[Ramona Howard]

Martin,

This problem was discovered many years ago when we worked with a studio on Sin City. The problem lied in the Quicktime. Try a plug in for FCP called Glue Tools that will allow you to render back out to DPX and see if that solves your problem.

We have MANY customers going between RaveHD (which also has the option of capturing and working in full range) and Apple products. Most of them are using FCP simply for the Edit and all of the heavy lifting is being done on RaveHD.

In a nutshell.
Capture on RaveHD, bring DPX directly into apps (AE, FCP, etc), Edit and do the VFX magic, Render VFX shots back onto to RaveHD. (RaveHD can be a network mount you can render directly to)

From there they can take the CMX from the edit and conform on the RaveHD for print to tape, color, dailies, etc…

Keeps the image what it should be, no issues with codecs 🙂
Pretty much all of our customer base are the high-end houses where this must work flawless….Mostly all film-out projects where full range is a standard part of the workflow. We started in VFX and built the product around those needs first and understand all this very well.

*Added note RaveHD does support converting DPX to QT and other formats if a studio doesn’t need to edit with full uncompressed frames.

Cheers and hope that helps,
Ramona

[Ramona Howard]

Jeremy,

SpyPost is a very talented group with all the right toys, er tools.

Ramona

[Ramona Howard]

It isn’t the AJA board. We are getting burn-in timecode via the board in RaveHD while playing or paused. We can pass a variety of timecode options, i.e embedded, absolute or LTC (which is via the LTC board in RaveHD).

Cheers,
Ramona

[Ramona Howard]

Ed,

This doesn’t answer your question specifically because it’s rather difficult to answer straight up without a whole bunch more info. I can say the method I bring up below is saving time for some of our customers, which does relate to dollars BUT more importantly it’s about the quality (or I would like to think so)

Many of our customers have been using the frame/file method for sometime with much excitement and success, check out the lastest release by Spy Post, one of many houses we have helped step into this. It saves them time and yields the utmost quality. Can you do it all with FCP without headaches, I am not the one to argue that point, ask your fellow peers that you trust to give you an honest answer.

We have always been an advocate of uncompressed all the way thru the pipeline. The tools are all there and much more economical then you may think to produce a product of the utmost quality.

Word of advice. On a film out, make sure the uncompressed capture is not screwing with the colorspace in any way nor the tools your using in the path.

Hope that helps a bit.

Best of luck,
Ramona

[Ramona Howard]

I guess it was that whole shopping list of parts, prices and the portable cases and such that thru me off.

Best of luck,
Ramona

Bob, will share the Bravo stuff soon, it will make your hair stand up even more 🙂

[Ramona Howard]

Robert,

I must be reading the post entirely wrong….

It’s not the $3k for just the backup unit, that’s reasonable, it’s everything else you expect to get out of it for that price.

Just remember if you have 1TB of data that needs backing up, you need more than 1TB to do it in Raid, throw in the fact you want to possibly hot swap these out to double as an archival solution and all with using a cheap controller. Good luck with that. There is a slew of implications you may not be considering with that scenario.

Bob and I share the same passion when someone tackles an important issue (such as this one) with budget first and answers to a real solution second. First ask what solutions do it already and work your way down, you will find it easier to get the answers you need and or find out how difficult it may be to build your own, if you can get the answers to do it.

The Frys comment comes into play because it appears your determined to Frankenstein a solution together because it seems so easy to do with off the shelf components (again I say appears as this may not be your intentions). A mistake many make. Let me tell you, that’s one thing it isn’t (easy). Be prepared to become a hardware expert if this is a route you take 🙂

Again, if you simply need a backup solution many manufactures here will work great. Some of our backup units are Medea Arrays, they work great.

Best of luck on whatever you choose,
Ramona

[Ramona Howard]

I’m with you on this Bob. Wow.

Come on, are we talking a professional solution that will insure your data will be protected or some one shopping at Frys here?

Backup and archival usually means you want to keep the stuff for awhile and not take the chance by physically pulling drives out of your Mac Pro. In otherwords you loose this stuff, it usually hurts.

We do provide dual SATA boards in RaveHD and also with the Bravo, but for a single 6/8 bay solution it isn’t feasible. Besides we are not talking Apples to Apples with the comparison of the products either.

If you simply want a solution to store data, go with Bobs recommendation if your looking for an all in one, again email me off list and I can give you some details BUT I can guarantee you it won’t be at the Frys price point. To do this in a professional manner one can not use $1.99 hard drives and $3.00 controllers, that would be suicide. Some things you just should not cut corners on.

Cheers,
Ramona

[Ramona Howard]

Robert,

We have a new product emerging at NAB called the Bravo, it may be worth taking a look at as it tackles both of these needs.

Here is the little bit of info we have put out but we really are not putting any real details out yet. Please fell free to email me off list and I will give you what you need as there is much more to the product than what we show here.

https://www.spectsoft.com/RaveManual-Products-RaveHD-Bravo.html

Cheers,
Ramona
ramona@spectsoft.com

[Ramona Howard]

Matt,

This doesn’t really help with the actual storage solution on the SAN side but though I would comment for something for you to consider.

This thread hit the nail on the head which is why we have been persistant over the years of providing local storage on the RaveHD systems in addition to being able to connect right into a SAN. This takes away the “mercy of the SAN” scenario and drives themselves are the inexpensive part of the solution.

We have always been a firm believer to not to tie the hands of the user and always provide a backup plan. I can say with confidence that our customer base is using RaveHD in every way they possible can, some direct to a SAN and some not but the one comment we hear over and over is that they like the fact that they are able to ingest into anywhere they need or want and providing a two array set-up on thr RaveHD gives them flexability.

The new Bravo (arriving at NAB) takes this a step further.

Whatever you decide, consider giving yourself a way out in the event your SAN doesn’t perform.

Cheers,
Ramona

[Ramona Howard]

OK you guys just segwayed into our new Bravo product emerging at NAB. Portability of uncompressed content with absolutely no transfer times. This means huge savings! For anyone who has had to transfer HD frames, especially 4:4:4 frames over a network or on/off external units you will understand and appreciate.

Instantly access to every frame as full uncompressed material and yes network mountable to those editing and compositing packages and or a direct connect to some solutions where the hardware allows. All standard, inexpensive, straight forward stuff 🙂

Look forward to sharing as the days tick away towards April.

Cheers,
Ramona