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I need to encode 1700 hours of betaSP to MPEG2 – solution?
Dear Cows
I’m cross-posting this one, so excuse me if you run into it elsewhere on the cow.
I need to capture and encode 1700 betaSP hours of footage to MPEG2 for IPTV usage. I need to QC every encode and also run the tapes/encodes through a software based QAR process.
I’m a mac based boutique post company and need some SERIOUS help here. The client has asked for all tapes to be encoded via Digital Rapids hardware encoding, which from my research will not run on mac.
What are alternatives? Anybody out there have a setup/solution/workflow they would care to share?
Many thanks.
Llewelyn
Llewelyn @ Fireworks
HD for indies post production
http://www.fireworksfilms.co.za -
12 Replies
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With that many hours of work, you definitely want a hardware encoder. How expensive is the unit they want you to use? PC’s are incredibly cheap so I would definitely purchase the encoder and a PC to run it on for a job like this. That’s what I did when I needed BluRay authoring and I was shocked at how little I spent on that machine.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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Thanks Walter
I’m beginning to open up to that idea…
I’m just not sure how a pc is going to integrate with my FCP/Blackmagic capture station. I will probably have to look at a dedicate RAID/NAS/XRAID to handle data and management of all the encoding.
Any experience with pc’s and mac’s sharing storage in this way?Llewelyn @ Fireworks
HD for indies post production
http://www.fireworksfilms.co.za -
[Llewelyn Roderick] “Any experience with pc’s and mac’s sharing storage in this way? “
Not with a RAID situation. With our PC we installed Mac Drive, I think it’s $75 and it allows that machine to read any Mac drive we attach to it.
But with most hardware encoders, you simply connect the VTR directly to that unit so it should operate essentially as a stand alone workstation. VTR Control and Component or SDI feed directly into the card so your FCP workstations won’t even come into play.
I’m assuming you’re delivering everything on hard drive so simply set up a Windows formatted RAID and go.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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Check these folks out.
https://www.digital-rapids.com/Products/IndividualProducts.aspx
With one of their cards and a PC, you won’t need FCP. Etc. Frankly, depending on how fast you need to get this done, I’d buy several.
Good luck. Sounds like FUN!
mark
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Thanks Walter and Mark,
I’ve had a look at Digital Rapids. They certainly are branded as the leaders in the field. I guess I was hoping that whichever solution I bought would be more FCP compatible so that I could offer a superior MPEG2 encoding option to my clients. It seems a bit wasteful to spend the kind of silly money on a Digital Rapid hardware system and then still not have a decent encoding solution on the FCP side (short of buying Bitvice/CinemaCraft etc.)
Thanks again.
LlewelynLlewelyn @ Fireworks
HD for indies post production
http://www.fireworksfilms.co.za -
[Llewelyn Roderick] “I guess I was hoping that whichever solution I bought would be more FCP compatible so that I could offer a superior MPEG2 encoding option to my clients.”
But you will. You said you own an FCP with a BMD card. So now you can edit in FCP and then send a feed directly to the PC for realtime encoding of MPEG-2. Sounds like a win-win for your situation.
This job pays for the hardware and in the future you have a realtime, hardware based MPEG-2 option.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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We have a Digital Rapids dedicated station (not the PC Card-PC version) and it has saved us untold hours of encoding. The quality is very good. As good or better than encoding via software. We needed to convert 100’s of hours of footage for access on the web and to do it through software encoding just wasn’t an option. It will handle encoding from a live source either analog or digital and will also convert files from disk. You can even encode to multiple file formats all in the same pass.
Not cheap but ours paid for itself in a single job.
Tom -
The best mpeg2 encoding I have seen was with a Tandberg hardware encoder. I was doing some high quality HD mpegs for a VMD test disk and I fed the HD SDI from FCP into it and hit play.
The mpeg2 transport streams were amazing quality and real time. There is no way I would software encode if I could afford a unit like the Tandberg (which was provided by the client).
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[Llewelyn Roderick] “It seems a bit wasteful to spend the kind of silly money on a Digital Rapid hardware system and then still not have a decent encoding solution on the FCP side”
You don’t have to take our advice. You can just struggle with a cobbled together mismash of software and existing hardware and take three times as long to complete the job.
Me… I’d rather bite the bullet and get it done in time to make it home for dinner.
mark
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Mark, you’re absolutely right. Hardware encoding is the way. Now just to decide which one (any takers, I see a digital rapids in the back!).
The big decision is do I bite the bullet and get an HD/SD encoder or do I just get an SD encoder. (I know the answer already, bite the bullet, future proof my investment)Also, I’ve had one suggestion for software QC using:
https://www.inlethd.com/encoding/19/17/Semaphore/
any other suggestions?
Llewelyn @ Fireworks
HD for indies post production
http://www.fireworksfilms.co.za
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