[Kim Rowley]

I realize it’s an unorthodox use of the DVD medium but since the audio is there as well as the picture I just thought I’d put it out there. Multiple DVD players would not start in sync. The conference center has been using Beta up to now synced with Tmc to an 8 track Fostex reel to reel audio player but these mediums are going towards extinction and a substitute is needed. Sometimes there are more than 4 tracks of audio that need to be heard simultaneously and synced to the picture. Ah the challenges of working in the media department of an international organization!

Dual 3 GHz Dual Core Intel, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1900, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.0.6), OS X10.4.11

[Kim Rowley]

Thanks for your reply Jeremy. I’m not in the office again until Monday but I’ll take a shot at an answer. Our organization is a non profit one and we keep much of our footage. We have a 60 TB disk that we use as a “temporary memory” until P2 clips can be cataloged an laid off to LTO for long term storage. Our MAM system software is made by a company called “Etere” which we went with since they are located here in Italy. The “archive” and “production” components of our shop are not fully integrated yet and oftentimes especially in the past, the final productions (news items or conferences) are already edited before the cataloging of the raw footage is finished. We usually get down to editing as soon as we’re back in the office. So in a sense the clips we bring into FCP are straight off the disk used in the field (We use Shotput and HD LOG to do a rough shotlist on location and try as much as practically possible to take advantage of recording the metadata on the P2 clips (date and place) through the SD card. Our crew is small so though we know what an “ideal” way of doing things is somethimes we are wearing more than one hat on a given shoot. We use MXF4Mac and sometimes log and transfer – but the QT files are them deleted after the edit is finished and output. (Our Masters are output in IMX50 in MXF wrapper using MXF4mac GC output plug-in) The original P2 clips are dumped into the main database where they are properly cataloged and where we generate a Proxy for future consultation as well as the high quality clip which gets laid off to LTO. It’s at this point that we run into the problems I was mentioning. We only realized recently the problem because we are finally archiving the stuff we have shot over the past year which has been sitting on disks while our MAM system was being installed and brought up to speed. I hope this explanation it’s somewhat clear. Sometimes things are more confusing in writing than in a verbal conversation. I’ll show your answer to our IT person on Monday. Thanks again for your time.

Dual 3 GHz Dual Core Intel, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1900, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.0.6), OS X10.4.11

[Kim Rowley]

We have 4 edit stations and in 2 of them I can edit MXF natively using the MXF4Mac plug-in. However our organization also has recently invested in a complex MAM system for both production and conservation. Since we retain much of our raw footage the monkey wrench is especially in the main Database system when doing mass ingest. I hope Jan from Panasonc will chime in… It’s a pretty serious problem that could make us gradually migrate away from P2.

Dual 3 GHz Dual Core Intel, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1900, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.0.6), OS X10.4.11

[Kim Rowley]

Thanks for the replies guys. Cheers

Dual 3 GHz Dual Core Intel, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1900, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.0.6), OS X10.4.11

[Kim Rowley]

Thanks again Mark. Actually the file sizes aren’t that different (maybe 1 GB more) but I’ll do a search in the forum as you suggest. I’m new here as I usually “hang out” on the FCP forum 🙂
Cheers

Dual 3 GHz Dual Core Intel, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1900, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.0.6), OS X10.4.11

[Kim Rowley]

Thanks Mark. I appreciate your advice. I did a test using both codecs and there is no difference to the naked eye observing on an SDI monitor. The only thing that makes me think HQ would be a better choice is a phrase I read in the Apple ProRes White paper defining 422 (HQ). … “virtually lossless characteristic through many generations of decoding and re-encoding.” The archive we are building is one that we hope will last for decades…. and longer! I wonder if the 422 is as robust?

Dual 3 GHz Dual Core Intel, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1900, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.0.6), OS X10.4.11

[Kim Rowley]

Yes that’s very clear. We’re looking forward to having a Ki-pro in our facility very soon. Thanks for the response.

Dual 3 GHz Dual Core Intel, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1900, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.0.6), OS X10.4.11

[Kim Rowley]

Thanks Jeremy. I guessed as much. I’ve asked for a unit to try.
Cheers!

Dual 3 GHz Dual Core Intel, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1900, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.0.6), OS X10.4.11

[Kim Rowley]

Just as a follow up – I still need to upgrade to Leopard but needed to clean up that noisy film transfer urgently. I ended up purchasing the pro version of Neat (the home version doesn’t render 10 bit images). I have been pleased with the results. It is simple yet serious software. The instructions are very clear and thorough. Thanks again for the heads up.

Dual 3 GHz Dual Core Intel, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1900, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.0.6), OS X10.4.11

[Kim Rowley]

Thanks guys! I need to upgrade my OS before trying Video Purifier so for the time being tried and bought Neat. Literally eye popping and mind blowing results! The cost was justified for the job at hand. I plan on looking at both plug-ins more carefully since I have various cinema transfers in the same condition. A big thank you to the COW!

Dual 3 GHz Dual Core Intel, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1900, Xserve RAID, AJA IO, 2 20″ Cinema Display, FCP Studio 2 (6.0.6), OS X10.4.11