Brave new world. Again.

[Kent Beeson]

Thanks for update – actually I now get a message that explains – it’s only good for 10.7 + on mac – I’m 10.6.8

[Charlie Austin]

[Bill Davis] “Not buying these arguments, Herb. And look at the weasel words you’ve felt compelled to use here. earphones “can” lead to… and laptops “can” hide unwanted details… thats true. But it’s equally true that these tools can also work fabulously. The difference is knowing how to use them. If a person knows how to LISTEN properly, they can make judgements about most of this stuff on any full spectrum sound reproducer – whether that’s mounted in a wooden box in a tuned room or in a plastic earbud is largely irrelevant.”

I’m compelled to jump in here Bill, but Herb is right. Sure, you can mix on headphones, but what you end up with will sound like crap on a TV, or in a theater. Again, you can certainly do all these things and get great results. But mixing a corporate promo for a trade show, TV Spot, youtube video. theatrical trailer or feature, all require different monitoring. Headphones won’t work for everything. Neither will a laptop.

————————————————————-

~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~

[Craig Seeman]

[Herb Sevush] “More piling on. There are practical limitations to editing in a coffee shop.”

But the alternative is that you can still edit at home and have a professional edit room. Most of the gear is small enough. Most is affordable for a professional to own… and where you can’t own you can rent for the job at hand.

One may not prefer to edit on a laptop and while they’re certainly inconveniences, for many jobs, it’s not a deal breaker and in many other cases it’s the only way the job can get done on time.

[Franz Bieberkopf]

[Bill Davis] “So on the whole, the big issue is that some people are just naturally unwilling to change their thinking.”

I’m pretty sure this the highlight.

Franz.

[Bill Davis]

[Joseph W. Bourke] “I really hope this catches on – it’s a brilliant idea to use bit-torrent technology to solve the bandwidth delivery riddle.”

Well, maybe.

Torrents imply that the central service breaks up your content and “seeds” it to a wide variety of anonymous hosts. And then those hosts agree to be accessible to torrent requestors to download and assemble the file.

The main issue is that you usually have to agree to be both a user AND a seeder – and that means that there will be a system that can reach in and access content from your local hard drive at will.

If everyone is honorable, that’s hunky dory. But the minute some black hat decides that there’s a central file somewhere with the ID info on a huge group of computers set to allow remote I/O – and can assemble massive computing power at no cost – then all hell has the potential to break loose.

Hopefully, these services have REALLY GOOD IT folks behind them and have a solid strategy to deal with very high level security stuff in advance.

If so it might turn out to be a good and valuable process.

If not….. yikes.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Bret Williams]

And the monitor thing is even worse. I have a really nice iMac and a Flanders monitor hooked up via SDI. The SDI is 10bit. As far as I can tell, the mac monitor is 8bit. Many times I’ve thought something matched (like a white surrounded graphic over white) but on the SDI monitor it did not. Whether my iMac is out of adjustment or not, that’s exactly the point. It doesn’t show some stuff that would make me look very foolish if it showed up on the big screen at an event.

[Charlie Austin]

[Bill Davis] “The main issue is that you usually have to agree to be both a user AND a seeder – and that means that there will be a system that can reach in and access content from your local hard drive at will.

If everyone is honorable, that’s hunky dory. But the minute some black hat decides that there’s a central file somewhere with the ID info on a huge group of computers set to allow remote I/O – and can assemble massive computing power at no cost – then all hell has the potential to break loose.”

Totally agree. We need to use either the studios proprietary portals, or a dedicated service. FWIW, we use interdubs, who are fantastic and reasonably priced. There’s also wiredrive, beam, review manager, and some others. “The Cloud” ain’t gonna cut it at this point…

————————————————————-

~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “Not buying these arguments, Herb.”

Now there’s a shock.

[Bill Davis] “If a person knows how to LISTEN properly, they can make judgements about most of this stuff on any full spectrum sound reproducer – whether that’s mounted in a wooden box in a tuned room or in a plastic earbud is largely irrelevant. That’s proven by the fact that you can sit a noob in a Dolby sound stage and give a qualified soundie a set of earbuds we all KNOW which one will pick out a problem with 60 cycle hum in a nanosecond.”

A perfect example of a strawman argument. The fact is that no professional mixer, if given a choice, will ever ever ever mix with earphones. Not in my experience. Not in 40 years. And there’s a reason for that. Will it always cause problems – no. Can it cause problems – yes. And I wouldn’t want to stake my job on the difference.

[Bill Davis] “And I’m not buying point two as well, a Retina MacBook Pro has PLENTY of resolution to enable a person (who knows what to look for) to judge raster quality.”

While judging final color on any non calibrated computer screen is always an issue I wasn’t really talking about that. I was talking about the impact a given shot has, which changes given the screen size. Which is why feature editors periodically watch their shows on a full size screen, because it can’t be evaluated any other way. Which is why a broadcast editor wants to see it on a large enough screen to evaluate before sending it out for airing. Which is why I paid 1K extra for the 24″ reference monitor over the 17″ monitor, and why I wish I could afford a 42″ reference monitor.

Yes, you can take a laptop to a screening room, but then again you can also hook up real monitors and speakers and even a large keyboard to a laptop and voila you now have a somewhat under-powered overpriced desktop. But what you can’t do is sit in a starbucks all day with your laptop and tell me your working without limitations.

[Bill Davis] “And production, even high level production, as something that can ONLY be done in a high-end suite is an eroding concept. That’s environment might be a serious contender – might be the most comfortable, convenient or even the most sensible for a given project – but it’s no longer the ONLY one. And it might not be the BEST one, depending on the project. THAT is the significant change happening out there.”

Bill, I have been editing out of my house since 1985. I started finishing out of my house in 1998. I totally closed my office in the city 3 years ago. I’ve never said anything is the only thing. I just objected when Craig called something “the future” and I responded by saying it was “a future” but not “the only future.” See, we are actually in agreement here.

I understand that some projects need to be cut on location and I’ve already agreed that there has never been better tools for that then now. However there is no project that I wouldn’t rather cut in my home studio then on a laptop if quality were the only issue.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Misha Aranyshev]

[Bill Davis] “What DOES define a proper editing environment.”

Quiet, neutral colors, no light reflections on the monitors, no sound reflections from the walls and the furniture. Enough space for you and your clients to not bang heads. Thick enough walls to play sound loud. AC’d and properly ventilated.

[Michael Sanders]

[Bill Davis] “Not buying these arguments, Herb. And look at the very terms you’ve felt compelled to use here. earphones “can” lead to… and laptops “can” hide unwanted details… thats true. But it’s equally true that these tools can also work fabulously. “

Nope, sorry I agree with Herb.

I’ve missed small things by cutting on laptop screens before and there’s no way even my HD25’s in a noisy environment can match either my PMC’s or Fostex 6301’s.

Even today I was looking at a blur effect on something, looked great on the laptop but when I put it on the big screen.. terrible!

Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor