[Jim Bruce]

Hi All,

Thanks for all the great info and advice.

Glad to hear the multiplier is not an issue.

I guess I’m most concerned about the issue of having to focus on the ground glass and not having a very good viewfinder to check that with on the EX-1. That sounds dicey. And we’re trying to keep things simple so the idea of bringing an extra monitor just for focus seems like a pain.

But I’m a huge fan of the types of images I’ve seen on Phillip Bloom’s website and so forth. DOF really is such a big part of making images that are cinematic vs. the typical sterile video look.

The Brevis does seem interesting as well.

One random question. Can you zoom with the EX-1 to change framing once you’ve focused on the GG image? I.e. to go from MCU to CU in an interview? I wasn’t considering that with a 35mm non-zoom lens we’d have to change lens to switch up the framing.

I wish it wasn’t so hard to get that “look”!

Jim

[Jim Bruce]

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for the clarification. A rental guy casually mentioned the idea of making the lens “longer” by adding an adapter and then I saw someone mention the 5.5 multiplier regarding the Redrock M2. But now I see it’s not an issue. I was trying to imagine shooting interviews at 150 mm and longer and that didn’t seem to add up.

Thanks also for the heads up on Letus noise. I think I will get a separate little boom stand for directional sound in tripod interview situations if we go with the Letus. And in the field we’ll try to use a PA with the boom. (Yes we’re too cheap to pay for a dedicated sound guy – it’s a documentary after all!).

As for your Letus Elite, sounds like you’re happy with the product. From what I understand the only difference between the Elite and the Extreme is the “backfocus”.

What purpose does that serve?

Aren’t you actually using the “front” 35mm lens for focus?

Do you use a follow focus at all?

Did you get the XD Cam “optimization kit” as well?

Letus rod setup? If not what brand did you choose for rods, etc…

It seems like the Extreme Starter Bundle ($1699) plus an Elite upgrade ($599) is cheaper than the price for the Elite Bundle. Am I missing something there?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Jim

[Jim Bruce]

Thanks Brent!

I plan on buying two of the exact models you mentioned. I will also buy an SxS and the SDHC will be additional. This will mean I shouldn’t have to ever squeeze an offload in during the middle of a shoot. With the subjects I’ll be interviewing (fancy pants) and the crew I’ll be using (tiny) that is worth the cost.

Olof’s PHU-60 just had too many scary stories in other posts for me.

Thanks for the detailed response.

And by the way do you have any recommendations for portable bus-powered and/or power-supplied FW Drives that can handle a month or two of travel?

I am looking to get the most reliable brands there are because not having a tape scares me, and I’m shooting too much footage to just hold onto the SDHC’s as masters.

Lacie scares me in general but I have had good luck with their Rugged drives so I was thinking of going with two of those and two of either the CalDigit or G-Raid 1 to 3 TB firewire?

Have you had any experience with durability reliability for those?

Do you recommend any other brands?

Thanks!

Jim

[Jim Bruce]

Hi Neil,

Thanks very much for your advice. I think I’m gunshy about corruption from early years with AVID sharing and unexplainable weirdness coming about even with a dedicated server and program managing access to the media.

So I’m very glad to hear you’ve had success with your approach which is most certainly what I’ll try.

Just a few questions because I’m an editor, not a networker (if it’s not obvious already):

Any particular specs to have or not have with the switch?

Is this the type of thing you’re referring to?

https://www.netgear.com/Products/Switches/DesktopSwitches/GS608.aspx

Do you plug your internet router ethernet cable into the switch as well or keep that separate?

Do you mount and unmount the drives using Disk Utility or some other program?

If, for example, the Mac Pro is connected to the RAID, does the Mac Pro have to be on for the IMAC to see the RAID or since the RAID is on would it see it even if the Mac Pro is asleep or off?

If the Mac Pro needs to be on, will the IMAC being used keep the Mac Pro from switching in to “sleep” mode? Would the IMAC have all its media thrown offline in that event the Mac Pro does go to “sleep”?

Are there any other do’s or don’ts besides don’t write to files (I.e. File Name, Reel # etc) while both computers are in FCP?)

Do you have any tricks/things to do or NOT to do for sharing FCP projects back and forth?

I apologize for what may seem absurd or simplistic questions. My background is either working on big projects with AVID Unity where I don’t have to deal with the nitty gritties or much smaller projects with firewires and sneaker sharing and no networking at all.

So I have a lot to learn.

Your help is much appreciated, even more so knowing you’re halfway round the world.

Cheers,

Jim

[Jim Bruce]

Hi Bob,

Thanks again for another great reply…

And I couldn’t agree with you more about LACIE generally – a mistake made many years ago which I am trying to avoid by talking brands/details with you now…

A couple more questions:

I will be buying bus-powered FW’s. I know we both consider LACIE a scourge from hell but I have a LACIE Rugged that I have had for several years with zero problems and it has taken a lot of jostling.

1) Have you had particular problems with that model? Would you recommend a more durable/droppable brand of bus-powered FW?

2) The CalDigit Element has a big price advantage. Any reason to go more pricey for 6TB of RAID 5?

My own trauma-inducing 2005 LACIE experience (it sounds like you had one as well) involved their early multiple-drives-inside-one-enclosure 1TB models.

3) What is the largest “single” power-supplied FW drive available? 1 TB? 1.5TB? Is having just 1 drive vs. 2 in the box a safer proposition? Less safe?

4) How about going RAID 1 with a Cal Digit VR 2 or 3 TB?

5) Is there a specific brand/model of FW in the 1 TB range that you feel is most reliable?

I am looking for the best possible (vs. cheapest in the case of my media share) option and would love to get your opinion on that.

I do not want to go cheap on firewires and am doing everything I can to research the most reliable drive, and I will still make sure I have redundancy until I have them on the RAID 5, at which point I will burn camera masters to BluRay and keep 1 set of firewires for maximum disaster insurance.

Your thoughts and advice (and occasional abuse!) are much appreciated!

Jim

[Jim Bruce]

Hi Bob, Mark, Walter and Neil,

Thank you all for weighing in. I would have replied sooner but I apparently forgot to check the box that emails me when someone posts…

Walter: Thanks for jumping in. I’ve read about your setup and wish that it applied to me (which it would if I had cash to hire 2 other fulltime editors!) but the cost of even the dedicated server computer makes it not necessarily something I’m unable to pay for, but something that doesn’t make sense for my project – which is all I’m going to be doing for about the next year so (and no plans to start a post house thereafter).

Neil, Mark and Bob:

Thanks very much for the tips (and the abuse Bob!), but my key question is will simple ethernet file sharing run the risk of file corruption if both computers are using the same media files at the same time? I’m very comfortable with the process involved (and appreciate Bob’s detailed approach) but I posted here in the hopes of getting a specific take on whether I run the risk of media corruption over time, which to me would be a major reason not to do it.

Has anyone edited for a considerable period of time (6-10 months) using this type of sharing?

Is there a software program that I could use to serve a traffic cop and mitigate this risk?

I ultimately need (over the course of the next year) about 1.5 stations. If a “proper” share like Walter’s is going to cost 4 or 5 grand, I’d rather set up a duplicate system using Firewires for 1.5k (in storage cost since I have the IMAC already) and have the pleasure of one totally redundant storage setup in case my primary RAID goes fuzzy – this would kill the backup and second station birds with one stone.

So if anyone has thoughts on corruption from long-term file sharing that would be great.

And in terms of the actual primary RAID purchase, if anyone’s willing to chime in on the CalDigit Element vs. HD One vs. HD Pro vs. G-RAID Fibre Channel vs. EVO 2K Expando vs. ??? debate that would be a huge help

Thoughts?

Any feedback on best brands of 2TB firewires? G-Raid 3? Cal Digit VR? Other brands? In terms of buying the best and most reliable I am happy to pay up here.

Thanks all for your help!

And Bob, thanks for calling me a loser! If that’s the price of your great advice I’m happy to pay it…

Cheers,

Jim

[Jim Bruce]

Hi Olof,

Thanks for sharing. I have a LACIE rugged that has been great (and gotten bounced around a lot). I have a little bias against LACIE because I’ve had a number of their bigger drives go down in the past, but the rugged is probably a good call for taking on the road.

The PHU-60 is an interesting idea. I didn’t know it existed. Just now I looked on the Cow and saw a couple early negative posts but I assume Sony has worked out those problems. How do you connect it to the camera, by USB cable or does it physically attach? Is it bulky/weighty in a bad way to use in hand held situations? Is there a reason you have it second in line instead of first?

I do also like your idea of SDHC as a final backup. I had been thinking of SxS/SDCH as an either/or situation but for me it might make sense to get 2 32 GB SxS’s to use primarily, and if I run through them switch to SDHC instead of shelling out for another SxS.

Do you re-use your SDCH cards?

I too have liked G-Raids and they seem like a good product for more “permanent” FW storage. From what I hear Caldigit as well. 2TB is an ideal size, as long as you’ve found them reliable… My early drive failures with LACIE all involved their 1st 1TB drive (which I needed to put an entire HD uncompressed movie on one drive). I developed a bias then against big drives, and drives that included multiple disks as well. It could have just been bad luck. I wish a rational engineer would weigh in and let me know if my concerns are valid.

Lastly you mention BluRay 50Gb’s. How does that work? Are those double-sided? Did you need to buy an extra external or internal burner? Do those come installed with Mac Pro’s yet?

I hadn’t realized there were 50 Gb disks. To me that would be ideal because I could backup one disk per 32Gb offload which would make filing and burning and so forth much easier.

Thanks for all your thoughts.

Jim

[Jim Bruce]

Hi Craig,

Thanks for your response. I do plan on buying at least 2 32GB cards (and possibly an extra 8 Gb as a backup since they seem to have discontinued the 16’s) which should allow me to almost never have to offload “in the field”. There might be a rare occasion where we do 2 long interviews back to back, but the offload would occur in down time in between so I’m comfortable with that.

The thing about using SDHC’s once and keeping as a master is I expect to have about 70-100 hours of production footage. At $40ish per 16Gb SDHC (from Transcend – is that a good brand?) those masters will add up very quickly in price for me.

Also one other question on SxS, Sandisk has a $220 8 Gb which I would get as my backup since it’s much cheaper than the Sony 8Gb and is supposedly compatible with EX-1. Have you heard anyone having good or bad experience with Sandisk vs. Sony?

In terms of the “older laptop” it is in fact an earlier MBP so I assume Clip Browser will be happy with it. I just don’t have the slot for direct plug-in of a card.

Have you heard anything about ShotPut? Good, bad, scary? I definitely want to trust and verify my copy (which would have me leaning towards Clip Browser) but I like being able to make 2 or 3 copies at once.

In terms of not trusting hard drives I am with you on that!!! I have a few LACIE doorstops around the apartment to prove it. When you say burn to optical disk are you just meaning DVD? Is there some other format? If there was a disk that would take a “full” 32GB card, I’m assuming 29-30Gb and I could make a backup disk for each card offload that would be great. But I’m reluctant to go BluRay as that would cost a bit for the drive and involve splitting up a lot of my longer interview files. (I am assuming that the EX-1 breaks a 30 Gb shoot into a series of 2 Gb or so files, is that right?)

Thanks again for all your advice.

Cheers,

Jim

[Jim Bruce]

Hi Steve,

I’m a long time editor, directing my first documentary and I wanted to ask you a bit more about your experience with the Sennheiser 416.

I want to buy just 1 mic. We will be shooting with just a DP and co-producer, lots of indoor interviews and some “man on the street” exterior interviews as well.

The 416 gets a lot of rave reviews but some say it’s not great for indoors unless you are within 2-3 feet of the subject. Wondering if that’s to an extreme high fidelity concern or something that creates a real problem?

I’m planning on having it camera mounted on an EX-1 most of the time (no $ for a sound recordist) and am looking for just 1 mic.

Have you found situations where the 416 doesn’t work well?

Have you shot interviews with a longer lens (i.e. further back) and/or with the mic mounted on camera?

Any thoughts you have would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Jim

[Jim Bruce]

ola coyote,

yes, that’s the exact error message I got in disk utility.

And I don’t think it’s good news either.

I’ll sum this experience up by saying I really wish I had known top shelf drives were available for under 100 bucks.

I would have cloned my hard disk long ago and had the backup there for day’s like yesterday…

Lesson learned…