Transcoding and workflow questions

[Rafael Amador]

[Thomas Morter-Laing] “When should I be using H264 other than for youtube and mobile devices?”
Whenever you need good quality and small file size, and the picture is not to be reprocessed.

[Thomas Morter-Laing] “Why isn’t there a device of this price range which does similar things for ProRes and other codecs? (Im poor!) “
No that I know.

[Thomas Morter-Laing] “Speaking of Prores, is Red Giant’s Grinder a good (lossless?) piece of transcoder software?”
Why did you quoted “lossless”?
I don’t use Grinder but I understand that the advantage is not in the transcoding (handled by QT) but in the way it can help with the workflow and media managing.
I’m afraid Red Giant’s Grinder works only for DSRL footage (Canon).

[Thomas Morter-Laing] “How can this be better/fast and would the elgato device help/ anything else in that price range which is good?/(has anyone found a hdmi portable recorder which doesnt have the super functions of a nanoflash but is a LOT cheaper?).
Cheers!”
Have a look to the Matrox and the Motu.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

I have an Elgato. It’s totally worth it on slower or less processor machines. I use it on my laptop.

If you make h264 movies a lot, then it’s totally worth it.

I wish there was a ProRes encoder just like the Elgato. It’d be very cool. I have asked for it many times!

[Thomas Morter-laing]

I have an iMac i7 quad core 2.93ghz, 12gb ddr3 1333mhz ram, ATI Radeon HD 5750 1gb- would it make a significant difference still?

😀
Tom Morter-Laing
Certified Apple Product Proffessional, 2010
Degree; TV Production

iMac 27″ intel i7 2.93GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD5750 [1GB GDDR5], 2TB Int. SATA with 2TB External HDD; (FW800).

[Jeremy Garchow]

I honestly don’t know. It makes minced meat of h264s, that I do know.

How many h264s do you make a day?

[Thomas Morter-laing]

I make about 1 or 2 a week…. sorry as well, I just realised the specs of my machine are in my signature :S Oh well, anyway, thanks for all your helps 🙂

😀
Tom Morter-Laing
Certified Apple Product Proffessional, 2010
Degree; TV Production

iMac 27″ intel i7 2.93GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD5750 [1GB GDDR5], 2TB Int. SATA with 2TB External HDD; (FW800).

[Jeremy Garchow]

1 or 2 a week?

Perhaps it’s not worth it then.

[Thomas Morter-laing]

Sorry im sure I’m probably being thick here but what sort of situation calls formmore than that? I know a few very busy tv editors and I appreciate a lot of transcoding and compressing happens, but normally between dv pal and pro res formats, only to h264 for the last export or 2…

😀
Tom Morter-Laing
Certified Apple Product Proffessional, 2010
Degree; TV Production

iMac 27″ intel i7 2.93GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD5750 [1GB GDDR5], 2TB Int. SATA with 2TB External HDD; (FW800).

[Jeremy Garchow]

I make h264s for clients that are not by my side for review copies. If things are heated I’ll make 5-10 a day.

I am on the tail end of a big campaign that had 26 videos which shared similar graphic elements. If that changes, client reviews all of them. So if ten of them changed, I’d make 10 just for that one change. If there was another change, I’d make 10 more.

I’m sure there’s much crazier examples out there.