[William Carr]

That Kata fits in larger overhead bins. I also use a Tamrac rolling bag (easier on the back too) which fits in all coach overheads so far, and has been a tough contender on all surfaces for almost two years now. I can’t find the model number on the bag but it’s probably this one:

https://www.tamrac.com/5552.htm

Attached is a pic of how I configured mine. The rightmost (top) compartment here has an audio recorder, but I’ve sometimes put one or two HDDs there. If you put a laptop in the outer sleeve be real careful not to let the bag fall forward or get banged in front.

This bag I also got at B and H Photo but is carried many places, and comes in many sizes.

[William Carr]

With my HVX200 and traveling drives I use a Kata backpack with a hard shell cover, it has very many compartments and a laptop sleeve in its back. They have many options.

https://www.kata-bags.com/kata.asp?Version=Video

I bought mine from B and H:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Camera-Backpacks/ci/4693/N/4294594893

[William Carr]

Scott’s real-world business post makes plenty of sense.

To address some workflow details…

Generally speaking, an iMac is not professionally expandable enough as a FCS system hub considering you want “flexibility” as you say.
Even so, there are post houses with iMac stations for small jobs and tasks.
In addition to our main system Mac Pro, we also use an early 2009 iMac for DVCPROHD edits with external FW800 G-Raid2 drives.

If you want to spend less money than buying a Mac Pro with lots of RAM and some decent SATA media drives, then get a MacBook Pro (not the 13″).
You won’t be able to take on some high-end uncompressed HD projects and do hundred-layer special effects, but you could make money editing if you get jobs.
The MBPRO has secondary / external monitor flexibility, and other peripherals may be more easily added than with an iMac.

And if you are not a post house where people come and sit in your suite, you may need to travel or work within a situation other than your house.
One typical job fresh young editors get is to be on set with an indie or documentary shoot to ingest / prep footage for “dailies”, and perhaps be their post editor as well.

“And as another quick question, people say that you shouldn never save footage/FC projects to the internal harddrive…why?”
— Because in most cases, especially with HD, it’s asking too much for the Mac to throughput the OS needs, application needs plus media i/o all from one platter; performance will suffer.

Hope some of this helps your decision-making.

[William Carr]

Thanks, that is a good point, and you are right.

[William Carr]

FYI, you may get a real headache using such headphones for extended periods. I believe the way they work is to generate a “reversed” version of the ambient noise around them, so the total “amount” of vibrations going in your ears is actually increased.
Very unscientific, sorry! But spoken from experience.

[William Carr]

Sorry, searched with weak keywords…

[William Carr]

Thank you very much Shane, Alan and Rafael!
I really appreciate all the knowledge, it adds to our skillsets and creates progress.

I tried the indicated Compressor settings and the image quality results were great. However since this specific job’s clips are all very spontaneous handheld action situations, the stutter/steppy result is very painful on the eye.

After much testing with timelines and variables, I am about to bring all of the 23.98 clips to 59.94, which produce smoother results than 29.97. And those darned original 29.97 clips are of course also fine motion-wise in 59.94.

Yes, my media files will be huge by comparison, but for a project that expects the audience to watch an hour of handheld action, smoother is better.

[William Carr]

Would a Kona card apply its conversions to existing media or must their be a signal coming in?

[William Carr]

Thanks for reply… this project has to stay in-house for budget reasons, so it seems like my best option is to bring the majority of footage up from 23.98 to match that single camera’s 1080i frame rate, since that will be the smoothest overall result.

[William Carr]

But, would the frame rate conversion quality be better than software? And if yes– just so I learn– why?