Chris Blair
Forum Replies Created
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We have a Blackmagic system and I believe the checkboxes you mention actually reference time-code (drop-frame and non-drop frame), not anything related to capturing. The only thing you’d have as an option to select upon capturing would be whether to “report dropped frames.”
Our Blackmagic drivers have options to abort the capture if there are dropped frames or to continue and report them to the user.
But Daniel is correct about the cause, your drive array isn’t fast enough for uncompressed.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Fernando Mol: But I have to admire your boldness. Just because you had a bad experience with a web company doesn’t mean all the people posting here are just goofing around.
I respect your opinion because you’ve helped me a time or two on the web design forum. Especially considering that (by anyone’s account) I’m no expert when it comes to site design and production.
But we’ve actually had many bad experiences with web design companies. We’re an ad agency in addition to being a post house…so we’ve helped some clients by reviewing the development and design of their sites, usually as a consultant after they’ve already initiated things.
Time and again these clients (not us mind you) would complain of the exact same problems that we experienced.
Companies that:
1. Push design over content and function. Often to the extent that navigation is at best confusing, at worse, downright maddening.
2. Insist on totally flash-based designs despite their incompatibility in many mobile applications.
3. Not take the design through to completion…with no assistance with the site technically or making sure it went live or correcting bad links or browser issues etc.
4. Not helping the client with designing the site to enhance their search engine ranking, and in most cases, never even mentioning search engines as being important for the success of the site.
5. Not properly setting up the client’s backend application for easy updating, and charging absolutely ridiculous fees ($200 and up) to do things that quite literally took them 5 minutes and half a dozen mouseclicks.
I’m sure there are many, talented, thorough and honest web designers around, especially right here on the Cow…but there are also many hacks misrepresenting or sugarcoating their skills to unsuspecting clients who trust these people with tens of thousands of dollars for web development. There is also a TON of misinformation about website setup, design, administration and especially use of video on sites, most notably using flash video.
It just bugs me to see so many people get bad advice about web stuff…not so much on here, but from companies that claim to be web experts.
The same myths get repeated over and over. As Tim points out, meta keywords haven’t been used by the major players for nearly a decade. And from what I’ve read, search engine algorithms have gotten so sophisticated that a lot of the optimization stuff that SEO companies push just isn’t relevant anymore.
I’ve visited and read dozens of SEO companies websites and many of their sites are filled with jargon and lingo that when broken down, is common sense. My favorite is the ones that push things like “keyword messaging.” Here’s how one company describes it:
The web site optimization team conducts content and competitive analysis to generate a keyword glossary. This glossary indicates the keyword concepts being used to find the kinds of content and solutions present on the company web site.
Well DUH! Translated, use words that describe your services and use them alot.
Here’s another:
XYZ company takes a holistic approach to SEO. It’s similar to a zone defense. We adjust a mix of tactics including content and code SEO, links, public relations, PPC and various online media according to the situation.
Huh? And I swear that paragraph makes more sense than anything else on a very long page describing their “holistic” approach to SEO.
I’m sure that SEO is valid for a big company that relies on its website for sales and revenue, but in my opinion for small service based companies, it’s just not necessary, relevant or cost effective.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Ok…I’m going to respectfully disagree with many of the responses on this thread. We designed and created our website on our own about 3 years ago after tiring of the cost and lack of service from web designers and ad agencies. I knew next to nothing about web design except for creating a handful of personal pages for our family and friends. They mostly sucked, although the family thought they were great and for personal sites they were certainly better than most personal web sites.
I do have a lot of graphics and design experience so it wasn’t tough designing our site, and we had a lot of graphics and “looks” we carried over from the old site. However…once built, I’ve done next to nothing to optimize our search engine ranking. Within about six months, our site was on the first page if you searched our name….and it appeared on the bottom of the first page if you searched video production, design, graphics, audio production and a few other phrases along with words like Indiana, Southern Indiana, or Evansville.
Within 18 months, we’d moved to the middle of the first page searching almost anything related to our name or industry, and if you typed in a whole host of related services (that we provide) along with our general location, we were also on the first page. Now, after almost 3 years, we’re either the 2nd or 3rd name that comes up with most of those search phrases and combinations. We also are consistently the first or second company listed if you do a general search for our range of services in our area.
Again…I’ve done almost NONE of the things listed on this thread. The only exception is I did once submit our site and some key pages to one search engine service (a freebie) that was offerred as part of a switch to a new service with our ISP. But frankly, I’m not sure how much that changed things if any. We were already pretty high up when searched. Until recently, almost none of our pages were named, and some still aren’t. We have no keywords programmed into the HTML on the index page. I will say that our site is pretty well-written and does have a lot of descriptive phrases and key-words within the copy of the index and sub-pages. There’s also a fair amount of copy about a wide variety of things we do. About half of that copy carried over from our old site (same URL) which was NOT highly ranked, but was also not nearly as well-laid our or extensive as the current one.
I’m not trying to say that the advice given on here won’t help some…but I think a well-written and well-laid out web site is far more important in getting a high ranking than all the other stuff people recommend. Our previous site was always poorly ranked and it was done by an ad agency that specializes in web sites…yet they looked at us with a blank stare when we complained of our ranking. When we asked them if they could help us get the ranking up, they sent an email listing a lot of the things suggested in this thread. When we asked, “aren’t YOU supposed to do that stuff automatically?” Again…we got a blank stare and a curt “no.” So I did them myself…but they didn’t work. We still were invisible in most of the rankings and were next to impossible to find with searches.
From my understanding of crawlers or spiders in search engines, they read the web pages and then follow the links on the page to other pages, read them, follow links etc. So it would seem that a well-laid out, logical site would make a big difference in getting a higher ranking. I’ve also read many times that rankings are often based on the frequency, consistency and relevance of key phrases that are high up on a page’s copy. So again…in the absence of meaningful titles to pages (in the title bar), well-written copy that gets the subject matter right up top and the old “who, what, where, when & why” stuff up there would seemingly also get higher rankings than ambiguous, lingo-laden writing, which many, many web design companies seem to absolutely LOVE.
Anyway, for what it’s worth…we’ve done next to nothing, except for that 5 minutes of submitting a few pages to a free service offerred as part of a switch to a different tier of service from our ISP, and our rankings are consistently on the top of the first page when you search relevant terms (industry, location, services, equipment, etc.).
So to summarize…when we used a company that does almost nothing but websites, our site virtually didn’t show when searched, even after we did all the things they suggested (and many are listed in this thread). When we redesigned and rewrote our site, and made the layout, writing and link structure more logical, within a year, our ranking jumped. Within three years, we ranked very highly on almost anything related to our core services, name, and region. Surely that’s not just coincidence? Is it?
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Bob brings up some important points about the network. The configuration he describes is almost exactly how our system was set-up and configured…and we’re on Windows. The only exception is we use one 48 port, managed Gig-E switch for everything…office and edit suite traffic. The vStor doesn’t require you to keep your office PC data traffic separate from your edit suite data traffic on separate switches. Perhaps this is possible using the Small Tree switches as well.
Our 4 edit systems all have 2 Gig-E ethernet cards, one is connected to the regular network, the other to the Apace vStor. The vStor uses link aggregation to speed throughput. So one ethernet card in the edit suite is connected to the vStor ONLY, and the other to the regular office network. That way, you can have connectivity to both the shared video storage and your office network in your edit suites. The Apace system also offers the ability to use one of your edit systems as a “gateway” of sorts for all your other office computers to see your shared video files (via a specific IP address). So we have one edit system that is used primarily for compositing (doesn’t really need real-time all the time) set up to allow the 11 other office PCs to have access to video and audio files. It works beautifully, and it doesn’t seem to have much if any impact on the the performance of the vStor.
I don’t know if this is possible with other vendors solutions or if it’s possible on Mac/Final Cut configurations, but this setup and configuration was one of the things that factored in our decision to use Apace systems stuff. I do know Apace fully supports Mac and Final Cut.
When the Apace drive array isn’t real full, we get between 85-90MB/sec read speeds and 60-75MB/sec write speeds on all 4 edit systems, enough for 8 or more streams of DVCPRo50 (total streams across all suites) and enough for a 3-4 of DVCProHD. Test speeds drop about 10-15% as the drives get filled up, but frankly we don’t notice any difference in performance in the edit suites.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
You should also at least take a look at Apace’s offerings. They’re very affordable, they work with Final Cut/Mac, they’re scalable, and their customer service is the best I’ve ever experienced in 25 years working in this business. Contact their reseller in California first…IEEI, Inc.
https://www.ieei.com/ieeibroadcast/vstor.shtml
Dennis Bress is the contact and again…his customer service along with engineering support from Apace was unbelievable during our decision making. And we spoke with folks at EditShare, Studio Network Solutions, 2 Degrees Frost (avoid them), as well as a host of folks that build custom systems using third party hardware and software from Tiger Technology and otherw. I should also mention the guys at Tiger Technology are super too, but we just didn’t have the people or know-how to build a DIY system. The total cost of our system was just over $15,000, and that included the Apace vStor, a 48 port managed switch, a lot of new cabling in the server room, several new Gig-E ethernet cards, a 4GB Lacie Ethernet Backup drive, a 2GB LaCie ethernet drive for projects, some new patch-panels, and a rack for the all those rack-mountable drive units, and professional installation. You could easily get an 8TB vStor and all the rest mentioned for around $20-24K. Our system is all Gig-E and we used existing cabling that was run to 4 edit suites. We edit primarily DVCPro50 stuff and can run all 4 edit systems simultaneously and get at least 2 to 3 real-time channels. We can capture SD uncompressed without issue and do Cineform and Blackmagic MJPG HD capture fine as well.
We’ve had their system for 22 months and it’s run 24/7 since the day it was installed. We’ve had to make one support call…and that was because we couldn’t find the power switch to turn it back on after a power outage (it’s tiny and recessed). It defragments itself automatically so I’ve quite literally not done more than 5 minutes of administration on this thing since it was installed. Prior to that, I probably spent 2 hours a week jacking around with our direct attached SCSCI arrays troubleshooting a variety of issues, from file corruption to administering backups to finding and deleting redundant backup files and duplicated clips across systems etc.
Anyway…certainly explore Bob’s DIY solution, it’s a proven, workable solution for Mac and Final Cut. But if you have 20K, I think you’d be better off buying a system that works out of the box that comes with great tech support.
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We have a client that we do a lot of compression for that uses Limelight. They’ve not mentioned anything unusual or unique about delivering content and they upload hundreds of videos at a time for a couple of different web clients.
They have talked about how Limelight uses cloud computing to automatically place files on the servers from which the most users are logging on and playing content…but again, it sounded seamless and transparent to the limelight customer from their description.
Not sure if that helps or answers your question, but they’ve been very happy with the service and support they’ve gotten. We’ve looked into Limelight for a couple of our direct clients and they’re quite pricey, so you need to be consuming a lot of bandwidth before it’s a viable option.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Rob,
First…you’re welcome. Second…I think as long as you continue to work the problem and continue to attempt to keep your 2 supervisors up to date about problems you’re having as well as the progress you’re making, you’ll be fine.
Most business people I know understand that as long as someone is working hard, trying to find information, and making a sincere effort to get the job done, there’s not much more you can ask of them. They also understand (or should) that they cannot expect to throw a new employee onto a disorganized project and expect them to complete the job in the same amount of time it would’ve taken them to do it.
If nothing else, it’s a great first lesson out of college. I always tell our college interns that the work environment is NOTHING like what you experience in college. You have less time, usually less information, and often no formal training to do many of the tasks you’re asked to do. So good employees figure stuff out. The first time through a project is almost always a nerve racking affair, but believe me, it’ll get easier. Stick it out and it’ll likely be worth it.
I’ve also told interns that I feel like I learned more from what could be considered “bad” jobs than the good ones. Why? Because I learned what NOT to do on projects, which makes identifying the right things much easier! I also always had more chances to try new tasks at the “bad” jobs because most people were just slogging their way through the day, while I was trying to learn as many things as I possibly could. They were all happy and willing to let me do whatever I wanted!
Anyway…you sound like a concientious guy with a good head. Chances are good it’ll all work out in the end.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
I’ve read the entire thread and two things bother me about threads like this:
1. A young, inexperienced but well meaning Cow member posts a problem and asks for help, yet many of the replies admonish the poster for not being a “team player” or they’re exercising poor judgement etc. etc. for not doing this or that.
Well….DUH. If the original poster had known that he/she wouldn’t have posted asking for help! I originally joined Creative Cow about 5 years ago but experienced this exact same antagonistic attitude the first few times I asked for advice. I was a 20 year veteran at the time and decided it wasn’t worth the grief. I eventually came back a couple years ago and got more involved and weathered the “storm” so to speak. There’s still one particular forum on here that I continue to get hammered on about the suggestions I give to folks. It makes no sense to treat folks this way on a site that bills itself “the peer to peer support community.” The original poster was polite about his request and I got the impression he was unable to speak with his supervisors because they were “in the middle of nowhere” for 10 days.
2. People reply to a post by critiquing the post itself rather than answering the questions posed. Things like, “you’re in the wrong forum for that issue,” or “if you don’t know that then you’re really in trouble,” and on and on.
Give people a break….a lot of folks that post on here are thrown into doing things they have no clue how to do. Maybe you’ve heard that 10 million people have been laid off in the last year? That’s a lot of work that’s being transferred to other people. A manager or owner comes to them and says “do this and I need it next Friday.” Never mind the employee has NEVER done “this” and has no one within earshot to ask. The last thing they need is for people on here to slap them on the wrist for asking something they “should already know…” or be reprimanded because they didn’t give us all the details we need to fix their problem.
Ok…I feel better and I’m sure I’ll get “admonished” for replying to this thread this way. But I belong to a lot of other professional video and marketing forums and this is the only site that exhibits this sort of thing.
As to the original post, my advice would be to work through the problem as best he can, be dogged about trying to reach his supervisors and managers while they’re on the road to get some help, and do his best. That’s all anyone can ask of someone. As to it being partly his fault for not checking his assets as others have suggested. It sounds like he’s a new employee and a very young one at that, so to me that’s just not relevant. You’re telling me a 22 or 23 old recent graduate is supposed to know to ask these things prior to his bosses flying the coup for 10 days and not being reachable by phone or email? If anything, his superiors should’ve known they would have to help him along and should’ve made provisions for regular contact to check on the project.
I can’t imagine leaving a new employee in this situation or going out of town for 10 days without ANY ability to contact someone back at the office working on an important, deadline oriented project. Plug…it’s almost inconceivable that anyone could be so far in the middle of nowhere that they’d have NO contact with the outside world.
Ok…rant over….and go easy on me…please!??!
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Here’s a Cow tutorial on changing a progessive source to interlaced in After Effects…but…I’m still suspect that this would fix a fast horizontal move that doesn’t have motion blur applied (the way a camera would add it if you were panning).
https://magazine.creativecow.net/article/interlacing-progressive-footage
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
What pixel size/resolution is the “fixed” file? If I understand correctly, it sounds like someone created an animation and rendered it progressively without motion blur, which would create the horizontal jitter you describe on text that’s quickly moving horizontally.
So a couple questions:
1. What exactly did you do to fix it? It doesn’t seem that converting/transcoding the file with interlacing would improve it much since each field would just be half of the original progressive frame without the usual difference between the two fields that helps smooth motion (If that makes sense).
2. How are you exporting it…meaning to what pixel size and frame rate?
I’ve seen the issue you describe only when an animation is created progressively without motion blur, and in this case the jitter you describe is inherent in the original file. The BEST solution would be to rerender the original project progressive with motion blur, or interlaced without motion blur if render time is an issue.
If that’s not an option, the next best would be to take your “fixed” version and reduce the pixel size/resolution upon export. So if the original is 1280×720, output your preview at something like 640×360, 512×288 or 480×270 and don’t deinterlace the output. You might get a little bit of interlace artifacts but the motion shouldn’t be jittery.
Give us some more info and we could probably help more.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com