Michael Gissing
195
COW Coins
190
DaVinci Coins
3
Solve Coins
Forum Replies Created
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It could have been so different. In 1986 I was invited to a meeting with the original Fairlight CMI team. They had invited a bunch of people in sound post to meet an discuss their project to create the Fairlight MFX which was designed as one of the first DAWs targeting film & TV post production, not music creation. They showed screen layouts and I asked why the tracks were horizontal not vertical like a dubbing chart. The purpose of course of a dubbing chart was the tracks correlated to channel strips on the mixer.
I envisaged a system where the computer tracklay would also replace the need to have dubbing charts with a fixed head position and scrolling tracks. The software team had started in England and was using the idea of musical notation with horizontal orientation so that’s why they had the track layout horizontal. If I had been able to influence Fairlight to display vertically then the look of DAWs and likely NLEs might be very different as the Fairlight MFX preceded Avid by a few years.
I can see arguments for and against prior knowledge of how systems had evolved to work. By ignoring a lot of efficiencies and language, worked out over many years obvious things like track orientation were re-invented and possibly to their ongoing detriment. Conversely some of the detritus failed to be incorporated and that’s a plus for sure.
On the topic of Randy, I listened to both videos and it was great info to hear. One thing really struck me was that he was the only software engineer who did demos. My experience with dSP and Fairlight development was that many of the software team were highly experienced sound editors and could both code and demo effectively. I think that any software team that can’t actually edit with the software well enough to demo it is strange.
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When importing in an offline/online workflow like yours there are two things I do to make sure the relink is as good as possible. Firstly on the media page I import all the camera original media into the project before importing the AAF. I do not import the DNx proxies!!! Then when importing the AAF (or xml) I uncheck the automatically import media and check the link to camera originals box. I then point the import to the master level of the imported media that I have already imported into the project. I also check use sizing info. The reason to check the camera originals check box is so the file extension is ignored as it may well be different between camera originals and proxies. (I also think it prompts the software to search in the likely sub folders).
I’m doing that on an 8 part series shot with Sony cameras in different locations and before the proxies are made the post supervisor is getting all files renamed with unique file names as the Sony F5’s keep repeating the file names in each new folder. For me unique name is the most important thing. Of course the proxies must have identical timecode to the camera originals. With Alexa, you shouldn’t have repeating file names. Out of the first four eps that I have relinked I am getting about 98% perfect relinking. The odd speed ramp shot needs to be manually relinked (after taking the speed info off) and there have been a few where media was genuinely missing.
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“I guess it does not have such a feature”
I have used the stand alone Fairlight for 14 years and it does have a fit to fill range function where you copy a clip, mark an in/out and then select fill. It is amazingly handy for creating room tone atmos fills. There is also an option to reverse every alternate clip which creates a seamless room tone unless there is something in the sound that seems weird in reverse. I really hope that is one of the many aspects of Fairlight that make it into the Resolve version. And then why not have it in the edit page as well to do similar with picture and sound?
I doubt it is a priority but I for one hope it makes it across from Fairlight.
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[Bill Davis] “Firmly in the enjoyable holiday read category. ”
It’s from an obscure book I read 18 years ago called Time by Alexander Waugh. Fascinating history of how units of measure of time from basic counting to how we then quantified seconds, minutes, hours, days, years etc.
Gets a bit into esoterics of math & physics but a cracking detective story.
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Plus you realise once you have pasted 10 times you have a minute. Copy that minute and paste six more times and you have your six minutes. That makes 16 pastes for six minutes. Do the math and there is probably a smaller number of pastes to get the six minutes
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Australia is actually rare in that it achieved independence from it’s colonial ‘overlord’ without a bloody battle. Of course our history of frontier wars with the aboriginal population is another matter.
My point about the USA Anthem was that is wasn’t nearly so violent in language used as the French is.
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Reading the article, it concludes with a comment on the violence inherent in the US National Anthem. Have you seen the English translation of the French National Anthem? Verse 1 and refrain talk about invaders slitting throats and hoping the impure blood of the invaders will water the fields.
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Whole careers have been based around the mess that is those fractional frame rates and the resultant timecode muddle. I know many in the USA are ignorant of the fact that most of the people in the world watch 25fps TV. In population terms it is probably around 90% looking at the distribution maps at Wikipedia. In economic terms non 25fps TV is significant as the north American and Japanese markets are sought after by content makers.
It really was a cascading cluster f**k when the 30 frame rate was shifted that inelegant .1%. An engineering short cut with dire consequences. Even though I have had to deal with those ugly frame rates and kludged timecode solutions from time to time I guess the burden of blame ultimately lies with the decision to alternate power at 60hz. I’m sure Tesla had a good reason to choose this but why did most of the rest of the world choose 50hz?
This of course has nothing to do with metric measures but given the typical off topic diversion, I read in a marvelous book once about the derivation of base 12 in counting that underpins time. 60 seconds, 2 x 12 = 24 hours in a day. Ultimately time and therefore all timecode is based on base 12 so there is logic in frame rates of 24 or 30. Base 12 it is believed came from a counting system in Mesopotamia. If you use whole fingers to count you can count to 10 using both hands. In a noisy marketplace however you were better off counting by using one hand to count to 12 by pointing your thumb at the 3 segments of your other four fingers. Bingo you can count to 12 using one hand. Then use the five fingers of the other hand to add multiples of 12. So with two hands and using the finger segments of one and the multiplier of the other we reach 60. So ultimately maybe it is the market places of ancient Mesopotamia that were the source of both timecode and NTSC frame rates until the engineering numskulls in the 50s decided to do that sloppy .1% shift and ruined it all.
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I am amazed how often free software like Audacity (cross platform) can load the audio from many different video files and then offer an export option of the audio in various formats including wav
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Perhaps you could contact Blackmagic with ideas if how to make wrapping work. Given that it must be proportional to a given frame width and how that varies with font size, it is important to have the ability to unwrap when font type and size are changed. And do you make it wrap to 4:3 title safe, 14:9 or 16:9 title safe?
I do not think the complexity is lost on all NLE manufacturers. Do any of them offer word wrap? Maybe it is not reliably easy or entirely practical to apply any auto wrap. I know that many clients format in word and export an rtf file which can apply formatting in some text generators like Boris Title tool. But I agree, title tools are too basic. How about a spell checker option?