| Was Aurora at NAB?
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 | Was Aurora at NAB?
by Danrnw on Apr 20, 2005 at 5:17:51 pm |
I didn't get to go this year so I've followed all the press releases
and coverage I could find. AJA and BlackMagic have all kinds of
PR out there. I see nothing from Aurora. No mention of what their
plans are regarding FCP 5 or multiple audio support or HDV
support etc. In fact if you go to their site, you don't see any new
press releases from them since April 2004.
Does someone know what's going on with them?
Dan
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SInce you've been reading all the press releases you already know that there really wasn't anything major announced at NAB by either Blackmagic or AJA. Blackmacgic has an upgraded version of their Multibridge and that was about it. AJA really had nothing new to announce except for their new driver that they announced two weeks ago. Apple announced FCP 5 which really only included two major new enhancements; HDV and Multicam. To Apples credit the native HDV implementation was a REALLY big effort. The big hits at the show were Motion 2 and Soundtrack Pro.
Aurora did not have a booth at the show, however I did see Mike from Aurora at the show. He told me about a new product they are releasing in a week or so. The new card is called FuseX. This is a modern version of their Fuse card that sold like hot-cakes into the audio world. I'm sure as we get closer to the actual ship date of Tiger and FCP 5 we'll hear more from Aurora about compatibility. From talking to other developers at the show most of them said they only recently received glimpses of the new FCP but were working on compatibility checks, I'm sure Aurora is no different.
All in all there wasn't any earth moving announcements at NAB this year. The real excitement came from Panasonic and their new low cost P2 based HD camera. Very nice camera, and an even nicer price point.
I plan on upgrading our entire facility to Tiger and FCP 5 when it's safe to do so. We've got Aurora Ignter and Pipe cards and AJA Kona2 cards and don't see any hazards ahead.
Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc.
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• | | | | | Re: Was Aurora at NAB?
by Danrnw on Apr 20, 2005 at 11:57:25 pm |
Thanks Michael.
I just got a little nervous being as how I've only had our Pipe Studio
for about two months. I had to convince powers that be here, that
even though they weren't AJA or Blackmagic, Aurora was a smart move.
It looked like the best product at the time and I'm still happy with it.
But if it were to be orphaned and not kept up to date, that would be a
big letdown as well as a bad investment.
As far as announcements at NAB goes, besides FCP 5 with multicam,
(that's a big one at our shop) don't you think the Multibridge
from BlackMagic is pretty cool? One box that does all the transcoding,
acts as your video card like Pipe(or whatever) and gives you high
quality LCD connection for monitoring for HD. Seems like a pretty good package,
and it's both HD and SD.
Dan
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Multibridge will be cool when it finally works. Blackmagic announced the Multibridge at LAST YEARS NAB, but the basic model hasn't had a stellar track record. When Mac's get a PCI Express slot in the G5 this box will really shine. As always I keep my eyes and ears on every product for FCP. You just have to see through the hype and wait for many of these products to flesh out. Many are very promising but over emphasized by false marketing. Phrases like "Words Best" and "Worlds Only" are thrown about a little too often.
The Final Cut Pro world of editing is a fast moving platform. We still own many Avid Meridien systems, but no longer use them. We just rent them out through a broker. I'm so happy to be out of the Avid "bend over" rat race. Our company was taken for a ride one to many times by Avid promises and Avid upgrades. I walked through the Avid booth at NAB and sighed a great sigh of relief knowing that I had washed my hands of all things Avid. The real energy was 25 feet away at the Apple booth. Must be why the Apple booth attracted easily twice the crowds.
Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc.
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• | | | |  | Re: Hey Dan...
by Rich Rubasch on Apr 21, 2005 at 12:14:22 am |
Is your Pipe Pro on a Mac G5 or G4? I did get an email from Aurora that it can run on a G4 dual 1 gig. I really like the "whole package" approach to the Pipe Pro Studio. This would be my first video hardware solution, and although Aurora doesn't seem to have the marketing horsepower (and they're located in Michigan...not exactly a tech mecca) they seem to have a few solid products backed by some respectable COW members.
Just curious on your setup and any caveats to the system.
Thanks for any info.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media
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• | | | | | Re: Hey Dan...
by Danrnw on Apr 21, 2005 at 5:01:12 am |
Rich,
I've got it in a G5 dual 2.5gig. 4 GB ram. I've put together an array
in a MacGurus 4 drive tower with 4, 400gig SATA drives and a
Sonnet Tempo 4+4 PCI card for the interface. It works nice.
I can't remember the last time it crashed.
I've got the Pipe Studio, via it's breakout box,
connected to our patch panel where I patch DigiBeta,
BetaSP and DVCPRO into/out of it. It control all very well.
I use SDI for the DigiBeta and the DVCPRO and use
SDI audio from them as well. Analog audio and
component video from the BetaSP deck.
My workflow is input all footage at the DV level for offline.
Then uprez my final sequence to uncompressed 10 bit SD.
Or if the project is small, just input everything at uncompressed.
There is an issue I need to call them about though.
There is a crushing of blacks at the setup level
I need to call Aurora about. If you put bars through it,
you can see it cut off any Y signal at 7.5. Brute force
clip. Chroma gets through but it cuts off everything else.
You can see this on the bars by looking at those three
stripes at the 5, 7.5 and 10% level. It cuts off the 5% bar.
There should be no cutting off of any signal. This is
not the way the signal processing should work.
I've been operating video equipment in broadcast stations
and the networks since 1972. I've been around the block.
Proc amps should not crush blacks at 7.5%. It's my decision
as an operator to adjust the black (setup) level to where
I want it to be. It also puts a straight horizontal line across
the waveform at 7.5%. What's up with that? Like I said,
I need to call them about it.
Other than that, the card runs great.
Dan
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I don't think it's Aurora's fault, FCP doesn't support superblack levels (certainly when doing effects). Everything below the standard black level gets clipped which is what you're seeing.
Martin Digital Heaven, London UK ________________________________________ Ten Final Cut Plug-ins for just $10 each
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Dan,
I am pretty sure the Pipe Complies with NTSC Standard video. The big problem we used to have was that FCP was sending it's slug as superblack. The Pipe will always output a black signal as 7.5 black because that is the NTSC stard. The digital standard is 0 black, but uses a different scope to measure images. The Digital scope measures video from 0 to 700 units. If you are looking on a waveform monitor, you should correctly see the 7.5 black set-up.
also,
Feel good about your aurora hardware. I have a Pipe Studio and an Igniter X. The igniter line of products has been going strong for over four years (an eternity in cardland) and it has worked through multiple hardware and software upgrades. People who have owned AVIDS know how difficult it is to keep up with software and hardware releases as AVID only qualifies specific versions for specific Machines and even OS's.
This has been a great thread. Hopefully Mike from Arora will explain the set up level better than I did.
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• | | | | | Re: Hey Dan...
by Danrnw on Apr 21, 2005 at 3:57:12 pm |
Martin and David,
I respectfully disagree with your idea of how video processing
should occur. In the transmission phase, (broadcast transmitters)
setup is critical and should be kept above 0% NTSC and hopefully
above 7.5%. Transmitters don't like anything down in the sync
pulse area, including chroma (which alot of you don't even look at
on your waveform monitor and that's a mistake).
In the production phase, if I want to slam blacks to
0 for some kind of effect I'm doing or to add a ridiculous amount
of contrast to a scene, that's my pleasure. It should not be
controlled the the video card.
If you put a tape in a tape machine like a DigiBeta deck
and you play bars, and you adjust the setup level,
you can adjust way below the 0 line if you want without
the video processing of the Sony deck crushing anything.
That's the correct way a proc amp should work.
The same at the 100% level. The processing should not
clip the signal at 100% UNLESS I tell it to. Otherwise you get that
awful look of clipped video when all that was needed was
for the level to be adjusted down a bit. The problem
on the low end is, if Aurora (or FCP if it's the software)
makes me raise the setup level to a place where my
highlights in the shadows are not crushed anymore,
then the contrast goes to crap because I'm now up
at the 10 to 15% level.
This is not an NTSC standards thing or discussion,
this is a video processing discussion. Should the software
and/or the video card allow the operator to make the call
or does the equipment do it without my consent?
And I'll ask again, what's with Aurora putting a black line
across the waveform at 7.5% There has never been a piece of
video equipment, camera, tape machine or proc amp
I've ever used that's done that, including the KONA2 card I had
before the Aurora card.
Dan
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Dan is right about how analog broadcast video works. And Martin is right about how FCP handles data which falls below 16 in the 0-255 8-bit color space. If you capture bars from your deck, and output them, the pluge should remain intact. However, if FCP does work on these frames, it will clip the super-blacks.
David mentioned the Slug being created at 0 IRE during FCP startup. This occured if you have an IgniterX, and you have set the RGB range to 16-235 (Thankfully, we no longer default to this mode.) On the Pipe-family, there is no way to change the RGB range to 16-235, so the 0 IRE slug can't occur.
- Support
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• | | | | | Re: Blacks...
by Danrnw on Apr 21, 2005 at 5:13:53 pm |
I guess most of this discussion goes the way of One Inch type C tape very soon.
If I was monitoring 480i or 1080i or whatever digital flavor, (instead of
looking at it via a composite waveform monitor) and we were
all duplicating and transmitting digital as well, then the setup and the
processing would make more sense because we would all be doing and
monitoring the same thing. Right now, it's all in transition
and it's making our jobs a bit more of a hassle if we want to put out
the best pictures, which I'm sure we all want to do.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I was monitoring my FCP/Aurora
output on an analog component waveform monitor, the baseline of 0
would be where black would be, correct? And then when I
playback that same timeline through the composite (or s) outputs,
your card would add the setup and move everything up to 7.5%,
correct?
Dan
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This has been interesting. I too am sometimes a "six units of black" kind of guy. I will occasionally bring 'em down a bit, even with digi-beta. Now I will be starting off with a BetaSP and a DVCAM deck, but I'm an old tape operator and a tweaker...flatline blacks at 7.5 does kind of scare me. If FCP is doing the clipping, I suppose I'm stuck with it.
Dan, when you digitize DV for offline, and you have a BetaSP source, do you use the Pipe to offline or do you have another DV-Analog convertor? Or does the Pipe Studio have a DV convertor? Or does FCP take the signal coming in on the Pipe PCI card and convert it to DV on the fly for offline?
Thanks for your help,
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media
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• | | | | | Re: Blacks...
by Danrnw on Apr 22, 2005 at 4:36:00 am |
Rick,
Nice to know there are still some of us tape guys out there.
I bet I can best you though....I go back to 2 inch Quad.
RCA TR-4 AND TR-60, TCR-100 cart machines, Ampex 1200
and 2000. Oh, those were the days. Edits made a 1/2 second
after you hit the edit button. Fun stuff. But I digress.
As for waveforms, I hate straight horizontal lines at
either bottom or top, at setup or at 100. Both are usually bad news
for picture quality.
Here's my workflow, in case you can get something out of it:
I input my DVCAM or DVCPRO from a DVCPRO deck that has
SDI and firewire in/out. I use the SDI out into the Pipe Studio
SDI in. I use the embedded SDI audio from the DVCPRO deck
as well. I run all my inputs and outputs through the Pipe Studio.
I set up my project for offline by telling FCP to digitize whatever
comes in via the Pipe Studio to DVCPRO ( I believe that's the codec).
FCP does this in real time and then puts the files on my drives. There is
no need for any external converters other than the Pipe card.
You can tell FCP to digitize to all kinds of codecs. I could use
DVCPRO 50 which looks very good, and do my whole project
that way. It looks kind of like One Inch tape. Not bad at all.
Or I could digitize to 10 bit uncompressed.
(That's what I do when I finish a show and do the uprez.)
The digibeta tapes I input via SDI and the BetaSP I, well actually
if it's a BetaSP source tape I'll play it back in the Digibeta.
Here again that goes into FCP via the Pipe Studio via SDI.
If somebody needs a BetaSP of my sequence,
I'll record to the BetaSP deck via the component outputs
of the DigiBeta. To tell you the truth, I haven't even hooked
up the component outputs of the Pipe Studio yet.
The cables were disconnected from our old AVID and I
haven't needed component outputs yet.
Part of the reason I'm using the DV codec for offline is
I wanted to digitize my footage at the office into the SATA array,
then transfer the data files to a firewire drive and take them
home and connect to my G4 and work on my FCP system
that doesn't have anything but DV ability. I've confirmed that
the files digitized through the Pipe into DV are no problem
when played back on an FCP system that doesn't have the Pipe Studio
or those codecs installed. This way I can pass along anything I
digitize with the office system at the DV level, and hand it off to
a director or producer or audio guy and he can load them up
with his FCP system and rock.
Dan
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• | | | | | Re: Blacks...
by Danrnw on Apr 22, 2005 at 4:57:32 am |
Rich,
I re-read your post.
Below might answer you question better.
I'd input your DVCAM footage via the firewire cable.
If you are doing a DV project, tell FCP to digitize with the DV-DVCPRO
codec. If you are doing a 10 bit uncompressed project,
(where you are probably using BetaSP footage as well)
tell FCP to digitize the DVCAM footage at 10 bit uncompressed
and do the same with your BetaSP footage, then they match
in the timeline. You don't gain any picture quality by
digitizing DV with an uncompressed codec, you just use
lots of disk space. But you need all your footage to be
the same codec to play back in the timeline without rendering.
Note that you should have a disk array for uncompressed
digitizing and playback.
that is all,
dan
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Great info...that's what I thought. I'm definately going to do more research before buying, but the Pipe Studio is still top of the list.
BTW, I have a four drive Seagate Cheetah 73 gig RAID on the ATTO UL3D 2 channel card. It plays back everything.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media
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• | | | |  | Re: Blacks...
by Ron on Apr 23, 2005 at 3:33:21 am |
Does PipeStudio support a "video pass-through" feature. In other words, if I'm editing in another codec, can I play the sequence out of the PipeStudios' outputs.
I'm upgrading from a Cinewave which currently has multicodec support and video out of any codec in RT...I can play non-Cinewave sequences through Cinewave if needed. As we all know, Cinewave is dying a slow death, so my research into a new card for Tiger continues.
Thanks
Ron
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• | | | | | Re: Blacks...
by Danrnw on Apr 23, 2005 at 5:27:03 am |
Not quite sure what you are asking about playthrough.
You can't play mixed codecs in the same sequence without
rendering the one that was not the sequence setting.
But that's true of all the video cards except, as you know
the Cinewave.
As far as sequences go, you can easily play a sequence that is
DV, then click on a tab with a sequence that's uncompressed
and work on that one and see it on your broadcast monitor
just the same. Here again, I'm not sure it that's what you mean.
I had the KONA2 card previous to the Pipe Studio and I had
digitized hours of footage to 10 bit uncompressed SD
with it, then I changed cards to the Pipe Studio and all the
footage played just fine. Not sure if that's your question...
but there seems to be this mis conception out there that
these codecs don't run on different cards and my experience
is they do work. Blackmagic footage plays on the Pipe,
AJA footage plays on the Pipe. I'm betting it's the other
way around as well. It's all Quicktime. I'm only speaking
from my experience though. Ask AJA/Aurora/Blackmagic
to see if I'm speaking correctly or not.
dan
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• | | | | | Re: Blacks...
by Ron on Apr 23, 2005 at 12:17:40 pm |
[Danrnw] "Not quite sure what you are asking about playthrough."
Most cards up until recently would not allow you to view footage on an NTSC monitor unless its using its own codec (ie: Targa codec plays through Cinewave hardware, Blackmagic codec plays through Decklink hardware, BUT DV clips/codec can not play through 3rd party hardware only via firewire).
So my question is: If I'm working with DVCPRO footage/codec, and a DVCPRO sequence, can I view it through the Pipe hardware on an NTSC monitor? Or must you only use Aurora compatible codecs to view clips out?
[Danrnw] "As far as sequences go, you can easily play a sequence that is
DV, then click on a tab with a sequence that's uncompressed
and work on that one and see it on your broadcast monitor
just the same."
I think this almost answers my question. So if the sequence is DV, DVCPRO, or anything other than Aurora, can I go to the view menu and select the option to play clips through the Pipe hardware out to the NTSC?
The REASON I ask: Sometimes you work with DV footage alone (offline for example). To save drive space you don't want to capture DV footage to an uncompressed codec, making the file 5 times larger than it needs to be. But when you do that, you can't play the clips or the sequence to an NTSC monitor. Outside of multicodec support, Cinewave added this feature in version 4 which was praised by everyone, because now you could play DV clip outside of the firewire world.
Hope I explained it a little better.
Thanks for your help.
Ron
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• | | | | | Re: Blacks...
by Danrnw on Apr 23, 2005 at 2:46:20 pm |
You can play DV footage from the timeline through to your broadcast
monitor, absolutely. That's the way I do all my offline sequences.
I load in at the DV level and do most all my work including
effects, titles and even some color correction. When the show is
locked, I uprez and all this stuff follows to the newly uprezzed 10 bit
uncompressed footage and sequence.
Like I said previously, whether ALL codecs from EVERYONE plays,
I don't know. I DO know that KONA AJA 10 bit uncompressed
plays on Aurora and so does the footage I captured at DV
when that card was installed. Speaking of DV, these codecs have to be
to the standard of DV video to work. You can't just make a codec
willy nilly and call it DV. DV is a video standard. But you CAN
made a codec that supposedly compresses and encodes to the
DV standard better than someone elses. But that doesn't change the
fact that it's still DV. You can't call it that if it isn't. So what I mean is,
if it's real DV footage in a Quicktime cover, no matter which card you used
to bring it into FCP or even if you just bring it in via firewire,
it should play in the timeline and out the Aurora card to your monitor.
Please, someone from Aurora or anyone who knows if I am
incorrect, please chirp up. Or a confirmation would also be nice :)
dan
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DV movies are totally compatible regardless of Mac capture hardware, since everyone uses the same Apple DV codec. 10 bit uncompressed is also compatible between AJA/Aurora/Cinewave/Decklink because they either use Apple's codec or their own (which is the same data format).
However...the Cinewave 8 bit uncompressed codec is not compatible with the 8 bit Apple uncompressed codec but Blackmagic Design do have the option of a Cinewave compatible 8 bit codec which can be used in a non-Cinewave system...it all gets a bit messy really!
Martin Digital Heaven, London UK ________________________________________ Ten Final Cut Plug-ins for just $10 each
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This is absolutely right, Ron. In fact the other capture cards could do it before Cinewave did - Decklink could do DV timeline playback to SDI with FCP3.
Martin Digital Heaven, London UK ________________________________________ Ten Final Cut Plug-ins for just $10 each
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• | | | | | Re: Blacks...
by Ron on Apr 23, 2005 at 4:11:41 pm |
Thanks all.... this helps!
It seems like such a minor thing, but its huge from a workflow standpoint.
Ron
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Stay tuned for a new driver release from Aurora for all their cards. It will have a new feature that falls in line with the last half of this thread. It has a very cool feature that many people will appreciate.
Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc.
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• | | | |  | Re: Blacks...
by John Pale on Apr 25, 2005 at 3:02:03 pm |
You can work with DV, Apple Uncompressed (8 and 10 bit), DV 50, Blackmagic Uncompressed (8 and 10 bit) with the Pipe..M-JPEG and P-JPEG dont work particularly well.
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