Opening some more doors

Have decided now that I should use my work-only gmail account to give myself a permanent online prescence for consulting/work updates. So I’m going to be online whenever I am working via my innebateav@gmail.com acount, through Gtalk. Feel free to have a chat or whatever, although if I’m a bit slow to respond etcetera I’m probably either a bit busy and getting to it – or I’m making lunch. I always forget to set myself as ‘away’, and if I do, I forget to set myself as ‘available’ when I get back. Ah well.
Also, as an experiment, we’ve decided that it would be a good idea to offer the first season of the Tasmanian Premier League show on DVD. We’re looking into pricing at the moment, its all a bit more complicated when it comes to a series box set, things I never considered are coming up. Example: do we use double layer media in a two disc set, or single layer media in a four disc set? Using double layer (DVD+R DL) there are some pitfalls around compatability and also the expense of the media (cheapest I’ve found printable +R DL media is about two bucks a disc). However, whilst four single layer discs are cheap – you then have to get those cases with the little swinging bit in the middle – which will inevitably be more expensive than a simple two disc case.

Episode 14 out the door on time

Working on the first episode of the Premier League show I’ve been able to do on the Mac Pro, and its all been smooth sailing. Not much different to the performance of the G4 when working in the timeline on basic stuff I must admit, but I figure once I get stuck into the graphical stuff it’ll all mesh together much more nicely. On the other hand, its a rendering monster! It just tears through video I chuck at it, MPEG-2 is a walk in the park.
Looking at running Boot Camp on my Mac Pro, and actually having a version of Windows handy to be able to check files myself to avoid a repeat of the recent file format unpleasantness. Had a 64 bit edition of XP here and was all ready to install – but Boot Camp says explicitly to not install the 64 bit edition. Back to that drawing board for now I guess.
Other than that – work is getting back on at a reasonable pace. Got edits to do of a 2-camera concert, some chroma key work and a local Music Hall over the next week, which should keep me busy. Have a couple of old personal projects which might find their way off the backburner as well now I’m finding I have more time.

Off now, gotta sleep to finish up the football show edit for tomorrow afternoon. The last few have been a day late, so I want this one out the door on time for a fresh change.

J

Back in business

Mac Pro has arrived and I’ve finally set up my workflow (it’ll do for now). Sitting inside these monitors feels a bit like some kind of strange control center…for a mech or something. Irregardless, its all up and running.

Having some fabulous workflow issues with HDV24P at the moment. Shot a uni film in HDV 1280×720 @ 23.976fps (at my insistence) only to hit a huge wall in post. Ingest is only possible for us at the moment via my Mac Pro (done and done) but rendering for use on Windows has become a huge problem…and a folder of 100,000 TIFFs just didn’t cut it.

Learned a few very important things whilst working on that shoot however. Firstly – clapper board – I want one. Second – I never realised how hard it was to shoot someone elses vision (I was Cinematographer). Apparently I’m too visual maybe…there was a text shot list, but no storyboards, so I found it very difficult shooting. However, during the last day of the shoot the director vowed to never direct again – producing certainly suits his style so I have to agree that he should head that way. Actors were great to work with, and working on that (and the sort-of-recent Blues Brothers project) have gotten me all motivated to direct again. I just need an idea I can work with in my currently inhibited state. Movies like “The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra” certainly point in a direction I can see me attempting…

Currently producing a DVD for a football dinner…never realised how much of a pain creating good slideshows for DVD could be. Infuriating. And all coaches for the first lot of images have to be credited…a real pain. Tried to go the ‘quick and easy’ route by using iPhoto to create the slideshow, but that has ended up disasterous as well, iPhoto simply refuses to comply. It’ll make a slideshow, but wont let me affect any parameters that might be handy as far as conforming the length to music…and it doesn’t have a simple ‘conform to length of music’ option. I could go through iDVD but that’s even more pain for what I see as very little gain. Darn iDVD.

Football show has been off. Last weekend I was supposed to shoot and cut, but never ended up happening due to some debilitating illness. Great fun.

Now that I have the Mac Pro I might experiment with HD media creation, although HD is still yet to impress me. Xbox 360 looks nice (although admittedly its more to do with poly count and textures than res) but so far all video I’ve seen that is HD comparing to SD has been pretty lame. There was a demo in Dick Smith’s recently, showing Blu-Ray and DVD on the same screen, the different qualities seperated by a white bar. From the distance of our couch away there was no percievable difference between 720×540 and 1920×1080. Rubbish. HD will be great once 1080 panels are a little cheaper and more reliable, and BIGGER. If I cannot perceive the difference between SD and HD why should I blow an extra ten or twenty bucks per movie when I could get them cheaper and at no different quality? As I have said in the past – HD is still a ways off, and I honestly can’t see HD video formats pushing DVD out of the market until something arrives that makes HD totally necessary, instead of a nice little show-off piece for those who can afford it/videophiles.

Got to get back to these darn slideshows.

Justin

Back in action for now

I am so far behind – less than an hour now until Walter gets here to do the voice overs. The video is finally captured and ready to go…and my eyes are starting to ache, making viewing my monitor very difficult. Plus – today my monitor’s DVI input stopped working which has left me somewhat…disgruntled.

Had a brief shoot today, and formatted the PowerBook so I am actually able to create the next episode of the Tas Premier League show. Mac Pro should arrive tomorrow, and finally I will have a chance to sit back and be confident in my computer to get my work done.

Justin

From bad to better?

It has been interesting I must admit – these last few weeks. Thrust from the comfort of my highly tuned editing system into this world of patched together bits and bobs and not having the money to actually make it work right. That situation has finally tuerned completely black on me today – the PowerBook now refuses to capture video claiming all of Hard Disks to be too slow (I don’t blame it, I wouldn’t want to capture via USB2 either). The internal is only 20% full (but is only a 4200RPM so can be excused…I guess), I have a faulty external 2.5″ 5400RPM but that chews up video and leaves some nasty artefacting, and a second 3.5″ 7200RPM drive seems to just not want to do it (probably to fault of the prolific chipset I am sure it uses).
That being said though, whilst my actual work has ground down to a complete stop – the Mac Pro is on its way. Posted either today or tomorrow, I should have it here by early next week. This leaves me with the remainder of this week to get myself into gear for the football show this weekend and I’m away. Worst comes to worst however – I can edit online at a nearby location for the free because they love me there, which means I should be able to cover the football show at the very least.
Apple are announcing new iPods tonight – I should be up at around 5AM to see what there is and how much I’ll want to spend (but wont be able to spare for a little while).
The Mac Pro will be more than passable, although after my reading recently I am wanting to get all 8 RAM sockets filled – the RAM runs up to 256bits wide meaning all four slots on a riser can be used at once giving maximum performance with multiple cards installed. The 2 Gb in the Mac Pro many have told me ‘will never do, you’ll need four gig minimum to run’ but my response? ‘I’ve just come from a dual G4 with 2Gb of RAM. I have a feeling that if the Mac Pro is even a little bit faster than that, it will be more than adequate for a little while.’
I have so many jobs I need to chase up now – just putting it off until I am equipped with a computer that can do…anything. Anything at all. This week with nothing to do is literally going to kill me.
Good news – Bagdad payed up, Cricket starts mid-october, I have a new speaker system for the computer, my credit union’s merger is finally done (and it makes me happy!), iStat Pro 1.1 was released and the Mac Pro is almost entirely paid for.

It is slower than death this week. Next week…I rocket into the future.

Justin