Sean Oneil
Forum Replies Created
-
It’s been discussed a lot.
Basically, before the fix, if you were to thow away all your media for a project and later use Media Manager, the option to “Delete Unused Media” no longer works and you have to re-capture all of the source footage – not just the parts you need.
-
The 1080p DLP HP (yes, Hewlett-Packard) sets are the only DLP sets on the market that will actually accept a 1080p signal. They are considered the best DLP sets in existence by many enthusiats.
The other 1080p sets such as the Samsungs, the JVCs, and the Mitsubishis will not do this believe it or not. Even though they display at 1080p, the HDMI and component inputs will only accept 1080i. This could be a problem with future uses and even current ones if you edit in 1080Psf 24.
As for the 37″ Westinghouse LCD, I just got one for home. It also accepts 1080p. Very bright and very sharp. But the black levels look… like an LCD. But for $1600 this was a steal. I reccomend it if this is just for clients. They will definately be impressed. Just don’t color correct on it obviously. Definately get this over a plasma. It’s half the weight, and you don’t have to worry about burn-in.
-
Actually I just looked at it and you don’t even need a new preset. Use the 1080i preset. It is set to “automatic” so it will encode it at whatever framerate and field dominance the source is. Even though it says 1080i, there’s no such thing as 23.98 interlaced. Trust me, it will encode as 1080 @ 23.98 (which is an option you can set manually).
-
I would contact a sales person since it seems you’re looking for someone to convince you of something.
All the info you’ve asked for is here:
https://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/multibridge/More audio channels, DVI, and possibly better A/D conversion than the older MB. And yes, there is a solution for your lame old Mac. There is an adapter card for PCI-X slots which may or may not be shipping yet. There’s even a picture of it if on the right hand side if you scroll down just a little bit.
Sean
-
I think you should try CMX 3600 for your EDL. It’s been a while since I had to do this, so I’m not sure.
Sean
-
Make a custom preset in Compressor.
-
I reccomend Firmtek cards. They only have 4 ports, but you can get two of them if you have an extra slot (AJA or Decklink in Slot 4, Firmtek cards in slots 2 and 3). You can’t go wrong.
To be fair to what I said, my nightmare experience was with Sonnet’s 1.1 firmware which was new at the time. I see they now have 1.2 which may or may not have fixed the issues with the particular version of the Maxline Maxtors (the good but cheap ones that Newegg sells).
Appearantly, the drives have a very sensitive timing which Sonnet did not account for when making the 1.1 firmware. They worked fine with the Firmtek cards and with the G5’s internal SATA ports. But with the Sonnet cards running v1.1 and these Maxtors connected externally, they will blow up your machine. Badly.
It happened when I updated to 1.1 the day it was released. It was a nightmare. And I was throurough in my troubleshooting. I tried more than 1 card, more than 1 G5, and more than one set of drives. I also spent a week talking everyday on the phone with Sonnet tech support. At first they treated me like an idiot, saying my SATA cables must not be secured well or some garbage (believe me, I tried many different cables – I even tried different power outlets I was so desperate).
After a few days they said other were having the same problem and that they ALL had Maxtor drives. But get this (I’m not making this up), the guy started BRAGGING to me about what a low percentage of people had problems with 1.1. I couldn’t believe this jerk.
Their solution to my problem was to email me a package installer that would put the card back to 1.0. It didn’t work and it still said 1.1. I called and told them it didn’t work. He asked how long the installer took to run, and based on what I told him, he said my card was hosed from trying to go back to 1.0.
The next day, they temporarilly removed 1.1 from their website. Shortly thereafter, they put it back and did not mention ANYWHERE that there were known issues with Maxtor drives. It remained this way for a long time, possibly a year until 1.2 was released recently (which still may not work). That’s the kind of company they are.
Luckilly I discovered Firmtek who explained why the Sonnets didn’t work right with my particular drives and why Firmtek’s products will. I took a chance and bought some of their cards. Magically, our arrays were back and worked great They still do.
Even if Sonnet’s 1.2 update fixed it, or if the newer Maxtor revisions are more stable, I wouldn’t go with Sonnet for anything. I’ve had bad experiences with more than one of their products.
Sean
-
[walter biscardi] “thus recompressing as it went to tape. We then displayed the film on a 57′ film screen using a Panasonic PD-7000 HD Projector for our world premiere. The image was absolutely outstanding.”
That is one generational loss. I said three. I agree it’s great for one or maybe two, which works great for your world premiere. But Gramme is correct. It’s best to avoid it for most workflows. Perhaps TV spots must be made from that master. Or a DVD will have to be encoded. Or perhaps it gets translated into another language or it’s re-edited for television. If everyone involved used the same workflow, it could look very degraded by the time the intended audience sees it.
I had a situation where I ended up having to worth with concert that was originally shot on DVCPro 720 (Varicam), recompressed to DVCPro 1080 after color-correction, transfered to HDCam, and then transfered back to DVCPro 1080.
I’d love to explain how and why all of this happened, and if I did you’d see why this is something that can and does happen often. But I’ll save everyone from a boring story and skip it :).
Anyway, by the time I got it after all these transfers, there was definately noticable degradation without even looking closely. The image was much softer. But it was still decent. However….
I was cutting promos for it and they had to be in HD. It was for Best Buy and other retailers and they wanted to show off their HDTV sets I guess. Per client’s request, it needed to be delivered on DVHS if you can believe that (DVHS uses the same codec as HDV). The degradation really stood out on the DVHS. Had I encoded it from the original Varicam footage, I’m certain it would have looked a lot better. Furthermore, I made a DVD which looked softer and more pixellated than a DVD that was made from the 2nd gen master.
So it depends on your workflow. Just remember that after you deliver a project, there’s many, many situations where other editors and post people might get their grubby hands on it. And if they all use DVCPro HD tapes and it contantly gets recompressed because they use HD-SDI instead of FW (FW is a dirty word in a lot of places), then you may be in trouble.
Sean
-
[Francois X] “what about maxtor drives ?”
Don’t use them with a Sonnet card if you want to keep your sanity. It’s too long of a story. Call Firmtek and I’m sure they’ll happily explain it.
Sean