[Brett Sherman]

I think this post is rather tongue-in-cheek, but the notion of what software is used for Oscar-nominated films is a rather silly to me.

As complicated as the artistry of film editing is, it is a somewhat limited technical software toolset that is needed to do it. Yes, massive amounts of organization. But do they need sophisticated color correction? Nope, someone else does that. Full-featured audio? Again, someone else. Fancy title templates? Un-uh, someone else. Work with crappy footage someone shot on their iPhone? They wouldn’t think of it. Pulling a clips out of multiple project spanning the last 8 years? Nope, movies are self-contained. Turnaround in 4 hours? Ha!

Maybe Lightwave is better designed for this type of editing. But chances are it’s a pretty poor choice for what I need to do.

[Brett Sherman]

For me since I’m stuck (for better or worse, mostly better) on OS X, the question is whether there is an advantage for the Mac Pro versus iMac. I calculate that you can get 3 iMacs during the time you use the Mac Pro (depends on if you sell or how you calculate the value of passing the iMac down to another use). I figure this is around an 8-10 year time frame. So over that time, how will the capability of the iMac improve? Where Xeons use raw power to achieve gains, the Core chips use targeted processing (for example decompressing H.265). Yes it’s possible to upgrade the the Mac Pro. But costs for that are undetermined and may be limited by the architecture of the system.

For me, who doesn’t need cards and works at 4K, I’m not convinced the Mac Pro is the better option.

[Brett Sherman]

The only thing I can think of is that the frame rate is set wrong on FCP X for the capture. 25fps instead of 30fps. Normally, it would just not be able to capture, but having DV output on an 8mm format is weird since it’s an analog format. So it might be a weird thing with this particular deck.

The only thing I can think is to go analog and get a capture card of some kind. I’ve used Black Magic ones, but they are probably a bit pricey for what you want to do. The deck is already doing some sort of A to D conversion, so you’re not adding an additional process.

[Brett Sherman]

[Rich Rubasch] “I have also noticed that SSD 2.5″ drives are going for about 1/2 price…not sure what changed but they have come way down….time to look at SSD RAID configs!”

The pricing has been weird. SSDs have been artificially high for a long time. Some say demand from mobile phones kept the supply of memory short and that people aren’t replacing phones as quickly now. But that doesn’t explain it all. It has much further to drop.

[Brett Sherman]

Intel Optane gets its performance boost from cacheing commonly used files. It’s great for office tasks. Buts for video editing it doesn’t speed things up since you don’t hit the same data over and over again (usually). It’s sort of like the Fusion drive for Macs. That didn’t do squat for video editing.

From PC Magazine, “If you have the budget for a tricked-out gaming rig or high-end workstation and plan to use them for specialized workflows like 4K video editing, a cutting-edge conventional SSD would be a better choice.”

[Brett Sherman]

I think you are misinterpreting what attack and release times mean in a compressor. They don’t shape transients in the way you’re thinking. (there are plug ins that do this but they aren’t compressors – SPL Transient Designer for one).

Attack refers to the time it takes to ramp up (or down depending on how you look at it) to Gain Reduction. Counter intuitively a longer attack time actually lets more transients through. Release time is the time it takes to return to zero gain after the threshold has been passed. And again counterintuitively this is a ramping UP of volume.

Nothing completely replaces manual volume riding as it is intelligent about where the empty spaces are and how high quiet sections should be pushed. Compressors can be used to give voice more energy or for longer leveling depending on the settings and the particular plug-in being used (an optical compressor is a different animal than a digital one) For me an automated thing like Vocal Rider is really a time saver.

[Brett Sherman]

It is definitely hard to set a compressor right, which is why products like Vocal Rider are great. And I’m not saying there is absolutely no sonic difference between the two. But they are both doing a form of Gain Reduction for peaks. The ballistics are a bit different though, and that may be where the advantage of the Vocal Rider comes in. Here is a video showing both a compressor and the Vocal Rider in action. The similarities between the two are pretty clear.

https://youtu.be/Gt6u3Z3Djzw

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[Brett Sherman]

[Bob Zelin] “I never understood this mindset. When you are in the video business, and you do a shoot, you have a TON of gear that has to be moved around – your camera, lenses, tripod, batteries, chargers, cables, outboard recorder, outboard monitor, etc, etc.”

Definitely true for some uses. But I find it is just barely possible to edit on an airline even with a 15″ laptop. It won’t lay flat and you have to tip it up towards yourself on most seats. I think the 16″ will be fine if they reduce the bezel. And I’ll likely get one when it is time to upgrade. But there’s almost no way to use the classic 17″ with modern aircraft seating space.

And yes, I have been known to edit at Starbucks when I’m on the road and don’t have anywhere else to go.

Of course my preference is always to edit with two 4K monitors in the office. But there are times it’s not possible. Besides the fact if space is no issue, I’d take a 15″ laptop with my iPad as a second monitor over a single 17″ any day.

[Brett Sherman]

[Oliver Peters] “I do feel like I get better acoustic results with the iZotope RX plug-ins”

Definitely. I tested the Accusonus when it came out and it really wasn’t even in the same ballpark as iZotope for heavy noise reduction. I tend not to do real-time processing. While iZotope RX7 does work quite well with realtime in FCP X with Adaptive Voice De-noise, the best tool for most situations is Dialogue Isolate which is not possible to run in realtime. ERA doesn’t have anything like it. And iZotope RX 7 Advanced has the Spectral Repair which has nothing like it in the ERA pack.

I think Accusonics realized the value wasn’t there at $1000 so they lowered the price. It’s a pretty good deal now. Before there was no reason to get it over iZotope RX Advanced. (I’m not a Premiere user, so admittedly there may be compatiblity issues that it solves).

[Oliver Peters] “For controlling vocal levels, my favorite still remains Waves Vocal Rider. I like the Accusonus Voice Leveler, but it’s basically an intelligent compressor. Vocal Rider actually “rides” its built-in faders, as the name implies. So low and high volume levels are dynamically adjusted, not compressed, thus leaving you with a more open sound.”

I’m not sure there’s a real technical difference between compression and level riding. Compression is really just altering the gain dependent on the level coming in. With high attack and release times it does have the effect of bringing up quiet sections and bringing down loud sections. With longer times, it’s considered a Leveler. That being said, I really like the Vocal Rider as it allows you to set a target level (which compressors don’t), so in some ways what you’re saying is true in that you don’t have to be as aggressive with gain reduction to get a fairly even output. I have to admit I am a bit surprised as to how much the faders are moving. I wish I could set it so it’s not quite as reactive.

I bought three Vocal Rider licenses for $30 each with the half-off sale. It’s still available at that price. It’s a bargain, especially if you only need it on one workstation as licensing is a very strict one machine per license.

[Brett Sherman]

[Andrew Kimery] ”
With that being said though, archiving for data doesn’t really exist like it does for physical media. Archiving for data is really a perpetual migration of data to contemporary codecs/formats and storage mediums so that it remains accessible. This is why when one does their initial ingest one shouldn’t use a heavily compressed codec like low bit rate H.264 because eventually that crap H.264 file will have to be transcoded into another codec for compatibility. And then another, and then another, and then another for decades or even centuries (assuming humanity makes it that long).”

This is true. But to an OS, high bandwidth H.264 is identical to low bandwidth H.264. Smart money is on using a non-propietary high bandwidth format. Many cameras these days shoot on a high bandwidth variation of H.264. H.265 is coming soon.