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How does apple distinguish DV25?
I’m working on an idea for sending remote footage packages to the home base via FTP in the field, and this question came up: we’re shooting DVCpro25, which is for all intents and purposes DV.
The laptop we want to use in the field already comes with iMovieHD, would iMovie HD accept that DVCpro25 footage thru firewire as regular consumer DV, and let us work with it, or not? My impression was that imovie and FC express were hobbled to standard Dv formats for ingest, but that’s probably outdated?
My gut says it would/should work, but I have no way to test that right now.
The field shooter would play tape out of a Panasonic Shoebox deck, thru firewire, into the laptopn thru iMovieHD. No real editing required at his end, just render that capture to an MOV file. Log the laptop onto the internet somewhere nearby, like the shooter’s hotel room. Then FTP would send the MOV of our footage to our home base, where we’d ingest the files into our FCP workstations for play-out. I’m trying to do as much of this as possible with off-the-shelf HW and SW we already own.
How would I configure the Final Cut workstation at base to attach to our LAN and find and ingest that FTP’s footage?
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19 Replies
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Mark,
Both DV25 and HDV run at 13Gb per hour. How the heck are you going to deliver files of that size over the Internet efficiently enough to be practical?
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Well, that’s why it’s an experiment:-)
I already send h.264 files of 30-second spots to clients via FTP at the office, using our high speed connection, that takes about a minute or less to upload.
The less-developed area where our guy is shooting may have broadband at his hotel, is what I’m hoping for. I know I’m not going to get anywhere near real-time playback or streaming, that’s okay, it’s not what I wanted: if it takes 30 minutes or so to upload fifteen minute’s worth of feed cleanly, that is a winner for us, as it saves over a grand per day over what we’re doing now, plus over two hours of driving. I can build the conversion and upload/download delay into the daily schedule. I really don’t want to rent an uplink truck for eight days to do a job this simple, if FTP can do the job instead. I just need to prove it in fact could work, so I can sell the idea up the ladder.
The big cities have FTP services like Pathfire to send news stories to stations instead of physical tape dubs. I’m just looking to cobble together a limited, ersatz version of the same thing. But I’m not a compressionist or an IT guru, so I need guidance and advice, and lots of it.
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“If you are going to save a grand a day, then surely you can afford to put FCP on the cameramans computer.”
I see Mike, you have not worked in Government video before… 🙂
Any more tips on the tech end of this? Anybody have actual experience trying something like this? I’m going to have to go out and try doing it I guess, see how long it really takes to crunch 15 minutes of DV25 to h.264 and upload it on a broadband connection.
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If you are going to save a grand a day, then surely you can afford to put FCP on the cameramans computer. We know that works and it makes it 100% compatible.
I agree with David, however that bandwidth in remote locations may make the process of moving a days rushes into a huge upload/ download. Doesn’t matter how thick your pipe is if the location end is thin and expensive.
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[Mark Suszko] “I see Mike, you have not worked in Government video before… :-)”
If it is Defence Dept, then the slowest most expensive option will be desired. Perhaps a Blackhawk to fly the tapes back to base. 🙂
However the next bit disturbs me. Converting from DV to H264 to send it is an issue, because you are going to have to change from H264 back to an editing codec. Sounds like a lot of double handling and a big hit on quality. It also means getting a decent H264 encode from the DV which is extra time for the cameraman.
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[Mark Suszko] “I guess, see how long it really takes to crunch 15 minutes of DV25 to h.264 and upload it on a broadband connection.
“Mark,
I agree with Michael (for the first time ever BTW) that compressing to a delivery format and then editing later, is fraught with yucky possibilities. However, if you’re dead set on compressing to h.264, then consider an Elgato Turbo hardware USB hardware encoder for abouyt $90. https://www.amazon.com/Elgato-Turbo-264-Encoder-Hardware-10020500/dp/B000V1V4GC/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_k2a_3_txt?pf_rd_p=304485601&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-2&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000PCVIEU&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1ZR446BFGV94B9VEKNH7
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[David Roth Weiss] “I agree with Michael (for the first time ever BTW)”
Oh stop it David. people will talk!
(btw the roses and chocolates were devine)
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Who said I wuz gonna edit H.264? Not me, that’s a delivery format. However, I know from experience our FCP workstations can PLAY it just fine, and from there it goes thru our AJA Io and comes out analog into the sat transmitter back at home base. That’s the ultimate point of the exercise, to get the news footage home fast and cheaply in useable shape for us to uplink from home base, and not have to rent a truck to uplink remotely. At no point will we be editing, I just picked H.264 because it looks very good at half the size of mpeg2 and I need to shrink that DV25 down if the FTP thing is going to have any chance at all. This is raw news feed stuff and pre-edited VSOTs, we’re not trying to remotely edit film rushes in HD, just pass along raw footage to the bird for relay to news stations that will pull it down and edit from it. At that point, it’s coming off the Ku bird analog SD NTSC like Philo Farnsworth intended.The base end of the chain I mostly have figured out, its the origination end I am concentrating on.
Normally, we never have our mac FCP workstations hooked to the office IT network, just too much drama and paperwork and we generally never need it. But I will for this, we have a T1 line we can tap at least part of the way to the objective, and ethernet in house. Set up an ISP account for the mac workstation at the base, I think we can pull down the FTP then and just throw the h.264 MOV file onto the timeline and hit the spacebar to play out to the uplink transmitter. Out in the wilderness, our shooter will have to import footage first into the laptop and compress it. Because this is a very temporary setup, we’re not likely to get any okays to buy additional FCP seats, that’s a procurement process that could take a full year. But the rented laptop will already have iMovieHD bundled with it. I want to know if that part of the plan will work, import DV25 thru firewire port from tape deck, compress using quicktime conversion to h.264, then fire up the modem or ethernet card and jam it.
If only I could tempt Bob into sticking his two cents in on this, with his recent mac shared storage experience he might have some observations…
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Ok, so you’re not going to edit it, but you’re going to send it over satellite (which will probably run it through mpeg2 conversion or something) and then expect others to edit with it, possibly digitizing it on the fly to another codec, render graphics and such over it, output, then send it out over the airwaves, where it will then be coverted to mpeg 2 for things like dish network, and then compressed again by people’s Tivos. Yikes.
Yes, h.264 is a WEB or DVD delivery format. Where there is not doubt it’s the end of the line. You’re injecting it directly into the beginning of the pipeline. I can’t imaging that’s a good thing.
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Oh, you said govt, so maybe some of those steps don’t exist. But still not a great idea.
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