Support and FAQs
What is TimeLapse Digital Inc.?
TimeLapse Digital Inc. is a Vancouver, BC based company that specializes
in shooting motion control time-lapse for the film and television
industry. Our services are two-fold. We sell our footage here on
our website and we offer our services to do custom shooting for
you.
How do I find a clip?
Simply enter a keyword or keywords into our search engine, or choose
a category and subcategory from the category menu. Thumbnails of
representative clips will be displayed. Click on the clips to open
the "View Clip" window and view them in quicktime.
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How do I store and organize clips I might want to purchase later?
In the view clip window, click on "Add Shopping Cart". You can store
your clips in this cart, and then later review them, eliminating
any you don't want, before proceeding to checkout.
I want to make sure your clips will work and look OK in my edit
program before I make a purchase. Can I do this?
Yes, we have a 2 second test clip you can download to see our NTSC resolution
and make sure that it works properly in the edit system. For Windows users "right click"
HERE and save target to your hard-drive and then import into your edit system.
For Mac users "Control click"
HERE and download link to disk. From there you can import the shot into
your edit system.
I'm getting an error message when I click on the clips.
Quicktime is required to view all clips on TimeLapseDigital.com.
Download
Quicktime Now. Once installed the shots will preview properly
on your system. If you would like to save a preview to your computer,
you will need to right-click (PC) or ctrl-click (MAC) and choose
"save target as" or "download link to disc" to save the clip to
your hard-drive.
Does TimeLapse Digital share my information with others?
No. At TimeLapse Digital, your privacy is one of our top priorities.
TimeLapse Digital never sells or shares your information with anyone
else. All account related transactions are fully encrypted using
128 bit encryption. We purchase our secure certificates from one
of the leading certificate authorities. In addition to our secure
transactions, your credit card numbers are not stored locally on
any of our servers.
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Why are the clips on this site compressed with Photo-JPEG?
Photo-JPEG enables us to get the clips down to a size that makes
delivery on the internet possible. Photo-JPEG is by far the least
destructive of all the codecs and is quickly becoming the standard
for stock footage sites that offer downloads. Side by side comparisons
with the original shots show virtually no difference.
What are the technical specifications of the files I download?
Our files are D1 NTSC 720 by 486 for both "4x3 Standard Definition"
and "16x9 Widescreen" and our footage is "non interlaced" or "progressive
scan". If you must specify the field order on your system, technically
the shots are "lower field first" or "even". Your edit system will
display the proper pixel aspect ratio for the 16x9 footage when
you choose that setting. Please refer to your owner's manual to
switch your edit system from 4x3 to 16x9.
Can I use TimeLapse Digital's clips with a 720x480(DV Resolution)
editing system?
Absolutely! Most video edit systems will import
TimeLapse Digital QuickTime files directly and automatically convert
them to OMF, MPEG-2, or other proprietary formats when necessary.
However, certain video editing applications will scale 720x486 footage
down to 720x480 instead of cropping it. Please crop the footage
because scaling will unnecessarily soften the image. For instance,
to crop imported footage in Premiere, use the Image Pan plug-in
in the Transform folder to clip 2 lines off the top and 4 lines
off the bottom of your footage. To import 720x486 clips into a 720x480
Avid(such as Avid DV Express/Pro), select "Maintain non-square pixels"
and "non-interlaced" in the import settings dialog. This will crop
4 pixel rows from the top of the frame and 2 pixel rows from the
bottom — thus keeping the fields and the field order intact.
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Do I have to render the clips after I download them?
Depends on which system you use, we haven't tested every edit system
out there so you may need to render on some systems. Another option
would be to render the shot out into the format you need in After
Effects or a similar graphics program.
Once I pay for a clip, how long do I have to download it?
You have a window of 3 days to download the clip.
If your computer crashes or you experience difficulty, you can log
back on to your account and try the download again.
I'm worried about download times or I don't want my shot compressed.
What other options do I have?
Like our High Def shots which are "order and ship",
you can also decide to special order a clip as an uncompressed file
in 16x9 or 4x3, specifying NTSC or PAL. An additional processing
fee as well as shipping will be added to cost of the clip.
How can I use this clip?
TimeLapse Digital clips are licensed to you to be used in your program,
commercial, website, etc. that you specify in your order. OUR SHOTS
ARE NOT ROYALTY FREE so you must specify when ordering what the
project is and agree to not use it in other unrelated work. To refer to our license agreement please
CLICK HERE.
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Why are some clips more expensive than others?
The price of a clip depends largely on the cost of production of
that clip. Sunrise and sunset are the most time consuming so they
are the most expensive. Some shots are composites of Day and Night
or the same location shot at two different times so they cost more
because of the time involved.
So everything is shot digitally, is the quality as good as film?
TimeLapse Digital only uses Nikon Digital SLR's to capture our footage.
The quality of their CCDs is unmatched in the digital world and
indeed rival 35mm film. Digital cameras allow us to capture situations
that would be extremely difficult, or at the very least expensive,
if we used a tradition film camera. Also, our clients find that
our shots have their own "look" that stands out from the pack.
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Are the original files available for the clips I see on your site?
Unfortunately not. If you need the best quality for FX work, then
you should be ordering the High Def file to get the maximum resolution
and quality.
Can I get clips shipped outside the US or Canada?
Yes, if you need we can ship anywhere that Fedex
goes to.
Can I get clips in PAL format?
Yes you can. However you cannot download PAL— they must be
special ordered.
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