HD For Indies

Big messy Red update:

It is late (1:40am), I'm workin' on a bunch of stuff, and don't have time to pretty this up the way I'd like to. Maybe I'll have time in the morning. But here's everything interesting going on at Red of late I've found.

Biggest news:
-cameras shipping today!
-Red Alert appears to be a cut down version of Redcine (since that isn't ready quite yet)
-there's a node required for QuickTime to work right with Red .r3d files
-specs have been tweaked, perhaps to satisfy legal requirements, but more features than posted below are sure to follow
-CF module is bee's knees according to Jim, everybody will want
-not all features enabled at first, as they've already said, we'll have to see what happens tomorrow.
-ProRes can be used usefully on Red footage, and I go off on "amateur 4K filmmakers" as missing the point
-Red will have big screen presentations at IBC, should be very interesting to see
-there is a 2K ProRes (Mac only) version of Crossing The Line that has been posted for download...but I don't have the link handy.

So in no particular order (until I can spend more time on it), here's what's been up with Red of late on the de facto find-all site for Red, Reduser.net:

UPDATE FRIDAY MORNING:

Jim's put up a few new posts:

1st 25... - Reduser.net: "1st 25... Just so you know, I am here at 1:09am with the RED team personally reviewing each camera of the 1st 25. We are calibrating each camera and my job is to check the files in RED Alert! that Jarred is shooting. We are shooting ISO 320, 1000 and 2000. There are about 20 people here getting ready for tomorrow. It really is a memorable night. About a year and a half ago this was just a dream. Tonight the dream has become a reality. I want to thank all those that believed in RED from the beginning. Jim"

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Some new changes... - Reduser.net: "Some new changes... In keeping with our philosophy (get used to it)... several things have changed. Weight of the camera body is now an even 10 pounds. After changes to the sensor board cooling system (different than we had 2 weeks ago), and beefing up the body to go head to head with a Sherman tank... the body has bulked up. No steroids used, however. This is now one tight bomb. As we have stated, about a hundred times, all features will not be enabled. This has now become our plan. We figure that no matter how high the anticipation, the extreme excitement can wear off after a bit of time. We have a fix for that. Just about the time you get used to the camera, Santa will drop by your email address and leave a package that makes your camera 'new again'. We will continue this plan to keep you plenty excited for a much longer period of time. And when you are fully capable to use all you have, we will surprise you. We have discontinued the Premium Production Pack rail system due to lack of interest and/or everyone wanting to substitute parts. The only system you can buy is the Base Production Pack, then add parts and pieces as you need them. The price of the Base Package has not changed, although it is severly under-priced. We will honor our commitment. More news to follow. Jim"

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ISO news... - Reduser.net: "ISO news... We cannot determine if the 'correct' ISO is 320 or 500. There is a tad less noise at 320, but 500 looks incredible. Actually, we are getting very good results at ISO 1000 and think that it is a very useable rating for the camera. Whether or not you choose 320 or 500 as the 'rated' ISO completely depends on the subject matter. The higher the range of the subject matter, the more you would lean towards 500. But if you have a normal scene and want the very best image, 320 is the number (and default). Jim"

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and for fun, First Soderbergh & Red picture! - Reduser.net


END UPDATE
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What we CAN do...NEW - Reduser.net: "OK, I spent some time with Graeme today and we do, in fact, have the options I spoke about yesterday under development. It is premature (sorry for last night) to add them to our CAN do list without proper testing and final development.

The good news is you are looking deep into the interactive development process. The bad news is you are seeing some of the communication issues that should probably be behind closed doors. Oh, well. I still like it better this way.

Here is the list for today:

4K REDCODE RAW @ 1-60 fps to RAW Port
4K REDCODE RAW @ 1-24 fps to Compact Flash or RED Drive

2K REDCODE RAW scaled @ 1-60 fps to Compact Flash or RED Drive (Under development)
2K REDCODE RAW cropped @ 1-100 fps to Compact Flash or RED Drive

Our final decisions of what we will enable still rely on 1080P and 720P as well as success of development. Specs subject to change as always. All features will not be enabled at time of 1st deliveries...
"

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RED / Cameras - tech specs have changed again - for the moment, RGB, 1080p, and 720p recording are off the chart (not listed), and current Redcode RAW (onboard recording) options are:

4K up to 30fps (using a 35mm lens)

2K RAW (2048x1152 if I recall correctly, using a Super16mm lens) at up to 60fps, with NO RAW port support

New is 1270p (2760x1270) RAW (using a Super16mm lens) with NO Redcode RAW onboard support, and RAW port support (to get max frame rate to an as yet undetailed hard drive RAID product)

Gone (for now) is RGB support for 720p and 1080p recording - convert in post seems to be the current answer based on what I know.

=================

RED WILL BE AT IBC IN AMSTERDAM FROM SEPTEMBER 7TH - 11TH

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White Balance - http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3998

Patrick, if you use an optical filter, you loose sensitivity as optical filters can only reduce light, never increase it. With electronic white balance you don't loose sensitivity as electronic filters can gain and diminish.

We use a method for white balance similar to how Digital SLR's work, and how their raw conversion software works.

Graeme

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The CF module...

RED ONE customers really need to buy the CF module. It costs $500.

While it is not mandatory to add it, it sure makes life easy. It is the cheapest way to record on RED. It is the lightest recording option. If you are on the road, you'll have the best chance to find an emergency recording solution with CF. I could go on...

One thing that has been asked is why we didn't make this standard equipment. Truth is that we guessed on the price of the RED ONE at NAB 2006. And given the $2500 allowance, there is no more room for "gifts".

That said, if you can afford the camera, you can't afford to not buy the CF option. (is that a double negative?)

Jim

followed up further down with:

Currently, 8GB cards that we will certify are available. We believe that in October we will certify 16GB cards. It seems possible that in Q2 of 2008 32GB cards might become available.

We love Compact Flash. The real alternative is RED Drive with 2.5" flash drives. But prices won't be competitive until after the 1st of the year.

Jim


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Redcine open source plugins?

Question was asked if there would be open source plugins - Graeme responds "They're not open source" - implying that there are plugins, just not open source. Whether that API is made public or licensed, ever, is not answered there.

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Q&A on the Red LCD, answering that the Red LCD can't be used on other cameras, but does have all kinds of badass functionality, such as focus assist on top of 1:1 mode, waveform, histogram, false color exposure, lookaround, overlays, etc. It probably slices, dices, and juliennes as well.

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IBC Screening Schedule discussed in context of Red User Group meeting

Sept 8th - 17.00 - 18.00
Red Digital Cinema: The technology, workflow and visual power behind the revolutionary RED ONE 4k Digital Cinema Camera

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New Red Delivery Schedule:

New delivery schedule...

Serial numbers 1-25 will be delivered August 31st (next Friday).

Serial numbers 26-50 will be delivered Sept, 7th (following Friday).

There will be a slight delay due to IBC for the next batch of deliveries.

We'll keep you posted.

Jim

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Ted in fxguidetv - look at episode 13

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unofficial red usergroup meeting - 9 pages of discussion, am offline so can't check latest status

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follow up on this thread - http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3883

did revised specs ever get published?

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Features NOT enabled:

We have said for months that all features would NOT be enabled for the 1st cameras going out the door.

I would give you a complete list, but we continue to enable features as we prepare for this coming Friday.

We expect that all features will be done by early October. That means that if you get a camera before that date, you will receive a "present" every week that enables features as they become available.

You would open your email (or download from our website) a file that you transfer to a Compact Flash card. Insert the card and boot the camera. You will be asked if you want to "Upgrade your Firmware". You click "Yes". A minute later, you'll get a message that the update is complete. Reboot. Done.

We have spoken to all reservation holders for the 1st 25 cameras and they understand this. But your number may be coming up soon after so you should know.

You do have the option to wait until all features are enabled to take delivery at no consequence to you (if you have that much patience). We will hold your camera (same serial number) and ship when feature set is complete. So far, none of the 25 has chosen that option. But you can.

We won't know exactly how many features will be in or out of the 1st 25 until Thursday night. We will be testing and deciding until the last minute. Since things change everyday, what we say today will not mean much. I'm sure you will all hear about what is "in" and what is "coming" by Friday night.

Jim
"We are too dumb to know what not to do."


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Red in Austin rumors

Rumors that Rodriguez was involved with a Red. Dunno, but that would certainly make sense - I've (yeah me Mike) talked to RR on 3 occassions about the Red over the last year or so, and he was interested in it.

But Jarred dismisses as rumor.

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Questions about Final Cut and Redcode (unanswered in the thread as of this writing) - person asks if the next FCP release will include Redcode - depends on what you call "next" - 6.0.2, or 7.0. 6.0.2 - I'd guess almost certainly not - Red will distribute Redcode codecs at first, and, in time, I'd expect it to get wrapped into a full-on Final Cut supported update. But that'll take some time. In the meantime, we'll have to see what RedQuick does, and as an unsupported QT codec, there won't be any RT performance to speak of. This I know because I've been doing a lot of FCP testing of late, and if you aren't in one of the "blessed" formats, realtime cross dissolves, color correction, etc. aren't going to happen.

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Similar question on Redcode and Avid - for now, for both, the most productive likely workflow is going to be use Redcine to transcode to codec of choice (be it online or offline). For FCP, that'll be whatever you want to use for offline, and ProRes or Uncompressed if planning on finishing in Final Cut. For Avid, the DNxHD family (36 for HD offline, 145 or better yet 220 for online), or of course uncompressed if your hardware can handle it (that applies to FCP as well).

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Michael Morlan's Overview Diagram" - a nicely organized graphic that shows off the various connections and production workflows possible with the Red One for all of the connectors etc.

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High speed CF reader for offloading footage

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RED / Cameras - we finally have dimensions - 6.34 inches tall, 12.02 inches long, 5.20 inches wide.

Acquisition formats - 2540p (via RAW port), 4K, 1270p (via RAW port), 2K, deliverying 4K RGB, 2K RGB, 1080p in RGB or 4:2:2, 720p in RGB or 4:2:2

23.98, 24, 25 fps @ 4K/ 50, 59.94 for 2K (windowed sensor) for now

HD-SDI and HDMI are 720p (I thought HD-SDI could do 1080, guess not)

weight around 9 lbs (no battery, lens, or viewfinder)

aluminum alloy construction

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Is Redcine available this Friday? - somebody says Jim said yes, but I'd like a confirm on that

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About Genesis HD - Reduser.net - interesting thread accurately describing how the Genesis imager builds its HD (color striped, 2 sets of R/G/B pixels, one ND filtered for highlights, other for the rest of the range). David Mullen (apologies to both he and David Stump whom I originally attributed, I keep mixing up these two sharp DPs in my head) chimes in with his usually concise and accurate observations, and Graeme pitches for the Red team. I just saw Superbad the other night (shot on Genesis) and while I wasn't looking for it, it didn't even occur to me that it was shot on digital instead of film. What I saw was this thing called "a movie" that made me laugh a lot at d*ck jokes.

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GPU for RedCode and Redcine - Reduser.net - concensus seems to be for the ATI X1900 for the moment, but nobody's testing (and discussing publicly) yet.

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Dci Output - Reduser.net - Mark from OffHollywood Pictures points out that the latest version of Scratch (3.5) will output 16 bit TIFF sequences in the XYZ color space per the DCI spec. Keep in mind, however, that is but one ingredient - think of that as the MPEG-2 for you DVD - you need lots of wrapping paper and stuff around it before it is a present to give to somebody...

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What is the current ProRes 422 Workflow? - Reduser.net - somebody asked how ProRes is going to work with Redcode, and then somebody asked why use ProRes if Redcode is higher res and same datarate, and Mike Most nails it, then later on I go off, at length, on why 4K finish is a fool's destination if you don't have a place to watch it in 4K lined up and ready to go. Proper 4K post is hard and time consuming. Why do it if you don't need it. Anyway, since I wrote it I feel OK re-posting it here:

Mike Most nails the quality issues - and I've been (OK, spent 3 days then had my interns start doing it) doing FCP testing for WEEKS to quantify realtime performance stuff.

And the big issue is performance - want a cross dissolve? Want to use the 3way color corrector? Want to add titles? Want to do it all at the same time?

You need realtime performance. And if your box is fast enough, you can do it in real time, at high quality, with no waiting to render. If you don't, progress bar city. Go get some coffee.

Glenn - awwww! Its always nice to be quoted.

: )

And, as I keep saying to those who want to master RGB 4:4:4 at 12 or 16 bits - WHERE EXACTLY ARE YOU GOING TO PLAY THAT!?!?!?!?

On some thread on here I saw somebody talking about amateur 4K moviemaking.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING.

There is definitely amateur 4K shooting with Red (OK, relatively well financed amateurs in comparison to a lot of the indie folks who email me looking for advice).

You can even finish in 4K (but not in Final Cut) with desktop tools.

But unless you have an $80-100K projector lying around, and the infrastructure to drive it, YOU'RE NOT NOT NOT going to be watching your movie in 4K.

I think it'll be very interesting to see the wise indies shoot 4K Redcode, offline in whatever (or MAYBE ProResHQ if they have a fast enough box and the storage space), run it through Color, make a nice 4:2:2 festival master (SXSW and Sundance both wanted 1080i60 HDCAM tapes this year). That'll get you a nice looking festival master. If you can afford a professional colorist on a DaVinci or Quantel or whatever, fantastic - do that - but high quality 4:2:2 is good enough for festival screenings.

THEN, if you get picked up for theatrical distribution, THEN worry about conforming 2K or 4K and sending to a high end post house yadda yadda.

Otherwise, go make a nice 24p master to whatever specs the distrib wants and go from there...

But for those worrying about 4:4:4, or 4K, for less than theatrical distribution, I say you're worrying too much - you can make a much better looking file than you can reasonable watch or distribute.

Final Cut Pro, even 6.0.1, can't properly process RGB 4:4:4 beyond 8 bits. Surprise! It can play it back, but if you want a cross dissolve, or add a title, you're out of luck. The Apple folks managed to say with a straight face that you should process your cross dissolves in Shake. Titles too. (Hey, at least we can reposition in Color now though, but it has its own issues to address when dealing with high quality frames, but that is another thread/site/article).

And of course, you can't do 4K in FCP now - 2048x1556 AFAIK is the biggest supported frame that'll play out to a color accurate display in real time if you have a Kona3.

The flip side, the advantage, is that you if you NEED a high quality deliverable, you'll have it, at a lower cost than has been the case in the past.

There's a BUNCH of other issues and details and caveats to what I've said here (Mike Most might want to chime in here, or not), but that's the gist of it from where I stand, until we see what Red has up its sleeve with the 4K displays and projectors they mentioned at NAB 2007 come to fruition.

At which point, we can all go back and re-render to 4K if we want to.

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Reduser.net - View Single Post - Packaging? - simple box with a Red sticker on it. Easy enough.

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2k equipment- kona or blackmagic - Reduser.net Discussion of AJA vs BMD for Red usage. Bluefish even gets a mention, and I ask why. Consensus - Kona3 for now.

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First Soderbergh & Red picture! - Reduser.net

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RED Alert! - Reduser.net: "Since REDCINE is being rebuilt and won't release for a week or two, RED Alert! will be the mini-app of choice. At some point we will post it with sample footage. Be advised that it is a Mac app only (REDCINE will be both Mac and PC). You will need RED Alert! and the REDCODE node (you will put the REDCODE node in HD/Library/Quicktime folder). This mini-application will open .r3d files (REDCODE RAW), allow you to view the file, select DI mode or Standard mode, and output to Quicktime wrapped files in 2k, 1k, and .5k for ingest into FCP or viewing in QT. You can also output to DPX 2k, DPX 4k, 4k TIFF, 2k TIFF, in Linear, REC 709, or Log. You can make some corrections prior to output. We will help you choose settings depending on what you are trying to accomplish. More to come... Jim"

So what is DI vs. standard mode? How soon is soon? Scroll down the above page for a screen grab.



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more flotsam:

eSATA to RAID until RedDrive ships? - Reduser.net


Some good 1080P news... - Reduser.net


http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3908

Motu V3HD - Reduser.net

Redcine Processing Times - Reduser.net

Rendering Fisheye to Rectilinear? - Reduser.net

Is the RedCode codec available this Friday? - Reduser.net

Ted Schilowitz in fxguidetv - Reduser.net

How much is an operational Red camera cost? - Reduser.net

1270P raw - Reduser.net

Dci Output - Reduser.net

Cineform 4K solution? - Reduser.net

Features NOT enabled... - Reduser.net

Red in the news: NZ - Reduser.net

10 Bit log gone? - Reduser.net

There. That ought to hold you until we can learn more....

-mike

Labels: Red

If you look quickly at Macworld's front page, the iMovie '08 review may still be top and center. Why do I care? Because I wrote it!

Here's a direct link to the article:

Macworld: Review: iMovie '08

In it, I go over the controversial changes in Apple's consumer video application, which for our purposes, boils down to this:

1.) They have firmly pulled iMovie OUT of the prosumer space and pushed it firmly INTO the consumer space. Existing iMovie users using it for prosumer purposes? Perhaps it is time to step up to Final Cut Express - your nearly free proxy for a "real" editor isn't being updated, Apple apparently decided the best use of their resources was to try to make consumer editing applicable to a much wider audience rather than refine the current software used by a minority (but voracious) population of iLife users.

2.) It is way, way different from the way other traditional NLE's work. I perceive it as MUCH more akin to iPhoto for video than a traditional NLE.

3.) However marginal the old version was for pro work, this one is thoroughly NOT appropriate for professional work, for a variety of reasons.

4.) LOTS of features from prior versions are now gone.

5.) BUT....it has some excellent new features, most notably skimming (a killer sweet way to preview what's in a clip), and ultra simple Sharing options to get movies onto the dramatically improved .Mac Web Galleries, with .Mac's new vastly increased storage and bandwidth limitations. So MAKING your movie in the old version (which stays installed if you "install over"), exporting a freestanding movie, then using the new version to publish to .Mac, Youtube (3 clicks!). MacWorld doesn't speculate, but I do - look for skimming in some future version of Final Cut Pro (maybe next year at NAB? No clue.)

6.) They also support a BUNCH of new formats: aside from DV and HDV that were previously supported (only at standard broadcast NOT 24p modes), now they include support for MPEG-2 (SD only), MPEG-4 (SD & HD), and AVCHD. For Moms, this is great.

If that's not enough, I'm also featured in a MacWorld podcast also out today:

Macworld: Podcasts: Macworld Podcast: iMovie '08 and iPhone hacking

I talk about why I think this makes sense is was a good call for Apple from a broader market perspective, and prattle on about the new, the cool, and the annoying in this version.

I also possibly created a new term - "Mommable technology", as in "This technology is something my Mom could use - it's Mommable."

Read and listen, for today's news.

-mike

PS - working on a Red update since they are scheduled to ship first cameras this week.

UPDATE - forgot to mention in the podcast - you can mix SD & HD & different video formats, in REAL TIME, in iMovie 08, which is awesome - skips all the complexity, just lets you work with it and NOT HAVE TO CARE.

Also, for those who remember my Happy Hilltop - day off in analog land off topic post from a couple of years ago, the sample pics & vids in the article are from that trip. : ) Always fun to get an Easter Egg in there somewhere.

-m

Labels: consumer, iLife, iMovie, Mac, NLE

New delivery schedule... - Reduser.net

"Serial numbers 1-25 will be delivered August 31st (next Friday). Serial numbers 26-50 will be delivered Sept, 7th (following Friday). There will be a slight delay due to IBC for the next batch of deliveries. We'll keep you posted.

Jim

Right from the horse's mouth, there you go.

I've been busy on a bunch of stuff, but now that we're drawing close, I'll be posting some updates to catch everybody up on what's been going on.

-mike

Labels: Red

Another week, another round of Blogwad!

CAMERAS -

Mini35 Converter Gives HDV Camcorders A Better View | Studio Daily - P+S Technik's New Converter Puts 35mm Lenses on HDV Camcorders

VideoMaker Learning Section - Assortment of relevant resources.

POST -

DMN @ SIGGRAPH 07 – Realviz introduces Moviemento - Realviz, one of the leaders in “mocap” software displayed one of its new products at this year’s SIGGRAPH.

A Look at xRez Studio's Gigapixel Panoramic Photography - Visual effects based on gigapixel panoramic photography.

Creating color vignettes using Apple's Color - You can produce some excellent looking work with Apple's newest addition to Final Cut Studio.

Apple's Color - Color blows Final Cut Pro’s 3-Way Color Corrector out of the water!

DMN @ SIGGRAPH – eyeon’s Steve Roberts on Fusion - Fusion 5.2 was announced with a host of new features.

Editing 101: Compositing video with a still image - Premiere Pro CS3 expert Jeff Schell makes the White House fountain move in this tutorial.


OTHER -

Flash Player supports H.264 video | The Universal Desktop | ZDNet.com - H.264 and AAC audio support to be added to Flash player. What limitations you may or may not have beyond that not known, but that is definite progress. More stuff to be hardware accelerated full screen playback=good.

Adobe - Adobe Press Room: For immediate release - HDTV Quality Web Video Reaches the Masses with Industry Standard Video Codec in Flash Player.

Flash Player 9 gets beefed up with H.264 support - The beefed-up Flash Player will also include hardware-accelerated, multi-core fullscreen video playback—a "must" for anyone who loves watching more than 5 minutes of video on their computer screens.

AppleInsider | Intel leaks details of Mac Pro-bound Xeon chips - "Intel Corp. plans to launch its Penryn-based quad-core Xeon family of microprocessors on November 11, which may provide Apple with an opportunity to boost the specs of its high-end workstations ahead of the holiday shopping season."

PC World - Paramount's CTO on Why His Studio Is Dumping Blu-ray - Alan Bell discusses why HD DVD is his studio's exclusive high-definition format.

kaourantin.net: What just happened to video on the web? - Detailed rundown of H.264 support in Flash Player 9.

iMac Aluminum versus Others - 3D GAME SHOOTOUT!

iMac Aluminum versus Others - Cinebench 10 and Motion 3 - 'PRO' BENCHMARKS!

iMac Aluminum versus Others -After Effects and Photoshop - ADOBE PRO BENCHMARKS!

Real World Speed Tests for Performance Minded Mac Users - Recent Speed Tests.

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Mike's running commentary

If I had time I could probably write an entire article on the supposition that perhaps the inclusion of H.264 in Adobe's Flash player is a quid pro quo for Apple to add Flash support into the iPhone. Maybe.

Aluminum iMacs - not a bad machine. I'd love to run my FCP test suite on it to see how it holds up. As an offline edit box that lacks true video out - not bad. With 1TB FW800 drives available....

Color - does lots.Workflow still tricky in places, not as easy or perfect. But improving.

HD DVD switch - maybe it isn't just the money as rumored - he puts out a not bad line of reasoning. But he ducks with the whole 'we don't talk money' line of thought as to whether they were paid to dump blu-ray. Even with all his reasoning, are you seriously telling me they'll make money by supporting fewer formats? There's pros and cons to both formats - Blu-ray may scratch easier, HD DVD holds less but costs less. Blu-ray interactivity does lots but hard to program, HD DVD interactivity simpler but easier to program. HD DVD has stabler spec with required connectivity, Blu-ray...doesn't and doesn't and is still a moving target.

I really don't care as much which one wins now (since I have both players, and Final Cut Studio 2 supports HD DVD and Adobe Creative Suite 3 supports Blu-ray on Intel Macs), I just want a clear winner sooner rather than later. And this move delays a clear winner, as Blu-ray seemed to be gaining the lead with 2:1 sales advantage of late on media (content not blanks) sales.

-mike, and thanks again to Andy Nelson who has been helping me all summer and is returning to school starting next week. And to my other intern Geoffrey Frost who wrapped up last week and will be renting out his HVX200 and Brevis 35mm adaptor in Austin soon.

Labels: blogwad

Hey all -

the summer intern program went so well, I want to keep it going.

I need some interns for the fall semester. If you're a student at the University of Texas at Austin, ACC, St. Ed's, or someone who has time to spend a few hours a day learning but not earning, this is a great opportunity for you.

I specifically am looking for technically savvy, fast learning folks who know or want to know more about production and post production, I need at least one web intern who will get to work with me on site content and revisions and Special Projects.

Mac centric pretty much required - you need to know what you're doing on a Mac, and quite a bit about Final Cut Pro.

Bonus features - this semester will be the one where I get my Very Own Personal Red Camera and Redcine, and there will be opportunities to work with it and footage from it.

I have all the toys, I get to review all the new toys, you'll get to see/touch/play with it all. I'm happy to make certain resources readily available to you as my work permits.

In return, I need help on testing, profiling, and reviewing gear, Special Projects, and ideally I'm looking for a 5 day a week, 3-4 hour/day commitment if at all possible from each intern, or enough interns to fill up the time slots.

Candidates with stronger technical and/or writing skills will be favored.

Drop me an email at mike [at] hdforindies [dot] com with "Fall Intern" in the subject line if you're interested.

-mike

Labels: blogs, Red

Paramount dumps Sony's Blu-ray format - Times Online
"Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation have dropped support for Sony’s Blu-ray next generation DVD format in a shock move that will see the two studios exclusively use Toshiba’s rival HD-DVD system. Paramount, which is owned by Viacom, the media giant, previously released movies in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Significantly, it cited HD-DVD's cheaper costs as a decisive factor behind its decision to back it. The latest development is a blow for Sony, which has invested heavily in Blu-ray."


This is surprising - Blu-ray seemed to have been gaining ground of late, and for someone with a foot in both camps to drop Blu-ray is something I wouldn't have bet on.

I was about to the point of resigning myself that the more expensive (boo!) but higher capacity (yay!) format was going to win, and just wait for Blu-ray to go ahead and take over so we only have one standard that consumers would therefore more willingly back. Not yet with this move, that says that the game is still wide open.

I'm also surprised that a company the size of Paramount would dump a format - why NOT keep two formats out there and maximize sales? How much more is it costing them to make both rather than a single format? They already had the infrastructure in place to produce both, so dropping one is an especially surprising move.

AFAIK, the only reason to dump Blu-ray was because they felt it wouldn't make them as much money. They think NOT selling a product in another format is going to save them money? Ouch.

Toshiba's players have been dropping in price (the HD-A2 is now about $240, the 1080p capable HD-A20 is about $330, both available at the HD For Indies Amazon Store). The PlayStation 3 (60GB), still the favored Blu-ray machine, is now only $500, but don't forget the $25 Bluetooth remote if you don't want to use a game contoller to play/pause.

-mike


Thanks to reader Jonathan for sending in this link. Always feel free to send in something good/relevant if you come across it.

UPDATE MONDAY 11PM

READ THE COMMENTS- rumor has it $150 million was paid to get two groups to dump Blu-ray. Fascinatingly naked ploy. Links in comments (Comments link below)

Labels: Blu-ray, format war, HD-DVD

Acquisition -

DV - Columns - Production Diary - "Shaken Not Stirred"

Josh Oakhurst : An Ongoing Case Study In Art and Commerce - "How I Shot the Two Stop-Mo Spots"

What’s The Matter With HDMI? at FreshDV - "Audioholics has a nice in-depth article on the origins of the HDMI cabling standard (and how the designers screwed it up so badly). Despite it’s issues, the standard is rapidly becoming widely adopted, so it’s important to know the limitations."


Cameras -

Sachtler Offers New Fluid Heads for MiniDV, DV & HDV | Studio Daily - "Sachtler, a Vitec Group brand, is delivering two new fluid heads for MiniDV and HDV camcorders."

ISO... today - Reduser.net - "Today, we believe the RED ONE camera should be rated at ISO 500."

State of Imaging - "Imaging sensors, the heart of any camera, have evolved quite a bit in recent years."

Canon HV20 mode tests - "Canon HV20 comparitive mode tests against Nikon DSLR"

P2 Contents Management Software | DVCPRO P2 Series | Broadcast and Professional AV - Now for Mac.


Post -

Tips on Configuring Mac OS X for Final Cut Pro at FreshDV - "Splice has a solid set of useful tips to consider when configuring your Mac editing boxen for use with FCP Studio."

DV Mag Takes a Close Look at Color at FreshDV - "I noticed the following Apple Color article via the excellent AE Portal blog. Oliver Peters has a nice writeup for DV Magazine on Apple’s grading application, you can read it online here."

How to Remove Unwanted Objects using After Effects at FreshDV - "Here’s another fantastic Creative Cow video tutorial, this one on Simple Object Removal. You’ll need Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, and ObviouFX free CopyImage plugin (for both Mac and PC users)."

AppleInsider | Apple stirs controversy with iMovie's '08 overhaul - "Hailed as a breakthrough in movie editing by Apple chief Steve Jobs, the complete rework of iMovie for iLife '08 has angered some customers who found that many longstanding features had suddenly gone missing."

Planning and Creating a Visual Effects Sequence - Three-part series taking a specific sequence of shots and going through what was done to put them together

Advanced Final Cut Pro Techniques: ProRes 422 - More about ProRes 422

Filmmaker Magazine | Summer 2007: RE-EDIT - "Jamie Stuart walks us through how he used Final Cut Studio 2 to make his latest short film."


Other -

Addonics Announces 4-Port eSATA RAID5/JBOD PCI-E 8x Controller | Studio Daily - "Maximum Data Throughput, Advanced SATA II Feature Set for Power Users, and Hi-Def Video Production"

Splice Here - This blog is the work of Steve Cohen, motion picture editor working in Los Angeles.

Editing organazized Another blog, this one by Alexandre Gollner, editor, designer and ideas man.

Macworld: News: NetCom offers eSATA-based RAID 5 - "External Serial ATA (eSATA)-based storage system capable of working as a hardware-based RAID Level 5 array"

BOXX Presents 800-Core Rendering - "Improve Your Quality of Life"

BOXX Technologies demos renderBOXX 10100 render farm - "System supports up to 200 Quad Core XEON processors for a total of 800 cores"

LaCie Launches 5TB SATA RAID | Studio Daily - "LaCie announced the 5TB Biggest S2S 5-disk RAID designed for digital content creation applications. Thanks to its eSATA 3Gbit/s interface and direct eSATA-to-SATA connection, a single LaCie Biggest S2S is capable of reaching burst transfer rates of over 200MB/s*."

Studio Network Solutions Announces Ellipse Fibre Channel HBAs for Mac OS X | Studio Daily - "Studio Network Solutions (SNS), a premier provider of optimized audio/video shared storage products and developer of the globalSAN iSCSI initiator for OS X, today announced a major extension to its product family by unveiling the Ellipse™ and Ellipse Enterprise Fibre Channel HBAs."

MacNN | ATTO intros new SAS host adapters - "ATTO Technology has announced the ExpressSAS H380 and H308 SAS host adapters, additions to its existing family of SAS adapters"

Review: SoftRAID - "SoftRAID provides a variety of features not found in Apple's utility, including far more robust status reporting and error handling."

AppleInsider | New iMacs post modest gains over predecessors (benchmarks) - "New iMacs post modest gains over predecessors (benchmarks)"

Aluminum and glass: A review of the new iMac - "If you've been holding on to your Power PC Mac and waiting for the right time to make the big switch to Intel, the appearance of the new iMac marks an excellent opportunity."

iMac Aluminum versus Others - "We are busily testing the new 2.8GHz iMac Aluminum against various other Macs."

iMac Aluminum versus Others - part 2 - "INSIGHT: This test, which puts as much as a 30% load on the GPU, is definitely faster on the new iMac 2.8GHz with the Radeon HD 2600 GT. But the Mac Pro with the Radeon X1900 XT is the strongest Motion 'engine.'" Scroll down to the Motion 3 tests -that is the only valid test for our kinda stuff

Netflix promises instant viewing for Macs - "We're committed to giving all of our members access to our instant watching feature."

AppleInsider | Apple asks developers to rate latest Leopard pre-release - "Having already delayed its next-generation Leopard operating system by several months, Mac maker Apple Inc. is now seeking feedback from its developer community on whether the quality of the latest pre-release builds is up to par with the shipping version of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. "

Startup hopes to challenge iTunes through Google ads - ...good luck with that.


Updated Articles -

Own a Piece of HD for Indies History - new items on eBay...

---------------------------------------------------------------

The next meeting of the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group (lafcpug) will
be Wednesday, Aug 22 at the Gallery Theatre in Hollywood beginning at
6:45PM. It will be Compression Night.

Join us as we welcome Compressor Guru and author Brian Gary and Apple's
Brian Hoffman as they take us on a "How2" tour of Compressor 3. Also
scheduled to demo will be John Diel and Coby Rich who will show us Sorenson
Squeeze 4.5.

Brian Dalton will show us clips and talk about his hugely popular video
podcast, Mr. Deity and how he does it.

Not enough? Red Giant Software will show off Magic Bullet Looks, Primatte
Keyer for FCP and Trapcode for FCP and Motion.

Plus another round of Stump The Gurus and of course, World Famous raffle,
where this month we are giving away thousands of dollars worth of prizes.

For complete details on the agenda including directions to the Gallery
theatre, visit the lafcpug web site.

LAFCPUG

A $5.00 donation will be respectfully requested at the door.

Labels: blogwad

Been busy, blogwad Monday, ordering an Octo Mac Real Soon Now, reviewing some shipping software for a magazine, will post my further thoughts on it once the article hits.

-mike

AKA it is time for me to eBay off a bunch of stuff I still have sitting around that I'm not using. I put a bunch of it up on eBay and didn't get around to pimping it here, and watched disconsolately as SATA cards went for $6 that I paid $90 for a couple of years ago. Sigh. So, I'm pimping it here. This is all gear that I bought to use or test or build gadgets or studio gear with, that either was never used or got replaced. It all still works fine, I just don't have a place for it to go.

Here are the eBay listings:

Wacom Electrostatic Graphics Tablet SD-421E - I made my living with this thing for years - it is a pressure sensitive tablet/pen combo, and better yet, it has a feature the new ones don't - an electrostatic gripper! You place a piece of paper on it, flip the switch, and the paper WON'T MOVE. Perfect for tracing over stuff. I just don't do this kind of work anymore. But this sucker is GREAT. Got any hand skills to draw? You want one of these if you're a digital DNA type.

Apple Video to VGA Adapters bundle of 8 - Got a video card with the old style Apple video out? These'll help it sync res to whatever you want to plug it into, be it a monitor with either a VGA or Mac video port.

AITech VGA to S-video/Composite pocket scan converter - great for connecting your video out to a TV or projector - a great Poor Man's solution for video monitoring (with the usual caveats).

ATI Radeon 32MB MAC Edition Graphics Card - need a second video card for your older Mac? Here you go.

ATI Radeon 32MB MAC Version Graphics Card - and another one....

HAwking 10Base-T 4-Port Ethernet Hub - simple little 4 port ethernet hub for small workgroups, or a handy one to make one port 4 on the road for hotels and the like.

Apple Pro Training Series by Diana Weynand (2004) - book on Final Cut HD, includes a DVD

"Newer Technology" USB 7-port powered hub - powered USB hub - not all hubs are powered, this'll deliver juice to all the gadgets plugged into it. USB 1.0.

Samsung 128 MB DDR PC2100 CL 2.5 RAM from an older Mac.

512 MB DDR 400MHz CL3 PC3200U - the stock 512MB module from a G4 iMac

Serial ATA (SATA) Mobile Tray and Rack - Icy Dock MB122 - want a hot swap internal SATA drive setup? Here you go. I was going to use this in a RAID but never got around to it. New in box.

Serial ATA (SATA) Mobile Tray and Rack - Icy Dock MB122 - want a hot swap internal SATA drive setup? Here you go. I was going to use this in a RAID but never got around to it. New in box.

Serial ATA (SATA) Hot Swap Rack and Tray - want a hot swap internal SATA drive setup? Here you go. Never used, new in box.

Serial ATA (SATA) Mobile Tray - Icy Dock MB 123 - want a hot swap internal SATA drive setup? Here you go. I was going to use this in a RAID but never got around to it. New in box.

Serial ATA (SATA) Mobile Tray - Icy Dock MB123 - want a hot swap internal SATA drive setup? Here you go. I was going to use this in a RAID but never got around to it. New in box.

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler - I have a bunch of these, NEW IN BOX, never used - heat is the leading cause of death for drives that are otherwise well taken care of. Got a MacGurus or similar enclosure with 5 1/4" bays? Mount the drives in one of these - they have a heat sink and multiple fans to cool up to 40% more than just the bare drive sitting there. Is your data valuable? Then these are worth having. I just have extras.

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ikea Signum - clamp to hold computer off floor

Ikea Signum - clamp to hold computer off floor

BlueICE After Effects accelerator with ICE fx and Boris

Ethernet A/B Switch

I-Point Remote Control

Video-Audio Selector - AV-521 Y/C

Microsoft Wireless Natural MultiMedia Keyboard

Super Match ADB Color Calibrator

12" PowerBook G4 Keyboard

Labels: hardware

Apple CEO Jabs HD Camera Makers || The Mac Observer

Steve Jobs picks on consumer HD camcorder makers for not making true, full, high definition images. A fair complaint, but considering there are cameras costing many tens of thousands of dollars that don't resolve full 1920x1080, it isn't exactly picking on a kid your own size.

Or is this also justification for the half res mode in the new iMovie? Were they finding consumer pushback due to long render times at full res, and with 1/4 as many pixels to push around at 960x540, most folks couldn't tell the difference?

Conveniently/interestingly, AppleTV does 960x540 as well - but that is the maximum resolution supported for a 30p or 60i image. It will do 1280x720, but only up to 24p.

So would it not be fair to complain AppleTV can only make less than full res video from 1920x1080 sources?

-mike

Labels: Apple, AppleTV, cameras, hardware

Hey all -

So way back in in 2005, I got an email from John August, screenwriter of Go, Big Fish, Charlie's Angels, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, yadda yadda.

He was looking to make a movie of his own, but wanted to keep costs contained, and keep the workflow flexible - so that if he wanted the option to do it as small as finishing inhouse, it would be possible, but also be able to scale it up to big dollar, high quality post facility workflows as well. He's a talented screenwriter, but also a techie/propellerhead type, and contacted me to discuss workflow for his proposed film.

Lately he's been putting up a lot of details about how the film was made, and there is LOTS of very useful info in this. One nice bit about all this is that he's an experienced professional, yet shares his info like most professionals don't bother to. Much appreciated.

SHOOTING

Lets start with the techie nitty gritty about the production and post on his film, The Nines (for context, here's the trailer and the one-sheet , and it is showing at the Nuart on the 31st)

johnaugust.com � Technical details on The Nines:

For Part One, my hope was to shoot HD. Even as I was finishing the script, I’d begun a conversation with Mike Curtis at HD for Indies about the potentials and pitfalls of various cameras and workflows. In case you ever doubt my the extent of my geekery, check out the four pages of flowcharts I made to map out the process we came up with: nines_workflow.pdf.

Mike was a big help in letting me talk through, and think through, my goals and priorities in the technical details of shooting movie. But how much of his advice did we end up using? Almost none.1 As it turned out, we didn’t shoot HD at all.

I really thought we would. But our d.p., Nancy Schreiber, quickly convinced me otherwise. She’s no Luddite — she’s won awards for her digitally-shot features. But when she visited our main location, with its vast expanses of glass, she made it clear that any savings we would have gained from shooting on HD would be lost by the extra time and expense it would take to control the light.

So out went the plan for tethered cameras and hard drives. Instead, we shot two sizes of film, and standard-def video.


Pardon my long quoting from his blog, but this makes a really good point - just because one team member makes a recommendation for some plausible sounding reasons* doesn't mean that you should stick to it. I'd recommended a particular setup for a particular set of needs and budget constraints, but I wasn't there to scout the location. I heard "indoors" and PRESUMED that lighting would be controllable environment. Nancy, the DP (whom I never had the pleasure to meet), scouted the location, saw all the big windows, and nixed my suggestion as ill-advised since I didn't know all the facts. This is a great example of the kind of collaboration required from a team. The producer would now need to get involved to help chug, quantify, and vote up/down on the potential cost changes for this kind of format change.

* (my suggestion at the time was to shoot tethered uncompressed HD to disk for higher quality, lower cost than HDCAM in a controlled, indoor environment not requiring a lot of camera movement with good power and space facilities nearby for an edit/capture room. He mentioned windows, but I figured some netting/flagging could address without seeing the location. Wrong! This experience, and similar ones, has led me to change my methodologies to recommend including the DP as early as possible in these "what are we shooting on" conversations with director/producer/filmmakers.)

Read on about how they shot Super-16 for part one (and why that was such a good idea, but the caveats involved), SDX-900 for part 2 (16:9 DVCPRO50 24p), and 3 perf 35mm for part three.

They wanted three different stories, three different looks. In our original early conversations, HD was going to be used for all three sections, and do check out that workflow PDF of the original-but-ditched plan - there was going to be a mix of F900 (or Varicam, budget depending) recorded tethered uncompressed directly into Final Cut Pro, then part 2 would have been Varicam or HVX200 (at the time John wanted a small camera that people wouldn't think much of on the street to be noticed), and part three I'd said defintely go film, 3 perf 35mm being my suggestion at the time as film was the only suitable recording media to deal with dappled sunlight in the woods and not get blown highlights and toasted shadows, as that would represent an extreme challenge to any media in terms of exposure lattitude.

In the end, Super-16, SDX-900 (standard def 24p), and 3 perf 35mm were used - so only part of my original suggestion was implemented.

This also points out that HD is not the best solution for everything, as Nancy said, in terms of overall budget, HD wouldn't give as good a result as 16mm.

WORKFLOW

I'd originally been suggesting, since John was a Final Cut Pro fan, and wanted the option to be able to do all the post inhouse if necessary, that shooting all these formats and converting to DVCPRO HD 720p23.976 would be the ideal way to get a decent quality rough HD edit done, and still be able to relink or uprez to 1080p for the mastering final - all within the same system. AND be able to screen decent looking HD during the process - storage is CHEAP these days, not at all the hindrance it was 5-10 years ago.

Besides the format changes, his award winning editor used Avid - so FCP was out the window at that point. But one interesting thing they did - all footage was transferred to HDCAM...and that became their master they worked from - NO matchback to negative to cut. They rented HDCAM decks (I presume the lowest cost J-H3 deck), and all footage was transferred from there. No going back to original source tapes, the color timed HDCAM was IT. Read on for why they did it, they had some good reasons but a few snags (shoulda gone 23.976, not 24.0 fps). D-5 would have been preferable, but at the time it appears it may have been a budget decision - D-5 is a MUCH more expensive deck, and there is no inexpensive capture deck available for that format as there is for HDCAM.

I'm proud that the "master from source digital" idea stuck from the beginning - it isn't the highest possible quality route, but in terms of quality per dollar, it is a helluva way to go. Our original intent had been to master from FCP (see the PDF again) from uncompressed or converted media, which wasn't feasible with the new workflow on the different system used, but their budget and confidence grew as they moved along and they had it all worked out. One thing I'd like about the FCP route was that it offered graceful scaling and degradation - if they'd needed to stay lower budget and finish inhouse, they could have. If they had the option to do a higher quality finish, they could "get there from here." The Avid route they went with worked, and worked well for them, but if they'd been budget constrained they would have run into some issues and problems doing a high quality finish on the system they could afford. Then again, their editor was an Avid guy, and an excellent editor, so that pretty much trumps a lot of decisions. Plus, higher end facilities tend to prefer to work with Avid for project hand-off - it is what they are used to. Avid can be limiting in some ways, but at least it limits you to the more viable choices. FCP offers tons of flexibility, including some options Avid doesn't offer, but it will let you make decisions that may bite you later moreso than Avid will, as a general rule of thumb.

As I usually recommend to festival bound clients, I say be READY to go out to film, but DON'T go out to film until you've already got your distribution deal signed. And at that point, what quality of DI, whether you go back to source film (if shot on film) for a re-transfer to better tape stock or scans; who pays for how much of what part of the process, what the budget is, etc. is all part of the discussion with the distribution company...to be determined LATER. If you have a budget of $500K, do you REALLY want to spend 10-15% of your budget going out to film, when considering that there were about 4000 films (of all lengths and types) submitted to Sundance, and perhaps 2-3 were actually "discovered" and bought at Sundance proper at BEST? From a business perspective, that is a poor use of your money.

Interesting to note, bit-head that John is, that he prefers the digital projection to the film (but he explains and gives caveats as to that answer).

LOCATION SCOUTING

johnaugust.com � Location scouting vs. reality

John finds some old locations scouting videos he took (and posts them!), discusses why videotaping is SOOOO much better than just snapping stills for location scouting, and has sample stills from the finished movie from those same locations to compare them to. Gold!

He mentions what a difference a professional DP, good lighting, good color grading (and not stated but implied a good camera, such as 35mm film) makes when you compare the scouting footage to the stills from the movie.

Not stated but should be pointed out - this is EXACTLY WHY amateurishly shot, poorly lit, non-color corrected, shot on cheapie camera indie movies look like ass and nobody wants to watch them. Same place, different talents used, different tools - ALL the difference.

He also points out how LONG it took to find & secure these locations - there is SO much prep work to be done to shoot a film properly.

John states he'll always video for location scouting from now on, you can tell so much more than from stills. Makes me think about how to best communicate with rest of staff/crew - IF (BIG if) you could quickly make a DVD or website (I'm thinking of iMovie/iDVD/iWeb type stuff as I just got the new versions, or Adobe CS3's ability to make a website from an Encore DVD project), wouldn't that be darn useful? But all contingent on how quick/easy to make and distribute and access that kind of info - and who has the technical chops to do it.

WEB COMPRESSION

johnaugust.com � Three from The Nines - shows compression examples on YouTube -

"In preparation for the trailer competition, I wanted to see how footage from the movie would hold up when subjected to the Flash compression of YouTube and the other video-sharing sites. So I uploaded three clips in various formats to experiment.

The results? Two clips look surprisingly great. The third looks like ass."


He then explains why. Read on.

OTHER

======

Other stuff about John and the movie I found researching:

johnaugust.com � The Nines goes to Venice


Out of Africa | Exclusive | Advocate.com John goes to Malawi to paint an orphanage.


Guest blogger John August on publicity shots | Popwatch | Blog | Movies | Music | TV: Entertainment Weekly John talks about families and privacy

John is a smart, interesting, motivated, good hearted guy. I hope I get the chance to work with him (and more folks like him) again in the future - and I can't wait to see the final result for myself, I was unable to get into a screening of The Nines at Sundance while I was there.

-mike

Labels: Avid, workflow

Picture New York � Breaking News: City Withdraws Proposed Regs!

Remember those contentious new filming policies that were going to be implemented that I'd previously blogged about?

"Great news! The Mayor’s Office of Film announced Friday afternoon that they are headed back to the drawing board with their regulations. You spoke – they listened. And did the right thing. Wonderful, right? "


Read on. Revised regs forthcoming, so we'll have to see how it turns out.

Another Friday, another Blogwad!

Acquisition -

Organic Motion Launches Markerless Motion Capture System | Studio Daily


Cameras -

How V3 Imaging and CBS Sports Added Depth to the Final Four | Film & Video

&ProLost: Taming the Toy

Post -

How to Record Realistic Sound Effects at FreshDV

General Specialist: The Reason AE CS3 is Faster On Windows than on OS X

Sony and Side Effects to Develop Cell-Based Solution | Studio Daily

7.1 – Surrounded Or Overwhelmed? | Studio Daily


Other -

Mac Rumors: Airport Extreme Updated With Gigabit Ethernet

I'll have more to say about Apple's new RAID card, new iMacs, and other stuff soon enough.

Thanks as always to Andy Nelson for putting this together.

-mike

Labels: blogwad

Today I was a speaker on a panel at the UFVA Conference in Denton, Texas. The other speakers on the panel were John Sterneman (who runs Dragonslayer Post in LA) and Norman Hollyn who runs the editing track at USC's film school. Ashley Kennedy from Avid was our moderator.

We'd prepped for the panel pretty well - we emailed in advance, had a nice conference call earlier in the week, and had an excellent dinner the night before to chew the fat on all things movie-making. While we touched on technology from time to time (Avid vs. FCP, Red's significance, etc.), I was delighted that the conversation stayed more high-level, less techie nitty gritty.

I very much liked that we cover a nice range of aspects of the industry between the three of us - John does pretty high level post (high end HD work for features budgeted from 6-7 figures), Norman teaches editing at USC with more emphasis on the craft, not the tech end, and I of course obsess on the tech end and leave the creative stuff mostly to other folks.

I plan on looping back and embellishing this substantially, but at least here's the Top Ten we came up with, this from Amy Peterson's (of Avid) notes from our conference call:

1) Putting together the right team. Be sure you have the right members involved at the right time. For instance, the editor should be involved in pre-production and the producer should be involved in post. This was a far flung and all encompasing topic - this also included getting the right team that knew the nitty gritty of their jobs and would see to all the granular implementation details to make sure stuff went right. By default, the right team will include folks to steer you clear of certain pitfalls, warn you of expensive or limiting choices, and be able to think on their feet when contingencies are needed to be invented on the spot.

2) Work backwards and know what you want to deliver before you start shooting. Plan your post workflow (i.e. deliver on film? HD?). I say this all the time to clients when they start asking about what to shoot on - I say STOP - what do you want to end up with at the end of the day? Work from there.

3) In pre-production know what budget is for post and stick to it! Perhaps even account for more $$ in POST. Many producers end up spending 3x the money in post because they didn’t plan accordingly.

This folds into a saying I've come up with - "Most indies would rather save a nickel on Friday that costs the $20 on Monday...and even if they knew they were doing it, many still would, because they didn't have the nickel on Friday."

(mention turd polishing vs. refinement and dollars on the screen)

4) Don’t just try to piece the workflow together. Make sure your NLE supports your camera and the formats that you are shooting in. Be sure that your offline edit will seamless make it to the online. Know how to get final product out of the system. This one was all me - for a good example, see the post from a couple of days ago about Pull Trigger, Then Aim (link to follow).

5) Have a realistic schedule from the get go. Based on your budget – know how many days you will need to shoot, weeks you’ll need to edit, etc. Many have unrealistic post schedules. As an add-on to that, just because you only have enough money for a 6 not 12 week creative edit DOES NOT MEAN that you'll get it done in that timeframe.

6) With so many choices – be smart about what you choose for technology, talent, location, etc. Overprepare and execute. Small projects can take the same or more amount of prep as larger projects. Small budget = use every penny wisely.

7) Know your story! If changes need to be made – make them on set, not in post. Plot point vs character point. If the story isn’t coming together based on the shots – it can cause 2-3x increase in post production.

8) Producers need a better grasp on the distribution process – particularly for indie film. Understand the requirements that distributors have. Avoid getting a 20 page document after QC of what needs to be “fixed” before the film is ready for distribution.

9) Understand how to appeal to distributors. It’s always about the best story. Know whether to spend funds on name power vs. technology. Discern hype from reality – when It comes to vendor marketing. Know how to get your “name” out there.

10) No role is unimportant in indie film. Even if tools have a color application – you still need a “real” colorist to do the job. Best use what tools you have (media management.)

The 5-3-1 thing - 5 choices to start with, pick one, narrows to 3, by the time you get to post, there's only 1 option left, and it is of course the most expensive/painful/time consuming. So know how you are limiting your choices each time you commit to a decision. Such as, if you are shooting film, you've committed yourself to development, telecine, etc. costs.

I told the folks who attended I'd post at least this much today, I'll come back and embellish further later - I just got home from Dallas and need to catch up on some stuff. Keep checking this article, it'll definitely grow.

One thing in particular that caught my attention was the focus that John put on deliverables for distribution - my working theory had been more about getting a good HD master for festival submission, but John pointed out that since the end goal is to get acquired, at that point you need deliverables. And HD/SD, 16:9 & 4:3, pan & scan, NTSC & PAL, etc. are all common requirements. Having your M&E separated from the dialog tracks so you can easily dub, stuff like that. I asked him to write up something more about it, hopefully he'll have the chance soon and I'll gladly run it in full on here once I get it.

-mike

PS - Norman blogged on this panel too.

Labels: workflow

P2 Contents Management Software | DVCPRO P2 Series | Broadcast and Professional AV

Hey all -

Panasonic has released a Mac version of their P2 browser software. It lets you display, ingest, search, categorize, display/edit properties, view/play back, add text or voice memo, export, back up, archive, and restore footage.

Along the lines of yesterday's post about having proper versions, it requires OS X 10.4.10 and QT 7.1.6 (but NOT 7.2, is incompatible at present!).

More info on this page as well.

Download Mac version with this, manual here.

And its free!

-mike

ps - thanks to those who sent in the link!

Labels: HVX200, P2, software, workflow

Got an email over the weekend from some folks about to deploy into the field that were having some workflow issues with their gear. Emailed back, didn't hear back, but got a call yesterday from them once they had arrived at their remote destination shooting location on another continent.

They were having trouble with their P2 import from their HVX200 - they could play back their clips on camera (verifying the clips were good, thank goodness), but when they tried to import, they got white frames and no audio. As I started through my litany of questions to verify the back story on what they had (they said they were running Final Cut on a just-purchased MacBook Pro), my Spidey Sense starts tingling - turns out they're running FCP 5.1.1 on OS X 10.4.10 (with an unknown version of QT as well, he couldn't check at the time). So right there that was a clue - he was running a version that wasn't as up-to-date as he could make it. FCP 5.1.x can be updated to 5.1.4 via Software Update for free, so I suggested he start there. I couldn't recall exactly what was supported when, so I did a little digging and found this bon mot -


Bring HVX200 P2 Clips into FCP via the FireStore FS-100 | Studio Monthly: "As of this writing, the P2 formats DVCPRO HD 1080/24P and 1080/30P are not yet natively supported in FCP 5.1.1."

A-ha - I'd also not thought to ask him what res/frame rate he was capturing, but I DID know that 5.1.4 would fully support any mode he could shoot on that camera.

Lesson to Learn

This client was in a hurry and had to travel on short notice, which made it difficult to do the right thing - ALWAYS research to make sure what version of the OS & your NLE (or QuickTime if on Mac) are appropriate to match together. With older NLE software, there can be a target range - not too old, not too new - that will be the correct, properly functioning match for your system. For instance, BlackMagic used to recommend a particular version of OS, QuickTime, FCP, and their drivers if you were using FCP 4.5 - not to update beyond what was it? I think 10.3.8 or somesuch (DON'T quote or depend on me for that number, just for example here!).

For latest NLE software, check to make sure you have the minimum recommended version (FCP 6.0 required at LEAST 10.4.9 and QT 7.1.6), but don't assume the latest is the best - some percentage of the time there may be a bug that requires a .0.x type of an upgrade to fix. So not too old, not too new - like Goldilock's porridge, you want Just Right.

Most editors know this, but field production folks having to deal with FCP on a laptop in the field for review purposes may not.

Other lesson to learn - ALWAYS have your post workflow figured out days in advance before travel - so if there is an issue, you have time to resolve it - requiring analysis, implementation, and verification testing that the fix does in fact work. Your production may depend on it - so it is worth the time to take.

Remember - as an indie, you have more time than money. But time is your least controllable asset when deadlines are looming - so as an indie, you need to spend MORE time prepping and verifying stuff like this, since you can't throw money at the problem to solve it.

These folks leaped before they looked - or put another way, pulled trigger, then aimed by going to the remote location without a solution.

I'm picking on them a bit here to make a point - in truth, they WERE trying to solve it before they left, but didn't manage to until they were on location - meaning they had fewer resources to try to solve their problems in the field than if they were at home. There was a point in the conversation when I was saying as a fallback they could reinstall the OS if all else failed - but they couldn't since all that stuff was back at home.

Which is why when I travel, I make a point of having a Commando Kit with me - enough stuff to rebuild a hard drive etc. from the ground up, including OS, NLE, compositing apps and all the standalone updates, all COPIES of original installers, not the original discs themselves - my old joke was air drop me into Somalia with a Commando Kit and some new Macs in boxes and I'll have a studio up and running by the end of the day - hopefully I'll never have to actually do that.

Which is also why my durn backpack is so heavy when you see me at tradeshows - I carry lots of junk, but I ALWAYS have That Cable Just In Case.

UPDATE - they were also having trouble with the record times on their 16GB P2 cards (and don't forget, as earlier reported, that you need to update the firmware in your camera to work with the newer bigger P2 cards!). At first I thought it was a firmware issue, then digging deeper, turns out they were recording to 720p mode, not 720pN. 720p mode records 720p24 as 720p60 with 2:3:3:2 cadence (or similar, don't recall whether that or 2:3:2:3, but the point is that it takes up more space recording 60fps not 24fps).

As always, research and test everything before arriving on set!

It's called prep, people.

Short for "preparation."

Don't forget that "pre" means "in front of" or "before."

Time on set is your most valuable asset, especially if you're in a remote location. Where do you want to be figuring out technical problems - while that perfect sunset is ending at your exotic and pricey location, or two weeks before at home while idling watching a DVD and having a tasty beverage?

A few extra days gear rental can be invaluable to be ready to roll perfectly. Think of it like combat - when the enemy comes over the hill, do you want to be reading the manual on your rifle, saying to your seargeant "Hang on, I'll be ready in 5 minutes." *

-mike

* OK in our current climate I'm reluctant to use a war analogy as I'm against that sort of thing, but this does make the point.

Labels: FCP, Final Cut, Final Cut Studio 2, original, P2, workflow

from Apple online store description:

The Mac Pro RAID card offers improved performance and data protection to your Mac Pro system — up to 304MB/s of sequential read performance in RAID 0. Ideal for video and creative professionals with demanding storage needs as well as for tower server applications, this hardware RAID option supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 0+1, and Enhanced JBOD. It has 256MB of cache and an integrated 72-hour battery for protecting the RAID cache. The card occupies the top PCI Express slot (slot 4) and connects to the four internal drive bays.

To enable your Mac Pro for hardware RAID, select the Mac Pro RAID card option and two or more hard drives in bays 1 through 4. Each RAID level has minimum requirements for the number of hard drives:

RAID Level Drive Requirements Benefit
Enhanced JBOD One to four drives A non-RAID configuration with the ability to migrate to a RAID set at any time
RAID 0 (striping) Two to four hard drives Maximum performance and capacity for the most demanding I/O requirements
RAID 1 (mirroring) Two hard drives Maximum protection for critical data
RAID 5 Three or four hard drives Data protection, up to 199MB/s of sequential read performance, and efficient capacity utilization
RAID 0+1 Four hard drives A mirror of striped drive pairs providing performance and data protection
The Mac Pro RAID card supports the creation of multiple RAID sets in a system and multiple volumes per RAID set. For optimal disk utilization in a RAID set, all hard drives should be the same size. Your Mac Pro system ships with each hard drive individually configured in the Enhanced JBOD level with Mac OS X installed on the drive in bay 1. Using Apple's RAID Utility software, you can migrate the drives into a RAID set without reinstalling Mac OS X or reformatting the drives, or you can customize your RAID volumes to meet your exact requirements.

Please note: The Mac Pro RAID card occupies one of the available PCI Express expansion slots.


Key thing of note - 199 MB/sec read speeds under RAID 5. Magic number for uncompressed 1080i60 10 bit 4:2:2 video: 200 MB/sec is the usual recommended number. For 1080p24 10b444 RGB: about 230-240 MB/sec. Whither write speed, Apple? Write speed is almost always slower in RAID 5 than read speed, so if read is about 200, and that's the minimum for uncompressed HD, where's the write speed? It is probably lower, and that's a bummer.

Also, that 199 MB/sec - will it hold that through the capacity of the array, or slow down as the drives get full...like most other storage? Remains to be seen.

More later, I'm testing an Octo Mac with a Highpoint 2322 RAID 5 right now, and it works pretty darn well....

There's new versions of iWork, now with a spreadsheet, and iLife, now organizing stuff by Events and yielding TONS more storage space for .Mac accounts (with my 2GB bumped to 20GB, and those who paid for 4GB bumped to 30GB). That's now enough space to back up all my photos...I THINK (double check).

iPhone output is mentioned in iMovie, and you can now FINALLY store all our video in one place in iMovie, organized by Events. Gotta read more, but I'll pick it up at a store ASAP to doodle with. I hope it has improved multi-machine sync capabilities as well...but I doubt it.

-mike

Labels: Apple, hardware, Mac Pro, storage, workflow

I've been at a client's all day, somebody just pointed these out:

Sexy new Aluminum iMacs)

Apple - Keyboard

I really, REALLY hope they make these standard with the Octo Mac I'm buying soon.

More soon when I can take a closer look.

-mike

Apple put some birdseed type up on their website changing the FCP specs not too long ago, and at present, appears that while AVCHD is supported, some gotchas:

-no native support - only transcoding
-no DVD based
-Sony/Panasonic hard drive based supported ONLY
-transcoding to Pro Res is Mac Pro only
-AIC only option on others, and even then some minimum hardware requirements

...so if you are thinking you want to take advantage of the latest/greatest tech by transcoding to ProRes....you'll have to have a Mac Pro. And your AVCHD camera better say Sony or Panasonic on the side, AND better be hard drive not DVD based.

As always, research your solutions carefully.

-mike

Labels: FCP, Final Cut, Final Cut Studio 2, NLE, software, workflow

One Terabyte Hitachi SATA drive compared to others

Bare Feats takes a good look at some of the new modern hard drives, which I haven't done in a while, and DAMN, they are fast!

For instance, the Western Digital 750GB SATA drive can read/write up in the mid-90 MB/sec - a year or so ago, the faster drives were good for maybe 65 MB/sec - this represents a roughly 50% increase. You'll still have fall-off in performance as they fill up (and data is written closer to the slower data transfering hub as opposed to the faster edge of the platters), but that certainly made me perk up.

In some recent testing of a Mac Pro, for instance, which had a 3x5000GB drive RAID 0, I was playing back uncompressed HD from a 3 drive RAID...without dropped frames! Very impressive. Of course, this was on a nearly empty array, so all data was at the fastest part of the array, and I didn't get a chance to do a zone test (test performance fall-off across the capacity of the array), so I don't know how sustainable that would have been, but newer, modern drives are definitely worth checking out for the speed improvements they yield.

Go read this article to see how the Hitachi 1TB, the Western Digital 750 GB, Seagate 750, and Maxtor 500 all stack up.

By the way - Seagate has been the most often cited as most reliable brand to me in terms of not failing as often as other brands. If building a RAID 0, that is worth noticing. In this lineup, however, that'll cost you over 20 MB/sec per drive.

-mike

Labels: hardware, storage

Posted on CML, reprinted with permission of author, looks interesting if you're in or can be in San Diego on Tuesday from 2-4, wish I could be there. Anyone that can take notes or video, please let me know as I can't make it.

Title:
An Update on the Academy Image Interchange Framework

Session description:
The status of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ image
interchange project describing a color-managed framework for digital
motion picture images.

On Tuesday August 7, 2007 from 2PM – 4PM at the Omni Hotel in San Diego,
CA, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and
Technology Council will deliver an update on its project to develop a
color-managed framework for production, post-production, and archiving
of digital motion pictures.

The presentation will provide an overview