Alan Okey
5
COW Coins
2
DaVinci Coins
Forum Replies Created
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You can accomplish this with Re:Vision Effects’ FieldsKit and Twixtor. Read this review on the Cow for more details:
https://www.creativecow.net/articles/solorio_marco/twixtor_review/index.html
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Windows boxes without Quicktime installed will play .avi or .wmv files. Unless you have the Flip4mac Windows Media encoder component installed on your FCP machine, you’ll need to export .avi files with an appropriate codec.
Windows boxes with Quicktime should have no trouble with any Quicktime .mov files that you export from your FCP machine.
If you’re working with NTSC DV material in FCP, make sure to resize your clips to a square pixel aspect ratio in order for them to appear correctly on computers. Full-resolution would be 640×480 square pixels (as opposed to NTSC DV’s 720×480 nonsquare pixels). Any reduction in frame size should conform to a 4:3 aspect ratio, assuming your source material is 4:3 and not 16:9 – i.e. 480×360, 320×240, etc.
Some more information regarding delivery would be helpful. Are the clips going to be files transferred locally to Windows machines, or delivered via the Web? Obviously compression issues become much more important for web delivery.
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You could try ShapeShifter, an application that allows you to apply custom themes to OS X’s Finder and applications.
https://www.unsanity.com/haxies/shapeshifter
I got sick of the bright menu bar when I was doing color work in Combustion, so now I use a GUI that is all dark grey.
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As a workaround, you could use Automator to add a .mov extension to a batch of files.
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The awful truth is that the monitor manufacturers have phased out affordable production CRTs, which are superior to LCD and plasmas for accurate color reproduction. This is partly due to international environmental regulations/restrictions, but I think that the exploding popularity of flat screens for ergonomic reasons has been a big factor as well. Basically, we’re being fed a big shit sandwich by the monitor manufacturers and told that it’s filet mingon. The only technology to show promise in approaching CRT’s color accuracy and black levels is SED, and we’re probably a good 5 years from seeing SED displays become commercially available. In the meantime, we’re stuck with inferior LCD and plasma screens, with Sony and company conveniently ignoring the elephant in the corner – the fact that a 5-year old PVM CRT has a better picture than a brand-new Luma LCD. You won’t find that in any of their marketing literature…
I just missed being able to buy the last available stock of new Sony PVM-20L5/1 monitors by about three months, so I had to settle for its smaller sibling, the PVM-14L5/1. Apart from image size, it stomps all over any “professional” LCD or plasma I’ve ever seen. Aside from two JVC CRTs, Sony’s PVM-L series was the only relatively affordable model of CRT that could display both SD and HD at a variety of progressive and interlaced frame rates. The killer is, the PVM-20L5/1 is now selling USED on eBay for several thousand dollars more than it sold for NEW when it was still available. There is clearly a demand for these CRTs, and it’s criminal that Sony has discontinued them and left us without an adequate replacement. There’s currently nothing in their product offering that’s remotely close in quality or in price to the discontinued PVMs. I’d love one of those 24″ 16:9 BVM CRTs, but I can’t afford $24,000. Thanks, Sony.
As far as client monitors go, the Panasonic professional plasmas are excellent. However, I wouldn’t ever trust them for accurate color grading. If you want my PVM, you’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.
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Also check out VBrick systems – they have hardware encoders as well.
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[Bob Zelin] “Make sure you stripe the 2 drives together RAID 0 with Apple Disk Utility.”
In WinXP? I gotta see this…
😉
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[nvelis] “I’ve just ordered a 2TB Lacie SATA 4 Disk Array and after reading this I’m thinking about canceling it. I don’t know anything about the SATA to Fibre option. Are there any brands/models you can point me to? I’m not sure if the seagate model you referenced is Sata to Fibre but I would like to investigate this before my drive ships.”
Well, I wouldn’t cancel your order just because there are RAIDs/JBODs with Fibre Channel interfaces and SATA drives in them. Fibre is nice because you can use optical cabling and put the array in another room, but you definiterly pay a price premium for Fibre connectivity, both for the host adapter card and for the interface on the array. Basically, if you get into Fibre interfaces, you’re in a whole new price bracket.
I got pricing quotes for the Rorke Data Qubex, which is a desktop (not rack-mounted) array with 6 SATA drives, a 4Gb Fibre Channel interface and a hardware RAID controller. The pricing is:
1.5TB for $5045.00
2.4TB for $6999.00
3TB for $7699.00
I think the Huge Systems arrays are a bit better in terms of pricing if you’re interested in RAIDs with a Fibre Channel interface. Huge’s MediaVault 4105 1.25TB array has 5 ATA drives and a hardware RAID controller that can be configured as RAID 0 or RAID 3. It has a single channel 4Gb Fibre Channel interface. B&H lists it for $4183.00.
Medea sells a 1TB 5-drive RAID 3 array with a single channel 2Gb Fibre Channel interface for $3698.50 at B&H.
For the convenience of Fibre Channel, you’re probably going to pay an extra $1K to $2K over a similarly-sized array with a SATA interface.
Several manufacturers are now offering SATA JBOD arrays with Infiniband ports, which carry 4 SATA channels over a single connector. They usually bundle a SATA to Infiniband PCI card with the array. While the maximum cable length isn’t nearly as long as what you can get with fiber optic cables using Fibre Channel, the single Infiniband cable is an improvement over using multiple SATA cables.
Products/Manufacturers to check out:
https://www.transintl.com/store/category.cfm?Category=2600#top
https://firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2eEN4/
Good luck!
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Xserve RAID is overpriced and underpowered. You’d do much better with Huge Systems, Rorke Data or Adjile Systems.
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I just checked out the link – looks nice. I’m pretty sure it will have OS X drivers, as Atto is usually quite good about this. It would be great to have an SAS hardware RAID controller that would give you the choice of using SAS and/or SATA drives as necessary.