Jason Byfield
Forum Replies Created
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I work in the video game industry and our game engine outputs 720p30 so whenever I capture via HDMI using the available 720p60 preset, I’m essentially doubling the data that I need (every other frame is a duplicate). Just chiming in here in the hopes that BM will come across it and realize that more than just broadcast professionals use their equipment.
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If I remember correctly, I had to keep my project file on the local machine to eliminate that issue.
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Can you go into a bit more detail about your issue? We’ve pretty much dropped all use of Final Cut 7 and now use a mix of about 90% Media Composer and 10% Premiere for all editing tasks.
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I routinely use 1TB+ workspaces and haven’t noticed any wonkiness. Was there a reason behind the recommendation?
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I save two copies, one ProRes 422 HQ for easy transcoding to other formats down the road, and a second, highly compressed .wmv or H.264 .mov for future reference.
I also save a consolidated copy of the project file that gets burned to Bluray for archive.
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Wow. That’s one informative post. Thanks for that. I’ve happened to run into most of those problems getting to the point where I’m at.
Just to bring everything up-to-date, my system has been somewhat stable as of late. I took everything to heart and really dug into Avid white papers and utilized our support contract for all it’s worth. Once I had one machine stable, I used the exact same setup for each of the others and so far all has been well.
I started storing projects locally (media on the Unity) and set up an Automator task linked to iCal to copy a dated version of the main project file to a “daily backup” folder on the Unity. Since then I’ve had very little problems and I don’t have to worry about the other editors picking up a project when I need to take a few days off.
I did have an issue where I was getting the dreaded “General Error” in FCP7 so I bounced the project to Premiere CS5 and really haven’t looked back. Now that FCP7 won’t be receiving support from Apple, I’m even considering going back to my roots and using Media Composer again. I just need to get the other editors on board.
Anyway, in closing, thanks everybody for the knowledge. It helped get us through a rough patch (tech transitions are always a beast) and now we’re humming along again.
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If all your footage has the same specs and your timeline is set up with the same specs as your footage, you should be forced to render any speed changes and the render bar above the timeline should reflect that (will show up bright red). Therefore, if you delete your render files, anything that shows up red is altered footage (time-remapped, filtered). The only pitfall with this is that I believe some filters can be rendered in realtime by FCP and that might not get reflected in the render “status” bar above the timeline.
Not the most elegant solution but would save you some time.
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The dreaded “How much” question…
Try contacting a couple of different production houses and see what they would quote you for a similar project to get a rough idea of professional costs. Remember that they are going to be able to charge quite a bit more because this won’t be their first project, unlike your situation.
Really it just boils down to being honest with yourself. How much do you think you’re worth an hour? Now estimate the number of hours you think it will take and multiply it by your estimated hourly rate. Bingo: a roughly estimated total charge for the project. They’re probably going to think it’s too high so you’ll need to be flexible if you want to keep them as clients. Charge too little and they’ll keep coming back for more but won’t want to pay higher rates. Charge too much and you’ll lose them as clients.
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Yep. I’m working with an existing Unity and at the moment, it’s all I’ll be getting for SAN storage. I can utilize the Unity as network attached storage no problem.
For now I’m stuck using PhotoJPG (see my previous topic reply) if I want to use the native files without transcoding (something I’ve been avoiding for the sake of time). I may just have to suck it up and transcode whenever we receive assets from our post house until we can find a solution that works for everybody.
If your project files are stored on the local machine, what is your workflow when that same project needs to be edited on a separate machine?
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I’d prefer to keep my render files on the Unity as it eliminates the need for each editor to have an identical copy of the render files on their machines.
The story as to why I’m having to render is a long one. I’m editing with animations created and rendered from a post house and they deliver them PhotoJPG encoded. I’ve noticed that there are quite a few visual bugs that show up in FCP when working with PhotoJPG footage in a timeline setup to decode PhotoJPG. To fix this visual issues so our clients don’t complain, I have set up the timeline using a different decoder (ProRes 422 HQ). What I may have to do is insist that our posthouse delivers using a different codec or uncompressed. They are working in a PC environment so encoding to ProRes might not be cost efficient.