Which NLE/compositor to go for?...

Hey Jimmybee.

The Quantel EQ or Avid DS should do the job. Not really a fan of discreet Smoke. Do watch out for the sales people trying to blind you - i.e. there isn't really a big enough difference on uncompressed HD and 2K to spend an additional

I

Hey Jimmybee.

I agree, there is nothing like working with a real-time system - as long as you don't have to pay your clients to use it ;-) sorry, but I'm rather dis-illusioned with the London market. I'm sure you've followed the recent yearly broadcast survey and general comments about rate-dumping. This is a real killer if you are the "happy" owner of a

Just also noticed that the HD Smoke (look at the UK site) doesn't I/O full 4:4:4 video, but does play it back...in what situation would you want to do that?!? You'd still need to play in/out the 4:4:4 footage from somewhere!

It seems odd, because a

Jimmybee,

Keep in mind with workflows going data-centric and content being passed around via firewire and other methods one doesn't need an SR deck to reap the rewards of 4:4:4. There are several I/O Boards that will support it, some better than others and many software packages that will do the same. We have many clients working with 4:4:4 with the goal to not buy SRs.

With AJA hardware it's easy to work 4:4:4 and output to 4:2:2 or even downconvert to SD, all on the fly. I would take Mads advice and stick to 4:2:2 but don't put yourself out of the game by not looking at what you can do in 4:4:4. I can say here in the states many of the top companies are requiring "The SR format" for shows and we see 4:4:4 as part of the norm in workflows.

4:4:4 is not an inexpensive venture but not as far out there as you might think. Mads has the rest correct about monitors and scopes, a must for a solid professional production.

Best of luck,
Ramona

Ramona Howard
SpectSoft, LLC
593 Hi-Tech Parkway Suite B
Oakdale, CA 95361
Phone: 209.847.7812 extension 104
Fax: 209.847.7859
http://www.spectsoft.com

RaveHD - Changing the way you think about HD

As a Smoke editor for 2 years in a Final Cut facility, I highly recommend staying away from the Autodesk lineup, unless you're planning to create an entirely Autodesk facility... Smoke doesn't play well with others. It also doesn't compress video well...You need third party soft/hardware to do so... What it does, it does well... Edit uncompressed video. It has bells and whistles you won't see in Final Cut and Co... but, I think most people can do without...

Well, here's the thing with Smoke... Getting files to and from the system without capturing/recapturing the data from tape. And when it does, to be able to handle advanced effects/transitions laid into the timeline from a FCP editor. The environment I was in has 4 Final Cut systems (Aja HD) where everything is shot on HDCAM. The idea was to have the Smoke system act as the finisher. We tried EVERYTHING... Automatic Duck, the XML thing, EDLs, you name it... The only thing that really worked without constant errors was the EDL thing, but slowed down the workflow so much, the Smoke ended up becoming a bastard stepchild with no work... Pissing off the owner of the company in the process. We got guys (And girls) from Autodesk (Discreet) to come down from Santa Monica to San Diego in the hopes they could help us make all of the hardware talk to each other... It never truly worked. We were told we needed to buy a separate computer from Autodesk to act as an intermediate file transfer system... At a cost of $15,000. The CEO then started shaking and turned all shades of red and purple. As it is, that Smoke system is still sitting there with little to no work.
It's not that the Smoke (Or any other Discreet/Autodesk hardware) system is a bad system... On the contrary, it is a top of the line editing/finishing system. The problem is, really, all of the other hardware/software companies. Most of that gear is designed with a penny-pinching end user in mind, professionally speaking. The price tags alone reflect that. Internally, the Autodesk hardware uses an entirely different method of data throughput than do the other systems. It is uncompressed, and hasn't changed much since the mid to late 90s or so... There has been no need... The advancements in technology these days have mostly been with compression technology and faster hardware... Two issues that are meaningless to Smoke, for the most part. The XML issue has been kicked around for a couple of years, and MAN OH MAN did I wish it would work.. Flawlessly... But, it's just not there yet.
Bottom line is, if all you can afford is a Smoke editor, then you've got to pretty much start and finish your project on it... Or else, have a dedicated array of hardware specifically put in place that allows for a better cross platform transfer and throughput of data. But, it'll cost you... I had much better luck transferring files between an Avid Adrenaline HD and the FCP than the Autodesk transfer, mostly because although they were different platforms, they understood each others' compression technologies. I know Final Cut makes a finishing system, I played with it a bit, I thought the hardware interface option you can buy as an add-on worked pretty well, but I only played with it for 1/2 hour or so...

Hi Syd/Mody,

Yes - Mistika, or Jaleo (?) is something our MD looked at a little while ago...it looks very capable, but like you say - it's not very well known and some (the majority of the sheep-like) clients fear the unknown and we've got enough on our plate without having to convince people our new system really does cut it..and the other thing is the fact it is a small company and the worry that they may go bust and all support is lost does play a factor. I know, it's a catch 22 - people need to give them a chance so they can grow and become stronger, but then in these cut-throat times no one wants to take the risk..including us I'm afraid. Out of interest - how well does it play with FCP/Avids, etc compared other high-end finishers?

Syd - that's an interesting point you've brought up, something I would be asking the company who suggested our facility overhaul configuration (A Mac/software + Smoke + FCP + XSAN/RAID setup) The whole point of all my questions is to try to help decide on a whole workflow that plays nice together.

Tell me - have you any experience with the Smoke 2007 HD? Apparently its got some fairly hefty integration improvements...especially with XML. Any thoughts?



*Production Studio Premium / *Combustion 3
-------------------------------------
Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

Hi Guys,

The 'do they want to pay more for HD' thing is difficult...some of our clients haven't specified HD as a *need* but have asked when we will be offering it. Some clients have just taken their HD/2k work elsewhere, which begs the question - will they take the rest elsewhere aswell for convenience? Not something I personally would want to risk. We may have to raise rates a touch (though I am fairly confident, not as high as our competitors) but I think the hike in quality, speed and flexibility will be worth the slight raise. I am also fairly sure some of the HD/higher budget work will come back when we can compete on a technological level, aswell as attracting new work. I think the skills and creativity of our team far outweighs the bells & whistles offered by some of our peers.

As far as requests go - Smoke has been mentioned/compared/suggested by one of our major clients for the last couple of years..but they have stuck with us for all but the completely neccessary work that would go to such a system..but I worry our grip may slip as technology moves on and we don't!

Scary times like I said before...but I'd rather the upheaval and extra hours/stress, than floating along to the end of the line! I think the time is now and I think the boss is starting to read off the same page.

I just want the best argument/suggestions & knowledge as poss before going: "right, this is what we need to do"

*Production Studio Premium / *Combustion 3
-------------------------------------
Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

Strangely enough the error thing doesn't seem to have come up on the BMD forum. If the errors are so bad that shows aren't passing QC you think it might have merited a passing mention!

Hey Chris.

I don't mind answering this on the list. In all fairness I did make a fairly heavy statement.

First of all, can I just apologise for getting too excited with my "Zeros & commas" - what was actually in the end published was a Jitter test using several different HD sources, and the one I referred to showed: 4,200 (ps)

I did talk directly with a person present at the test, and the final comments can be found on page 67 in Showreel Magazine issue 9 autumn 2005.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please note that the test is now over a year old, and that in both HD and manufacturing terms this is a considerable time to correct Hard & Software issues - if the specific manufacturer decide to listen that is. Maybe its time for another test?

If you want to read it, I think a google search for:
showreel & "issue 9" & barrie & pdf
should do the trick ;-)
Please make sure to read the authors comments!



All the Best
Mads
London

Mac Million Ltd. - HD Production & Editing

Hey JimmyBee.

[jimmybee500] "My only reservation for using the Axio for our main editor is I'm afraid...Premiere! I'm sure it's pretty capable, but it's compositing and fx capabilities seem to be lacking."

Well, Axio is a nice suite and you have the whole Adobe integration. It could be fun to put an Axio up against a Smoke... If you haven't tried it, you should take a ride on a PPro 2.0 platform - it has more funtionality than our (now old)

'Wow Lightworks still lives'

http://www.lwks.com/

Lightworks sounds intriguing...is there any other info on the web about their products? The website is a bit on the thin side!

Premiere has some very good features, especially the client approval thing - however it's something we'd never use as pretty much all our work is done with the client sat next to us. I've had a bit of a play with PPro2 that came with my Production Studio and whilst it is very functional I don't think our editor would really get on with it's UI and way of working, plus the omission of any real VFX/Compositing tools puts it behind the pack for us a little too. Thanks for the info though.

The almost RT workflow of the PPro2/Axio HD does sound enticing though..similar to the timemagic background on the fly rendering that the eQ/iQ has, but at a fraction of the price. I wonder if Smoke with this 'burn' thing would minimise waiting for renders? Anyone had experience of burn? In the meantime I might get our editor to have a play with PPro2 and see if it's a defo no-go, but I'm guessing it probably is.

Thanks again for your continued input guys. The COW has become my Mecca of late!

Thanks for the info BKM. So are there things in Smoke that don't have to render? (effects/transitions/keys,etc. I mean) Or is it that everything has to render, but it just doesn't take very long?

Tell me, on the basis that the majority of our work is client attended 30" TVCs do you think we're likely to need Burn? If so, what exactly is it/how does it work and do you know roughly how much extra it is on top of a basic Smoke HD?

Sounds good, much faster than our editbox - that needs to render pretty much EVERYTHING! and then it's like 1 frame takes 2-5secs!

I guess you're right - see how it goes without Burn. We'd be mainly SD to begin with anyway, until HD commercial broadcast really takes off in the UK, so it should be lightning fast until then. So Burn is essentially like Backburner for Combustion, or render engine for AE? You buy a fast PC and pop this on it and network it up to the Smoke? Sounds doable after the main purchase.

I've sent our editor alink to all the Smoke tutorials/demos on their site, so next step - demos! Exciting times!!...

Thanks for the info.

Just to give you an idea of render times. I was working on a few HD scenes this week. The big one was 1080p and 10secs long. Starts in tight on a monitor, pulls back to reveal a bank of 6 monitors with a guy sitting in front of them. Shot poorly (of course). Client wanted me to track in some scenes into the monitors. My final DVE had 10 layers, all at 1080p, each having a key, a matte, and some with Bicubics, and the final render took 12 mins. This is on an original SD Linux box. Of course my upgraded box arrives tomorrow after the job is done...

moody glasgow
smoke artist / editor

UPDATE

Just got our 2K smoke up and running yesterday. Its not one of the new HP systems, its a IBM with 2 dual core Opterons in it.

First thing I tried was restoring that HD scene and rerendering. Wow. Render time was cut in half.


moody glasgow
smoke artist / editor

Jimmy,

For your VFX station you could also check out 1Beyond. I ghet e-mail shots from the and I seem to remember the last one featured a 2x Quad core rig It looked, on paper at least, absolutely stonking!. Dunno if they have a UK distributor though

best

Angus