Chris Blair
Forum Replies Created
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I was talking about the feeds he mentioned in the original post. I’m assuming he’s talking about recording feeds from satellite and he said they’re currently recording to DV tape via composite. So by capturing those feeds directly into the NLE, he’s saving the generation and the transcoding hit I was referred to.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
On the capture question, it depends. You’re not going to see much of a quality increase capturing DV originated footage shot with a DV camera, but you would see a difference in capturing feeds directly into a NLE rather than recording them to tape then capturing. That stands whether you use DV or DVCPro50. You’d basically be saving the a generation and a transcoding pass since you’d elimiate recording to tape (1 generation), and the transcoding from analog to digital capturing it into your NLE.
Hope that helps…
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
We’re primarily a DVCPro50 shop so I can help a little here.
You’d definitely be better off using DVCPro50. It records using 4:2:2 and is effectively double the data rate of DV. The other area you could drastically improve video quality is capturing into the AJD 455 deck using something other than composite signals. SDI would be best if it’s an option, but at the very least you should be sending component video into it.
Another option would be to capture the feeds (using DVCPro50 compression if possible) into your NLE system at the same time you’re recording to tape. This would save a generation and the time spent capturing from tape.
As far as the difference between DVCPro25 and DV. It’s virtually non-existent when it comes to quality. Both are throwing out half the color information, both are encoding at 25Mbits/sec. So they’re going to look very similar.
You should also shoot in DVCPro 50 if you have the capability, then capture via SDI using at least DVCPro50 codecs in your editing system.
The only drawback to using DVCPro50 vs. DV or DVCPro is that it uses more drive space.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
I have to echo what Bob says. We’re seeing the same thing in the midwest. We’re right between St. Louis, Nashville, Louisville and Indy…and our business is off at least 25% over last year. We do have some encouraging prospects for 3rd quarter, but overall, it’s an unnerving time.
The other thing we see is clients coming to us with projects with bids from other companies in-hand that are ridiculously low…and they’re asking us, “what can you do for us considering what we’ve already been quoted.” On most, we have to answer, “nothing…” since doing it for even a substantially more than the quote they have would be a money losing proposition.
There are SOOO many companies that are willing to work for next to nothing that it undercuts everyone. Quality suffers, bottom line suffers (to where it’s non-existent), and it feeds the belief that “anyone can do video and design.”
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
I don’t think Bob and Walter’s configurations have been tested on PCs. They’ve been tested extensively on MACs and since PCs are going to use different file-sharing protocols, it’s anybody’s guess if it will work.
You can get systems that work right out of the box for under $9,000 for PCs. Of course that doesn’t take into account a new high-end switch, possible new ethernet cards, backup, cabling etc. You might read down thru past posts to see who’s built a PC specific system and had success if spending $12-15k is more than your budget.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Oh I totally agree with you. I just thought they may have an interest in partnering with you somehow on a pitch or in continuing it somehow.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Grinner…there’s a production company here in our town that has produced a car show for a number of years. It’s called My Classic Car. It wasn’t a show I was the least bit interested in nor did I think they had particularly high production values, but it was professional enough and they had a host with a funny handle-bar mustache that drew attention. I’m not sure it’s still in production, but it too was a niche show.
You might give them a call and just see if they have a interest. The production company is called Bradley David Productions and here’s their website.
Their site lists 4 programs they’re producing…but I’m only aware of 2 that are actually airing at the moment.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
You basically need to take the same source file and transcode it using the EXACT same settings on each computer. You also need to make sure any global software settings are the same on the software you’re using.
If you get the same results, then you can rule out the transcoding software, codecs, settings etc. and start looking at PC configuration, both hardware and software.
Just as an aside, we run identical IBM intellistations in three edit suites….but when transcoding using apps like ProCoder and others, we sometimes see significant differences in transcode times. There are dozens of things that can account for this, from bios settings to old drivers or driver settings, to drive fragmentation and optimization etc.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
I could be wrong but I don’t think you need software like StoreNext to achieve this. If you’ve read Bob and Walter’s configurations in past posts, they’re just using native Apple file-sharing.
There are others on this forum, including me, who are using plug and play hardware/software combos that will work with both PCs and Mac’s right out of the box. Our system is the Apace vStor, but there are others out there that do the same thing I believe. They’re built on Linux architecture and I’m pretty sure you can have a PC hooked to it running Premiere using .avi files in one room, and have a Final Cut workstation on a MAC using .mov files in another.
That said, you need to give Bob and the others that do more engineering type work more info, like are you wanting to edit HD or SD, what codec or data rates will you primarily be using etc.
Also…I’d be wary about the idea of having people come in and edit on my shared storage setup if they’re not at least familiar with some basic asset management guidelines…like where to setup render directories, where to store project files etc. If you don’t, you’ll have a mess on your hands since everybody’s brain works differently and people have a tendency to put files all over the place.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
We run a 4TB Apace vStor system with 4 edit workstations. Almost everything we edit is SD using DVCPro50, so it’s plenty of storage for our needs. We also use a separate, shared LaCie 2TB ethernet drive array for projects. For backup, we simply added a LaCie 4TB ethernet drive array and then use Second Copy (very simple backup software that’s $39) to back it all up every night. Second Copy runs from one of the workstations and it works like a charm.
All these drive array are rack-mounted in a big, cooled closet along with our 48 port managed switch, internet, routers etc.
Keep in mind, the 4TB vStor only has about 3.2TB available for actual use, and we segmented into 2 volumes, one 200GB for audio, and 1 2.5TB for video. We use the remaining space for other stuff.
We’ve been running this setup for 16 months and we’re not even close to filling any of the drives. The backup is about 65% full, and the other drives/volumes are roughly 40-60% full.
We prefer to keep stuff as simple as possible and this is a simple solution that just plain works.
Hope that helps.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com