[Declan Smith]

It’s a very frustrating “feature” of Premiere Pro. You didn’t say which version, so what I am about to describe relates to CS6.

What you choose to do all depends on how far you have gone in your edit, or rather, if your sequence has any special setup like audio channels etc.

Method 1: Create a new sequence with the correct settings you desire, then go to your old sequence and select everything, copy it, and paste into your new sequence. This may be the easiest method, but may not do everything you want, particularly if your have setup the audio mixer etc.

Method 2: Create a new sequence with the correct settings you desire and just drag in your other sequence. If you are mid-edit, this won’t really help, but if all you want is the end product scaled properly, this may be what you need.

Method 3: If you are feeling really brave and are confident editing files, then read my article here: https://www.madpanic.tv/blog/files/change-premiere-pro-cs6-sequence-settings.html , and If you fancy editing your project file directly, I strongly suggest you back it up first!

Whichever method you choose, there is a high chance that your clips will need resizing to your new sequence settings. In the new sequence, select all the clips then go to clip->video options-> and enable Scale to Video Size.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

\”it\’s either binary or it\’s not\”

[Declan Smith]

A1 – Thunderbolt is fast, but your speed will be governed by the disk. Use the Black Magic Disk Speed test program to see whether your read/write speeds are sufficient. See below, if you have an external multi disk capable setup that you cold put into a RAID0 array, that may help.

A2 – I have changed the main disks in my Mac to SSD’s but for the main media drives, this would be prohibitively expensive. What I do have for my media drives is put two of them in a RAID 0 configuration which approximately makes them twice as fast. So two plain old drives in a RAID 0 configuration will give you higher read and write speeds. Of coarse you don’t have any redundancy and if one drive fails, you lose all data stored in the RAID 0 array, but you really should have a backup regime in place consisting of three copies of your data. It’s gutting to think I have three 12TB arrays, which you would think is 36TB of storage, but as 2 of them are backups, it’s just 12TB, but spinning disks are cheap and there would be nothing worse than losing the data!

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

I set the lamp on a stand with the centre at 53 inches from the ground, and secured the 758 to another stand (via the 1/4″ socket) with the Lumisphere retracted and also at 53 Inches from the ground, then put the meter 1M from the lamp. The lamp and the meter therefore are at a consistent position between tests. I have done the tests fully spotted and fully wide. When checking the setup, I didn’t use a target, just the measurements and a rough view where the centre of the spot was landing.

I did a similar test with my open faced lamp of the same power and the relative difference again shows different light loss depending on whether the lamp is wide or spot.

Test 1: No Filter Wide: f/5, Spot f/6.3
Test 2: 1/2 White Diffusion Wide: f/4.5 EV-0.4, Spot f/5 EV-0.6
Test 3: Thick Diffusion (unsure of grade) Wide: f/4 EV-0.6, Spot: f/4.5 EV-1.0

So I am guessing this must be a property of diffusion that is more pronounced using fresnels?

The reason I am trying to understand the light loss is that on reviewing the rushes following a technical rehearsal, where I measured the light setups with the 758, I want to soften the shadows a bit with some diffusion. If I know the expected light loss I can calculate the changes I need to make to the setups prior to the filming so as not to take up any more time on set (that’s my theory at least!). This approach appears to work with standard colour gels (like CTB), but I guess with diffusion, it acts differently and depends on the brightness of the source being shone through it?

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

I echo what others say, to a point. There are reasons for upgrading, perhaps other apps, Web security etc, BUT, why upgrade the operating environment that your main apps work in when they are working just fine. The saying “Don’t fix what ain’t broke” comes to mind.

I still use Snow Leopard for my FCS 3 environment, works like a dream. In fact, rendering from compressor is way faster in Snow Leopard than in higher operating systems (in the tests I have done at least).

I set my machine up to boot from multiple partitions. I have the following:

Snow Leopard (for FCS suite)
Mountain Lion (For Adobe CS6 suite)
General, (Yosemite or even El Capitan) – Used for “photos” and general office stuff.

I can use 95% of what I need in Mountain Lion: FCS3, Adobe CS6, Aperture, Logic Pro, iPhoto, Safari, Mail, Pages, Numbers, etc etc. The Snow Leopard partition has Rosetta support for some of the apps I just can’t move forward (Such as older cubase files that have to be step converted if I wanted to use the latest).

The “General” partition I am free to keep up with the latest and it allows me to check for myself whether things work without losing actual working time or setup as it’s on it’s own partition.

That said, this setup will be of no consolation if my MacPro dies. New Apple hardware only supports the OS that was out on the day you buy it. So new MacPros will only have El Capitan and cannot run previous versions. This is where, in my opinion, the real problem is. You can’t always revert to a previous version of the operating system software even if you wanted to, so you can’t run up the apps that you’ve paid for and that are used to access the work that you have created.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Try the following. This will force a 2 digit pad on both minutes and seconds. The font will move it a little but each character location should be in a fixed position as per below:

function padZero(str) {
while (str.length < 2) {
str = '0' + str;
}
return str;
}

rate = -1;
clockStart = 900;
clockTime = Math.max(clockStart + rate*(time - inPoint),0);
t = Math.floor(clockTime);
min = padZero(''+Math.floor((t%3600)/60));
sec = padZero('' +Math.floor(t%60));
min + ":" + sec


Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Presumably you tried setting the RCA to LINE OUT in the menu system so it does sound like a hardware issue, Good to hear that the headphone socket worked out ok. Did you plug your headphones into the out socket of the Samurai ? (I don’t think I’ve ever tried that socket on mine!).

As far as which ProRes version to use, I don’t’ tend to use anything less than ProRes 422. The LT version will create files ~35% smaller but as there is a tradeoff between quality v file size I tend to use ProRes 422. For pulling green screens it has served well, as has colour correction, I have not seen any notable difference using ProRes HQ, although I haven’t carried out any scientific tests, so all subjective. However, on the lower codecs (Prores 422 proxy & LT) I have noticed a difference with fast moving subjects or lots of movement in terms of more artefacts. So it depends on what you are shooting.

A good guide on the subject can be found here https://larryjordan.com/articles/picking-the-right-version-of-prores/

Apples own guide on it: https://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/professionalformatsandworkflows/index.html#chapter=10%26section=2%26tasks=true

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

That’s odd indeed.

I know this is obvious, but have you tried putting the RCA output into another monitoring device, such as a recorder or amplifier, to make sure you are getting audio out of the RCA sockets, and that the cables you are trying are working end to end ?

I have attached two photos showing the RCA sockets to use, and check on the Samurai, Also, in order to register audio on the Samurai you will need to connect up the HD-SDI so the Samurai knows it can record something.

1. RCA Sockets – Check you are using the ones shown

2. Select Audio channel to record from on the samurai

It wouldn’t hurt to record to tape as a backup, just in case, and you could sync the audio later, and perhaps use the headphone out into the Samurai. I’m surprised you’re not getting anything from the RCA outs when set to LINE OUT unless there is problem with the audio section. I don’t know what else to suggest, I’ve even tried switching the video out / composite switch in case that had any influence but it doesn’t.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

There is a setting you need to change (or check).

1. In the XLH1-Menu, select audio setup

2. In the audio setup menu, select “AUD.M.SET”, at present, it’s probably set to “NORMAL”

3. Now change this setting from “NORMAL” to “LINE OUT”.

Hopefully that should be all that is necessary. You should then connect your Samurai via the AUDIO 1 Ch1/3 & Ch2/4 outputs (the lower two RCA sockets).

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

On the Samurai model I have (the original), you have the choice of ProRes 422 LT, ProRes 422, and ProRes 422 HQ.

In terms of space requirements, it depends on your frame rate and which codec. Below are some examples per minute for full frame.


Frame Rate Codec Space/Minute
25 fps ProRes 422 LT 0.64Gb
25 fps ProRes 422 0.91Gb
25 fps ProRes 422 HQ 1.34Gb
30 fps ProRes 422 LT 0.76Gb
30 fps ProRes 422 1.08Gb
30 fps ProRes 422 HQ 1.61Gb


With a 1Tb drive using the worst case scenario (30fps ProRes 422 HQ) you’re looking at approx. 10 hours

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

The resolution is FULL HD, i.e. 1920×1080 when recorded through the HD-SDI. As for the question is it better, then visually you can see a difference in that you don’t get the blockiness around edges, important for green screen as is the 4:2:2 colour space. You can also push colour correction a little further too because of the colour space. One thing you may notice though is a little more noise as this gets masked by the HDV codec, but having said that, the NR settings on the XL-H1 can get rid of it (as can post production tools like neat video if really really needed).

I use the original Samurai and picked one up on ebay. The screen isn’t as good as the latest, but as a framing tool, it’s fine. I use the XL-H1 viewfinder for focus anyway (FU-1000).

I have not had issues with dropping frames. I have used this configuration to record a 2 hour stage performance. I use both HDD and SSD, mostly SSD as the price of these has fallen. I generally record in ProRes 422 as I edit on a Mac using Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro. If I was using a PC I would probably record on DNxHD.

As for Samurai, I rate this product highly as well!

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”