Chris Blair
Forum Replies Created
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Tyler,
While I cannot answer your specific hardware questions, I do know that on our Apace vStor system, setting up jumbo frames was a very simple process.
On the client side, we enabled it and set it at 9000 for each GigE card. On the server/raid side, we enabled it via a web based menu in the vStor, which handles all the link aggregation crap for you within Linux.
But even without the convenience of a web based GUI, on your Windows server it should be a setting somewhere in the menus you use to set up link aggregation. But….from what I’ve read (and gotten headaches doing so), jumbo frames will typically only give you about a 20-30% increase in throughput. So you’re only going to go from 23MB/sec to probably 30…certainly not enough to do any editing with.
Also…what speeds do you get from the raid directly on the server? If you’re getting 23MB/sec there, then that’s your problem. If you’re getting adequate speed within that box, then the problem is either the switch or the client PC setup.
Next…take one client PC and connect it directly to the server/raid, bypassing the switch. If you get the slow speeds, then it’s not the switch or any setting on it. If you get adequate speed, then it’s definitely the switch.
By doing this…you can narrow it down to which piece of equpiment is causing the slowdown rather than just blindly trying different things. I will say that it’s unlikely your managed switch is causing the problem as most switches act basically as relays. Even when we had our 48 port switch setup incorrectly, we still got 65-70/MB/sec with our vStor across all 4 edit stations. Setting it up correctly only gave bumped us to about 75/MB/sec with no noticeable performance improvement while editing.
Are you using at least Cat5e cabling everywhere? If you’re using a network that’s more than 5 years old, there might be cat5 cabling somewhere, which will slow things to a crawl.
Perhaps you’ve tried all this stuff, but it’s at least a few things to take a look at. Like Bob said, this stuff is incredibly complex…and every piece of hardware, in your chain (and it’s software driver) is a potential culprit in your slowdown.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
I guess we’ve been lucky (or unlucky depending on your perspective). We’ve only done a couple of project where unions were involved.
Both were frustrating experiences, but one provided a good story I can tell at parties!
It was a marketing video for a thoroughbred stallion syndicate shot in New York at Saratoga, Belmont and Aqueduct.
I shot the project, but we had to hire a union videographer anyway, who did nothing but follow us around all day for a week, refusing to help in any way because “his” job was operating the camera, and I was doing that.
So I finally relented and had him shoot while I directed. Only problem, my mother had a better eye and more camera knowledge than this guy (recommended by the New York Film Commission no less.) He thought you focused a zoom lens by zooming into the farthest image in the scene and setting focus, regardless of what was supposed to be in focus.
For an hour I tried in vain to explain that what you zoomed and focused on was the item in the scene that was SUPPOSED to be in focus…not the item farthest from the camera.
I even showed him how if he focused on the building 500 feet away, when the actor 20 feet away was supposed to be in focus, that the actor quite obviously was out of focus when you were even midway through the zoom range. Despite this visual evidence…he continued to argue his case.
I finally just took back the camera and let him continue doing what he did best….nothing.
So we ended up paying a guy $3000 plus hotels, meals and rental car…to do nothing.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
We had some display weirdness (is that a word?) with our install on an HP xw8200 with ATI 1600 graphic card. I beleive we had to go into the Blackmagic control panel and turn off the 3rd monitor thing.
I don’t remember where it was or what it was called, but we had to disable the Decklink’s ability to use the NTSC monitor for extending the desktop. Having it enabled caused all kinds of oddities and lockups with our regular desktop output to two LCD monitors. After disabling, it worked fine.
I will say our experience with the Decklink drivers has been frustrating. I’d say they’re a little flaky…especially compared to other hardware we’ve worked with, like Canopus/Grass Valley, Matrox, and Harris/Leitch. I don’t ever recall installing one of their drivers and having to go through any troubleshooting or tweaking. With Blackmagic, with each driver install and setup with software (Premiere & Sony Vegas), we’ve spent hours goofing around with settings, driver versions etc. trying to get them to work as advertised.
Naturally, there could be many causes, from the OS to the computer’s configuration and other hardware, but it seems BM’s drivers just don’t work as universally as their competitors. Of course, their prices are half their competitors, so I guess I shouldn’t complain! And I will say their video quality is very very good, with lots of options available.
For what you pay, their cards do amazing stuff, they’re just not as easy to setup as the competitors.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
We finally got this to work by uninstalling all Blackmagic drivers and then deleting all entries of Blackmagic from the registry,including all codec references. Then uninstalling Vegas and deleting all references to it in the registry…then reinstalling both with Vegas first, then Decklink drivers.
There must’ve been something that was conflicting in an install somewhere. We’ve updated Blackmagic drivers at least a half a dozen times…so who knows what caused the issue.
Fixed now and we can test the software.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Well that makes sense doesn’t it! In 25 years I’ve never heard or seen that term on a budget or estimate.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Define intermittent.
We use an Sony LMD series (LCD) monitor with the Decklink HD Extreme with Premiere and Vegas and progressive video just plain looks weird on these. 60i video looks fine, but any of our 24P and 30P footage shot with a Panasonic SDX-900 has an odd “stutter” even after rendering. The same footage and rendered movies look and play fine on Sony broadcast NTSC monitors when played back through the Decklink, so we’ve determined it’s something in the LMD monitor, which in my opinion are NOT very good monitors.
This happens on SD material as well as HD…so that doesn’t seem to have any affect.
We bought 2 of the LMD’s and we’re really disappointed with the quality (or lack thereof) considering their price. Perhaps it has something to do with the inherent nature of how an LCD monitor dislpays progressive footage, but compared to our old Sony broadcast monitors, it’s just plain odd looking.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
We finally got this to work by uninstalling all Blackmagic drivers and then deleting all entries of Blackmagic from the registry,including all codec references. Then uninstalling Vegas and deleting all references to it in the registry…then reinstalling both with Decklink drivers first, then Vegas.
So there must’ve been something that was conflicting in an install somewhere. We’ve updated Blackmagic drivers at least a half a dozen times…so who knows what caused the issue.
Fixed now and we can test the software.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
I agree with Walter. We occasionally do freebie stuff for non-profits in our community, but we ALWAYS have editors and shooters work on it during business hours. If it involves off-hours, we pay them. It might be in the form of a $100 gift card to a nice restaurant, or it might be cash…but either way…we don’t expect them to do work that is freebie in nature for the company unless it’s during company time…and if it’s not we compensate them somehow. We also ASK. We don’t ever force anyone to work a weekend or night on projects like this.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen this happen repeatedly at places I’ve worked in the past, including TV stations, advertising agencies and production companies. I don’t have a solution, other than to politely voice your issues with the owners. However, when dealing with people like that, it rarely has a good resolution. In their minds, they “own” you and you’re there to use as they see fit.
But…you can’t change something that you don’t address, so in a pre-arranged, closed meeting with your boss, I’d bring this issue up and tell them that you don’t think it’s fair that you be required to work on personal projects outside of regular office horus without compensation. Tell them you’re glad to work on them during business hours, but if it’s outside them, your personal time is important to you and this is outside the scope of what you were hired to do.
If you’re really a valuable member of their team, the outcome could be good. But if you’ve had some dustups in the past, I’d be prepared for a bad response from your boss…so I’d have my resume out if I were you.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
We call it a contingency fee and typically add 3-5% to the total estimate to cover unexpected costs or overruns. 10% sounds kind of high to me, but maybe I’m just behind the times. I do know our estimates are uncanny in their accuracy, typically coming within a couple hundred dollars one way or the other when it’s all said and done.
We also occasionally have projects where we estimate high, and the project goes very well and we come in way under budget. We typically give the client a small break so they feel like they’re getting a good deal, (but not too big), but those projects offset the handful of projects where we miss the mark and estimate low.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
One thing I would add is that we received startup money from people we never dreamed would be interested in helping. Like Todd, one of our investors was a woman who owned an ad agency who was already using me extensively for production work while I was at a TV station.
The other two investors were unlikely sources. One was the brother-in-law of another partner. He offerred to invest during a casual conversation with my partner. The other was the sister and husband of my other partner. Who also offerred to invest after a casual conversation about out plans. Naturally, both of them read our business plan and met with us all one time before actually giving us the money…but in both cases, we did not seek them out, yet it resulted in nearly $20,000 of startup capital.
So my suggestion here is to NOT overlook the obvious…friends and relatives. I’ve heard all the advice about not borrowing or investing with either, but in our case, it worked out just fine and we were VERY upfront with them about the risks involved, and were upfront about this being a business deal and not a family one.
I should also point out that 2 of the 3 investors actually gave us loans at 9% rather than receiving ownership We paid back those loans over the course of 4 years. At the time, 9% was way better than what they could get from any sort of bank investment, and nearly as good as most mutual funds. Each person made about $2500 in interest income from their investment over that time.
I will also point out that although we had an equipment lease for $110,000 and startup capital of about $55,000…it was nearly not enough. Between about 9-18 months, there were some very worrisome weeks where we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to write ourselves paychecks, and we floated expenses and bills to the very last day possible. After about 18 months, cash flow got to a point where it wasn’t week to week, but it was VERY stressful during that 9 month period.
Some things we DID NOT account for in our business plan were:
1. The tremendous amount of time and effort it takes to market yourself and put together client quotes and pitches.
2. How the absence of administrative people (we both came from TV stations) affected your ability to get things done. We weren’t used to having to type up letters, quotes, do billing etc. We always had other people that did that.
3. The fact that while you’re doing all that new administrative and marketing stuff, it takes away from the time you’re able to do billable work. In fact, we estimated that if we worked a 50 hour week, there were only about 32 hours left that we could book clients for shoots and edits.
I’ve rambled long enough…but the last thing I’d say is read all the business books out there you can, but do so with the knowledge that most are full of crap. I must’ve read 25 business startup books and while each had some good information, most were out of touch with the market, and many gave flat out bad advice.
Trust your instincts if they’re strong, ask advice on forums like this, and believe in yourself. But do so with a plan in place, with a realistic budgetary plan, and PLENTY of capital to get you through the first 12-18 months.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com