Apple - Final Cut Pro, Technology No comments yet

Digital Transfer and Archiving services available.

By on October 14th, 2011

Biscardi Creative Media has always offered digital transfer services, format conversion and archiving, but as technology keeps propelling us towards a tapeless future, we thought it would be a good time to remind everyone of what we can do for you.

First off if you’re working on a project with the need to ingest tape formats but don’t have the machines, we’ll gladly capture the footage to your format of choice and deliver the files and tapes back to you.

If you have a library or even just a couple of tapes sitting around, you’ll want to get them transferred to digital formats in the near future. Sure the tapes themselves might be stable and will be able to sit on your shelf for many more years to come, but the machines won’t last forever. These are precision made machines and depending on the formats, the parts and engineers are becoming fewer and further between. So it’s a good idea to get these tapes transferred over to a digital format as soon as possible.

When we do a digital transfer, we also include a reduced size file (proxy) with timecode window burn to allow you to review the materials on practically any computer. We can also provide copies on DVD or BluRay disc.

In addition, we can convert your footage to HD during the transfer. Since we’re transferring it anyway, we can convert the footage, in realtime, to 720p or 1080 HD during the process. It’s a minimal charge to convert the footage during the transfer.

BCM also offers full archive services including the maintaining of your footage in our library, full cataloging of the footage and retrieval / distribution of your footage to third parties as needed.

Here at BCM we have the machines in house to transfer:

DV

DVCAM

DV50

HDV

DVCPro HD

Beta

BetaSP

DigiBeta

BetaSX

Beta IMX

We can bring in the machines to transfer 3/4″, HDCAM and D5 or other formats on an as need basis. Rental rates will apply.

Rates are set by the time length of each tape captured, not by the format. So a 60 minute DV transfer is the same price as a 60 minute HDCAM transfer. It’s all digital files to us so the format is irrelevant. As noted above, rental rates will apply to those formats we do not already have in house.

In addition, rates depend on whether you require the footage to be fully logged prior to capture or just capturing entire tapes, head to tail, as one file.

Feel free to contact Randy to discuss your project and we’ll be happy to walk you through the process. randy at biscardicreative dot com or call us at 770 271 3427.

 

 

Apple, Random Thoughts No comments yet

Goodbye to the man who Thought Different

By on October 8th, 2011

I decided to wait a few days before putting my thoughts down about the passing of Steve Jobs. So much has been written about this man by writers who are much more eloquent than I’ll ever be. But here goes…..

Steve is one someone that future generations will never know like we did but will benefit greatly from what he began. He’s one of those extremely rare human beings that not only shaped world communications and consumer electronics, but he lived in my lifetime. Steve Jobs is not someone I need to read about in a textbook or a biography. Along with those of you of a certain age, I lived through the entire evolution of Steve and Woz in the garage to 1984 to NeXT to Pixar to iMac and all the way through the iPad.

Two guys working in a garage come up with a computer to sit on a desktop, they got it. One man who sees an HP prototype of this thing called a mouse with a GUI interface and gets it. A stubborn man who is forced out of the company he created but then finds Pixar and gets it. The stubborn man who comes back to the company he created an immediately slims down the product to concentrate on making the absolute best personal electronics the world has seen. He totally got it like no one else of our generation.

For the man who revolutionized the home computer, Steve proved he was simply the master at creating some of the most simple and technologically advanced consumer electronics. He brought simplicity and style to what was once the realm of bulky, boxy products from the “major electronics” manufacturers.

Not only design, but connectivity. The products are beautiful, but Steve made sure they could all talk to each other and work together, as seamlessly as possible. We all know that Steve implored the world to “Think Different” but he also introduced us to “It Just Works.” As in, we have done all the hard work in the background so all you have to do is touch the screen.

It’s because of Apple that many many of us in the Film and Video production industry, especially the Post Production, have had the opportunity to have successful careers. The influence of the company drove down the introductory costs for people like me to start our own companies and “level the playing field.” For that many of us will be forever grateful.

The saddest part of Steve’s passing is that the world was denied another 20 years or more of what might have been. I wondered last night as we were driving to dinner what would have been Steve’s influence as the world moves to electric and alternative fuel cars? Would he have had an impact on the design of an electric car, possibly with Apple as an electronic partner? It would have been fun to see another 20 years or so of “what’s next” from someone who quite simply saw the world completely differently from the rest of us.

56 is simply too young, not only for Steve, but for all who are taken from us too young from cancer. There’s no more I can say than Thank You.

Visit the American Cancer Society website to learn more about what you can do to help move research forward.

 

 

Technology No comments yet

32TB of RAIDs for sale

By on September 30th, 2011

UPDATED 12/31/2011 - 16TB UNIT SOLD.

As many of you know we’ve recently upgraded our main SAN to a 48TB Small Tree ST RAID II thus freeing up some of our older units.

Obviously, these have been very well cared for in a Post Production machine room environment and have performed excellently for us in both RAID 0 and RAID 5 modes. Most recently we’ve run them all in RAID 5, we just don’t need them anymore so hopefully they can help you out.

We have three units available:

Maxx Digital Silver 8TB

Maxx Digital Black 8TB

Maxx Digital Rack Mountable 16TB - SOLD

Please note that these units will be sold “As Is” with no warranty implied. All support will have to come directly through the original manufacturer, Maxx Digital.

For purchase information on any of these units, please contact our Production Manager, Randy Lockey at 770-271-3427. Thanks!

 

UNIT 1 - MAXX DIGITAL SILVER 8TB

Features Eight - 1TB drives and gives you about 6.4 TB of usable storage in RAID 5 mode. Top speed is around 500MB/sec. We used this in direct attach mode to an ATTO R380 SAS card inside a Mac Pro. I believe this was called the EVO when it came out.

The unit will include the Power Cord and two SAS cables. Note that the connections on the unit itself are the old style screw in connectors, but the other end is the standard SAS slide in connectors. This unit was used primarily in the production of our weekly series, “Assignment Earth.”

Price: $1500 + Shipping. Shipping costs will depend on distance and type of delivery method.

Payment: Checks and Credit Cards accepted. A 4% Service Charge will be added for credit card payment.


UNIT 2 - MAXX DIGITAL BLACK 8TB

Features Eight - 1TB drives and gives you about 6.4 TB of usable storage in RAID 5 mode. Top speed is around 500MB/sec. We used this in direct attach mode to an ATTO R380 SAS card inside a Mac Pro. I believe this was called the EVO when it came out.

The unit will include the Power Cord and two SAS cables. Note that the connections on the unit itself are the old style screw in connectors, but the other end is the standard SAS slide in connectors. This unit was used primarily in the production of Food Network’s “Good Eats” and our first documentary “Foul Water, Fiery Serpent.”

Price: $1500 + Shipping. Shipping costs will depend on distance and type of delivery method.

Payment: Checks and Credit Cards accepted. A 4% Service Charge will be added for credit card payment.

 

UNIT 3 - MAXX DIGITAL RACK MOUNTABLE 16TB EXPANDO CHASSIS - SOLD

Features Sixteen - 1TB drives and gives you about 12 to 13 TB of usable storage in RAID 5 mode. Top speed is around 550 - 600MB/sec. We used this as part of our original SAN. In our configuration, this unit was direct attached to our main SAN computer with a second 16TB RAID daisy chained to this unit. You can see there are three SAS ports on the rear allowing for the daisy chain operation.

The unit will include two Power Cords and one SAS cable. This unit was used in a myriad of broadcast and internet based productions.

Price: $4000 + Shipping. Shipping costs will depend on distance and type of delivery method.

Payment: Checks and Credit Cards accepted. A 4% Service Charge will be added for credit card payment.

 

Adobe Premiere, Random Thoughts, Technology No comments yet

Wes Plate joining Adobe a very big move

By on September 28th, 2011

By now you’ve heard that Wes Plate has joined the Adobe Product Marketing Team. For those who might not know exactly who this guy is, he’s been “the guy” in the industry for years who has made various production tools talk to each other. And not just a simple, “move parts of my projects into something else,” but help the apps talk to each other in a way that brought about very meaningful creative collaborations between artists no matter how what they used.

For instance, when I doing all the HD Post for the Food Network’s “Good Eats,” the shows were first cut in Alton Brown’s facility on his Avid system and then we used the Automatic Duck converter to bring the edits into my Final Cut Pro system. This was an almost seamless transfer between the two competing NLEs that allowed Alton’s editor to continue using her NLE of choice and for me to use my NLE of choice, but to work together. The only things I really had to re-create were the graphics and the transitions and of course I re-did the entire color grading for HD.

So now Adobe snags Wes to join their team right after they snagged IRIDAS and their SpeedGrade color grading tool. I personally thing grabbing Wes is an even bigger grab for the company.

If you have used the Adobe CS 5 suite (or 5.5) you know how incredible the dynamic link option is between Premiere Pro and After Effects. Someone like Wes can bring dynamic link to a whole new level. Imagine that dynamic link type of performance between all of the apps essentially make Premiere Pro the render engine for the entire suite. So you would create your base edit in Premiere Pro and then dynamic link your material out to all the other elements of the suite but do your final renders back in Premiere Pro.

In particular, I’m hoping Wes joining the team could mean that we’ll see a dynamic link workflow for SpeedGrade. The Send To feature in Final Cut Pro was sweet for color grading, but to keep going back and forth without committing to a final render until everything is approved could be very sweet.

Also, I would expect very nice tight integration with external apps like ProTools. And as Adobe has already done on their own with the FCP XML reader, Wes will most likely create easier paths for external apps to work with Adobe’s suite.

In other words, you see Adobe not only purchasing incredible apps to make their incredible Creative Suite even better, the addition of Wes Plate also signals the company’s willingness to create bridges around their suite rather than walls. Just another of the great moves Adobe has been making these past few months.

 

Apple, Apple - Color, Apple - Final Cut Pro 1 comment

Final Cut Pro 10: “There’s a Third Party App for That!”

By on September 23rd, 2011

There a great new article on Post Magazine’s website which you should read in its entirety. There’s some interesting statements in there about Apple’s thinking as they released and are now updating the software. Here are some of my takeaways from the article:

Apple, for its part, wants it known that they are interested in providing a tool for the pro community and feel this 10.1 release starts to do just that…. says Richard Townhill. “We really are committed to this marketplace, and we really want the professional customer to continue to use Final Cut Pro as they’ve always done.”

Ok, first off, the 10.0.1 release STARTS to provide a tool for the pro community? Isn’t this the tool that was design for professionals by professionals and introduced at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in April 2011 as the new professional video editing tool? You don’t START to provide professional features with your .0.1 release. You START by providing a very professional base tool for the professional editor when you release your newest product built on an 11 year heritage.

Second, we absolutely cannot use Final Cut Pro as we’ve always done. We cannot move old projects forward, we cannot do broadcast quality monitoring and there are multiple other things we simply cannot do. The reason we cannot do these things is because of the way Apple wrote the application.

 

On completely re-writing the app as FCP X: They say, “in order to take full advantage of the Mac hardware, we needed to completely re-write Final Cut.”

Absolutely they did, which is what Adobe has had to do and what Avid is doing now. But they are both doing this in a way that doesn’t disrupt the tried and true workflows used by thousands of editors around the world. At the same time, both application have either already added tremendous metadata tools, search and find tools and many other things that you expect as a software matures and moves forward.

So yes, re-writing the application from the ground up was great. Alienating much of your user base with this new tool, not so good.

 

But can you import XMLs of FCP 7 projects into FCP X? No. “The formats are actually different, so this is a laws of physics sort of problem.

He goes on to describe how it will just be physically impossible to move an FCP 7 or earlier project forward into FCP X. It sounds like Sequences will be able to move forward but not entire project structures. That’s a huge problem for me and many others. If we have to revise a project, especially long form projects we want the entire project structure as it was in the original. That’s easily accomplished in Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5 so I’ll might as well move the project into that app and work in the 64 bit architecture and I can add a ton of metadata tags to the material as I work. That moves the project, intact, forward and it allows me to add more information for footage retrieval in the future.

That’s the best of both worlds.

 

While Townhill believes “there is fairly good color grading in FCP X now that covers needs of most generalized editorial process,” he recognizes that some pros are looking for higher-end grading tools.

Yeah, we’re looking for a really good high end tool that goes by the name of Apple Color. You guys hear of it? It used to be around there somewhere.

 

At one point in the article Townhill notes that Apple is responding to feedback and changing the application quickly to meet the demands of the Post community. The strange thing to me is that Apple was given much of the same feedback during the beta testing and it was roundly ignored. Pages upon pages of information was fed to Apple with pretty much everything that has been said publicly since the application was released. In all cases, Apple ignored the suggestions moving ahead with the product as they developed it. NOW that there’s a tremendous outcry, NOW Apple is “responding to the Post Production community.” Maybe if they had responded to the people who were testing the product, they could have avoided this entire fiasco.

 

So it looks to me like Apple’s original plan was to just release FCP X as a prosumer product that really didn’t need the full fledged Post Production community blessing because there are millions of consumers out there and only a couple hundred thousand Post Pros. If it was truly aimed at the pros, then Apple would have listened to the pros during beta testing about all the things that were badly missing from the app.

But with all the subsequent negative press on the product, Apple is desperately trying to backtrack and figure out how to add the extremely basic functions that it left out by “skating where the puck is going.” (read the article to understand)

If Apple was truly dedicated to the professional editing community they would have taken the two to three years to deliver something that built upon their 11 year legacy. I just see what they’re doing now as creating a whole box of band-aids to make the product cobble along and sort of kind of do what the product has done for the past 4 years at least. Apple is admittedly leaning heavily on third party vendors to fill in what they call gaps, what I call chasms in the software.

I think the new slogan for Final Cut Pro X will be “There’s a third party app for that!”

Adobe Premiere, Apple, Apple - Final Cut Pro, Avid, Technology No comments yet

Did Everything Change In Post? - My latest article

By on September 22nd, 2011

CreativeCow.net has published my latest article about where the Post Production industry stands today. It’s been a few months since the Final Cut Pro 10 roll-out and we now have 1 update from Apple. So where are we today?

Did Everything Change In Post? - a new article from CreativeCow.

Random Thoughts No comments yet

Pilots N Paws leads one of the largest animal rescues in the U.S.

By on September 18th, 2011

A few months ago, I became a member of the Board of Directors for an incredible animal rescue group, Pilots N Paws. The group facilitates animal rescue flights from pretty much anywhere to pretty much anywhere in the United States for animals who need a good loving home. Yesterday Pilots N Paws staged their annual FlyAway event and Rebecca and I were fortunate to be close enough that we could go and be a volunteer. It was truly a day I will never forget. These pilots, the shelters, the foster parents and my fellow members of the Board are some of the most amazing people I’ve had the pleasure of being associated with. What follows is the official press release along with some of my photos.

130 DOGS FLOWN OUT OF SOUTH CAROLINA TODAY IN ONE OF THE LARGEST ANIMAL RESCUES IN U.S. HISTORY

Florence, S.C. – Saturday morning, Sept. 17, at 6:30am, 130 dogs were delivered by their rescuers to 35 pilots and their planes waiting on the tarmac of the Florence Regional Airport. Shortly thereafter, they were in the air, heading to no-kill shelters around the United States. The mass rescue was organized by the national charity, Pilots N Paws, and was one of the biggest in U.S. history. The Memorial Rescue Flight was dedicated to the “Chesterfield 22” - 22 dogs needlessly shot to death in Chesterfield, South Carolina in March.

Pilots N Paws is a national program that gives animals a second chance one flight at a time. This unique program brings together planes, pilots and shelters to rescue and transport dogs (and other animals) from overcrowded shelters, relocating them to organizations committed to finding them homes.

Of the thousands of rescue flights Pilots N Paws has made since its inception, the 3rd Annual Awareness Rescue Flight is an acute reminder of why Pilots N Paws exists. In March of this year, Deborah Farhi, a volunteer with the Chesterfield County Animal Shelter in South Carolina, noticed many of the dogs in the shelter were missing. Upon questioning, shelter volunteers accused four local animal control officers of shooting 22 of the dogs in their care to death instead of euthanizing them through the approved, humane methods.

Shortly thereafter, Farhi uncovered 2 of these dogs, each shot in the head, from a shallow landfill across the street from the shelter. Sheriff Sam Parker, who oversees animal control, put all four officers on leave, and within weeks the state attorney general asked the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to begin investigating the allegations. Today, the case against Chesterfield County is still under investigation.

To honor the 22 animals who lost their lives in March, this year’s Memorial Rescue Flights brought together 50 pilots and their planes to save at least 130 dogs from several South Carolina counties, including Chesterfield. Other volunteer pilots across the country joined in the event by making a memorial rescue flight in their region of the country.

The rescue flights started at 8:00am at the Florence Regional Airport in South Carolina. Shelters from Chesterfield, Greenville, Spartanburg, Marlboro, Marion, Darlington, and Florence, South Carolina delivered dogs to the airport for flights to their new homes.

Pilots and Dogs landed at airports in Warrenton, VA, West Point, VA, Caldwell, NJ, Cochran, GA, Tampa, FL, Lakeland, FL, West Palm Beach, FL, and Naples, FL.

Two dedicated sponsors, Subaru and Petmate helped make today’s event possible.

For more information about the 3rd Annual Pilots N Paws Awareness Rescue Flights, please contact volunteer Jennifer Skiff at [email protected], (207) 266-2282.

About Pilots N Paws:
Since the program began in February 2008, pilots have donated their time, planes and fuel to fly thousands of dogs from shelters where they faced certain death due to overcrowded shelters and pet overpopulation due to lack of pet sterilization. Some areas of the country are more likely to have overcrowded shelters and limited adoption opportunities. At www.pilotsnpaws.org, pilots can learn about animals in need and work directly with shelters and rescue groups to coordinate transportation. More than 7,000 shelters and rescues, along with 2,000 volunteer pilots are registered on the site.

Adobe Premiere 2 comments

Transitioning: BIG Premiere Pro Interlace “Gotcha!” on Export

By on September 13th, 2011

Well, I got burned by a very large “gotcha” when exporting a project for color grading in Apple Color.

The project was a 10 minute story for a broadcast series, all shot P2, 1080i / 29.97. I edited in an AJA 1080i / 29.97 timeline with all the native material. At the end of the edit, I exported a Self Contained ProRes Quicktime to be sliced up and sent into Color. The Export looked correct in Color, I did the color grade, rendered brought it back and it looked all wrong. Like it was 24p stutter or something. I got burned by an extra step in the export process I didn’t think I needed.

Ok, here’s the export dialogue from Adobe Premiere Pro as I had it originally. Everything looks correct. Codec is ProRes 422, Frame Size is correct, Upper Field First is correct and Square Pixels is correct.

So I’m scratching my head on what in the world has gone wrong here. Why are my Color renders all looking like they are interlaced rendered to progressive?

See that button under Apple ProRes 422 that says “Codec Settings?” That’s the answer.

I have to check Interlaced AGAIN in the Codec settings to tell Premiere Pro to output the file correctly. I’m not sure why we have to tell it to interlace twice, but we do.

So I had to re-export the original file, slice it up again and send it through Color again. At least I could re-use all of my grades so that wasn’t a problem and it turned out not to be too much time lost.

Needless to say I have now saved a custom preset with BOTH interlace options set to Upper Field. Now YOU know and it doesn’t have to happen to you. :)

 

Adobe Premiere, Apple, Apple - Final Cut Pro, Technology 31 comments

Transitioning: FCP to Premiere Pro “Gotchas” Part 1

By on September 11th, 2011

At the urging of a friend, I got back to work on these Transitioning videos as he is now jumping into the Adobe Premiere Pro application.

As I’ve noted in my blogs, for the Final Cut Pro editor migrating over to Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5, the transition really could not be much easier. I often refer to PPro as “Final Cut Pro 8″ because it feels like the natural progression from FCP 7.

But there are a few quirks within the application that will drive you absolutely bonkers. So before you pull your hair out and start swearing up a blue streak, here’s a few of the “gotchas” that got me and how to avoid them.

One great thing about Adobe is that they ARE listening to feedback. So if you would like to offer input as Adobe prepares CS6, be sure to go to their website and give info on their feedback page.

And if you really want to learn about Adobe Premiere Pro, be sure to pick up this book by my buddies Richard, Robbie and Jeff!

Adobe Premiere, Apple - Color, Avid, DaVinci - Resolve, Technology No comments yet

Introducing the Tangent Design Element Control Surface

By on September 8th, 2011

UPDATED WITH ACTUAL PHOTOGRAPHS AT THE BOTTOM!

UPDATE 2 - New Photo showing relative size of the panel at the very bottom.

 

Thanks to Tangent Designs for letting me introduce this to you guys. I saw the prototype at NAB this past April as of today, Tangent introduces the new Element Control Surface. As you can see, it’s a very sweet modular design that feels like finely honed steel or aluminum. Very beautiful design. These are the final 3D renderings just prior to production.

As you can see, very modular in design and according to Tangent, you can outfit this unit any way you please. As long as the software host supports it, you’ll be able to add extra panels of knobs, buttons and trackballs.

For a little more on my impressions of the unit, see my previous blog entry about the unit. I’ll do a full review once we receive a production unit for testing.

UPDATE! The folks at Tangent Design sent me these actual photographs of the production units. As you can see the renderings were pretty darn accurate. Sweetness!


 

 

UPDATE 2 - Here’s a photo from the Tangent Design folks giving you a relative sense of the size of the units. They’re much smaller than you might think from the original pictures. Note the mini Apple keyboard and the iMac in the picture. Thanks to Chris and Andy for sending the picture along from the IBC Show Floor.