Mark Raudonis
3
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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Don’t forget the standard list of timeline “no-no’s”: Turn off thumbnails, waveforms and Dupe detection. If “dupe detection” is on in ANY of the projects that you have (even if they’re not open) it can cause the kind of slowness you’re describing.
Compartmentalizing your projects is, in my opinion the best way to work.
mark
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We’ve had very good experience with IMX-Standard Def. Been using it for over two years on hundreds of hours of shows. Very reliable.
The off-line proxy to full res workflow is a complicated issue that you need to research for your specific needs. Have a qualified expert run you through the process from start to finish to see if the FCP-XDCAM HD combination can do EXACTLY what you’re looking for. By the way, do the same thing with the AVID… don’t just take their word for it! Confirm with your own eyes that every step of the process works as advertised.
Mark
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My favorite question: What’s the difference between drop and non-drop time code?
Sure, it has nothing to do with Avid skills, but the kind of response you get will certainly give you a sense of the candidate’s understanding of all things technical. (Not to mention their skills at B.S.’ing!) Chances are it they can nail this question they can do everything else.
Mark
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An X-serve raid has a theoretical throughput of 200mb/sec. (400 with dual fibre connected). That means with a DVCpro50 signal, you should be able to support 4-8 streams. Practically speaking, you’ll be lucky to achieve that. Performance varies with how full the drives are, etc.
Bottom line, a single x-serve raid set, fully populated and properly striped SHOULD give you the performance you’re looking for.
Mark
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You don’t say what resolution you’re working with. If it’s DV, 2trks of video etc etc is NO problem. If it’s full res HD, you will probably have to render before playback.
Performance is primarily based on drive speed and how you’ve carved up the raid set. For digitizing, either the AJA box or the blackmagic cards are recommended highly. By “codec” I’m assuming you mean resolution. That’s really dependent on what you’re trying to do.
mark
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We back up EVERYTHING we shoot… and it’s ALOT of tape. A typical season of one of our shows will generate anywhere from 1500 to 3500 HOURS of video. Every second of that is copied while the masters are retained in a vault until the season has completed airing. Then, the copies are recycled and used to back up the next season. I am less concerned about the obvious risks like fire, flood or earthquake, and more about the more common problems of losing or damaging a tape (disc). Since our backups are now clones, that concern has evaporated.
As for shipping master tapes from the field, it depends on the location and the length of the shoot. Typically, there is too much material to dub on location and the masters are travelling unprotected. This would be the same as a film shoot where the “dailies” have to travel to the lab for processing. For that first leg of the trip, there can be no backup. That’s why you buy production insurance!
While we’re on the subject, we also back up the PROJECT info to at least three places: locally, globally (networked storage) and mobilly (usb memory stick). It just makes sense to take these precautions, ’cause the minute you don’t is the exact moment a disaster will occur.
Mark
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In my opinion, you should have as much screen real estate as you can afford. We’ve outfitted all of our FCP rooms with two 23″ Apple Cinema Displays. Having the second display available makes it easier to go to “full screen mode” for screenings and still retain most of the functionality (bins, timeline, etc.). If price is an issue for you, I would still suggest two smaller monitors rather than one big one. I personally am very satisfied with the Apple displays, but I know that the Dell’s are getting great reviews.
Mark
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[Scott] “So, I am finding out you can’t get a 100′ of this cable, and I thought fibre channel was good for 500 meters.”
Maybe you can’t walk into a Radio Shack and find 100′ of fibre, but it is readily available. We have an installation with many, many runs over 100′. No problems with data loss. Do an google search for fibre optic cable. There are many suppliers that can provide you with what you need.
mark
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The standard Def version is only $995.00.
It’s a pretty amazing program. Tremendous potential for the FCP workflow.
mark
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Dear “The Beev”,
Can you be more specific about what you need to improve? I can tell you that we use stock, out of the box g-5’s and FCP and have been outputting hours of network quality shows. We have a waveform vectorscope , a decent NTSC monitor, and a blackmagic card, but that’s about it. No other special equipment. This gear can produce “broadcast quality”… assuming what you’re feeding it is broadcast quality. You’ve heard that old adage, “Garbage in, garbage out.”. It really depends on what kind of signal you’re feeding it.
Mark