Walter Biscardi
Forum Replies Created
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Nvidia is NO LONGER required for high performance with Adobe apps. Hasn’t been for two years at least. Adobe supports Open GL just the same as CUDA. If you were at NAB this past April you would have seen the latest AMD cards in a Dell screaming with 6k footage in Adobe Premiere Pro running with Open GL.
The problem with the iMac, as least as far as we can tell, is that there’s only 4GB RAM on the graphics card to drive that display and help drive the performance of software such as Adobe Premiere Pro. It might work out perfectly fine, but many of us are scratching our heads wondering why an 8GB AMD card is not an option. According to Apple specs, there’s some other processor in there to drive the display, but we’re suspect until we see a real world test.
I think the iMac is the best machine for editing on Apple, but I’m not lining up to buy this machine. I’m continuing to look at PC workstations to replace the rest of my Mac Pros. We have two 27″ iMacs currently cutting in two of our edit suites and while they work great, they do get very hot. This new machine has a very impressive screen, but the rest of it just doesn’t “wow” me at all. I can get some gorgeous widescreen LG screens along with a power packed PC for about the same or a little more than this iMac plus have the ability to expand, upgrade the PC later.
This machine seems more focused on wowing the production world with a “5k screen” instead of putting more horsepower behind that screen which would make it even more useful. If someone wants to take one for a test spin and tell us it can easily drive the screen and provide a lot of realtime punch for Premiere Pro, I’ll reconsider. But on paper, I’m not lining up to buy this computer.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative MediaCraft and Career Advice & Training from real Working Creative Professionals
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[Dustin Parsons] “While Adobe has changed the way PPro handles the Dynamic Linked clips it still does not work well.”
You can “Convert AE Comp to Clip” now which is what I would do before doing the Consolidate and Transcode.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative MediaCraft and Career Advice & Training from real Working Creative Professionals
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Believe it or not, we’ve used the $200 Canon Vixia HF400 camera for many situations that require a small camera with good low light capabilities. Has all the professional features such as manual white balance, manual exposure, manual audio controls, microphone input, etc…. 1080p camera and when color graded, can match up to many other cameras.
Now moving forward, I would not put too much stock into anything that’s HD only. 4k is coming on too fast. We’re doing a test shoot next weekend with the Panasonic GH4 and I just took delivery of a Blackmagic 4k Cinema Camera. With the prices of these, and a few others, being so cheap, doesn’t make much sense to limit yourself to HD. The GH4 lists at $1699 for example.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative MediaCraft and Career Advice & Training from real Working Creative Professionals
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We use Screenlight. Clients can give timecode based notes with markers in the clips. Been using that two years now. Clients love it because they can watch the videos on any device from any location and enter notes.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative MediaCraft and Career Advice & Training from real Working Creative Professionals
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[chris saflar] “So, if I stick with a PC, what specs should I get built to speed up the render time and export time and still have the best video quality? thanks !”
You want a lot of RAM, fast CPU and fast GPU or multiple GPUs. Video quality doesn’t have anything to do with the computer. Has everything to do with the original codec the footage is shot in and then the codec you deliver in.
The nice thing about the PCs is they generally have some nice open slots where you can expand your machine later. The Mac Pro is pretty much “what you get is what you get.”
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative MediaCraft and Career Advice & Training from real Working Creative Professionals
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[chris saflar] “Question. Does Premiere Pro CC operate and look the same in both the windows and mac versions? I’m a windows person but my boss is thinking about upgrading me to one on the $3k mac pros which look like a very fast computer.”
Yes they do. But i would not recommend the Mac Pro quite honestly. If you want to go Mac, get the 27″ iMac, that’s the best video editing tool for the Mac right now, especially running PPro.
I’m actually switching our shop from Mac to a hybrid Mac / Windows environment because I’m very underwhelmed by the new Mac Pro. Looking at the HP and MainGear computers.
Been editing on Mac since 1996. We already have our first Dell in the shop and we’ll be adding at least two more PCs before the end of the year.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative MediaCraft and Career Advice & Training from real Working Creative Professionals
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Call Small Tree Communications. Been running their stuff I guess 7 years now. As bullet proof as they get. Price? That all depends on what your friend needs. Call Small Tree, give them your specs on what you need to do and they will put together a quote.
We have 5 edit suites, ProTools Suite, Davinci Resolve Suite, 5 client iMacs, 2 Library iMacs, Production Manager and myself all hitting the NAS along with various other computers also tied in. We have almost 100TB across two Small Tree systems.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative MediaCraft and Career Advice & Training from real Working Creative Professionals
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[Todd Terry] ” Then again, I think theirs is like a $15,000 helicopter, about ten times what I paid for mine. “
Yeah, that’s about the cost of the Yonder Blue rig with the MOVi gimbal and the entire rig.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative MediaCraft and Career Advice & Training from real Working Creative Professionals
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[Todd Terry] “On the upside, they didn’t charge me for the repair… although that unfortunately falls into the “you get what you pay for” category.”
Yeah, those small ones are pretty useless quite honestly. Can’t do a whole lot with them. The power of flight really comes in when you have independent control of the camera to the flight. I’m talking to the guys at Yonder Blue Films here in Georgia to help me set up a rig for our new Contemporary Living Network that can be both used as a single pilot operated unit and as a pilot / camera operator combo. Those guys are THE multi-rotor flyers in the southeast and pretty much the entire country. Their client list reads like a who’s who in television and film.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative MediaCraft and Career Advice & Training from real Working Creative Professionals
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[James Duncan] “He cannot afford my standard rates, but the plan is to gradually make more money as his business expands. I was thinking somewhere between $25 and $50 dollars an hour, does anybody have any thoughts on this?”
Gradually making more money as the business expands is a 1 in a million proposition.
If you can make money with enough volume from this client charging $50/hour then do that. If you can’t, then put the hourly rate where you can actually make money covering all necessary expenses including driving wherever you need to go.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative MediaCraft and Career Advice & Training from real Working Creative Professionals