So that you can test your recording levels in live shoots like this, you can now use reference clips, which helps you get consistent audio and illumination from each camera location before you’re in the midst of actually recording your interview. And, to keep up with the multiple cameras, there is now a mini-switcher so the host can cut between camera shots live. Of course, since there’s no way to send the teleprompter information to another laptop from the master laptop, all interviewees will have to speak candidly and without a script. (This makes it a bit more difficult for infomercial use, where multiple speakers are often scripted, or in co-host situations, where both hosts have scripts.)
If you have a decently powerful computer (2.4 Ghz P4 or above with an nVidia GeForce or ATI Radeon video card) and a fast internet connection, you can now live stream these multicamera shows over the internet using Adobe Flash Media Server. For live podcasts, this is an impressive feature.
Despite all the great improvements, one option that was surprisingly not available in VC3 is the ability to use Ultra’s virtual sets. This would seem like a logical extension, since most of Ultra’s virtual sets were designed for newscast and infomercial-type programs. Maybe VC4 will allow this to be included.
Multicamera support allows you to plug in up to three cameras for interview style shows with basic switching options.
Performance
The overall performance of Visual Communicator 3 was pretty reliable, with things working quickly even on a fairly basic 3 Ghz P4 laptop with a gig of RAM. (The software is designed to run lean and only requires a 933 mhz processor and 256 MB of RAM. Of course, it does require 3.8 Gigs to install due to all the royalty free music, sound effects, graphics, and video content that come with it.)
One thing that’s a vast improvement for student users (and anyone who needs to shuffle things around from computer to computer) is a new feature called Pack-n-Go. Pack-n-Go lets you save your edited script program and any necessary assets to a single area, which can be easily dropped right into a thumb drive and taken with you. If you’ve ever had to try to get all of your assets together for an After Effects project, you can appreciate what a painstaking task this can quickly become. As such, this Pack-n-Go feature is extremely handy and one that I would like to see populated in the next edition of Adobe’s professional video programs.
New graphic animation options allow you to have motion backgrounds on lower-third and other styles of graphics.
Value
If you need to create corporate training, infomercials, or pod-cast news shows, the $400 price tag is a really great value that will make things much easier on you. If you are just going to be using this to create some interview sections for your DVD extras on your next film, then I would download the demo and see if it suits your needs first.
Final Comments
Adobe has made a very easy to use program for creating professional-looking newscasts, infomercials, and corporate training videos. If these are the things you will be doing with it, then you need look no further than Visual Communicator 3 for your production needs. If you’re not certain, be sure to download the demo and give it a test run first.
Ease
of Use
9.5
Depth
of Options
8.0
Performance
9.0
Value
8.0
Overall
Score
8.6
The
director of two feature length films and half a dozen short films,
Jeremy Hanke
founded Microfilmmaker Magazine to help all no-budget filmmakers make
better films. His first book on low-budget special effects techniques, GreenScreen Made Easy, (which he co-wrote with Michele Yamazaki) was released by MWP to very favorable reviews. He's curently working on the sci-fi film franchise, World of Depleted through Depleted: Day 419 and the feature film, Depleted.
