your computer using either the Picture Motion Browser software (converting it to a VGA .wmv file) or other video editing package. But you can never make it bigger as an afterthought (without it looking very pixelated). Hey, you’ve already demonstrated that quality is important to you by buying a NEX – so why would you EVER want to shoot in anything other than 1280 x 720 Fine?

Video Formats for the NEX 5Video Formats for the NEX 5Video Formats for the NEX 5Video Formats for the NEX 5

The NEX 5 offers a different assortment of video options:

1. 1920x1080 AVCHD mode, selectable by MENU ���� IMAGE SIZE ���� FILE FORMAT ���� AVCHD.

2. Two different .MP4 Modes, if MENU ���� IMAGE SIZE ���� FILE FORMAT ���� is set to MP4:

a. 1440 x 1080 (MENU ���� IMAGE SIZE ����MOVIE: IMAGE SIZE ���� 1440 x 1080)

b. VGA (MENU ���� IMAGE SIZE ����MOVIE: IMAGE SIZE ����VGA) VGA mode is ideal if you only want to upload your video to social networking sites like

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Facebook and never want to view them on an HDTV set ever. The files are very small (as is the picture).

AVCHD was jointly developed by Sony and Panasonic in 2006 for professional use. (Better than the competing HDV and XDCAM EX standards of the time.) Very simply, it is another form of video compression. It is supposed to be more efficient (meaning creating smaller files) than the ubiquitous .mp4 video format; but a quick informal test of two 15-second video clips of the same subject yielded the 31 MB for the AVCHD file, and 23 MB for the .mp4. The AVCHD format is also said to be more compute-intensive to process and edit (and so it may not be the ideal format if you have an older computer). Not all video editors can handle the relatively new AVCHD format; whereas .mp4 is almost as universally recognized as .jpg images. And finally, most people can’t look at a video and tell if it was shot in AVCHD or 1440 x 1080 .mp4, so it’s next to impossible to make a bad choice – only a choice that’s right for you.

To help sort things out, here’s a simple overview of the two video formats:

AVCHD 1440 x 1080 .mp4

1920 x 1080 resolution 1440 x 1080 resolution – about 480 fewer lines (yielding a

picture that is slightly narrower)

Dolby Digital Audio (AC-3), 48 KHz bandwidth sampled at

256kb/second

AAC-LC audio, 48 KHz bandwidth sampled at 128kb/second

Only high-end video editors can handle it. (A short list

maintained by Sony can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/28l5wk6 . iMovie09 on the Mac works

well too.) When reading discs burned with the AVCHD

format, they can only be read on players which are

compatible with High Profile AVCHD.

Almost universally recognized; is playable and editable on

variety of operating systems, and also widely used on iPhone,

iPad, iPod, PSP and other portable devices. Can be uploaded

to all social networking sites like Facebook.

Compute Intensive. Most modern computers utilize the

graphics accelerator card with no difficulty; although netbooks

Can be used on older hardware

Movie Mode 253

running Intel Atom processors can’t do it.

Works with Sony’s Picture Motion Browser software to burn

DVDs playable in consumer electronics equipment.

Can’t burn a DVD playable in a DVD player using Sony’s Picture

Motion Browser software.

Maximum clip length is 29 minutes. The 1080 HD video stream

actually demands the best cards you can get, Class 10 SDHC.

Maximum clip length is 23:36 minutes (shorter if the camera

overheats, in which case it can be closer to 17 minutes). (Don’t

know where the 23 minute limitation comes from.)

Without getting too technical (I know – it’s too late!), the best analogy I can say is AVCHD vs. MP4 is kind of like the whole RAW vs. JPG discussion. There’s no bad choice; only the choice that is right for you. Conventional wisdom says that AVCHD is the best choice if your output is going directly to an HD television or on a Blu-Ray disc, but MPEG-4 is probably a better choice for your computer, particularly if it's more than a year or two old.

So which should you use? Usually my advice would always be “shoot in the highest quality possible and then downsample or convert later on if you need to”. But with this choice that’s not easily achieved – none of the tools that came with the Sony NEX will allow you to convert between AVCHD and .mp4 or vice-versa. There are third-party software packages available (like here: http://tinyurl.com/2d3vct4), but that shouldn’t be necessary just to manage your own video clips. So here’s what I recommend: try shooting both, view them on both your computer and an HD set, and see if you can tell the difference. If you can’t, my advice would be to use .mp4 – it’s easier to live with.

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Editing your Footage

Let’s come right out and say it – the NEX didn’t come with a lot of movie editing software. After you import the files to your hard drive, Sony’s Picture Motion Browser software (which is discussed in Chapter 10 as it pertains to editing still images) can be used for trimming individual clips, and then for stringing them all together so they can be burned onto a DVD or Blu-Ray disc.

So after you have shot your movies, and allowed the automated software to upload them to your computer (don’t do it yourself, as mentioned earlier), here’s how to use PMB to edit and compile your footage (umm, “diskage”). First,

TIP: Did you notice that all the movie modes EXCEPT VGA mode look just a little zoomed in to you? There’s a

reason for that – and I’ll be damned if I know what it is. But the NEX does not shoot its video full-frame. If you turn

on MENU ���� SETUP ���� GRID LINE ���� ON, not only will the camera show you a grid that neatly divides the frame into

thirds (as a compositional aid), but if you look really closely you’ll see some framing guides for when you shoot

movie mode [yellow rectangles below]. They’re there for you!

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Open PMB and use the drop-down menu in the red circle as shown in Figure 7-6 to have the software show you only video clips. Double click on a clip and the video playing window opens up (Figure 7-5a).

When viewing the movie in this window, you can either press the button that says “Save Frame” on the right (in which case it will save a frame without asking you for options or filename), or you can choose “Trim Video” which will also allow you to save the frame while also asking you about file name and export options (noise reduction, increased pixel resolution, color correction). There is precious little else you can do with a video file. For example, even though the menu option is there, you can’t invoke Manipulate ���� Convert ���� Resize – PMB responds with a “Video cannot be resized” message. But you can convert to WMV and save as VGA or QVGA (oddly not the .mp4 that the NEX can record in natively).

Figure 7-5: After you double-click on a video clip, the player window opens (left). Here you can trim the video

(right) or save a frame as a .jpg.

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Figure 7-5b shows you the screen where you can trim your video. It’s use is pretty straightforward: You can freeze frame anywhere, and you have two buttons to set your ‘in’ and ‘out’ points. Then you hit “Save Edited Video…” to save the trimmed clip as a new clip with a different title. Of course you can do this multiple times if you need to to extract whatever number of clips you want from the one take.

Saving a Freeze FrameSaving a Freeze FrameSaving a Freeze FrameSaving a Freeze Frame

I had always wondered if you could skip the whole “decisive moment” thing and just video tape a scene, and then find your decisive moment later on on your computer, and just save a freeze frame of that scene.

Good news: The Sony PMB software does let you save a freeze frame from any video format. Just click on the “Save Frame” button (Figure 7-5a). And regardless of whether you start with an .mp4 or an AVCHD video, the output is a high-quality .jpg of dimension 7.68” x 4.32” x 300 dpi. (Compare this to 15.3" x 10.2" x 300 dpi and you can see that this is roughly half the size of a normal .jpg. Still nothing to sneeze at, considering that historically you could never get a freeze frame of this high quality from any sort of video in the past!

Creating Discs

PMB also allows you to burn your video clips (or collections of video clips) onto either DVD or Blu-Ray media, and it will allow you to create it three different ways:

1. As an HD AVCHD disc playable only in more modern equipment. (My Windows 7 computer didn’t know how to read it.)

2. As a standard-quality disc playable just about anywhere.

3. As a Data disc readable only by computers.

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One thing I discovered by playing with this capability is that the software works differently than its documentation suggests. I was only able to burn AVCHD movies onto formats 1 and 2 above; the software refused to burn .mp4 movies onto a platter that was readable by my DVD player. This won’t bother Mac owners, as iMovie has no trouble handling .mp4s. PC owners might have to spring for some 3rd party software. (A brief list can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/28l5wk6).

Burning AVCHD videosBurning AVCHD videosBurning AVCHD videosBurning AVCHD videos

Once you have your clips trimmed and you know the order you want them to appear in your final product, PMB will let you burn the final output via Manipulate ���� Create Disks

����[Choose either AVCHD or DVD] or you can export / upload your creation to a host of online services or email recipients.

To create an AVCHD disk (playable only on the most modern of consumer video equipment), just Manipulate ����

Create Disks ���� AVCHD (HD) Creation, and the window in Figure 7-7 appears without any instructions. Although it doesn’t tell you so, you’re supposed to drag video clips from PMB’s Main window over to this new window and arrange clips in order. (Remember, it will only accept AVCHD video clips.) Then push the “Next” button, follow the instructions, and wait.

Figure 7-6: PMB can trim your clips and help you

assemble your clips into a DVD or Blu-Ray disc. To

see just your video clips, use the drop-down list in

the red circle above.

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If you chose the Create DVD option, your software may bring up a warning message saying “The selected media files contain files that require authentication”. Fear not, for despite how it’s worded, what it’s really telling you is that it needs to download additional software from the web in order to do this (this software download only needs to happen

once). The download instructions can be found here on Sony’s website: http://tinyurl.com/24cvnlk. To download the software, you have to hook up your camera to your computer (which in turn must be hooked up to the internet), download software called a Download Manager which in turn is used to download another piece of software called DVD_addon1001.exe. (Make sure you quit PMB first otherwise the software will complain.)

Once installed, the disc creation process is identical to that of the AVCHD process above: drag your clips over to the window, hit next, follow the directions, and wait awhile.

Creating a Data DiscCreating a Data DiscCreating a Data DiscCreating a Data Disc

Creating a data disk makes a disk that autoplays in a web browser, allowing you to select images or movies on your computer. Your original files are there too for those of you who like going to directories and just double-clicking on what you want. Not ideal for a DVD player.

Figure 7-7: When creating a disc, it’s not at all

obvious that you’re supposed to drag and drop your

video clips from the PMB main window to the Disc

Creation window.

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Playing Movies on your PS3

For those of you who have a Sony PlayStation 3, you can play your movies back without needing to upload to your computer first. Just insert your memory card (if you have an old PS3), or use a USB adapter for your memory card (if you have the newer slimline version) and go to the right directory.

• For .mp4 movies, navigate to the MP_ROOT � 100ANV01 directory

• For AVCHD movies, navigate to the PRIVATE � AVCHD � BDMV � STREAM directory.

Once there you can also copy them to your PS3’s hard drive for later viewing. No computer needed!

Shooting with non-E-mount lenses

At the end of Chapter 6 I talked about the possibility of putting practically any lens onto the NEX and taking pictures with it. Obviously this can be used for movies as well, but again you’ll lose the ability to autofocus in most cases, and there won’t be any image stabilization.

And in the case of an A-mount lens with built-in autofocus, the lens will STILL not autofocus automatically in movie mode!! You have to press the shutter release button halfway in order to have it try, and even then it’s anything but smooth. So with any 3rd party lens, pretend you’re a Hollywood cinematographer – know where your action will be, pre-focus, and shoot knowing that there won’t be any annoying autofocusing going on during your shoot.

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Summary of Chapter 7

In this chapter we delved into the complexities of video formats. Specifically:

• Tips on shooting compelling home movies (light, and telling a story)

• What parameters you do / don’t have control over.

• The optional external microphone can eliminate wind noise and occasional mechanical sounds

coming from the camera.

• The history of video formats, which ones your camera can handle, and how to choose the one

that’s right for you (hint: it rhymes with “MP4” ☺ )

• How to trim the footage using Sony’s supplied software, and

• Burning the resultant footage onto a DVD or Blu-ray disc.

• Brief discussion about using 3rd party lenses during movie mode.