[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

UPDATE:
This is a lot of dough to flush down the drain:

Adobe will pay a termination fee of $1 billion to San Francisco-based Figma, whose web-based collaborative platform for designs and brainstorming is used by Uber, Coinbase, Zoom Video Communications and many other firms.

Although according to Reuters, the Adobe shares rose about 1% on the announcement...

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Adding to Hector and Neil’s excellent observations above, I do run FCPX on a Mac Mini M1.

It is not my primary “work-station”, but it serves my FCPX customers very well.
On the Mac I have a mix of Samsung T7 drives hanging off a OWC Thunderbolt Hub.
For HD and 2K absolutely fine, for 4K you’ll start pushing it a bit.
Being old fashioned, I like to keep my project (Library) on the main drive (the one with the OS), and source footage on an external drive – depending on size of the project.

The T7 drives are “only” 1,050 Mbps.
However, I just recently got a Samsung T9 which will go up tp 2,000 Mbps.
So far the T9 (on a PC) is performing as well as the T7.

If it is not for editing, Samsung has just released an external 8TB SSD – T5 EVO Portable SSD USB 3.2 Gen 1
WARNING – small print for the T5 EVO:
“Up to 3.8x faster than an external HDD with read & write speeds of up to 460MB/s”

Which is interestingly bad on Samsung, as their EVO Pro PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD cards (no enclosure) will run “up to 7,450 / 6,900 MB/s sequential read/write speed”…
Full disclosure, I have just purchased 2 x EVO Pro’s to expand my new PC Laptop from 1TB to 9TB of internal storage (with space for another 4TB).
Yes, although the drives can go faster, because of the USB connection, the Samsung T-models might not reach 7,000 Mbps.

What is nice about most of the SSD external drive brands are that they are reaching the cost point of what video tapes would have cost back in the day. At which point you might be better off keeping the Crucial X9 SSD for sitting on the shelve as a “near-online” back-up, and use something faster for editing.

Just a point of view.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Robert,

How frustrating!
The Red Cross across screen is normally a licence issue.

First up it might be worth checking if you have the new BorisFX Hub installed?
You can download it from here:
https://borisfx.com/downloads/?product=boris%20fx%20hub

Next, have you checked the BorisFX Q&A for Vegas Pro 20?

Do not know if it is relevant for you, but might help:

Q. All my plugins have a watermark on them. How do I fix this?

Continuum is a suite of over 250 plugins. Your license for the VEGAS Pro 20 entitles you to license a small portion of our plugins. Upon installation, you are given the option to either “show all plugins” or “show licensed plugins”. Choose “show all plugins” to see everything Continuum has to offer, but be aware all unlicensed plugins will feature a watermark. If you choose to “show licensed plugins”, only the plugins you have licensed will be shown in the VEGAS video effects tab.

and

Q. I love the Boris FX Continuum Units plugins for VEGAS Pro 20! Can I upgrade to the full suite?

Yes! VEGAS Pro 20 owners can upgrade to the full suite of Continuum plugins at the discounted price of $395.00. Please contact sales for more information.

https://borisfx.com/faq/vegas-pro-faq/

Alternative is that you download Particle Illusion as a stand alone, which is free – but if that is giving you the Red Cross, it might be that you need to register that download:

https://borisfx.com/products/particle-illusion/

Hope that this helps.

Atb
Mads

borisfx.com

Downloads | Boris FX

Looking to download Sapphire, Continuum, or any of the Boris FX products? Click here

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Scott,

Sorry to hear this.

I’ve recently purchased a HP Laptop – it is OK, but customer service in UK is horrendous to deal with – not least as they have made a promotional promise, but is not happy to honor it.

Not sure how your HPE StoreEverdrive is managed by HP. It may be an outsourcing company out of Germany, rather than HP direct.
If you haven’t already done it, I suggest that you email their CEO Mr Enrique Lores directly, and copy in the HP Enterprise CEO Mr Antonio Neri.

Might be worth explaining that it does not look good on HP if their tape drives only work for under 40 hours a pop, and at some stage you might have to explain to the end client why their programs can not be restored. Because of HP.

Not that I could possibly comment, but NBH appears to have recent HP computers installed at every work-desk across several if not all floors. So you might want to check if in the depths of that building, whether they are also using a HPE StoreEver LTO-7 Ultrium 15000 Tape Drive, or more – in which case you would be morally obliged to share your experiences and concerns.

In my experience, HP will eventually come through for you – but the process of getting there is very painful.

Hope this helps.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Almak,

Yes, motion graphics and deliverables…

The secret is that there are no standards.

That does not mean that you should make it up as you go along, but that you have to find out who your client is.
Some will demand Rec709 within a specific file-format container, like a ProRes .mov file.
However, everybody is individual, and often your work will go in as part of a bigger project. Where the video editor and/or the colourist will “bash” your work around until it fits the program, and is legalised.

A Broadcaster or a streamer (not forgetting digital cinema) will normally have specifications for you to meet.
From the questions that you are asking, you clearly have an idea of what you are looking for.

Find yourself a target broadcaster and Google search “[name] specifications” and you’ll soon hit the jackpot.

Here is what searching on BBC gave as a result:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/delivery/technical-requirements/

You’ll find much more info than you ever wanted, but as BBC are also a global producer/distributor/broadcaster you are most likely to get something that as a base standard, will work everywhere – until it doesn’t.

Hope that this helps!

Good Luck – and just keep going, you are already doing very well.

Atb
Mads

bbc.co.uk

Technical requirements

Technical delivery standards for file, sound, re-edits, programme copy policy, durations and UID

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Bart,

Great stuff, if Media 100 works for you, it is possible to download it from here:
https://www.media100.com/

As it is Mac centric, and no longer in the mainstream, read some of the recent posts on the Media 100 COW forum. As a new Mac with the latest, operating system will not support it.

Should add that I do not agree with all the comments left on the Media 100 thread from 2016 that you shared. If you are working in editing software, that is working with the native codec for the individual file. You should be able to scale 4K inside HD and maintain a high resolution – within reason that is, as even 4K will start slowly to go soft if you pass the 1920 x 1080 window on a 1080p output – again depends on your source footage and camera/lens used for shooting.

Keypoint is that since 2016 even the latest version of Vegas Pro has made big leaps in functionality, although Media 100 less so, as that NLE is end-of-life.

Atb
Mads

media100.com

Media 100 - Professional Mac OS X Video Editing

Media 100 is fast, full-featured video editing software for Mac OS X.

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Bart,

You are not going to get anyone to validate your workflow of flaffing around in 4K before taking your 1080p back down to 1080p, except for yourself.
The very moment you put your 1080p into a 4K timeline, it becomes 4K. You do understand this point, right?

Instead keep your eyes on the ball, which in your own words are:
“My main camera is 1080p and the output of the finished product will be 1080p”

1080p is where you want to end up, and that is where you want to stay – particularly if you do not understand the technical specs of Vegas. Those that I highlighted to you above.

Next time, shoot everything in 4K, and then by all means, export to 1080p.

Hope that this helps?

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Bart,

It is all very frustrating, isn’t it – not knowing, and to be honest, I had to search hard for the answer on the Vegas website.

However, the test that you can do in the 1080p timeline:
Put a 4K clip down, and zoom in by 400%
Do the same with a 1080p clip.
Compare the two, and you’ll soon observe whether the 4K is in 4K resolution on a 1080p “canvas”.

Here is what Vegas says in one of their hidden away webpages:

Choosing Your Format for Editing

Most modern NLEs such as VEGAS Pro support the latest, most common codecs. Because they do, you’ll be able to edit the footage you shoot natively, without having to convert to another format. So, you don’t have to choose a codec for editing.

You do want to choose timeline properties which match your footage – resolution and frame rate – but most NLEs will conform the timeline automatically to the first media clip you place on it.

If you don’t need to edit at all, and just want to transcode your footage into the format needed for sharing, you can do that, too. Just put the footage on the NLE timeline, and then go right to export.

Keywords are “Natively” and “without having to convert to another format”.

Hope that this helps you move ahead.

Atb
Mads

vegascreativesoftware.com

Why is Non-Linear Video Editing (NLE) The Standard Today?

Discover why non-linear editing replaced linear editing, and how it unleashes your creativity with flexibility, speed, and ease – plus a few good things about linear editing.

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Well done, Brie!

You get 1 Solve 📀 Coin for that.

(Yeah, I know that is a gold CD, but the COW has got no Coin emojis…)

PS: I am really pleased that although not allowed, I manged to hand out at least one coin to the Cow Herder Boss 😂

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Bart,

First off, I do not know Vegas Pro, but I do know about scaling.

Keep your project at 1080p if that is your main camera, and final delivery format.
Import your 4K fotage.
Hopefully it will fit to the 1080p framesize, without you having to ask it to do so.
Unless Vegas has transcoded the 4K to 1080p, then you should be able to your zooms on 4K fotage and keep a high resolution within the 1080p timeline.

Taking 1080p footage into 4K and back again will be messy.
But that all depends on what cameras and lenses you used – as in how sharp is it.

I am currently using Topaz to take a 4:3 PAL video from Betacam SP tape to HD 1920×1080.
It works, but there is a lot of work involved in that process.

Hope this helps.

Atb
Mads