CYBER TV STUDIO IN A SUITCASE^TM

LOW COST APPROACH TO MAKE AN 
EDIT BENCH WORK AREA

This is a very involved and for some of you out there; a passionate area. I have visited with hundreds of you in your homes, basements, garages and even business establishments (in those cases of you that have been fortunate in making a buck along the way). Many times the first thing I am asked (usually after you have fed me dinner so I can't say "no" or "some other time maybe"). 'Chuck, could you please check out my wiring?' Does the term, an explosion at a spaghetti factory ring a bell. No wonder your spouses are going ballistic when you say, "I just found a new wire at Radio Shack that ought to do the trick!" Also, I have noticed expressions of wonderment when after about an hour (and I KNOW what I am doing) I completely rewire your entire set up and hand back to you several pounds of cables and connectors that were not needed; plus, your images now look better, the hums are gone, you can now go behind your setup to make changes and for the first time in a long time, you really enjoy editing. This is not all your fault and if it makes you feel better you can show this to your warry spouse that I exonerate you,... somewhat.

POWER & TEMPERATURE CONDITIONS

We need to start with several premises. Electronic equipment has two deadly enemies...HEAT & DUST. Next, we do not want to go out and buy or borrow or in some of your cases, steal (alright, wrongfully appropriate from your childs bedroom at 1 a.m.), the wrong kinds of furniture to hold our very expensive equipment. The worse thing you can do is convert desks, computer furniture or other items laying around your abode and change it to your needs. Even tables (6' or 8' long) folding banquet types are in this case actually counter productive. Let me ask you here,to make a decision one way or the other. Do you want to go with a horseshoe or U shaped pit type layout, or maybe a linear longitunal layout or how about a combination, called a split L? I want you to think about this one for awhile and we will come back to this important decision a little latter. It doesn't matter which one you select, as long as it works for you. Now, I would like you to find some place that has some space, say 10 foot by 10 foot or even larger. If that means it is going to be the basement or garage, then dampness and moisture will be a problem that will need to be solved. You can tell if you already have this problem by noticing mold or mildew on plastic, fabrics or leathers. With equipment, an early sign is switches and buttons get harder to make contact, VCR's will play but not record. A constant year round room temperature of about 70 degrees is fine and humidifiers and dehumidifiers may be necessary to keep things cool BUT dry. Next comes power. Folks, you got to have a clean source of electricity, which means: no fans, pumps, thermostats, toasters, fluorescent lights, irons or motors of any kind on the power source to the edit area. It is that plain and simple. To accomplish this go to your circuit box and find a room or outlet that has none of these things running off that circuit. Buy if necessary an outdoor orange three wire extension cord (they come in 25', 50' & 100' lengths) and run it to your editing area (some can come in a reel away box) and only plug it in when ever you are going to be up and running your system. To solve the problem of not enough outlets, I want you to do the following. Pick out two power strips (that are NOT metal) and have at least 5 sockets, but preferably 8 and all lined up in a row ( '.' '.' '.' '.' '.' '.' '.' like this) as opposed to ones with a double row or the sockets are aligned sideways. Next I want you to pick up two or three rubber or plastic electric cubes, that have one three prong plug on one side and a set of three prong sockets on the other 3 sides. We will use this cube to solve the perennial problem of a.c. adapters (big boxy plugs) that take up more than one socket space, due to their large size, on a power strip. With the cube we can attach up to 3 pieces of equipment that each have an a.c. adapter and still only use up one socket space on our power strip. Since I told you to get two power strips, you also need to use another three prong cube for the extension cord. This will give your extension cord three outlets on the end, since it only has one (some extensions can come with multiple outlets built into the end of the cord). Place the end of the power cord in the center of your work area and run each power strip to each end of your edit bench. Whew! And you thought this was going to be easy!!

NOW THE EDIT BENCH LAYOUT

I hope you all have made your choice on which edit bench layout to go with. Because two more important rules now come into play here. All video flows from source to preview to program which is from Right to Left. Don't believe me? Look in the back of all of your Videonics, JVC, Sony and Panasonic equipment (mixers, switchers, titlers, VCR's...you name it) inputs are back right, outputs are left most. Do we want audio hum, do we want video noise or do we want good picture and sound. Thank You! Continuing, I also do not want to mingle any of my equipment power cords with either my audio or video cables. Aha, a problem? Not necessarily! Do you see how we brought our power strips to the area below this equipment. Using trash bag twisty ties, yellow plastic pull strips, rubberbands or expensive purposely designed designer velcro cable ties (at $3 a pop); I want you to gather all the power cords in a vertical column and then come straight down to the power strips. If possible try and have only 3 columns (left, right & center) for the edit area.

WHAT AM I GOING TO USE FOR A BENCH? Good question. The ideal is the stainless steel shelving used by the food industry in walk-in refrigerators. Now I wonder who gave Panasonic the idea for their current AVE-55 mixer ad? Thank You again! I know to some of you out there that this is some what expensive, but not really; especially when you figure the cost of all the equipment you are using plus you can also attach wheels to this unit* and size it exactly to your needs, budget and space constraints. However, a novel and a real inexpensive approach to this concept is the new plastic coated wire shelving found in all hard ware and home building supply stores in their closet and coat room departments. They come in white 8' and 12' lengths that you cut to size. What are we going to use for support on the closet shelving to hold so much weight and such valuable components? Some of you have put your high school wood shop classes back to use and fashion sturdy wooden legs with cross bracing. While others of you have continued with the metal and steel legs being bolted together and onto the shelves as well. Some of you have opted for a simple and very inexpensive way by using just cinder blocks. However, You Must Use At Least Four Sets of Leg Braces on say a typical eight foot length bench. Both of these systems are using the Ventilated wire shelving approach to not only keep our system and components cool, but this is an excellent venue for us to directly connect our video and audio cables the shortest and smartest possible route. Remember, we want our video & audio lines to stay clear or at least right angles to any power cords. You do not want to use cables that are so long that they come out of one VCR drop all the way to the floor (where all our power cables are laying around) just to come all the way back up to a VCR sitting on top of the first which is what, 2 inches away? Use a 12 or 18 inch cable not a three foot or longer. You say you Don't have one? Take some of your good quality cords down to a tv repair or Radio Shack place and have them make two or three short connections from one 3 footer. It is that easy and inexpensive. Go to the computer section of a home improvement center and pick up two very wide computer keyboard under counter roll-out trays. One is for the titler and the other for the keyboad to your computer (some of you have put your mixer on a roll-out as well, excellent). Now that you have built your work bench I need you to do the following. One, this bench unlike ones previous you have used, goes two feet away from the wall. If you have been eating well these past few years allow for more clearance to easily walk behind, kneel down and make simple patch cord changes or equipment exchanges. I would like to see you go no higher than two shelves, but preferably one. That is because the monitors do not belong on the same shelves as the VCR's, equalizers and the rest. In the back of computer magazines like Computer Shopper, you will find monitor control arms. Some for as low as 29 or 39 dollars. As many of you already have found out the hard way, these TV sets will be an excellent source for both audio hum and video distortion. We solve this by physically removing them away and apart, but positioned so they are all comfortably aim at your edit chair (now you have an excuse to go get that big easy executive chair you have been longing for these past years). Since your bench depth is about 24 or 28 inches deep and since your VCR's are about 12 to 18 inches in depth, the work area in front will need to have a smooth counter top. Some of you have used glass, dark wood paneling or white color veneers or thin sheets of plastic or rubber mats and even non slip surfaces from the same materials that computer mouse pads are made of; any of this will do. I would however, rather see some separation of components using shelving, than to see them literally stacked to the ceiling one on top of the other. I have one friend, Alan, that has been known to stack over six things high and one was over six feet off the ground and the top item was the most heaviest! It's a library of over 200 CD's! If that arrangement ever came down ... well, I rest my case.

*Wheels? Yes, for those of you that just don't have the luxury of a roomy work area but are still going to need to get behind the edit bench for cable & equipment changes. The power strips and the extension cord can be strapped to the legs & not lie on the floor (in moisture, water and whatnot) and move with the edit bench!

SCHEMATIC OF VARIOUS LAYOUTS PLUS LINKS TO SHELVING MANUFACTURES IS COMMING HERE

PLACEMENT OF EQUIPMENT: You first have to layout in your mind or on paper if not in reality on the floor, all your items for the edit bench. Working from right to left we have first on the right side of our edit bench; all our playback VCR's, camcorders that are used as playback units, audio sources such as cassette players, record players, CD & DVD players and even our inputs if any from your hifi setups. Your libraries (records, CD's & DVD's) should be in a dust free cabinet behind your chair area, but within easy reach. We also should place our audio modifiers over on this side, like equalizers, amplifiers, speakers, processors and of course the all important audio mixers. We also should have on our right a video monitor for each source, UNLESS we have a multi out like the Videoics MX-1 preview out which will show all our inputs on one screen. In this case we put that on our center Preview monitor. This will show all the special effects, transitions and character generation being placed on our working or edit tape. We can hook up our proc amps and edit controllers, video mixers and titlers in our center position. Now, both the PC computer and the copy cam are usually branched off at this point to their own work station position which can be placed left most on our bench. That is because they are usually so large and require their own time and space that they can operate remotely better than if they are shoved into our already over crowded edit bench work space. A Laptop can be placed on an under counter roll out tray in the center preview area due to its small size though. Our master record VCR's, monitors, speakers and any final audio or video signal enhancers will be on the left side of the edit bench. Now let see what all we have done. We should have a more logical arrangement of our edit bench with all our electrical equipment being kept cool and dry. All our connections are short and direct. The tangle jungle of connectors is now easily changed and more identifiable. Especially if while we were hooking up our equipment we took the time to tag each end of our video and audio cables as to where they are coming from. For instance, we have two SVHS VCR's being hooked together with a s-video cord. Each end of this Y/C cord would describe where that connection is coming from (Y/C output from Panasonic AG-1980) while the other end would say (Y/C input from Sony SVO-2100). Now when you go behind your edit bench in the usually dark or dim light you will not get frustrated when you make connection changes and nothing seems to happen. This can be done so cheaply and easily with a pen, a scrap of paper and some scotch tape. You can also get real fancy and spend some serious loose change in this area with label making machines. All that matters is, like seat belts, don't just say it, do it. One further item - DUST. Go to your local cleaners & pickup a very large but flimsy and very light weight plastic sheet (if it is a bag, cut it open into a sheet). Now, whenever you are finished working at the edit bench, just drape the plastic over the whole bench area to keep dust & moisture out. This is a lot more practical and economical than putting a dust cover on a component here and there!

RECOMMENDATIONS: I am often ask do I prefer one brand over another or do I like such and such a model or most often "what do you suggest I buy in video equipment?" This is both a loaded question and a no win proposition.

Let me say this, Those who forget the past, are condemned to repeat it. DV Will replace Hi8 and SVHS, for the prosumer whether we like it or not. Both Panasonic and Sony control over 90% of this industry and they have already made this factory production switch decision. The consumers are going to be pushed to change from VHS to DVD whether they like it or not and that decision at the factory will be made later this year. I know Hitachi's solid state camcorder is nice but, so was the Betamax. Let's get real, The sooner you prepare for this coming change the better off you will be and you will have less aggravation and buyers remorse in the long term. It's just that plain & simple.

HOW TO EASILY AND VERY CHEAPLY MAKE THE WORLD'S BEST CUSTOMER TAPE

MAKING A MOST EXCELLENT CUSTOMER TAPE: Chosing the very drastic decision to accomplish the above is a good first start on the road to making great duplicates. I want to personally commend you all for doing it. But, whether or not you have done all of the above, I would like to give you a series of tips that are almost cost free, that will yield great customer tapes with your existing equipment and will actually promote your business by word of mouth among your customer base. Short connections are emphatically encouraged and can be one of the smartest things you can do to instantly improve quality. You really should purchase at least one set of Monster Cable's A/V heavy gauge audio and Y/C video 18" (.5m) connectors. Then you will have at least a reference set to see if some of your older cables are defective or causing artifacts to get into your audio or video paths. Next; the next time you are about to create a tape for a customer, I need you to do the following. Buy the best tape money can buy or you can afford for the camera. Place it in the camera and do the following. Buy a dummy external camcorder microphone plug from Radio Shack (609:262-0687 Fred Wilson) for .50 cents that will fit your camer's external mic. Next, turn on your Videonic's mixer MX-1 to the IRE 7.5 level of black (manual page 52) and if you do not have this unit or Sign Video's Proc AmpsProc Amps, set the video on your camera inputs to a blank screen (do not video tape through the camera lens) and record the whole tape at SP speed. Now we have a new tape. The stereo channels are clear of all static and the tape has been coated with every pixel position in television black. You now have a great acquisition tape. If you are shooting in SVHS, you could do no better if you use Fuji H471S SVHS professional tape ($6.95). If you are using Hi8, you can do no better if you use Sony DLC E6-120 HMEAD ($14.95). When we are ready to make our edit master tapes, again you should use no less than what you selected above. However, both the play and record decks and everything put in between should be with short Y/C cords in the video path. I hope everyone knows that keeping the contacts of all our cables cleaned is just as important as cleaning our camera lenses before and after every use. Here comes the trade secret part that works just wonders to all who use this concept. When making the customer tape, use another Fuji H471S SVHS tape and place it in one of the SVHS machines, making sure all the Y/C connections are still in place. Now, switch OFF the SVHS setting on the front of the SVHS machine. It will now record in VHS, but at a higher fidelity due to the quality of the blank tape, source tape, the Y/C connections and the quality of the SVHS VCR. Your customer's tape will play back extrordinarly well! Now, I want you to get in the habit of coating all your tapes before use, including the customers.

In 2003 the best camcorder for the buck was the Panasonic Leica 3 CCD PV-DV953 that ran $1295 which is quite unbelievable in price and in Bang For The Buck as well.  You could almost get two of these 953's for the price of one inferior competitors and as many as three with change left over when compared to the Canon XL series, JVC DV Streamcorder series and even Sony's VX series.  The current Video Editing Laptop is the chuckmeister's FLIGHT II with over 3GHz processing, 1 GB RAM, 1 GB Flash Memory, 2 on board DVD burners, not too shabby!
MX cam is @ www.supervideo.com/MXmouse.htm. The Flight II is @ www.supervideo.com/dvlaptop.htm

WELL..WASN'T THAT PAINLESS & COST EFFECTIVE? MANY VIDEOGRAPHERS SWEAR BY ALL OF THIS AND PRACTICE IT EVERYDAY! ...OUR NEXT QUESTION, To DV or not to DV?

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