The DIT Dilemma

FORESIGHT. / The DIT Dilemma:
The official role of a DIT is one that continues requiring discussion.  Defining the DIT is hard for anyone to “officially” quantify, though there are rules and regulations that suggest a textbook definition.  But the more one talks to DITs, the more you find they are not “consistent” in their feelings on the job.  This is not normal.  If you ask pilots what they do, they tend to agree on their role.  Same with directors or even script supervisors and DPs.  This suggests that the future is not yet written for DITs, which means they have the unique opportunity to either shape the industry going forward in their favor, or let another entity define what their role is and even make the DIT an unnecessary expense.  Going into 2013, there is significant evidence for both arguments.

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Avid Media Composer 6.5.2 adds some very nice (and needed) features

Pro Video Coalition: The Editblog on PVC by Scott Simmons:
When Avid released Media Composer 6.5 it did so with a $500 price tag and that rubbed a lot of users the wrong way as they didn't think the update was worth that price. I kicked the tires on Media Composer 6.5 and while there were a lot of nice new additions to the update we chose not to upgrade at that time. Now comes word that the 6.5.2 update is out and it looks like there's some really nice things in this update that might make it worth that $500 cost since you'll get those 6.5 features as well. To be clear I haven't used 6.5.2 yet (though I have requested an upgrade Mr. Boss) but thanks to Wim Van den Broeck we've got a good idea of what's in there.

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Editing raw video on a $900 Hackintosh (with $5000 Mac Pro levels of performance)

Editing raw video on a $900 Hackintosh (with $5000 Mac Pro levels of performance) | EOSHD.com:
Let down by both Apple and Microsoft, I researched a third solution. A Mac Pro without the unattainable price tag. As a Macbook Pro user, the install files for the latest OSX – Mountain Lion were downloadable from the App Store since I’d already purchased it. I used UniBeast to install these on my PC. The disclaimer is that this is against the EULA (End User License Agreement) of OS X so not an officially supported solution.

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Storage Buyer's Guide: Safeguarding Your Digital Creations

Storage Buyer's Guide: Safeguarding Your Digital Creations | Videomaker.com:
From camera to computer to long-term safekeeping, we'll look at everything you need to know about today's storage solutions.

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RED Announces REDRAY 4K Playback System for Under $1500 and Debuts New Distribution Network

RED Announces REDRAY 4K Playback System for Under $1500 and Debuts New Distribution Network - NoFilmSchool:
Hot of the presses, RED has just announced — as they said they would — their REDRAY 4K playback system, a 6-pound, DVD Player-sized playback device for $1,450. It has built-in 3D capabilities, offers 802.11N wireless connectivity/playback, is DCI-compliant, and debuts with it new security and file formats to make 4K distribution a reality — along with a brand new delivery network to debut at Sundance in January. The player itself is scheduled to ship in December ”early 2013.”

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LUTs Part 1: What is a LUT?

LUTs Part 1: What is a LUT?:
A LUT, or look up table, changes color from one value to another based on a list of values. For video and motion graphics, a LUT is useful for matching footage from one source to another (i.e. a 3D render to live action film), for visual effect (i.e. vintage film emulation), or for output preview (i.e. film stock, digital projection, and DVD). While color management for video is still considered the wild west, the use of LUTs have increased as hobbyists and indie filmmakers gain access to once-expensive tools like Adobe Speedgrade (formerly Iridas Speedgrade NX) and Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve.

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Setting up 3rd party I/O Hardware and CS6

Setting up 3rd party I/O Hardware and CS6:
Lately I’ve been getting a lot questions from Premiere Pro users about I/O cards from AJA, Matrox, Black Magic, and Blue Fish. In many cases its been more about driver version requirements matching the version of Premiere Pro CS6 that they are using. As of the writing of this article, Premiere Pro CS6 has been updated to 6.03 for Windows and 6.02 for Mac.

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A Side-by-Side Comparison of 4K Cameras and Feature Sets

A Side-by-Side Comparison of 4K Cameras and Feature Sets:
The Red One may have been the first high-res camera to take the film industry by storm but, when the history of digital cinematography is written, 2012 will be remembered as the year pictures got really big.
By 2011, Red Digital Cinema had been advocating on behalf of 4K acquisition for years, keeping its promise to ship inexpensive high-resolution cameras. Meanwhile, the Vision Research Phantom 65 crossed over from scientific and engineering markets that valued its 4K images to filmmakers who prized the look of its 65mm-sized imager. And then the floodgates opened.

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Colour Look Up Tables demystified

RedShark News - Colour Look Up Tables demystified:
As digital video cameras get better, and their users become more ambitious, LUTs are used to preserve or manipulate the images. Understanding LUTs is now key to setting up a production workflow.

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Across the Lines: Editing in the Different NLEs

Across the Lines: Editing in the Different NLEs | Strypes In Post:
In this day and age, many of us editors are starting to work on different NLEs quite frequently, so in this article, I am hoping to cross the great divide, and bridge the differences between the different NLEs, in terms of the edit keys and functions. Despite all the passionate debate surrounding the death of FCP7, using an NLE really isn't the same as supporting a soccer club. They are just tools. Tools we use to tell a story. In this article, I will give examples from Final Cut Pro 7, Avid Media Composer 6, and Adobe Premiere Pro CS6.

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Siggraph 2012 highlights

Siggraph 2012 highlights:
Buckets of inspiration, including a bunch from Adobe researchers & collaborators (HelpingHand & more):

(Now I kinda want to use the pseudonym “Laplacian Eigenfunctions.”)

Avoiding RAM Starvation: Getting Optimum Performance in Premiere Pro

The Video Road – Avoiding RAM Starvation: Getting Optimum Performance in Premiere Pro:
Something I wanted to share for all you “build-it-yourself” users. Recently, I helped a customer build out a really beefy system – 16 physical cores, plus hyperthreading, 24 GB of RAM, Quadro 5000, etc. The system wasn’t rendering well at all. Bringing up the task manager was showing each processor only hitting about 19% – 20%. My MacBook Pro was actually handling the same tasks MUCH faster. This was a classic case of Processor RAM Starvation. With Hyperthreading turned on, the system was showing 32 processors, and there wasn’t enough RAM to drive all those processors! Some processors had to wait for RAM to free up, and the processors that finished their calculations had to wait for THOSE processors to catch up. It’s a really bad state to be in. With multiple CPU’s, everything has to happen in parallel, so when some threads take longer to finish, everything comes to a screeching halt.

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Everything you ever wanted to know about HFR and The Hobbit

Everything you ever wanted to know about HFR and The Hobbit at DVInfo.net:
The Hobbit has finally been released in 2D and 3D at the traditional 24 frames per second (fps) as well as 3D High Frame Rate (HFR) at 48 fps. If the posts on social media are a fair indication, it seems that audiences have not reacted as positively to the 3D HFR version as the industry had hoped. Why not?

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Transitioning to an Adobe Workflow: From Log and Transfer to Prelude

Transitioning to an Adobe Workflow: From Log and Transfer to Prelude:
I was a FCP Editor/Trainer for 10 years. Since FCP X replaced FCP 7 I have been transitioning to an Adobe workflow. Like myself, a lot of former FCP editors are trying out Adobe’s Production Premium (equivalent to FCP Studio) or the new Creative Cloud subscription model. In this article I’ll look at using Adobe Prelude from a former FCP user’s perspective.

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Wow! Adobe & Behance are getting together

Wow! Adobe & Behance are getting together:
I’m thrilled that Adobe & Behance announced today that Behance (a million-member creative community, in case you’ve been living under a rock) is becoming part of Adobe.

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Transitioning to an Adobe Workflow: From Log and Transfer to Prelude

Transitioning to an Adobe Workflow: From Log and Transfer to Prelude:
I was a FCP Editor/Trainer for 10 years. Since FCP X replaced FCP 7 I have been transitioning to an Adobe workflow. Like myself, a lot of former FCP editors are trying out Adobe’s Production Premium (equivalent to FCP Studio) or the new Creative Cloud subscription model. In this article I’ll look at using Adobe Prelude from a former FCP user’s perspective.

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Mac vs. PC - The Dilemma of a Small, One-Man-Band Production House

Mac vs. PC - The Dilemma of a Small, One-Man-Band Production House | ScreenLight:
Let me first give you some background. I started my own production company in May 2011, with the following goal: to provide affordable, personable, and highly professional video production for medium to large businesses. To deliver a professional product to my clients, I needed to find a way to get the best editing equipment I could, but at a fraction of the cost of a huge editing suite.

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Premiere Pro, After Effects and SSD Drives

Premiere Pro, After Effects and SSD Drives:
I’ve been doing digital video for a long time and have seen a ton of gear walk through my doors during my time with Adobe and in the field in general.  There have been lots of great improvements over the course of time and I’ve been privileged to help on some of them.  CPU’s have gotten faster and seen more cores, GPU’s have exploded in power, motherboard bus speeds have increased and on and on…
But, we expect this and will continue to do so…

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Nuke 7.0 Out

Nuke 7.0 Out:

So it’s finally here. Nuke 7 was released Friday the 30th of November and what a wonderful Christmas (or Hanukah or whatever other festival of lights celebration you’re into) present it is for all of us.
They pulled all the stops at The Foundry for this release. Nuke is going to be a lot more stable, powerful, and the amount of things you’ll be able to do internally without going to an external application, just seems to grow more and more.

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Testing the “Pro” in Apple ProRes

Testing the “Pro” in Apple ProRes:
This test started out to check color fidelity with Apple ProRes and The Foundry products like Nuke and Hiero. We knew from earlier that results wouldn’t be ideal. Later we expanded the test to other video applications and encoding software to see what that would give us. The outcome was quite disturbing.

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Shedding some light about Performance using the HP Z820 and NVIDIA Maximus

Shedding some light about Performance using the HP Z820 and NVIDIA Maximus:
Here’s another quick video we did showing the latest HP Z820 dual processor system paired with 4 drive internal raid , NVIDIA Quadro 5000, and a Tesla 2075. The video tries to give you an idea of how the system performs with and without the Tesla board installed. I get lots of questions on how increase performance and thought this might shed some light.


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Post Haste 2.1.4 released - import and export parameters

Post Haste 2.1.4 released - import and export parameters:
Earlier this week we released Post Haste 2.1.4 for Mac and PC.
The biggest new feature in this version is support for importing and exporting parameters, which has been much-requested by our users.

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Avoiding RAM Starvation: Getting Optimum Performance in Premiere Pro

The Video Road – Avoiding RAM Starvation: Getting Optimum Performance in Premiere Pro:
Something I wanted to share for all you “build-it-yourself” users. Recently, I helped a customer build out a really beefy system – 16 physical cores, plus hyperthreading, 24 GB of RAM, Quadro 5000, etc. The system wasn’t rendering well at all. Bringing up the task manager was showing each processor only hitting about 19% – 20%. My MacBook Pro was actually handling the same tasks MUCH faster.

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LUTs Part 1: What is a LUT?

LUTs Part 1: What is a LUT? | Fallen Empire:
A LUT, or look up table, changes color from one value to another based on a list of values. For video and motion graphics, a LUT is useful for matching footage from one source to another (i.e. a 3D render to live action film), for visual effect (i.e. vintage film emulation), or for output preview (i.e. film stock, digital projection, and DVD). While color management for video is still considered the wild west, the use of LUTs have increased as hobbyists and indie filmmakers gain access to once-expensive tools like Adobe Speedgrade (formerly Iridas Speedgrade NX) and Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve.

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3ds Max and Autodesk Maya now cheaper than ever thanks to new licenses!

3ds Max and Autodesk Maya now cheaper than ever thanks to new licenses!: Autodesk's products are not cheap and such tools as 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya cannot by afforded by many smaller companies of freelancers. It seems that the Autodesk wants to change this situation and so they kicked off a 90-day project license of Autodesk Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max 3D animation software. Thanks to this move it will be much easier for many artists to create high-end professional work for short-term projects using Maya or 3ds Max.

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Learn Media Composer Lesson 33: Advanced Exporting Part 1

Learn Media Composer Lesson 33: Advanced Exporting Part 1 : AVID Tutorial:
HD to SD Letterbox: In this lesson, Kevin P McAuliffe shows you why you don't need any third party applications to create SD Letterboxed content from your HD footage. Not only does he show you how easy it is, but also shows you a great trick to get around titling issues when downconverting.

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Stopping runaway CPU usage by mds, mdworker, and mdimport

Amit Gupta likes you! // Stopping runaway CPU usage by mds, mdworker, and mdimport:
I found that mds and mdimport were constantly running, and often taking up to 90-100% of my CPU when it was otherwise idle.

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Linear Tape File System, The Story So Far...

Linear Tape File System, The Story So Far...
LTFS (Linear Tape File System) was introduced just over two years ago and, during that time, has provoked considerable discussion within our industry. I guess the first question to ask is what was the idea behind it?

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How to Conform an EDL in SpeedGrade

How to Conform an EDL in SpeedGrade:
The Send to SpeedGrade command in Adobe Premiere Pro provides a great DPX finishing workflow with SpeedGrade. We covered that in an earlier post called Four ways to load footage in SpeedGrade CS6. The DPX route is great for short projects, or if you have lots of horsepower (and lots of storage for all those DPX frames), but for some scenarios an EDL workflow will make more sense.

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Editmote 2.0 released with gestures, landscape, extra buttons and much more

Editmote 2.0 released with gestures, landscape, extra buttons and much more:
Today we released Editmote 2.0, a major new update to our NLE remote control for iOS devices.
We've listened to your feedback and have added the following major new features.

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Red Announces Redray 4K Cinema Player, 20 Mbps File Format

Red Announces Redray 4K Cinema Player, 20 Mbps File Format | Studio Daily: "For several years a disrupter in the acquisition business, Red Digital Cinema got into distribution late Friday with the announcement of its new Redray 4K Cinema Player. The product release includes a new .RED file format that carries 4K at just 2.5 MB/sec (20 Mbps), the RRencode plug-in for RedCine-X Pro that converts footage to .RED, and the Odemax content distribution platform.

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Downloadable TV/Cine Formats – Red, XDCAM, GoPro, DSLR, Raw – “The Goldfish Test"

Downloadable TV/Cine Formats – Red, XDCAM, GoPro, DSLR, Raw – “The Goldfish Test” | Tom Guilmette – Director of Photography:
There are a bunch of formats in television/digital cinema and not too many places that post video clips straight off the memory card for NLE testing. This blog contains some of todays popular formats and a link that will allow you to download ten second clips of a swimming goldfish.

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MXF and AAF

MXF and AAF | Distribution content from Broadcast Engineering:
Many broadcasters know about MXF, and they have heard of things such as MXF for Finished Programs (AS-03) and MXF for Commercials (AS-12). But, this month, I want to focus on MXF’s bigger brother, AAF.

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Digital Camera Workflow Whitepaper

With the ability to track multiple sources and timecodes, combined with AMA and open standards such as MXF, AAF, and DNxHD, Media Composer and Symphony give you the most flexibility in the post-production pipeline. Finishing and mastering can all be done directly within Avid products, or easily transported to third-party systems—or a hybrid between the two. The editorial process may seem complicated at first when dealing with high-resolution formats, but careful planning heads off any of the issues that may arise. Consult with all parties involved in both the production and post-production process for picture and sound to ensure that everyone is on the same page before the cameras roll or, in the file-based world, before the production capture process begins.

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Codecs & workflow: Making the optimum choice. Part 2

Codecs & workflow: Making the optimum choice. Part 2 | Encoders content from Broadcast Engineering: "In the days of videotape, Digital Betacam was a popular delivery format for standard definition (SD) content. For high-definition programming, D5-HD was a popular choice. Now HDCAM SR is the favored format specified by broadcasters for program delivery. With 12 audio tracks, it provides flexible support for surround sound delivery.

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The Trouble with Timecode (Joel Yeaton)

The Trouble with Timecode (Joel Yeaton) « The Track Matte Moment:
In this episode of the Track Matte Moment, Joel Yeaton talks to us about the hard lesson of jumping headfirst into a new NLE and his learning experiences with DSLR, timecode, XML, and Adobe Premiere Pro.

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Adobe Premiere – Exporting Your Video, Which Way is Faster, Queue or Export?

Adobe Premiere – Exporting Your Video, Which Way is Faster, Queue or Export?:
Since Adobe Premiere CS5 was released, I noticed that when I would export my videos, I had to choice of using either Queue or Export and I noticed that one way was much faster than the other.

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Sensor Size Comparison Chart

Sensor Size Comparison Chart:

Click to enlarge
By Jon Fry, Creative Video

Is this the end of broadcasting as we know it?

Is this the end of broadcasting as we know it?:

One phrase you’ll hear a lot wherever the broadcast industry gathers is ‘disruptive technologies’, by which people typically mean that the internet is challenging all the business models and assumptions that have powered the industry for decades. With recent news that BitTorrent is now muscling in on their space, it might have to reach for a new, more apocalyptic description.

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Disk Access Denied in Avid Media Composer – simple and fast fix

Disk Access Denied in Avid Media Composer – simple and fast fix | Make Film Teach Film:
Yesterday I got a drive problem I have had before – for some reason, Avid or Windows, or a combination of the two, lock access to the Avid Media Folders. When trying to look in the folder I would get the error message DISK_ACCESS_DENIED.

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PC Motherboards start to support 4K video

PC Motherboards start to support 4K video:

Awareness of 4K video has reached motherboard manufacturers as Gigabyte announces their first motherboards that support a 4K output.

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Technicolor CineStyle Color Assist

Technicolor CineStyle Color Assist:

Technicolor - a company that has been around for over 95 years dealing with the science of film coloring – is entering the DSLR world once again.   

Their first foray into digital cinema game happened when they introduced the CineStyle Camera Profile for use with Canon HDDSLRs, and that was quite a success given how well adopted that picture style has become.  

Now they are introducing a color correction tool that I think many of you will find of interest:  CineStyle Color Assist and it’s available for an incredibly reasonable $99.00 on their new website.  Additionally CineStyle Looks packages are also available for $19.00.

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Preparing an Edit – A Simple Transcoding Tutorial for Producers/Directors

Preparing an Edit – A Simple Transcoding Tutorial for Producers/Directors: Master your video media management with this quick workflow for transcoding video footage. A great process for working 'in the field' - easy to implement for producers and directors.

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Mac vs. PC - The Dilemma of a Small, One-Man-Band Production House

Mac vs. PC - The Dilemma of a Small, One-Man-Band Production House:
We are faced with decisions daily. Pepsi or Coke? Short-sleeves or long-sleeves? Mac or PC?
But as a small production company, the answer to the last question is not as easy as it might sound.
Let me first give you some background. I started my own production company in May 2011, with the following goal: to provide affordable, personable, and highly professional video production for medium to large businesses. To deliver a professional product to my clients, I needed to find a way to get the best editing equipment I could, but at a fraction of the cost of a huge editing suite.

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Detailed Adobe Premiere & Dynamic Linking Workflow on Vimeo

Detailed Adobe Premiere & Dynamic Linking Workflow on Vimeo:
Here's a detailed Adobe CS5.5 Premiere workflow example and intro that we've been using over the past few months with solid success with both Canon HDSLR footage and RED Epic footage. It shows Dynamic linking with After Effects as well as REDCine X. Go to the 24:51 mark to see the RED workflow specifically.

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Understanding Colour: Colour Gamuts

Understanding Colour: Colour Gamuts:

Gamut is one of the stranger words in the English language. Phil Rhodes sheds some light on this often misunderstood term

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Quick Avid Tip: Display your UNC File Path in the bin!

Quick Avid Tip: Display your UNC File Path in the bin! « robgwilson.com:
Okay, just a quick tip I worked out yesterday while I was trying to organize dailies for a documentary I am working on.  The producer/directors had organized everything I needed to build out the Avid project on a hard drive: hours and hours of Quicktimes, all sorted out by subject or location.  I was going to import them in one fell swoop, but I needed some way to organize the media once it came into the Avid.  As it was, all the media arrived in one big bin.  This is where the UNC File Path comes in.

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Skyfall: Dailies & DI from London to California

Skyfall: Dailies & DI from London to California - Creative COW:
To ensure color consistency from dailies to DI for Skyfall, Company 3 London and EFILM collaborated to create an integrated pipeline, newly branded EC3. Skyfall cinematographer Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC was able to enjoy dailies graded by his long-time CO3 Santa Monica colorist working out of London, and the two facilities coordinated color science and calibration for an overall consistent look throughout the process.

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SDI Over IP

SDI Over IP: As bitrates increase and equipment prices drop, IP-based communication technologies – both fixed and wireless alike – are pushing more and more dedicated communication systems into retirement. The sheer amount of connectors currently found on professional video cameras make some of the advantages obvious that an IP/Ethernet-based solution brings.

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