Chris Blair
Forum Replies Created
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Apace may have solutions in that general range for 8 seats based on doing the type of work listed. He doesn’t mention the amount of storage needed, so it’s tough to know if 20k is enough for their solutions. But you could probably get 6-8TB for that and serve 8 edit stations reliably IF you’re doing SD. If you’re doing HD, it would have to be using something that uses really efficient compression like Cineform or DVCProHD or something similar.
Bob’s data rates are dead on though for Gig-E based file sharing. Roughly 90MB/sec is what we get across 4 seats when the Apace vStor is about 20-30% full. When it gets up around 70%, those rates fall to around 65-70MB/sec. But that’s still plenty of speed for us to edit mutliple channels of SD footage (at roughly DVCPro50 compression), along with a single channel of Cineform or DVCPro compressed HD on a 4th system.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
Interesting…
Maybe it’s a Windows Quicktime Pro thing. We’ve seen it on multiple PCs with latest version of Quicktime Pro. But doesn’t explain the issue on Handbrake (Windows version) since it’s using x264 and not the Apple codec (again…that’s what it specifies in the codec options in Windows version of Handbrake).
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
Red text,red graphics and just the color red in general is notorious for bleeding and generally looking like crap as resolution and color depth decreases. It’s also possible that the saturation is too high on he original material We always keep reds to below 75% saturation (as measured in photoshop) on any text and graphics, and typically at 80% or lower on luminance in the original graphics.
We also use red sparingly as a text color or text edge.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
I think the industry norm is to charge anywhere from 50-75% of your regular rates for travel time. I know our clients would be none too happy if we charged full-rate for travel time…and if I was a client I would feel cheated if somebody charged me $200/hour for the time they’re sitting in a vehicle or on a plane.
I agree you’re not able to book other billable projects during that time, but in my opinion it’s excessive to charge your full-rate for getting to a gig.
We typically charge by half-day and full-day. So if we spend a 8-10 hour day traveling, we charge 60% of our day-rate (for a 2 or 3 person crew). Rates differ depending on the number of people on the shot.
Same if it takes us anywhere from 3-5 hours to travel somewhere, we charge 60% of a half-day rate for travel…again based on the size of the crew.
For shorter distances we just charge mileage at $.44/mile (or whatever the standard is now).
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
– Do I need to transcode my 23.97p material to 29.97p for ntsc playback? If so, how do I do that in Compressor?
I do not believe you need to do this. Most DVD players will add pulldown. I could be wrong on this but I recall Noah Kadner (a long-time Cow member) answering this question a while back and I believe he recommended just keeping it at 24p.
– if I don’t transcode my project to 29.97 and just tell compressor to make the disc as 23.97p will it work on a non-progressive player/TV?
Yes. It won’t change from interlaced to progressive or anything like that, but it should playback fine on older televisions.
– The test I did seemed to work (though I don’t know how) why does my ntsc project playback on my pal DVD player and 4:3 CRT TV? Are all DVD players able to convert now? I couldn’t find anything about my player being able to do NTSC.
No they are not generally able to convert. Maybe you have a PAL DVD player that can playback NTSC??
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
One problem we’ve experienced with MPEG Streamclip is it doesn’t produce playable AVI files with every codec it offers. I know we’ve tried the PhotoJPEG codec before and the resulting file wouldn’t play on any media players on Windows.
But that’s certainly worth a try to get the file size smaller. I’d do a short sample of about a minute and email it to the audio guy though to make sure he can open it.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
AVI is a sort of a dormant format. It’s still used extensively on Windows but typically with systems that use proprietary codecs like Avid, Matrox and Blackmagic. There’s very little development of new codecs for it.
If you have a Windows computer, you could try regular old DV. It’s only 2.5MB/sec if it’s video only and 3.5MB/sec with both video and audio, but it would still be huge, something like 6GB.
There is a Matrox I-frame MPEG2 codec for Windows that uses the AVI container that can get your file down to around 40MB per minute or roughly 1.2GB for a 30 minute show. It would look as good as anything you output to DVD. The problem is if your audio guy doesn’t have the codec, he won’t be able to play the file.
I don’t think any of those will work or be of any use on a Mac though.
Here’s a page with a ton of AVI codecs (many for download), but likely all for use on a Windows computer.
Be aware that many of the codecs and links are old, and most of the codecs are proprietary and buggy. You’re audio guy would likely have to install the codec to play the file as well.
Here’s another direct link to the Matrox I-Frame codec:
https://depositfiles.com/en/files/a582e20jl
Hit the “free download” button. You’ll have to wait for about a minute to download. It’s a good codec and works nicely and gets files down quite small. Again, this would only work on a Windows computer.
Last, why not ask the audio guy what most people give him in terms of the AVI codec? Plus, ask if he can take other formats
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
What version of Windows and Windows Media Player are you using? Also, have you tried other media players on Windows, like VLC, RealPlayer, KMPlayer, Zoom Player or others? Does it happen on mutliple Windows computers or just the one you’re testing it on? We do some .m2v output and I’ve never seen this on Windows using any media player that works on the Windows platform. Also, try changing the extension of the file to .mpg and see how your media player works. It could be an extension issue.
Additionally, what MPEG2 codec are you using? I don’t believe Windows Media Player comes with an MPEG2 codec, so you’d have to have either 3rd party DVD player software or FFMPEG installed for Windows Media Player to even play the file. That codec could very well be causing the issue. Windows Media Player uses a Direct Show Filter to plug into the codecs that are installed on your system, so if you have mutliple MPEG2 codecs, it could be as simple as switching which one is the preferred codec in FFMPEG or in your DVD Player software settings.
Let us know what you find out.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
I’m assuming your original file is HD since it’s 3GB. We just export as uncompressed AVI’s and then import that into Quicktime Pro (it’s just $29). Then export the AVI as an mp4 file using H264 and AAC. Set your data rate at 35Mb/sec (3500kb/sec) and your audio at 128kb/sec. Your end file should be well under 100MB and should look good. If you want it to look even better, resize it to 848×480.
Of course the pixel size depends on the target playback use, but if it’s for playback on a computer, this is big enough to view easily (and fit on the computer screen without being cut off) and will playback on even older computers without problems.
If the resulting file will be played with other media players (Flash, VLC etc.) You may want to reduce your blacks by about 12% and boost chroma by about 5-8% either on the AVI, or in the export to H264 to account for the gamma shift problem with Apple’s H264 codec.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
Render to an uncompressed AVI in AE, then buy the pro version of Quicktime if you don’t have it (It’s $29). Import the AVI into Quicktime Pro and export as an H264/mp4 file at roughly 35Mb/sec. You should end up with a file under 100MB that looks fantastic.
Also…is your file HD or SD to begin with? I’m assumming HD since it’s a 3GB file. You could also reduce the size to something more manageable like 864×480 depending on your needs. I believe 35Mb/sec translates to 3500kb/sec.
We use this method for exporting files for upload to broadcast and it works great. You may have to adjust your AVI files colors to compensate for the Apple H264 color shift issue (it can make your H264 file look a little washed out when played with other media players). But if the end file will be played in Quicktime Player, then it should look fine and you can skip that. We simply crush the blacks about 12% and boost chroma about 5% in the AVI and that corrects the gamma issue.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog