[Seth Bloombaum]

Someone (on this forum?) mentioned the book “Inc. Yourself”. If you have any trouble falling asleep at night… no really, it explains the tax implications of incorporating and LLC. If you get from the library make sure you get the latest edition, as those tax laws keep on changing. It will prepare you to have a good discussion with your accountant.

Easy to open that business checking account at WF or wherever. It’s not a neccessity immediately when you start out, but very convenient. If you don’t incorporate or LLC immediately, all expenses and revenue are in your name and Tax ID number. You sure have to keep track of every penny in and out, charge cards, parking, mileage, all of it or you’ll be paying more taxes than you should. Be sure to ask your accountant about Quicken Home & Business and Quickbooks. Helps a lot to get it set up right the first time, then you just work your accounting system.

[Seth Bloombaum]

…where do you guys get this stuff…

um… that’s whats worked for me and everyone I’ve heard of. It’s very important that you follow the steps in the post referenced above very carefully. Yes, this should work fine on your system with XP SP2.

Does it connect up for standard mini-DV? You should check this first, to make sure that you actually have good firewire connectivity, that is, that your camera fw port is working, you have a good cable, and your pc fw card/port is working.

Here are some expanded driver instructions.

1. Plug in camera, then turn it on.
2. Go to Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager
3. Locate AVC/Subunit in the Device Manager
4. Right click, choose Properties
5. Choose Update Driver, and DO NOT let Windows go searching on Windows Update. Choose “not this time”
6. Next, choose “install from a list or specific location.
7. Next, choose “don’t search, I will choose the driver to install”.
8. Next, uncheck “show compatible hardware”

NOW, you should be seeing the pick list.

9. Browse to Sound, Video, Game Controllers to find the driver
10. Locate Sony in the list of Sound, Video, Game Controllers
11. Open the first Sony in the list, and select the DVHS driver as the driver for your camera. (there will probably be 3 sony entries, look for the DVHS driver)
12. next, finish, etc. Then give it a try with the Vegas 6.0c internal capture utility.

If this doesn’t work and you’ve confirmed that your camera FW, FW cable and PC FW all work, you’re probably on to reinstall of Vegas and possibly Sony tech support.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Most engineers would suggest somewhere between -3db and -0.3db.

You don’t want anything over 0db in digital, not even momentary peaks, such is destructive of your sound.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Sure, (almost) all those software tools are based on analog hardware and workflows.

Levels – a mixer.
Hiss – Equalizer, possibly a noise gate. (there would be limited EQ on the mixer)
Dynamic range – compressor, limiter.

You could apply these tools in one pass in real time.

Sorry about the RCA, though – that will be harder to find, check your local radio shack for devices with consumer connectivity. And keep those cables under 6 feet.

HTH.

[Seth Bloombaum]

I can assign these six audio channels to come out of my capture card as AES. They would be on 3 xlrs– each xlr has two aes audio channels– (1+2, 3+4, 5+6).

Decoding this from AES to Analog will be an expensive PITA. Not that it wouldn’t work…

…AJA IO 8 channel analog out… The sync might be a little bit out… And can I control analog audio out volume of IO through either IO control panel or mac os volume control?

Not familiar with your platform, but, yes, the most straightforward way to accomplish what you want is 6 channels of analog output. I’d test the AJA before trying anything else.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Well, that’s odd. Seems to indicate a problem with whatever player you’re using outside of Vegas. Is it possible that the EQ has been set up in Windows Media Player… I’d try zeroing that EQ, but that’s really just a wild guess.

I do think you should try this file on other computers.

Nothing wrong with MPEG1 audio. Not great, but OK. Not a good choice for web distribution, though, as it won’t stream or progressive download, and all the true streaming formats look better than it does for a given data rate. (that would be windows media, quicktime, and realmedia). MPEG1 doesn’t get much use anymore except as the VCD standard, which remains very popular in Europe and Asia. Not for web.

Are you using a standard rendering template? If you’ve modified the audio encoding it’s possible that an external player doesn’t have the right audio codec, or correct playback for a particular audio bitrate. If you’re set on MPEG1 for some reason, I’d try another render using a standard rendering template.

[Seth Bloombaum]

…But I’m glad you posted this issue; it is a problem many of us face, and the hot-warm-cold idea is cool.

I’d settle for hot and cold storage. What do the experts here think about good options (and more important, good strategies) for “cold” storage? I use three computers for every project… but while the drives are cheap, the housings add expense….

For me, the concept of hot-warm-cold come from a former employer, back when we were doing multimedia production on network server storage. Here’s how I’m applying it now.

My main workstation has an internal drive for system & programs.
On top of it sit three identical housings with three 300GB drives inside. Rendering is typically done from drive to drive, otherwise, all project assets stay on one drive. These are “hot”.

A drive fills up. I find 20 minutes to trash what can be trashed, and move project renders to that drive. I make some notes as to what projects are on the drive and add them to a spreadsheet that’s on my workstation and my laptop. I pull the drive out, put it on the shelf – this one is now “warm”.

A drive fills up. I start trashing files and realize that project A will never come back for various reasons. I trash captures only, preserving such project assets as DVD images, final renders, and graphics on the drive. I go to the shelf and make sure camera tapes have a rubber band around them and they’re actually labeled. This project is now “cold”.

I put new and bigger drives in the cases, I probably put a raw drive on the shelf every 3-4 months. My cost per GB is between $.25 and .40 USD, as I can buy IDE drives on sale at local retailers – I just watch the ads and always have a new raw drive on the shelf. The cost per GB keeps on going down… It is VERY economical compared to any other archive strategy.

Working with “hot” projects – you know about this, it’s what you’re doing now.

Need to edit/revise/source some footage from last year’s project? Pull a drive off the shelf and stick it in an enclosure – takes 10 minutes, what was “warm” is now “hot”.

Need to revise or source from a project you never thought you’d have to touch again? Maybe you can do it from final renders, maybe you have to go back to source tapes.

If you’re working on three computers you could do the same thing with a gigabyte or fiber network file server. A buddy is doing it with removeable drives. I sure didn’t invent this, lots of people are doing it because it’s the most economical way. You could also walk an external project drive from one computer to the next.

As I make the transition to more HDV work there’s probably a raid in my future – haven’t figured this one out, but I’ll probably start by keeping the drives in the raid and dumping off to my same externals for “warm” storage.

[Seth Bloombaum]

I use a SCSI system for my NLE so buying warm drives isn’t as cheap as IDE drives.
The idea would be to use the inexpensive IDE stuff, could be with an external FW or USB case. Archive to this, then transfer back to SCSI as needed.

Honestly, I don’t care about losing this client, they are always on a tight budget with unreasonable timelines… There are other inuendos regarding the project that I didn’t share, which could possibly skew your opinion…
I think you’ve answered your own question.

There are times you know that working extra or buying something extra is the right thing to do. And times you know it’s not worth it. If there’s a little voice inside saying “not this client, not this time” I’d go with that.

[Seth Bloombaum]

When I render my video to MPEG1 or even an AVI the audio sounds over modulated and there is distortion. However, it sounds great on the timeline…

Perhaps you’re already aware of this, but your post doesn’t make it clear. Sounding great on the timeline is not enough. It also needs to not exceed 0db on the master meters in the mixer panel. Most people would say not to exceed somewhere between -3db and -0.3, to provide some margin of safety.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Your rates are too low if you can’t afford the capital to expand for work for which you otherwise have the capacity and want to do.

IMO you need to purhchase these drives now or consider losing the project, which in many cases means you resign the client.

It’s perfectly reasonable for you to set a rate for a particular type of work, and to have a discussion with this client why their projects deserve this rate.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask the client to pay for your capital expansion directly. It is OK to have detailed discussions with them about the life of their project on your drives, and gauge cost accordingly.

Alternatives include coming up with a workflow that doesn’t require additional space, or negotiating a schedule acceptable to them that allows better timing for your drives. Have you thought about hot-warm-cold storage? Hot is on your raids, warm is on non-raid drives, cold is on tape. It’s pretty easy to move a project from hot to warm, and warm to hot, and expansion may cost less this way.