Thomas Tomchak
Forum Replies Created
-
OK, that does make sense. Thanks.
I’ll let you know how it works out.
Thomas Tomchak
President, Edit Creations, Inc.
https://www.edit-creations.comEdit Blog
https://www.suitetake.com -
Just to clarify, the first expression that you outlined is to be applied to each of the layers?
Or just to the first one?
I’m a bit unclear on how all of the layers are effected by this one expression if it’s only applied in a single location.
Thomas Tomchak
President, Edit Creations, Inc.
https://www.edit-creations.comEdit Blog
https://www.suitetake.com -
How would you alter this to work with the full raster of the screen. In my case I have a 3358×768 comp that I need to evenly spread 192 objects over in random order (names of countries). I was thinking about using a particle emitter but I’m thinking the client is going to want to move some around once she sees the final look, so I need the freedom to move them after the fact.
So I’ve already created 192 comps that have each country name writing on and need to evenly fill the screen. Any help would be appreciated. I could do it by hand, but don’t really want to 🙂
Also, I checked out your reel Ben and it’s very impressive. I may be able to use your services down the road for some projects. We do some graphics in house, but on occasion what we need to do is outside of what we’re capable of.
Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.
Tom
Thomas Tomchak
President, Edit Creations, Inc.
https://www.edit-creations.comEdit Blog
https://www.suitetake.com -
I think there is no single way to attack this problem, and 10 different people will give you 10 different answers. I’ve been working with the tapeless P2 format for several years now (as well as XDCam and SxS) and here is the advice I would give based on my experiences.
Normally in the field I would do straight to 2 different hard drives (sometimes 3) using Shotput. It allows for immediate, separate backups and it’s very fast. However, because you’re going to be on the road for so long I probably would consider going the LTO route in addition.
I would make sure that I had enough hard drive space to create at least 3 copies at any given location. So for example, if the conference is 3 days in Thailand, then have enough HD space to make sure you can save it all to the hard drives, and have at least 2 copies of everything.
At the end of every day (if possible) I would take what had been shot and put it on 2 LTO tapes. On the last day of the conference in that location, I would send one set of LTO’s back to my office and keep the other set with me for the duration of the trip.
Once I received word that the LTO tape had been received, I would erase the files from the HD’s I was using and prepare them for the next location.
So at no one point do you have less then 2 copies, and you end up with two sets of LTO tapes, in different locations, that are rock solid backups. If one is lost, changes are both will not be.
The LTO part would have been difficult a few years ago, but using one of the new drives from Cache-A will make this a lot easier to do on the road. The unit is a self contained solution for exactly what you’re talking about. You don’t need any special software, just a network connection between your Mac and the unit. You can even plug hard drives directly into the unit and copy files that way as well.
There are too many details to get into here, but I did write a review of one of their units on my blog at SuiteTake.com. You can read details on that by going here…
https://www.suitetake.com/2009/09/24/review-cache-a-lto-4-a-series/
If you need more help then this, I am often hired on jobs like this to be their on-site archive technician (AT) and have traveled as far as Beijing and Bangkok doing jobs just like this.
I hope that you find this information helpful. Sounds like you have a great gig ahead of you.
Thomas Tomchak
President, Edit Creations, Inc.
https://www.edit-creations.comEdit Blog
https://www.suitetake.com -
I think your best bet is to send them a H.264 version of your QT export. Take your full resolution file into Compressor and just apply the stock “H.264” preset and you should end up with something that’s very small and of great quality. It will be way under the 100 meg mark and have the same frame resolution and frame rate that the original movie file had.
If you have not exported the sequence yet, the other option is to just send it directly to compressor and use the same preset.
hope this helps.
Thomas Tomchak
President, Edit Creations, Inc.
https://www.edit-creations.comEdit Blog
https://www.suitetake.com -
I agree with Shane on this.
The movie file you’re trying to import is not supported by FCP. Your best option is to convert the file to a ProRes QT file and then import that. You should be able to do this with Compressor or the free program Mpeg StreamClip
Thomas Tomchak
President, Edit Creations, Inc.
https://www.edit-creations.comEdit Blog
https://www.suitetake.com -
Are you testing the DVD on the computer, or on a set-top box? I’ve seen problems when playing back on the computer that turn out to be fine on a regular TV. I don’t think this is your problem, but I thought I would throw it out.
if your exports look good, what are you doing from there to the DVD? What program are you using to compress it and what are your settings set to?
The external drive should not be an issue.
Thomas Tomchak
President, Edit Creations, Inc.
https://www.edit-creations.comEdit Blog
https://www.suitetake.com -
I’m still working to resolve it, but I did find a few things that “fixed” it.
I’ve noticed that it happens more as time goes on, and that having lots of other programs open seem to have an effect on it. It appears to be memory related. In most cases, if I just close all of the programs that are open the sequence will start playing back fine and in sync.
It appears that the video starts to lag behind, not so much that the audio is ahead.
Restarting the computer always fixes it for at least a few hours.
I’m running a Mac Pro Quad 3ghz with 4 gigs of RAM.
I’m sent a message to AJA so if anything sold comings out of it I’ll post it here.
Thomas Tomchak – President, Edit Creations, Inc.
https://www.edit-creations.com, https://www.suitetake.com -
Did you get this problem resolved? I’m having the same issues, and it only happens when using ProRes. Funny enough, restarting the computer fixes the problem, but only for a few hours before it starts again.
Thomas Tomchak – President, Edit Creations, Inc.
https://www.edit-creations.com, https://www.suitetake.com -
I’m actually writing a post for my blog about this and ran across your post. I couldn’t help but share my own expereince.
I can tell you from 3 years of experience doing it, that under the right conditions, it can work very well.
I have a two suite shop, both with direct attached storage and gigabit ethernet connecting them. We work mostly in DV25 and DV 50 format, so bandwidth needs are well below what our network is able to provide.
With our setup, we are able to open and edit any project in either of the two rooms, regardless where it was started. While we are unable to do layoffs with confidences, everything else is fine and there is no noticeable performance difference unless the project is pretty large and complex.
As much as I would love a full blown san system, you can’t beat this for the money. It gets the job done and allows us to be very flexible with the schedule and our resources.
Thomas Tomchak – President, Edit Creations, Inc.
https://www.edit-creations.com, https://www.suitetake.com