[Andrew Mehta]

It sounds good.

I think my problem is, I hear the word “RAID” and “Array” a lot, and I don’t really know what one is.

Atm, I just use Lacie D2 Tripple Interface Extremes @ 250GB and 300GB a drive, and I have about five of these now. I too have been doing a documentary. All of these are just external firewire drives, and I wonder if they’ll suffice for HD, or whether firewire is too slow for HD data?
I’m still not likely to buy a system until next year, hopefully when a universal binary of M100 is available, and the Mac Pro has settled as a format ( and when I have spare cash, natch =P ). But being aware of any extra costs, such as hardware setups, and drives, etc is advantageous. Of course, I see on the M100 website they recommend specific drives and drive manufacturers.
( see https://www.media100.com/Products/peripherals.asp ) but I don’t know if I would have to invest in those sorts of drives, or if standard firewire drives will continue to suffice. Obviously, I assume for SD work I could continue with my Lacies, but I assume things change when working with HD.
Again, these questions are premature, as I doubt I’ll be upgrading for a year or so, but for the sake of extending this thread with discussion of hardware setups for using the new M100, it would be interesting to learn what Raids and disc arrays are, and what hard drive setup someone looking to work in HD with Media100 would need to invest in.

[Andrew Mehta]

All software houses knew Apple was shifting to Intel, and Apple’s laptops and iMacs have been on Intel for a while now, so everyone was working on a shift to universal binary.

I currently have G4s still on OS9, so I am looking to upgrade next year, when I have some cash.

I spoke to Boris at Broadcast Live earlier in the year, and although impressed with M100 v11, I said I would need to buy a new Mac to run it, since I had old OS9 machines, and I might as well wait until the new Mac Pro is announced, and a universal binary version of M100 has been produced.

The response I got, was pretty much, if you buy a PowerMac G5 today, and M100, it will work, and then you can upgrade later. I was told there would be an upgrade option for current M100 v11 users, when a universal binary version becomes available. However, I wasn’t told whether this would be free, or cost.

Overall, I didn’t get the impression that a M100 universal binary was already being worked on at all at that time. But if I could hazard a guess, I’m guessing if v11.5 is still PowerPC only, then we’ll probably have to wait till Q1 or Q2 2007 for a universal binary option.

However, with this IBC show coming up in September, and the newly released Mac Pro, etc, I wouldn’t be surprised if Boris make an official announcement about what their plans are, in the next week or so (but failing that, surely certainly by September).
And then we’ll really know what’s happening, and more importantly, when.

I must also admit to being a bit lazy of late. I come to this forum whenever I’ve a problem. But, er, perhaps a quick email off to Media100/Boris’s Support Department would actually tell us what the situation is, instead of us just guessing.

P.S. To add a bit to this post however – I’ve always worked in SD. When moving to HD, are there any extra considerations to make hard drive and media storage wise? Atm, I just use Lacie D2 harddrives on firewire.

[Andrew Mehta]

“I knew my suggestion was a long way round, but no one had suggested anything to this person’s prob at the time, so thought I might as well reply.”

Although actually, exporting to animation, and then importing in again would involve 2 renders ( one, rendering to animation, two, rendering back into M100 codec again ), whereas the boris fx method would just involve one render ( the reference file export is superfast, especially without audio, so you’re only really waiting to render the composition clip ).
Of course I only speak from my version 7.5 experience, and assume things have got easier with newer versions.
Indeed, if you have the latest M100 v11, you don’t even need to use the M100 codec, so could edit in animation, or some other form, and can even mix resolutions in a timeline, so I’ve heard.

[Andrew Mehta]

***I’m kidding, please take no offense. Have a nice day. Peace, Love and Flowers.

>>>>No worries mate. I knew my suggestion was a long way round, but no one had suggested anything to this person’s prob at the time, so thought I might as well reply.
Good to hear your response too.

[Andrew Mehta]

I convert 4:3 and 16:9 and back, sometimes when I digitized in the wrong setting.

Here’s what I do.

Drop the videoclip into a timeline.
Highlight it.
Look in the edit suite window to see how long it is.
Make a note of the length.

Go to hardware preferences, and change the setting to the desired resolution.
Open new timeline in this new resolution.
Goto Tools>New Composition.
Double Click the Composition Clip, and then in the editing suite window, type in a new length for it – making it the same length as the videoclip mentioned above.

Then I go back to my original timeline with the videoclip in it, and I export it to a reference movie, without the audio.

Then I go back to my second timeline with the composition clip in it, and double click it again.
Then I click “Edit…” in the edit suite window, and it launches Boris FX ( I have version 6 ).

Boris FX boots up with the main track being a black colour.
You can leave this, but add a new track ontop, by going TRACK>>NEW>>MEDIA FILE.. – and after clicking Media file, I’m able to browse my hard drive for the reference clip I exported earlier. I select this, and click okay.

Now I’m back in the BorisFX timeline.
Now you can do what you want.
If I was converting anamorphic 16:9 to letterbox 16:9 for use in a 4:3 timeline, I would simply flip down the arrows in the track, until I saw the “face” and “media” bit, then would click the media icon, change the aspect from 4:3 to 16:9, and then change the overall Transform for the track to an X/Y scale down of 75%.

If you’re trying to switch between 480 and 720, I believe there’s a square pixels tick box that might help somewhere in the media section, so try flicking that, other than that, you can just stretch it using basic transforms, till it looks right.

When happy with the results, quit Boris, and you’ll be asked if you want to save changes back to host.
Click save or yes, or whatever it is, and then when back in M100, click “apply” in the edit suite window, and then “render”.
It will now take a while to render the clip, in the new resolution.

Obviously, if you still have the original tapes, you may find it easier to re-digitise the footage, as opposed to rendering it with Boris.

Then once rendered, you can take the original audio tracks and layer them beneath.

To prevent accidental un-renderings or whatever, you can export the finished clip as a self contained movie, making it totally independant, and then re-import it in.

I use Media100i 7.5 on OS9, with Boris FX version 6.
There may be easier ways to do this with more modern software.

[Andrew Mehta]

Looks like the effect can be obtained by mapping the video to the inside of a cylinder, and making the front of the cylinder transparent ( opacity 0 ) so you can see through to the back of the cylinder, and then squash it, so it’s like a short ring, and you have your concave effect.

Is amazing what a bit of sleep can do.

[Andrew Mehta]

Thanks for getting in touch.

I’m primarily looking for someone to add cutaways to 2min game reports. They’ve all already been roughly edited, but they need shots of the games laid ontop. Said shots have already been filmed, and in some cases digitised.

There are 42 game reports that need cutaways added, and I’m working to a very tight schedule, so was hoping to delegate some of the work.

I’m based in Swindon, Wiltshire (South West England – 1 hour train journey from London, 30mins from Bath/Reading/Bristol).

If you think you might be interested in helping, let us know.

I can be emailed on:
ccow at unitedgames dot co dot uk

Again, it’s nice to hear of someone else using the same system as myself. If you’re not able to help this time, no worries, though it might be cool to network nonetheless.

[Andrew Mehta]

Firstly, a real thanks for this helpful reply. =)

Here are my responses.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A better way to go would be to get references from both companies – get output from a third party.

>>>>Yeah, this is what gets me, as both parties have some impressive portfolios. The company with Maestro has offered artwork and menu design in the same bill, y’see, whereas I was previously gonna do that myself inhouse, so there’s the potential to save time and money, that’s why I considered them. But yeah, I guess I’ll have to get some references for both of them.

4000 discs is a small run

>>>Opp! But a big run for ‘ickle me! Might end up being 8000 or more, but we’ll start with 4000 and see what we sell. 😉

so I doubt you’ll see any returns

>>>>That’ll be good news, if you mean faulty-disc returns, but bad news if you mean financial returns (joke) ^_^….lol

weather it be authored with Scenarist or DVDSP or Maestro. However, disc authored CORRECTLY in a tool like Scenarist will show better playability over a greater range of players throughout the world – This has been well documented.

>>>Yeah, thanks. I guess that’s what it comes down to.

Just remember – its not the authoring app you need to worry about – it’s the range of players sold to consumers throughout the years.

>>>Ahh….but I can’t change the latter. I can choose an authoring app though’.

The reason why you were having problems on your play station was because they were DVD-R? Whats was your bit rate on those discs? Did you use AC3 Audio? Cheap Media? Have you has issue with replicated discs on those players? Most likely is wasn’t anything to do with which authoring app you used.

>>>I have a rather simple perspective – if a DVD doesn’t work on my PS2, it hasn’t been authored properly. Maybe that’s the wrong attitude to take then? Even still, first batch of DVD-Rs from a friend using Encore…about 5 out of 10 of the ones he was sending down weren’t working. Then most recently, I picked up a DVD9 off the manufacturing plant floor of Thamesdown SDC – specifically Willy Fog: Around The World in 80 Days – would freeze on the logo screen when you attempt PS2 playback, even though it did play correctly in our home DVD player. My production is about videogames, and aimed at gamers, so it’s important the end result is playable on PS2s and Xboxs, etc.

>>>Since I don’t author DVDs myself, I’m afraid I can’t answer your more technical questions about bit rate, AC3, and cheap media. Although, off the top of my head, I believe the encore guy we used for those initial DVD-Rs encoded it at the highest quality he could(I assume that means a high bit rate), and when we complained about compatibility issues, varied his choice of disc media. In the end, buying a new DVD-R drive improved the good-to-dud ratio, but we always got one or two in every 10 still thereafter, that didn’t play so well.
Obviously, I’ve no idea how Willy Fog was authored though – though that was a glass mastered, properly duplicated thing.

[Andrew Mehta]

Thanks. =)

I’ve had clearence from my business partner to purchase a second OS9 system.

I do plan to upgrade to M100 HD, but most likely won’t be able to afford to do so till next year, plus I’d like to see what happens at WWDC in a week or so.

Eitherway, I now realise it’s likely I’ll have to buy a second firewire drive and copy over the media files for this project. But at the same time I’m wondering – is there any way to have media shared between two systems without having to duplicating the media data?

For now, I’m assuming “no”, so will likely duplicate the data onto a second hard drive anyway, but let us know if I’m wrong, and there is a simple way to share. 😉
Cheers.

And sorry to be hogging the boards of late. =P

Am sure some more interesting people will come along soon and post fab new stuff about v11.5, instead of waffling on about 7.5. 😉

[Andrew Mehta]

Since no one has replied saying they use OS9, are there any M100 freelancers out there using newer M100 systems, that might be interested in this job?