Greg Ondera
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I have Perian, but when I try to open the movie in QuickTime, it says “This is not a QuickTime file.”
Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org -
Just tried it and it doesn’t work either. I should mention I am using FCP 6.0.6 on OS 10.5.8. It’s an odd thing that I can see in Movist, but can’t do anything with it.
Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org -
That’s the kind of answer I was looking for. Thanks!
Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org -
Backing up to LTO would be my preferred method, but I am not doing it yet. Soon. I have a lot of hard drives presently, but I know those will someday die. If the LTO recorder dies, at least there is still the tape. I shoot XDCam EX as well, but I am not sure what the advantage of mastering in 4:2:2 Apple ProRes would be? Wouldn’t keeping it XDCam EX be just as good, or does the Apple ProRes allow you to pull it off the shelf without re-rendering for certain kinds of use?
Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org -
Use Calibrated Software to get at those mp4s. https://www.calibratedsoftware.com/
Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org -
This is all good information. I too get neck tightness, and I know it is from sitting at this computer for so long and slouching in my chair. Computer screens should be adaptable so that we are not always looking up slightly. They should sort of be like pads laying on a table, that can angle up to face downward looking eyes. Working on a computer should be like cooking. You don’t hear about cooks getting shoulder and neck pain. (Of course, you do though for various other reasons). being able to adjust arm height is also important. An angled foot rest under the desk takes a lot of load off the spine. But one important consideration seems to be the ability to get the monitor below the eyes so the worker can look downward.
Have any of you experimented with using two chairs, and what do you think of those “back” chairs where you sat on your knees? These were popular a few decades ago, but I don’t see them around these days.
Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org -
And likewise, I take a clip and drop it into a new timeline and it always asks if I want to conform the timeline to the very same standards as that first clip, and I always say yes, so I don’t have to render anything.
Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org -
Have you downloaded the Sony XDCam drivers? There might be a more up-to-date version, but this one is at https://www.sony.ca/promedia/drivers.htm for the Mac. I know when I export it gives me the choice of 1080 30P EX in specific amongst many other codecs.
Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org -
I like Craig’s response, but since I shoot surgery and a single case can sometimes run 12 hours and I need to let the camera run through the full thing, I have to ingest my footage for 3 cameras sometimes throughout the whole day. So I couldn’t begin to afford enough SxS cards to manage that. So I will set up a complete folder system for each camera at the beginning of the day, and ingest the footage, then often erase the cards in the computer. I know it is better to do this in the camera, but don’t always have the luxury. One of the cameras is overhead and cannot be reached so easily.
Craig is right about this process being a bit dangerous. You have to have your safety net of checking and double checking that what you are ingesting is the right footage. Sony XDCam Browser could be a lot better if it had a warning that the BPAV folder you are about to overwrite was unique and followed the previous BPAV folder. I stitch these things together, sometimes in one long clip several hours long for synch purposes. I know. That’s a crazy thing to edit, but it synchs with the other cameras well.
Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org -
Your work is beautiful and your encode seems good, but of course I have a very big pipeline. Does iWeb stream or is it progressive download? They are different animals. Another question to ask, what is the most common bandwidth of the viewers. If 90% are high, then I would experiment with bit rates and balance it out with the image quality you want to maintain to the bit rate.
You should not de-interlace if you shot and edited in progressive–just turn that setting off. Always de-interlace as close to the source if it is interlaced. Don’t save it for the encoder if you can help it. I will choose a custom progressive setting and a self-contained movie straight out of Final Cut Pro on all of my old programs these days. That is generally how I keep my masters.
Crushing the blacks is helpful, but I use Episode Pro, which is touted as a better encoder for H.264 than Compressor, although Compressor does most other codecs fabulously. So I crush blacks by taking black 15-20%.
I use VBR using Peak Rate: average 600 then 1200 as the peak, but you may get by with more. This is a bit low for moving material, as I have a lot of static shots in the material I am codecing. The programs I hoist up to Surgeon Today are long programs mostly. Well, that isn’t really a consideration. but average rates are generally set at half the peak rates.
The other question to ask is does iWeb re-codec it like YouTube. You won’t see the final good looks on YouTube for several days, so you can’t work with it immediately, but if they recodec it you can certainly put up what you want. I don’t know anything about iWeb.
This being said, I have a breakdown in my site at https://www.surgeontoday.org/faq/ so you can check out the Best Practices FAQ. I would love to have more knowledgable experts look at that menu and let me know if there is anything they think I would need to improve on that H.264 codec? I am not an expert, but am trying.
Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org