Slot Bar
The most noticeable change in LiveGrade Pro is probably the new, horizontal slot bar in the main window. This slot bar is the place for the new metadata features, and gives an overview of the configured camera slots with its devices. In the device manager (accessible via the “Devices…” button above the slots) you can add new slots (the number is not limited), and change the device configuration for the slots.
Clik here to view.
LiveGrade Pro’s slot bar
The display of the slot bar can be configured in three modes: As tabs only, with preview image, and with an additional metadata table (with the segmented control above the slot bar).
The preview image shows the last frame grab or the live image (it will also indicate the display of a reference in split view mode). You can configure the width of the slots for different sizes of the preview image via the gear menu above the slots.
Each slot contains buttons for the the most important actions. You can
- create new entries in the shot library for an individual slot or all slots at the same time,
- switch between viewing modes (graded vs. original, false color),
- manually update framegrabs (if a capable device is configured for that slot), and
- save the slot’s current image to disk as a still image file.
The slot also shows the list of devices used in this slot as small icons below the preview image.
When fully expanded, the slot shows a table of metadata fields for entering and monitoring metadata. These metadata fields are generally editable. A lot of them can also be filled automatically from ANC metadata of the captured live signal if a capture devices is configured.
The metadata in these fields can be used to create a shot report over time, as it is stored in LiveGrade Pro’s shot library.
Depending on your screen size you can configure the number of rows to be shown (via the gear menu above the slots).
The slot bar also holds a section for global metadata that refers to all slots.
Live Metadata and Editing Metadata
For a lot of situations on set the information for the next shot (such as slate information and camera settings) is available in advance. In order to keep your eyes on the action while it happens, the slot bar allows to prepare all necessary metadata by editing it before the action happens.
LiveGrade Pro distinguishes between slot-related metadata (unique to one camera, such as focus distance) and global metadata (concerning the entire shot, such as scene name).
Clik here to view.
Slot-related metadata fields for a shot
For quickly editing individual fields you can jump from one editable field to the next with the “Tab” key, and there are even keyboard shortcuts for directly editing the metadata of a certain slot (in the “Slots” menu).
You can configure which fields you want to see in the metadata table from the metadata menu accessible in the header area of each slot. This menu can act as a quick overview of metadata, and can be opened from the main menu or with a keyboard shortcut. It can be closed with the “ESC” key at any time.
There are fields for recording information (e.g. clip name, fps), exposure information (e.g. IE, white balance) and lens information (if available through the camera via Cooke /i or ARRI LDS).
In order to pre-fill fields from live camera metadata being captured in the ANC data of the camera signal, you need to have a capture device configured in that slot. The live metadata in the live signal differs from vendor to vendor, so in the capture device dialog you can set the type of camera you want to use. All fields with live metadata can also be switched to be edited manually. Live metadata is currently supported for Panasonic (e.g. Varicam LT), Sony (e.g. F55) and ARRI cameras (e.g. Alexa).
The quick entry panel from LiveGrade Pro v3 for entering metadata is still available. It is shown when the slot bar’s metadata tables are hidden and you create a new shot (“Create Shot” from the “Shot Library” menu). You can also always or never show the quick entry panel with different menu entries in the “Shot Library” menu.
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