[Chris Blair]

He’s talking about using the LaCie ethernet device as a backup device…not as shared storage for editing. That’s what we use for backup of our Apace vStor shared storage system and I simply suggested it as an option in my reply. It works great and is priced right if you’re on a budget. If you have more budget, then certainly there are other more robust backup solutions, but we’ve used LaCie drives for backups for 3 years now and they just plain work…and their customer service is outstanding.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Chris Blair]

LaCie disks definitely are. Not sure about Second Copy, but don’t think so. Surely there’s a Mac equivalent in terms of a simple backup solution that doesn’t require an IT degree to figure out how it works (like Dantz Retrospect, which sucks and is Mac friendly if you can call it that).

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Chris Blair]

We use Vegas some and I can tell you that Vegas doesn’t like quicktime files (it will read them but it’s slow and will eventually require a render), and works best with AVI files. So decide what format/codec you’re going to be editing with on Vegas and render to that from After Effects. If it’s HD, the most efficient codec is the Cineform codec that ships with Vegas. If it’s SD, you could use anyone of a half-dozen codecs depending on your system setup, from uncompressed to software codecs like Matrox DVCPro50 (freely available online) or combination hardware/software based codecs like Blackmagic’s, which are also freely available online.

So if you’re using capture hardware with Vegas? (Like a Blackmagic card) definitely use the Blackmagic codecs coming out of AE. But even without their hardware, you can find and install their software only codecs.

There’a a filmmaker that blogs about Vegas who’s very knowledgeable and I’d check her blog out if you want more info. Her name is Eugenia Loli and she’s extremely sharp when it comes to the best codecs and workflows with Vegas.
https://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/09/19/crash-course-on-sony-vegas/

Another great resource when it comes to Vegas is Douglas Spotted Eagle, who I believe contributes quite a lot on the Vegas forum here on the Cow, which is another place to ask this question.

I’d search something like Vegas codecs to find related posts on here and Eugenia’s blog.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Chris Blair]

While I generally agree with Bob and I certainly love his analogy (or is it a parable?), there are times when you can do “whatever it takes” and STILL lose a project.

The process that some companies go through to select vendors can be byzantine…and as I said before, you can talk, wine and dine, cajole, promise and massage the person you’re told has the decision making power, but in the end, they often DON’T have the final say.

I’ll give you an example. We had a long-time client come to us with a project. They weren’t even bidding it out, they just wanted an estimate for budgeting purposes. Some weeks went by…no word from the client on scheduling despite a few calls and emails. Finally, we get a call from our long-time contact, (who by the way really enjoys working with us). We lost the project to another company? How we ask? It seems the new Marketing Director for that brand at the company was….drum roll please…the CEO’s daughter. She wasn’t familiar with us but was familiar with another company run by friends & colleagues from college. She overruled our contact person and made her work with the other company.

Long story short, their experience with the other company was bad, their next project they were back with us.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Chris Blair]

Alex Neuman:
my IT knowledge is none, integration systems none, I think I can cut more or less ;)……my small shop I can not afford high maintenance costs…..Smoke on a mac (it will be doing uncompressed HD)…, I am now having feelings for Facilis with their new, File, based, Volume based workflow (although I don’t know what that means, ha ha)

No offense…but if youre IT knowledge is “none,” you’re in for some long days and big headaches. I’d suggest you either bone up on networking in general and video sharing specifically in a hurry…especially if you cannot afford high maintenance costs.

Uncompressed HD requires anywhere from 105 to 237MB/sec depending on the pixel resolution, bit-depth and frame rate.

https://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/detail.asp?techID=30

So you’d need at a minimum 10GB ethernet to support that, and likely FC for faster read/write access. 10GB can do it, but those systems are just now starting to actually get installed in facilities, so it’s not as mature as GB ethernet and Fibre. GB ethernet cannot do uncompressed HD.

If you don’t know the difference between file based sharing and volume based sharing, it’s pretty important. To do what your describe (have assets available to all editors all the time), you’d want file based sharing. Volume based sharing is typical in Fibre Channel setups, where if memory serves me, you have to assign a volume to an edit station for it to access it, and other edit stations cannot write to that volume while it’s being worked with. I’m not even sure if the other stations can read from it until they’re given access, but I could be wrong on that. There is file sharing software that can give file sharing to SAN systems, but it’s expensive and is seemingly becoming obsolete with the emergence of 10GB ethernet.

For backup, you need more than just a Raid 5 or Raid 6. If they failed, you’d have to rebuild the entire array, which means sinificant downtime if you have a big raid, which you will certainly have doing uncompressed HD. If 2 disks fail in Raid 5, you’re hosed. So I’d look at LaCie’s rack-mount ethernet disks. They’re built like tanks, are reliable, and are relatively inexpensive. Plust LaCie has great customer support. Those drives aren’t fast, but you don’t need speed to backup. You can also add volumes to them by just buying another LaCie drive (rack-mount or desktop external) and just plugging it in via USB or e-SATA. You go into their web-based admin page, name the volume, and instantly you have terabytes of additional backup that shows up as a volume or folder to your system.

We use Second Copy software to backup all project, audio and video files each night. It’s never crashed (ever), never messed up a file, and never failed to run. It costs $29 per license and it’s the best bargain on the planet. It backs up your files without compression, so when you restore, you just drag and drop your files onto your shared storage array. Boom…done. Much simpler and faster than traditional backup software. You can use compression with Second Copy but it’s a waste of time and it doesn’t make a video or audio file hardly any smaller anyway. Same with big graphic files, it might make them 20% smaller at best.

I’m not trying to be a jerk…but if you don’t have technical computer skills and knowledge, you better find somebody to help you who does. While this stuff has gotten easier, there is still a lot of assigning of IP addresses, setting DNS and Gateways etc. I’ve been doing it (IT stuff) for 14 years as a facility owner and I’m still a complete idiot compared to IT people that do it full-time. But I can diagnose and fix IP issues, hard drive issues, and fix a screwed up computer or drive array etc…and believe me, it’s REQUIRED.

Good Luck and we’re here to help, so don’t get discouraged. But you’ll need to do some homework on your end to get a system that will do what you want and won’t require a lot of babysitting.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Chris Blair]

There could be a bunch of reasons why they went with someone else, and most if not all of them may not have anything to do with you. We’ve had this happen many times over 14 years in business. Typically, someone higher up than the contact person we were dealing with made the decision to use someone else.

Sometimes, companies want to spread their work around to see what other types of products they can get and for what price. As others have noted, I’d politely ask why you didn’t get the project. No harm in that. If they want to tell you they will. If not, just keep at them and probe harder next time you have a meeting for exactly what they’re looking for on the project and in the proposal.

Just as an aside, we’ve had this same thing happen on two occasions where we pitched actual storyboards and concepts. In those two cases, guess whose ideas and visual concepts were used by the “other” production company? Yep…OURS! So it could be worse. They could use someone else AND steal your ideas!

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Chris Blair]

I believe Handbrake can convert MPG2 to something you can use in Avid, and MPEG Streamclip likely could too. You don’t say if you’re on Windows or Mac, but you should have the needed Avid codecs installed on a Windows system. I’m just not sure if Handbrake or Streamclip will use system codecs or if they just use their own.

If you’re on Windows, a decent freebie encoder is MediaCoder, although it’s got some annoying popups and ad banners when you first install it (all can be turned off but it takes a little digging).

Another decent Windows freebie is Quick Media Converter https://www.cocoonsoftware.com/

Both of those apps will use whatever codecs you’ve got installed, so Avid codecs should be options on Windows.

If you’re on Mac, I’ll defer to others.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Chris Blair]

Uprezzing the 320×240 clips is going to look terrible. You should definitely use the MPG2 clips. I doubt they’re a strange size…I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure broadcast SD MPG2 is almost always 720×480 and the aspect ratio can be 4:3 or 16:9. The MPG2 spec allows many other sizes both horizontally and vertically….and a quick search turned up the following, but I can’t imagine a video archive would go lower than that standard definition size:

Application-specific restrictions on MPEG-2 video in the DVB standard:

Allowed resolutions for SDTV:

720, 640, 544, 528, 480 or 352 × 480 pixel, 24/1.001, 24, 30/1.001 or 30 frame/s
* 352 × 240 pixel, 24/1.001, 24, 30/1.001 or 30 frame/s
* 720, 704, 544, 528, 480 or 352 × 576 pixel, 25 frame/s
* 352 × 288 pixel, 25 frame/s

For HDTV:

* 720 x 576 x 50 frame/s progressive (576p50)
* 1280 x 720 x 25 or 50 frame/s progressive (720p50)
* 1440 or 1920×1080 x 25 frame/s progressive (1080p25 film mode)
* 1440 or 1920 x 1080 x 25 frame/s interlace (1080i50)
* 1920 x 1080 x 50 frame/s progressive (1080p50)future H.264/AVC

If you load the MPG2 clip into a NLE or an encoding app, or even media players like VLC it should tell you the pixel size, pixel aspect etc.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Chris Blair]

Our experience with web developers and designers has been mixed. Virtual all web designers have been trained in traditional print graphic design, or specifically in web design. Few have much knowledge of video. Fewer still have a good understanding and grasp of designing with video as a key part of the page, including pixel resolution (meaning properly sizing an area for video elements), codecs, video players, skins, bufferlengths, javascript, embedding etc.

To make matters worse, there’s a tremendous amount of confusion and misinformation about how to best get video onto a website. Throw in the complexity of designing for mobile browsers…and well…it’s a mess out there.

I only think it would make sense if the web developer/designer had already designed, implemented and managed many sites that use a lot of video. And those resulting pages look good, work well, and the video works as it should.

Could it work to align yourself with a talented web guru. Yep. But good luck finding one that understands the complexities of video along with the ever-changing landscape of web development in general. We’ve found that we often know more about video for the web than web designers and web-based companies. Which is a little bit scary. But getting video onto a website that will load quickly, play smoothly, and mesh with the rest of the page design can be tricky. Lots of web folks can make the player interface look cool, but when it comes to function, it’s a mess. You’ll often find slow load times, buffering, or…the videos flat won’t play. They don’t understand codecs, often insist on building their own flash players (when half-a-dozen top-notch, proven commercial players are available for next to nothing), and build players that are odd sizes.

So as long as you were sure of the web person’s abilities, I think it would be a great way to offer a complete online solution to companies.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Chris Blair]

I could be wrong but I think the original poster was asking about embedding a video from YouTube or Vimeo on the site in question. That’s what I think looks tacky. Certainly putting them on YouTube or Vimeo along with your own site can’t hurt.

It’s when you embed videos from those sites… along with the social media site’s watermarked logo and their player skin…that it tends to cheapen the hosting website.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com