Client wants to view footage at home

[Dino Vince]

Hmm…might want to step back in technology a bit and dub some VHS window dubs from your source tapes. Tuun your time code display on and dump a VHS tape from each source tape. Mark them clearly so that you can work accurately from the client’s notes. This seems to be the least expensive and least time consuming way, as you can set up a dub, and walk away till it’s finished.

[Russell Lasson]

A batch conversion to DV through compressor would work fine. Or use OfflineHD for it. There are several options and running Compressor on an 8-core Mac with multi-core rendering would compress this stuff quite quickly.

-Russ

Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net

[Nayim Saati]

im on a dual 2.7 power pc g5 haha

[Nayim Saati]

id have to convert sequenes then right??? what you you mean batch conversion? i thought using he media manager would work if i wanted to downconvert it?

[Helge Løken]

How about doing a batch encode to h264 and give the files to the client on a drive? I was about to suggest you get the Matrox mxo 2 mini w/ max to get realtime encode but seeing as you’re on a G5 that wont work. And I suppose the encode would be quite painful.

If you output to DV tape from a timeline and the client is planning to do a paper-edit, how would they reference your original clips? (as timecode and clipnames would disappear in the process…)

[Nayim Saati]

i dont even think they want to do a paper edit i think they just want to re-familiarize themselves witht he footage as they have been away for a few months and havent seen it in a while. its ridic i know but i cant say no. im trying to make the options look as crazy as it is to them so they will just say we’ll come in and view it in the studio

[Ed Dooley]

However you do it, I would say that the suggestion for a window dub is a good one. Putting Time Code on the video does 2 things, it helps the client (and you) to know what clips they want to use, and they don’t have the high quality video (so they can’t run away with it, leaving you behind). But going all the way back to VHS may be too primitive. A DVD with TC video would work anywhere.
Ed

[Nayim Saati]

thats alot of dvds though haha… what do you guys mean a window dub though?

[Zane Barker]

[nayim saati] “750gb worth of footage”

No matter what you decide on, its ether going to take a lot of time to covert to another format or to make tapes etc.

Position it with the client that if you were to convert it or dub tapes etc that you are going to have to bill them hourly for the time it takes. Also let them know that if they want files that will play on a computer that does NOT have FCP on it then the conversion will take quite some time (longer then real time)

I would position it with them that if they want to do it at their location that they would need to pay for your time to convert or they can get themselves a computer with FCP on it. Or they can come into your location to view the footage.

Just be VARY clear that for you to convert the footage for make dubs of the tapes that you will bill them hourly for it. What ever you do don’t do that much work for free.

There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!

[Zane Barker]

[nayim saati] “they suggested dvds but thats almost 160 dvds and would take day”

I don’t think it would be that many DVD’s

That number of DVD’s would be for the DVCPRO HD files. The number of DVDs would be based on the number of hours of footage not the file size of your captured video.

There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!