Sejin Kim
Forum Replies Created
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The thing is, my cards are rated at 84 MB/s for the SanDisk cards that I have and 90 MB/s for the Sony cards that I have, which both should be able to saturate the 50 Mb/s data rate of XAVC. What gives?
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It depends on what kind of performance you’re looking for. In all honesty, you could edit on a cheap laptop, but you wouldn’t be having a very satisfactory experience.
The things that impact smoothness in post the most are storage speed, RAM and graphics processing power.
For storage speed, an SSD (solid state drive) is the first thing that will immediately boost timeline scrubbing performance and eliminate many of the bottlenecks, although you’ll almost never find it mentioned in any minimum system requirements spec sheet.
Graphics processing power comes second. If you have a somewhat modern graphics card from AMD or Nvidia, you should be okay. If this is a critical project, you may want to invest in workstation cards (AMD FirePro or Nvidia Quadro), and even accelerator cards (Nvidia Tesla or Intel Xeon Phi).The reason many post houses have HP Z840s is because these machines come with top notch hardware that has been validated for operation with that set of hardware. The high end workstations will come with workstation-class hardware (Intel Xeon processors, Nvidia Quadro graphics cards), because those machines simply cannot fail. If they do, the entire business can shut down. If you’re editing as a freelancer or for a small house, you’ll want to have your systems powerful enough to smoothly edit, but not overly powerful that you’re just throwing money away.
For a decent computer to be able to edit Alexa material, you’re looking at about $2500 for one editing system. To break everything down:
-Processor: Intel Xeon E5 v3 or v4 or higher
-RAM: at least 8GB, 16GB or higher for best operation
-Graphics: AMD FirePro W7000 or higher, or Nvidia Quadro M4000 or higher
-Storage: if you’re not already using networked and RAIDed media, you should be; check the NAS section of CC website for suggestionsIf you have any questions or want suggestions, reply to this response and I’ll do the best I can.
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SanDisk offers software, and while I have thankfully not had to use it yet, I’ve suggested it to others and got nothing but positive feedback. They’ve apparently found stuff that they never wanted to see again…
I’ve also heard of people using programs like Recuva, and I’ve personally used that, although not with much success with those on temporary storage media like cards.
Hope you can get your files back!
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I am by no means an expert in this, but I’ll put my two cents here.
I think it comes down to the size of the sensor, the amount of fine control (down to interchangeable OLPFs), file management, and the operator. Blackmagic Design’s cameras have carved themselves a new place in the market; a higher end camera at a lower end budget. You can get that large sensor, less compression (it’s not RAW by any means, but it’s not H.264 either) and a large amount of expansion, and that makes it a very appealing camera to indies.
On large productions, however, the reason that REDs and Alexas are used is because of their even larger sensor (Alexa 65 has a S65 sized anamorphic sensor), the ability to record a VERY flat image for grading, and the street cred that the operators get. Arri has developed the PL mount for a reason: it’s a very secure mount capable of handling heavy lenses, and can handle anamorphics without vignetting. Operators instantly get more street cred when they say “Yeah, I’ve worked with the Alexa” versus “I’ve worked with an URSA.”
On the technical side of things, I think that Arri has developed a very compelling camera. The massive dynamic range, ability to under- and over-expose the image and still be usable if not outstanding, and the lack of any compression. RED has done the same, especially with the release of their new Helium 8K sensor, which scored the record highest on DxOMark with a score of 108. The technology crammed into these advanced sensors allow them to have an incredibly high color depth (Helium has 27.5 bits of depth), dynamic range (15 stops) and ISO (4210).
For comparison, we’ll take a look at the Sony A7s II, a highly regarded camera. It cannot record RAW at all, and the external RAW recording ability is still lacking. It’s “fake” RAW, since the signal has to be compressed as it’s sent to the recorder. It only has 23.6 bits of color depth, 13 stops of dynamic range and a maximum usable ISO of 2993. The DxOMark score is only 85. This doesn’t make it an inherently “bad” camera, just a different camera. The form factor is shocking. The price tag for this much tech is stunning. I’ve seen film and TV sets with 4 or 5 of these cameras. If you break one, they can just go to the store and buy another one. (You probably don’t want to throw your Alexa and Cooke lens down a hill, but line a bucket with foam, shove an A7s in and let it roll down the same hill). The former Discovery TV show, Mythbusters, used a combination of BCTV cameras from Sony (>$10000), Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema cameras, BMD Micro Cinema Cameras and URSA Minis. How can they compare a >$10000 camera and a $997 camera? The answer is how the camera is used.
In the end, it’s not really a matter of what camera you’re using. It’s how you’re using it. What use case scenario will you be putting the camera through? Is it going to be going to hell and back or will it be used as the primary camera in a scene for a scene with many different, interestingly pointed light sources? If you’re going to be shooting bullets at a target right next to the camera, you probably don’t want to put a RED Epic there.
Remember, “the best camera is the one on you.”
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DSLRs are great. Their biggest pitfall IMO is their lack of any way to monitor quality audio aside from the onscreen bars.
I would say get a small, internally powered mixer (there are a few that attach to the threads on the bottom of the camera, then have their own threads for attachment to say, a tripod), because the good ones will have monitoring ports, as well as a variety of other inputs, including XLR. -
Probably just as a general use (general as in everything) camera. It would be used for studio use on one day, then go out on a run-and-gun shoot the next, and end up shooting a football game the next day.
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I’m not sure I understand your instructions. How do I remove the shiny metal insert?
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Do you mind sharing your favorites?
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I haven’t specifically worked with the Project Manager, but I have experienced symptoms similar to the ones you have. If you ever put In or Out markers in the project, you’ll want to delete those, then delete the preferences again, both for Premiere Pro and for Media Encoder, then trying the encode again.
I don’t really have an idea on how large the Cineform will be; sorry!