Tony
Forum Replies Created
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Jeff,
Mixing different capacity drives will result in the total GB avaiable defined as the amount of the smallest drive times the number of drives you will stripe as a raid.
So for example if you have (2) 250 gb and (2) 300 gb drives using simple addition this equals = 1100 gb however because you mixed 250 gb with 300 gb drives then when all the drives are striped as a raid the two 300 gb drives will only offer 250gb of storage so now the raid’s total storage is 250 gb x 4= 1000gb of storage.
Do you actually have a request to deliver the show in HD from the SD master?
If not then disregard needing any upconversion board because the point is moot.
I personally avoid mixing different brands when stripping a raid but that’s only my own preference.
Tony Salgado
PS- Thanks Bob for the heads up on the firmtek gear
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Make sure you download the right version of FCP rescue for your version of FCP.
FCP rescue 5 is needed for Final cut pro 5 whereas FCP rescue 4 is for Final cut pro 4.5
Tony Salgado
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Welder,
I think the suggestion to find a local “IT” vendor who can provide on site rapid response is in order for your facility.
The problem you mentioned is not unique to Avid or Apple as I have had the same problems with other large vendors such as Sony (don’t get me started on how bad they are). Honestly the only tech support which I have never been disappointed with is AJA or Ikegami but I have to say they are unique in the industry.
The only solution is to back yourself up with a local qualified professional who you can hire on a freelance as need basis. You may need to find more than one depending on their availability.
Good luck,
Tony Salgado
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What are you using AE for? Compositing or to do the 3:2?
If for the pulldown only it would be easier to let a facility with a kona card do the pulldown for outputting to tape.
What if any video card (ie AJA, BM or other) do you have for your FCP system?
Were you planning to spit out to film ?
If not I don’t see the editing in a 24PA sequence other than to save drive space and export to a 24P DVD.If the end result is primarily for 29.97 tape and DVD then make your life easier and choose to edit in a 29.97 timeline.
Which in that case it might have been more beneficial to have shot in 24P from the very beginning.
Tony Salgado
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A major advantage for shooting 24P or 24PA is to minimize the amount of hard drive space required for capturing the footage.
The ability to work in progressive and output to DVD at 24P thereby allowing a better image as well as letting the DVD do the 3:2 pulldown upon playback.
If you are delivering to digi beta you can still cut the sequence in 24PA and via video card such as the Kona 2 or other add the 3:2 pulldown on the fly for recording via SDI to digi beta.
If you are are not going to do any color correction or keying effects in the 10 bit master and are solely uprezzing to 10 bit for output to digi beta this is a waste of time in my opinion.
First of all you can output from dv with pulldown to SDI on the fly via the kona 2 and the resulting digi beta will be a 4:2:2 master.
The advantage of uprezzing to 10 bit before hand would be to do color correction or keying etc in 4:2:2 color space as well as take advantage of the 10 bit sampling.
One last item digi beta can input 10 bit but internally within the deck it will dynamically round off to 8 bit for recording.
Tony Salgado
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Actually,
Your client may know what they really want which is why they are requesting that the timecode mode be
NDF.1) They may already have an existing volume of tapes which have all been shot NDF and that is there internal company specifications for all camera masters.
2) They may wish to do a linear on line at a later date and avoid the mess created when mixing NDF and DF source tapes. (Trust me on this one I used to have to deal with this when I was an online CMX editor and it slows down the rapid assembly process when you EDL list contains mixed mode source timecode) Not the biggest issue but an issue to avoid if you have a large amount of source footage that you can avoid mixing the timecode mode.
3) The majority of non broadcaster users by default use NDF timecode instead of DF because
A) They have never had a need for DF
B) They don’t or never will understand the differences between the two
C) It’s just so damn confusing “so let’s keep it simple and do what we did last time and the time before that.”
D) The editor (some high school digital genius who really has no clue) told the producer that recording in a different tc mode will screw up the NLE system as well as the fry the editor’s brain when he has to manually calculate how to add back the missing frames on the DF camera masters.4) DF is great for time of day accuracy, logging in the field and using a watch which is synced to the DF free running time of day timecode starting time.
5) The place where NDF and DF make the greatest impact are in the final edited master which is intended for broadcast. In this case it is essential that the edited master, air master etc all be in DF.
6) FYI most broadcasters and networks (not all) by default use DF on their source footage in addition to the edited masters.
7) The difference between the two modes
NDF is based on 30.00 with no regard to the actual 29.97 recording frame rate. So clock time does not match timecode time after one hour.
DF accounts for the 29.97 frame rate and drops a frame every minute except for the zero minute and every 10 minutes thereafter. The end result is one hour of tape time will equal one hour of clock time.
Essential for broadcast operations if you are using a countdown or countup clock to determine when and where to cut to commericals or the next program.FYI In 24P mode there is no such thing as DF timecode yet, In PAL which is 25.00 frames DF does not apply.
DF is unique to the NTSC 29.97 standard.Tony Salgado
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Yeah I easily figure this out with my amp/voltage meter I got hooked up but on average if you figure that the average suite might pull between 10-20 amps (1000-2000 watts) then figure out what it cost you for electricity per hour in your market based on the equipment draw.
Are you trying to figure out your overhead cost for electricity?
The tough thing however is what about all the other items in the location where your suite is located?
Those have an overhead cost associated with them also so you have to figure them in also.
In general all these overhead cost are figured into the hourly charge for the room.
Tony Salgado
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I did some FRC tests with a powerbook, Dual 1 ghz G4 and Dual 2.7 G5.
To say the least the powerbook was painfully slow compared to the G5 and G4
On average a 20 sec clip took up to 4 1/2 minutes to process.
If you have alot of clips to do avoid using the powerbook and do yourself a favor and get a dual G5 or at least a dual G4.
Time is money when you are on location.
Tony Salgado
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The so called flickering is actually only for those who are accustomed to 60i whereas if you watch PAL for a while you brain will start to “lock up” and dial out any perceived flicker.
I once did a shoot where we shot PAL and NTSC camera side by side and I had to watch two monitors at once displaying the NTSC and PAL feeds. At first it was distrubing to see the differences between the frame rates but after about an hour I embraced the PAL image well over the NTSC image.
Tony Salgado
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Contact
Luke in the Blackmagic forum.
He is quite responsive to customer questions and concerns.
Good luck,
Tony Salgado