[Drew Lahat]

Indeed, the website has been redesigned just recently so my little section is no more… For now, you can download the application and source code here:
https://www.drewlahat.com/misc/DeleteQTTracks.zip
https://www.drewlahat.com/misc/DeleteQTTracks.txt

The original page (with brief documentation) can be found at the https://www.precisionpost.com/channels/videovillage/2012/10/delete-tracks-from-quicktime-files—applescripting-qt.html“>Wayback machine…

It also appears that Mac Informer stores a copy of the app, although it hasn’t been validated by me.
https://macdownload.informer.com/delete-qt-tracks/download/

[Drew Lahat]

For posterity, and to second Walter Soyka: indeed, focus on sharpening the eyes (pun intended). This is relatively easy in e.g. Resolve, where you’d draw a mask around the eyes, track it, and sharpen. You get a minimal amount of noise because you’re avoiding all the uniform areas like cheeks and backgrounds. I’ve found it to be the best trade-off between improved sharpness, artifacts, and ease of use.
NewblueFX Sharpen + Neat DeNoiser, as well as Photoshop’s Smart Sharpen, are also great to try if you have the time.

I’ve had several years of distinct experience in each of those 3 roles (editor, DP, and focus puller), so I’m very well aware of the implications of focus pulling. There’s a reason why in cinematography focus-pulling is its own position, and why the 1st AC is the first person who gets fired on set when such things go wrong 🙂

[Drew Lahat]

Thanks, Dwaine. I just got back around to follow through on the issue, testing it at the office, and it persists. Everyone reminded me that EuCon 3.0 goes along with 9.1.6 but I should’ve clarified that I tried to correct pairings, EuCon 2.7.1 with Resolve 9.1.4 and and 3.0.0 with 9.1.6.

So it took a week, but I’m glad I found out I wasn’t crazy 🙂 I hope this will be fixed in Resolve Lite 9.1.7!

BTW, I found another bug in EuCon (incl. 3.0.0): normally, EuCon should detect any application switch, so EuCon would target the currently active (focused) application. You can see this is the last 3 tabs in Eucon, where “assign:” changes as you switch apps.
However I experienced EuCon often getting stuck on the app that was active as it was initializing, and not targeting anything else. In my case it appears to be linked to network conflicts such as two interfaces on the same subnets – or if the EuCon is visible to the Mac but not via the primary (top) network interface. The solution is to quite and relaunch EuCon.

[Drew Lahat]

Hi Dwaine,
Indeed my computer didn’t show up at all in the Workstations tab (in either list). Turns out I had to restart MC_Client which is the (undocumented) client-side component. I also had Pomfort Livegrade listed as a MIDI connection in EuCon’s system preferences pane, so I cleared that too.

I was able to get the surface working with everything on the computer – except Resolve. I got the rectangles, and Surfaces and Workstations tabs in Eucon were good, but the Resolve menus never appeared on the panel. I went through the process you described several times, with no effect.

Of course this was driving me mad, and of course the issue would go away once I try it tomorrow not on-set… but I’ll return with updates either way.

[Drew Lahat]

A couple of shots of the cable system – feeding HD-SDI camera, return, intercom, power, and tally.

[Drew Lahat]

It’s very doable and I’ve done it before. Not sure what’s all this talk about wireless… sure if you’re running steadicam or are on a motorcycle in the Tour De France you want wireless, but generally field productions prefer wired links where you have constant and reliable power, comms, video, genlock and CCU between the camera and the truck, and you never have to deal with batteries at all. Of course you have to run the cables safely but it’s done everywhere all the time.

As far as power, you want a good gauge for the amperage, but don’t forget about voltage drop. These charts and calculator will help you a lot:
https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm
Remember you can utilize multiple pairs as the load will split between them – as long as you can fit the strands into the XLR4 connector solder cups…

I worked with Sony EX1 cameras, which thankfully take industry-standard 11-17V power (like the PDW800). I shopped for laptop AC power supplies (which are very clean) and chose ones towards the higher end of the voltage range, based on the calculated loss per the planned wire run. (If you have a 50ft run and a 150ft, I’d label and always match the power supply to the cable.) At the camera end the voltage was towards the lower end (~13V) which is just fine.

I wouldn’t run AC power. Running 100ft of AC power alongside data is supposed to really screw up the signal with interference…

I did all this 4 years ago when I built an HD multicam solution for a church. To meet the budget I created custom cable assemblies which carried power, HD-SDI, and intercom to the cameras similarly to a professional cable. I used multipair wire from Gepco. Panasonic later came up with their own (relatively) affordable multicam solution which is similar to mine, just more professionally built and with a CCU:
https://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/sales_o/broch_pdf/StudioSystemCTLG.pdf
(Not sure though why Canare went with a mesh bundle jacket instead of a multipair assembly.)
Professional OB trucks run SMPTE hybrid fiber which uses the fiber for data and copper leads for high-voltage DC (for those 1000ft runs). Nowadays JVC owns the budget-multicam niche with some well-integrated solutions.

[Drew Lahat]

I’m glad I was one of the people who nudged you in that direction 🙂 We’ve been running PPro in a networked environment for half a year but are now doing a full deployment “for real”, over metaSAN. Media Cache files is one of the major topics I want to tackle, I’m preparing some write-ups.

The recommendation I know for now from Adobe as well as Walter is, keep your media cache *DB* local and the Media Cache on your fastest drive, which is usually your SAN/NAS volume.

[Drew Lahat]

My hunch would say “Prelude”. Haven’t had much personal experience with it, but it’s designed to process producers` and script sups` notes and integrate them with Premiere. It’s not gonna magically add a timecode input field to PPro, but perhaps you’d be able to get all the notes as markers you could navigate between.
Might either help you with your current project or for future ones.

[Drew Lahat]

I’m writing this as I’m supposed to be conforming a PPro project for Resolve 🙂
We do plenty of effects and transitions in our edits, so every round-trip process is quite a PITA. It is doable though.

As far as the “right” way to do this with a “pro toolset”, I talked to Stephen Nakamura a few months ago – he’s a colorist at Level3 whose recent work includes Prometheus and Zero Dark Thirty. While discussing Prometheus, he said that he got the materials to grade AFTER everything – VFX, compositing and all. That’s been my understanding – that the proper way to do this is effects before grading. What we have to do with PPro & Resolve is a technical limitation, not the proper industry way. I’d be happy to hear otherwise.

(Stephen even said that he doesn’t deal with individual comped elements – it’s the VFX dept job to balance them and he gets the flat comped shot to grade once.)

[Drew Lahat]

Bret, are you talking about the Compressor/codec in the sequence settings? That should only change the render quality/speed once you render, not the RT determination of what’s green/orange/gray etc. Also, we use ProRes(HQ) and last time I checked you couldn’t even change the quality bar for the ProRes codecs.