[Michael Kammes]

Hey Jim-

Thanks for the feedback – I’d be more than happy to pass along the suggestions to StorageDNA.

Yes, HP and IBM both make drives, and both are pretty good.

LTFS is a fantastic approach to bridge the gap from spinning disk to tape (we’ve kinda gone full circle, eh?). Since it’s still in it’s infancy, there are some stumbling blocks and learning curves. Simple drag and drop OS operations (as well as other basic needs, like spanning across tapes) still have a few hiccups, which is where 3rd party software comes into play (ala DNA Evolution) to help remedy those issues.

If you’re looking to something dead simple and very robust, you may want to look into Cache-A. It’s LTO5, and while not LTFS, it does present itself as a shared network volume that you an drag and drop files to and from, as well as having a web page based catalog and administration panel. Best part, is that all media is not saved as a TAR format, which makes searching and restoring individual files easy. It does run between 8K and 12K, however.

https://www.cache-a.com/

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

Storage DNA’s product – DNA Evolution – Excellent product, and some really smart guys at the helm. They utilize their DNASync software to move & delta sync the data from HDD to Tape (LTO5 is fast), as LTFS at the OS/Finder level is somewhat wonky – LTFS is still pretty new.

(full disclosure, the company I work for sells the product)

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

I like the concept and work thus far (from the video)

I presume some form of FFMPEG is being used for the QT generation?

Obviously a GUI and increased LUT support (formats) would be great.

How does transcoding time look? Are you taking advantage of multi proc machines? ProRes and ALEXA material can take a while to transcode.

I’d love to see not only DNX36, but also 145, 175, 220, 220x, etc. Many Commercials and TV will use 145/175 (as it is broadcast quality) and simply output from that. For those that want maximum quality, 220x would be tops in the Avid realm. So – I hate to say it – access to all of the Avid QT codecs would be awesome.

Now for ALEXA to generate DNX in camera, as an alternative to ProRes – that would certainly be interesting for Avid folk.

Spoke about ALEXA in post yesterday at a seminar, wish I had a chance to play with this before the discussion!

Looking forward to further development!

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

Although the Ki Pro Min is new, the Ki Pro Mini is based off of the Ki Pro, so I think it is a little bit more developed than a brand new product.

FCP will use the ProRes generated by the Ki Pro Mini 100%.

Avid 5.0+ can use ProRes via AMA, and is actually BETTER for Metadata retention than doing an traditional import.

ProRes will serve you very well, IMHO.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

I agree with converting to something other than MP4 initially, however, there is a solution.

Do you have FCP 7?

If so, then you have Compressor 3.5. Compressor has a Share option to share a file directly with youtube. It will do the encode to a youtube format for you. When you launch Compressor, do you get a wizrd that pops down from the top of the screen? Wait a few seconds for it.

Click on the sequence in the FCP browser, right click and select SEND TO COMPRESSOR. This will launch Compressor and you can use the wizard.

Conversely, you can use the YouTube preset to do a “manual” encode and upload.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

Start a new project.

Import the files.

Drop the file onto your timeline. If you have Auto Conform enabled, the sequence should adjust to match your clip. This is the easiest way to match the two.

The Red line in your timeline. Is it the upper bar or lower bar? When you play the timeline, do you hear a beeping? Beeping is audio setting mismatch / unrendered issue.

Your settings are odd. I am curious why you convert your HD H.264 to an SD codec (NTSC DV is Standard Def, so is DVCPro50). Why also convert to 720?

Convert to ProRes 422 and edit away, IMHO.

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[Michael Kammes]

NanoFlash records into long GOP codecs. While this is great for drive space, and looks pretty good when viewing, long GOP codecs degrade in post. Visual Effects, Renders, and all around computer speed take a hit when using these.

ProRes, is not a long GOP codec, and holds up great in post – but at a price – it eats up space.

I recommend ProRes 422 or ProRes 422 HQ.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

This is a little off topic, but…

What about getting an 2 SSD drives in bay 1 & 2, and RAID that as mirrored (giving you full redundancy), then use standard HDDs in Slot 3 and 4? The SSD Raid will give you the performance of 4 standard HDDs (if not betetr) AND you get extra slots for storage. You could even go with 1 SSD drive and use Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner to create a fully bootable backup.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

That’s not *entirely* correct, but I do understand your concerns.

Apple has licensed very few on the PC side to create ProRes via software. But it is possible. Some also prefer to use hardware encoders like Telestream’s Pipeline to do a baseband encode, or, export a QT reference to a shared Mac CPU to do the ProRes encode.

Avid, for the past year or so, has been able to edit ProRes natively in a timeline. Once you dig into it, it’s not the best case scenario, but I know many, many projects that work this way.

It should also be noted that if you intend to generate DNxHD for a 3rd party who uses Avid, you need to encode the DNxHD correctly so Avid can do a Fast Import, otherwise they will have to do a transcode (again) as well.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

https://www.avid.com/US/industries/workflow/DNxHD-Codec
leads to
https://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=372311

DNxHD codecs are free and are on both Mac and PC. Quicktime has been able to play ProRes by default for the past few years, and it’s on both Mac and PC. it’s pretty easy to play these “proprietary” codecs. Since Avid Media Composer and FCP are the top editing applications, both codecs are very common in the industry and are used in many houses when shuttling video files back and forth. Short of going to 100% uncompressed – which is very space consuming – I can’t think of another codec that would be more universal than one of these AND retain quality.

I personally love Cineform, but that is not free for the encode. /sidebar.

XDCAM SD/HD/EX, P2 (any flavor) and the like are more acquisition codecs and do not hold up in post as well as DNxHD and ProRes. Thus, I think you’d be fine with DNxHD or ProRes.

~Michael

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