VU meters
Would have loved to have had this feature on our last shoot, a short movie directed by Arlette Fletcher. The film was shot by Michelle Farrel on the Panasonic HVX200. My issues was that I have trouble figuring out what the onscreen meters on the Panasonic actually mean, as I like things to turn red when there is trouble and something is getting cropped. With the large colorful VU meter palette activated in Scopebox 2.0, I can see where the peaks are and how close I am getting. It also features up to 8 channels of sound and has several different scales of -12db,-14db and -20db, which I understand are common ranges for dialogue, sound effects, and music. (I only do sound when I have to but I'm sure this will make your sound guy happy.) As a visual filmmaker it gives me a quick, very colorful (I like things in color) way to monitor my sound acquisition.
The included PDF manual gives a pretty good overview of what the various scopes do and is simple and clear with nice color pictures. ( I seem to learn better from color pictures, as you may guess from my color-centric commentary in this review.) To learn more about color correction and what all the scopes do I recommend the book, Color Correction for Digital Video by Steve Hullfish and Jaime Fowler (CMP Books).
Some of the many scopes and previews you can bring up in Scopebox 2.0.
Performance Scopebox 2.0 performed very well for me once I got the hang of it. It recognized both my Sony HDV camera and my Panasonic miniDV camera without a problem. While I didn't try to bring them up at the same time, the program allows you to do multicam shoots. Quicktime movies were also easy to bring in as well as stills, although I couldn't figure out a way to import stills and had to use the drag and drop method. The scopes all worked as desired and I had a bunch of things open at once with no problems on my Mac G5.
My favorite, the vectorscope with the colored pixels.
Value
Although Scopebox 2.0 does so much and is worth the $699 for the HD version (SD $399), it will seem a bit expensive for most small independent producers to purchase, especially since many of them are familiar with PC’s SD/HD capable DVRack (which is now Adobe OnLocation CS3) and its price point of $499. A lot of the work I do is with independents doing their first feature or short movie and this would be great for them, especially if the price were reduced. Hopefully the price will come down or perhaps a light version could be offered. [Editor’s Note: Redrock Micro’s M2 includes a light version of ScopeBox. Perhaps the light could be sold separately, as well.] It would also be great if Scopebox 2.0 had a chroma key option to key out greenscreen on the live feed (similar to Adobe’s Ultra) and use the overlay feature to see the composite.
Final Comments
I am very impressed with Scopebox 2.0 and plan to use it on the live action shoot for my short, The Fall of The House of Usher. This will be a greenscreen shoot at Blue Rock Productions in Baltimore and the live actors will have to be lined up with the CGI House of Usher. I have been looking around for software that was capable of adding an overlay to a live camera feed. Scopebox 2.0 is the only Mac software that I have found that can do this. We will also be using the scopes to help match up our live lighting and color to the CGI lighting and monitoring sound and focus through Scopebox 2.0.
Ease
of Use
8.0
Depth
of Options
9.0
Performance
8.5
Value
7.5
Overall
Score
8.3
Craig
Herron is a filmmaker and artist who loves the world of visual effects and matte painting. He has worked on many indie movies as well as local commercials. His first two, award winning, shorts; A Fall From The Clouds, and Freedom Dance were full of 2d, 2.5D and 3D animation, matte paintings and other VFX. His current project Bermuda Triangle ― A Love Story is all green screen and pre-shot location backgrounds. He is the owner of Herron Designs.
