On Wednesday my old G-Raid...the one I bought four years ago...finally gave up the ghost. It had begun clicking over the weekend when I was copying footage to and from it, which is not a good sign. It did this before, when I owned it for about a year. But, I took it to G-tech in Santa Monica and in two days, I had it back in my hands. The same thing happened back then...clicking when copying.
Well, after a few days of the clicking...it decided not to show up on my desktop at all. Nor in the Disk Utility. And the warranty expired. So I cracked open the case, pulled out the two PATA drives and connected them both directly to the computer via a spare PATA firewire case I have lying about. One worked, the other did not. Dead drive. Fine, I relegated it as a Clone Drive for my G5 and tossed the bad drive in the trash.
Then comes Saturday.
I need to work one day this weekend on my current show, and I had copied all the media used in that project to my main S2VR Duo from Caldigit. I was editing fine on it with this project for weeks now. But on Saturday, it was acting up. Well, to be totally honest, it had been acting up for a while. A few months ago, I would try to copy large files to it and it would get only so far before it would hang...all the activity lights would stop, and one of them would remain solidly on. I would turn it off, back on, try again...hang. Since I always have a backup of my footage, I reformatted the drive, rebuilt the raid, and tried again. Nope...same error. I called CalDigit, they ran me through the paces of doing all that again, but also updating their drivers...tried again in vain. They figured it was a bad power converter and sent me a new power cord and brick. That did solve the issue.
Then it started again. Three weeks ago. Same issue. Any file larger than 2GB caused the drive to hang. Again, called CalDigit, directed to remove drivers, download and install new ones, in specific order. It worked. For a a couple. Then it was hanging again. So again, reformat, copy footage. Got it working...until the current issue this weekend.
I thought it might be the card, as my Dark Tower homemade RAID (my backup unit) had an issue starting up once...said the drives weren't recognized. A restart solved that. Then I was gone all day today...at the beach. Came back, worked on m project for an hour...no issues. I thought all was well when...render caused the drive to hang. It seems that the drive needed to warm up before it decided to stop working.
Well, this is why I have backups. The Unit is under warranty, and drives do fail...fact of life. Time for a call to tech support to get this replaced. Thank goodness for warrantees. And...that goodness that I back up my footage. I do this because the Duo is a RAID 0 box, meaning one drive goes, they all go. If I had a nice fancy RAID 5 unit in here (a product on the horizon), then I wouldn't be backing up like I do. But, I have the space, and I am paranoid.
This is just to let you all know that this stuff happens. Drive technology, as good as it is, isn't infallible. I'm not mad, I'm not pulling my hair out...OK, I am a little miffed. But I have backups in place, so little time was lost on this.
MORAL? Always have a backup plan.
EDIT: Just got off the phone with Jon at CalDigit and a replacement plan is in place. Shipping back the Duo and the card so they can figure out what is going on.
Posted by: Shane Ross on Apr 28, 2008 at 3:23:26 pm
When Steve Jobs was giving his keynote speech for MacWorld 2008, my buddy Jared and I were standing in the CalDigit booth, both of us staring at our iPhones...parked on the MacRumors site and reading the announcements as they came. That's right...we BOTH had our iPhones out. Wy didn't we just look at one and conserve the other's battery? We were excited. WE ARE MAC ADDICTS! And last year the keynote was exciting. But, with each announcement, our excitement faded. iPhone update? OK...cool. Now I can make my icons dance. Now what? Oh, I can find where I am with a new feature...that is cool. And it is VERY close. SDK due soon for it...soon. The iPhone sales numbers excited me...I am a stock holder, I like good sales numbers. Time Capsule. OK, that is neat. Not earth shattering, but helpful. MacBook Air? OK...it's thin, and it's...thin. But other than that....eeeeh. Slow processor, a battery you cannot change yourself. TWO external connections (USB, Mini-DVI). $1800. $1800!?! Who is this for? Sorry, that didn't excite me. And movie rentals on iTunes. BOOOORING. you have 30 days to watch them, and 24 hours once you started it. CRAP! I have Netflix and I can watch it whenever I want...no limit. BETTER QUALITY. Sorry...dumb. Apple TV 2. Eeeh...I like my TiVo. Just ho-hum announcements IMHO. Last year was exciting. Not only for Apple, but for a bunch the other products that were on the floor. There was the iPhone announcement, that was huge. Another company announced a service to modify a MacBook into a tablet Mac. That was cool (they won best in show too).
OK, so let's get to this year. If you want to know what Apple released (if you don't already know), go to Apple.com and see for yourself. Don't get too disappointed over the MacBook Air. In the meantime, let me touch upon the things that I saw that caught my eye.
MICROSOFT OFFICE 2008. Microsoft has the second biggest presence at MacWorld, next to Apple. Yes, people consider them the evil empire...I consider them a necessary evil. I use Microsoft Office because...well, I have to. I get scripts from producers and I need Word to read them (as opposed to NeoOffice and the iWork suite). Because one of my producers likes to put little notes that only pop up if you have MS Office 2004 or later to see. Microsoft released a new version this year, Office 2008. Apparently is has some really cool features...that I won't use myself...BUT I hear they are cool. A college friend of mine who works for Microsoft, and who was there in the both, told me so. Go to www.microsoft.com to find out what those features are. Just because a product caught my eye doesn't mean I know all about it. I just know it is new and has a lot to offer. Leave me alone...I worked the entire time for Caldigit.
Speaking of CalDigit, lemme tell you what they had to offer.
CALDIGIT . They have two things. First is their CalDigit Raid Card (at the time of writing this, it is not on their site). If you know about Apple's Raid Card ...this is similar, but different. When you buy a MacPro, the cool thing about it is that you have four internal drive bays to install hard drives. This means that you don't need to get an external drive right away to store your captured media. The advice I always give is "fill up these drives first, then buy an external solution," because internal drives are cheaper than external boxes. If you want to, you can even raid the drives so that you can have faster performance and edit uncompressed standard definition and many formats of high definition.
Now, before the Raid cards, the only way you could raid these was to use the Disk Utility and do a software Raid. The problem with this concept is that if your operating system crashes, the software raid goes with it...and thus your media is lost. And you are limited to Raid 0 or Raid 1. With the Raid card, you can now raid the drives as Raid 0, Raid 5, or Raid 0+1 and have the cards manage the raid. They have an onboard CPU, as well as RAM and battery backup. What sets CalDigit's Raid Card apart from Apple are many things.
1. You can install it yourself. The Apple Raid card is really big, and to install it you need to take many of the MacPro components out so that you can get the card in. The CalDigit card is smaller, and is easily installed. 2. Expandibility. With the Apple Raid Card, you are limited to the internal drives. That is all that it will control. CalDigit's Raid Card offers expandibility. It has three external mini-SAS connections that you can connect to external 4-drive enclosures (up to three for a total of 16 drives) that CalDigit makes. You can do Raid 0, Raid 1, Raid 5, Raid 6. AND....I love this...AND when you run out of space and need more storage, you simply buy one of these external boxes and ADD IT TO YOUR RAID...no erasing, no loss of data. You just use the software to add it to the raid and boom, more storage. They call it "migration." I like it. 3. Speed. The CalDigit Raid Card gets you slightly faster read/write times than the Apple Raid Card. 4. Price. The Apple Raid Card is $800. The CalDigit Raid Card is $550. So you won't break the bank. 5. BOOTABLE. That's right...if you Raid all four internal drives and install the OS on that Raid (why would you do that?), that Raid is bootable.
CalDigit also announced the HD ONE. This is the "little brother" to the HD PRO. Same capacity, same transfer speeds, less upgradability in terms of RAM...and cheaper. If you don't need to do Uncompressed HD 4:4:4 or 2K and 4K...this might be the box for you.
SONNET TECH. Sticking with the hard drive enclosure theme, let's take a look at Sonnet Tech. First off, the D800 Raid 5 series has always been a fully populated drive solution, just like CalDigit's HD Pro and Dulce's ProDQ and a host of others. But, due to popular demand, they are offering the D800E...meaning "expandable." They will sell the case empty and ready for you the consumer to populate with hard drives of your choice. Now, while I find this cool and appealing to many many people (I get people arguing with me about wanting the CalDigit towers to be sold empty) it isn't the best solution. Why? Well, when the companies populate the enclosure with drives, they not only make sure the firmware on the drives is updated and compatible with their controller cards (a big thing if you want good performance)...so if something fails, you have one person to call. That company. They support the whole shibang...and the warranty they offer covers everything. If you buy the enclosure bare, then when a drive fails you'll get the run around as the drive manufacturer and enclosure company will point fingers at the other guy. My advice? Buy them populated
What really caught my eye at the booth was the fact that they had a MacBook Pro hooked up to an AJA I/O HD which was in turn hooked up to a small flat hard drive, called the Fusion F2. A two 2.5" hardware raided BUS POWERED hard drive. But while it was powered by the firewire bus, that wasn't how it was connected. It was connected via eSATA. Because of this, it was a perfect solution to a field capture and edit package that includes the MacBook Pro and AJA I/O HD. The I/O HD connects via firewire 800, so that ties up the firewire bus. Your only option...which is a good option because of the speeds required for ProRes 422...is to connect an eSATA drive. The Fusion F2 is great because it doesn't require separate power. It pulls power from the computer via the firewire 400 port, yet doesn't get all caught up in the firewire bus, so it doesn't conflict with the I/O HD. SWEET! I'll be getting a unit to test and review soon.
OK...what else. More iPhone and iPod cases that you can shake a stick at. The usual crowd of laptop bag manufacturers, drive enclosure companies, software vendors. I would mention that KIDPIX is now available for OSX...which is REALLY EXCITING to me, because I have 3 daughters that loved the original version that came with the original iMac, and they were bummed when I lost the disk. But I am sure most of you won't be as excited as I was to find that. So, moving on.
ELGATO. Not really a newly announced product, but one that I finally relented into buying...the Elgato TURBO.264 hardware encoder. This handy little device connects via USB and speeds up the H.264 encoding process enormously. It has software that comes with it with presets for iPhone, iPod video high res, iPod low res, and web streaming. And you can make your own custom presets as well. It is touted to take the bulk of the encoding burden off of your computer, but really I think it simply compliments it. It doesn't take it all on by itself, I am sure, and here is why I think that.
When I took a 2 min DVCPRO HD 720p 23.98 file and encoded it for the iPhone on my Powerbook G4 1.67Mhz machine with Compressor...it took 15 min. QT Pro export took the same time, same export settings.. When I used the encoder...it took 5 min. SWEET! But that is an OLD machine, what about a new one? So I took the same file to an Octo Core MacPro. Not the new one, the first version. On that, Compressor took a little over 4 min, as did QT Pro. But the Elgato? Well, on the Octo it did it faster than real time. A little over 1 min. So it was much faster on the speedier machine. This is why I believe it doesn't do all the encoding internally, but shares the burden. That makes this the best purchase I have made in a while.
NEC. OK...this brings me to my all time favorite thing at MacWorld 2008. It was the thing that won the MacWorld 2008 Best In Show prize, for good reason too. I was on the way to the restroom when I walked past the NEC booth and glanced at the two monitors they had on display. My glance turned into a long look, one that stopped me in my tracks. On the monitors, a 24" and 30" model, were really vibrant pictures and a demo of Lightroom. What caused me to stop in my tracks was the fact that when i was walking by and looking at the monitors, the colors on the images did not change. Off axis viewing didn't diminish the colors at all. By off axis, I mean viewed at a 45 degree angle or more. So the image I saw looking directly at the monitor was exactly the same color when viewed at 45 degrees, and even more...70 to 75 degrees! THAT IS HUGE.
The models on display were the LCD2490WUXi (24") and the LCD2690WUXi (26"). I looked the monitors over and noted that they hand only VGA and DVI connections. I asked the person manning the booth if they had plans to make one of these amazing displays for video editing monitoring, because the current crop of HD LCDs have issues with off axis viewing. Red becomes "salmon," dark rich blues become lighter. Only the high end TVLogic displays have realy good off axis colors, but they start at $8000. The NEC rep said that it was something they were exploring...but was not available at this time. Because the current monitors has a response time of 12ms (milliseconds), and for video it would have to be at 8ms. Plus if they add the appropriate connections...HD SDI, Component...that would increase the price beyond the $1200 for the 24" and $2100 for the 26". I was fine with that. If they are able to make this monitor for $4000, and have the same off axis viewing I saw then...it'd be worth it. But for now, they are FANTASTIC monitors for photographers. Ones that I cannot recommend highly enough. These monitors really did deserve the MacWorld Best In Show.
The NEC rep mentioned that a large production house was already using them in their edit bays, but they didn't indicate which company or if they were being used for anything beyond simple client monitoring. I would LOVE to see this monitor in combination with my Matrox MXO....or even AJA Kona LH and AJA HDP.
Posted by: Shane Ross on Jan 28, 2008 at 7:29:25 am
MACWORLD Yup...I'm going. And I will be working for the same company I have been all year...CalDigit. And they will have new and exciting products they will be announcing. Pretty cool ones. I'll talk more about them after the show, or during the show AFTER the announcement. So I'll be at the booth. Not in my NEON ORANGE shirt they made me wear last year. Ugh. Nope...Navy Blue. Whew. Much better. And I'll be giving two demos while working the booth. The P2 workflow with FCP 6 and a field package...and utilizing an I/O HD in a remote workflow. Pretty exciting...considering that I just got the I/O HD on Thursday to test. Before that, the most I had done with it is pick it up at IBC to see how much it weighed. So, if you want to see me, I'll be there all week...Jan 14-18. And I'll also be at the FCPUG Super Meet on Wednesday. I'll be wearing a MEDIA OFFLINE t-shirt (black, Avid MEDIA OFFLINE font).
Posted by: Shane Ross on Jan 14, 2008 at 4:49:01 am
IBC is FINALLY over...and I am on my way home. I figured that during this long flight I could take some time to write about what I saw...what impressed me, what didn't, what is new, what isn't. If the in-flight movie (Ocean's 13) was working properly (no audio) I probably wouldn't be doing this. I do have my iPod, but the of the movies I encoded for it that I have left, I forgot to get the subtitling so all I hear is Japanese and Chinese in BIG sections of KILL BILL. And I have no window seat to enjoy the ocean view.
SO...what I will do then is write. I planned on doing this anyway, but now seems like the perfect opportunity.
First, RED. They finally started shipping the RED camera last week, and a few people have their hands on them. They only have the RED Flash media to record to (4.5 min or so), but they are shooting. The cameras lack the ability to record audio on the camera, but the camera does have the inputs, so that is something that they will address with a firmware update in the near future. On the REDUser website, there is a place where people can post their test shots. I went to the demo where a nice man named Mark-Allen gave a workflow demo on how to get RED footage into various edit systems. Since they are very friendly with Apple, of course it works well with FCP. But they also have options for Avid and Adobe. The camera records to a format called RED RAW, which is wavelet based and can record 4K footage at 26MB/s. That is one VERY EFFICIENT codec. "virtually lossless" is what they called it. 2 hours of recording to 320GB hard drives that they are still working on.
They have two tools to get footage out of the RED RAW and into workable formats. REDCINE is a stand alone application that has many many tools. This allows you to view the footage on the set, and make some color correction changes for a "one light" transfer, making sure the footage looks decent before you import it. You can create custom looks and save them (Graeme Nattress made a few that they have as presets). From there you can encode to ANY quicktime codec you happen to have installed on your computer. ProRes, DVCPRO HD, DV if you want...uncompressed (but why?)..and if you have the Avid codecs, you can go to the DNxHD codec or anything you happen to need. The second tool they offer is RED ALERT, which is just a pared down version of REDCINE. Basic conversion tools without all the color correction aspects. Originally intended as an internal tool only, it was so useful that they made it available to the public. Another way you can import is via the LOG AND TRANSFER option in Final Cut Pro. This option will be in a future release of FCP (due shortly) and allows you to have access to all the controls available there, IN and OUT points, importing and then instant access to the footage.
After the demo I asked the question apparently on everyone who stayed behind to ask questions...what does RED recommend archiving to? Because, of course, there is no tape...it is all data. I don't know if this is the official word from RED as to what they are doing, but Mark-Allen mentioned LTO drives as the better bet to go with. Hard drives are just too volatile (don't we know it!) and HD DVD or Blu-Ray might not work for the LONG haul. WHo knows how good they are for? They are new. But LTO backup has been in use by credit card companies since the 1970s...over 30 years...and the data is still readable. So that does indeed seem like a very secure way to go. Expensive for the initial purchase (the drives go for over $1000), but in the long run, they'll pay for themselves.
Whew...that was a lot about RED. Apparently they did fix the audio on OCEAN'S 13...but I missed half the movie now, so...onward.
Sony XDCAM EX. Small camera size that is on the level of the HVX-200. This camera too is tapeless, recording to Express 34 cards....EXPRESS 34! Meaning that you can use your MacBook PRO to offload the footage. Unlike P2 where you need an older Mac, or some VERY EXPENSIVE Panasonic P2 card reader. Now, I am not a camera guy (although I used to be), so I don't know many of the intricate details, but I was impressed by a few options. First, the pros:
It records ALL of the formats that the larger XDCAM cameras record. 25Mbps, 35Mbps in the usual MPEG-2 4:2:0 format at 1440x1080 or 960x720. But it ALSO records the new 50Mbps FULL RASTER 1920x1080 format. NICE. And the image is very crisp.
It records to the Express34 cards, like I mentioned. So importing the footage will be easier and less expensive than other similar cameras.
A future release of FCP (like, the NEXT one) will support direct XDCAM IMPORT via the Log and Transfer option. No more relying on the Sony software to convert the footage. Apple was a bit looser lipped than normal...which is nice.
The main handle SWIVELS. You know, the one you grip when you hold the camera, the one with the BIG zoom controls? This is great for putting the camera in really high (above your head) hand-held positions and really low (below your waist) hand-held positions. Heck, you don't need to be a shooter to see the advantage of that.
CONS? MPEG-2 Long GOP 4:2:0. This just isn't a great codec. Yes, you can convert to ProRes when you import, so you have better control over the image. I am glad, because I'd hate to work with that or HDV natively. Yeah yeah, I know many of you are and are doing fine. Whatever. It is a cumbersome format to work with, and I count my lucky stars that I have yet to have the pleasure. Many grumblings from co-workers and friends however. FIXED LENS. Whatchagonna do? The HVX-200 and Canon XL-H1 have this too. Seems to be the trend among the sub-$5000 cameras.
Still...the COOL THING? The camera will cost $4000. Yep...you read right...$4000. And the 16GB cards will go for under $1000. Tow of them and the camera will set you back under $6000. CHEAPER than the HVX-200. Nice to have competition out there. And when Red gets the Red Pocket Cam out...there goes the neighborhood.
So...with the Panasonic HVX-200 and P2, the Sony XDCAM EX and Express 34, and Red and the RedFlash, RedRam and Red Drive...ALL recording tapeless...we are moving towards more and more tapeless acquisition. The networks better pay attention to this. Several of them, including Discovery whom I work with a lot, still REFUSE to accept data files. They insist that the footage reside on tape and that the tape TC be referenced in the project files. This means that you have to shoot P2, transfer it to tape, then recapture that tape in order to work with it. This pretty much negates the cost savings you have shooting P2 in the first place, because of the Deck Rental/Purchase required to do this. So pay attention Discovery, National Geographic...the future is tapeless!
Apple? I didn't notice anything new. I heard that they came out with a new version of Logic, but I missed it. And Avid? Not there. Panasonic? There, but only had meeting rooms. No camera displays. And I wanted to check out the 500 cameras, since that is what we were considering shooting our next series on. But noooo. Darn Panasonic. And I couldn't find MOTU either. I was looking forward to seeing the V3HD in person and ask questions and get answers, but nope, they weren't there.
Hmmm...Ocean's 13 is finally over, and the next movie is starting (8 hour flight). This one is the new Fantastic Four film...but now the airplane seems to be suffering from electrical issues. My reading light is going on and off, the call button from several seats is ringing at random, and the audio is cutting in and out on the film, and the picture is flickering like mad. This is NOT a good sign when one is flying over the Atlantic Ocean. Getting me a little anxious really. I'd better get back to writing to get my mind off of this. And try to finish before my batter runs out. So no more blathering.
AJA - The I/O HD was there in all it's glory...but still not shipping. Two weeks is the word now. I know, this is difficult to take for all those that want one and need one now. But really, would you like a WORKING model in two weeks? Or one now that doesn't work reliably? I vote for the former. But I chatted with Jon Thorne and Gary Adcock and caught up. Jon playing some ULTIMATE AVENGERS cartoon on the laptop that I now have to go find and rent....it looks cool. HULK SMASH! (he fights with Capt. America)
BlueFish 4:4:4. OK, I mention these guys because I recall considering them when shopping for a capture card about 4 years ago. They had a good rep. And I found out from a couple people at IBC that the BlueFish guys are the old CINEWAVE people...off on their own after Pinnacle was bought by Avid (or maybe a little before that). ANYWAY, their stuff was VERY expensive. And it really didn't look like it offered anything different from the MUCH CHEAPER Blackmaagic and AJA options. They even had an HD SDI/DVI converter that was easily triple what the HD Link Pro costs. Not sure why they are so expensive. Aiming high?
EDIT SHARE. These guys were right next to me (I was working the CalDigit Booth) and I finally ambled over there on the third day. They were pretty busy the first two days. So I asked for a demo, and I got one. This program takes the "Avid Unity" approach to project organization. When a bin is open by the owner, it is LOCKED and others can open the bin, but not make changes. Well, it goes a bit further and makes is so even if that bin ISN'T open, you cannot make changes to that bin. Projects for each user is stored locally on their system, but all systems can see it. If they want access to a cut so they can make changes, they first copy the bin to a transfer section called UNPROTECTED BINS, then copy it onto their own system. This is pretty handy, so that you can see what the other person is doing on their, so that you can make your section match, or use footage from their section (as a tease out for your show act, for example)...or whatever.
Each "bin" is in fact a separate project file. That is how they organize this. And it is a neat approach. But If I have too many bins open at once, the Browser fills up. But you can have one bin for CUT, and another for footage...you can have a main project (bin) of the source footage that everyone shares. But that footage bin would have to be "owned" by one person, meaning others couldn't modify it.
OK, how does it work? You launch the EditShare program which then launches FCP as well. And then (this I like) you choose the USER and the Project you are working on. This is VERY handy. And depending on the project you choose, Edit Share assignes media drives to that project, so if you quit one project and open another, then program switches what media drives it then accesses and writes to. VERY nice. On the Finder level I saw how it worked. Open the server drive and you see folders for the users that in turn contain project folders than contain project files that are your bins.
While I did find some of this useful (projects pointing to specific hard drives), overall I wasn't too blown away. After working at a company that had a HUGE FCP shared storage network and seeing how they do things, it really isn't that difficult to work that way. This might be for people who really want and need the Unity way of doing things. But I was impressed by one thing. And this is huge. An 8TB 3U shared storage network option I asked about (including the server) costs $23,000. Oh, that is a lot...but the impressive part? NO SEAT LICENSE! Sold as it you have the ability to add 16 seats...for no additional cost. I found that VERY impressive. And while I'd have to work with the EditShare software, it isn't too painful..I could learn to like it. If you have one seat, you could do uncompressed HD work, the more seats you add, the bandwidth drops, as expected. But in a shared workflow environment you won't have all stations working with uncompressed HD. You would have the footage stored in an offline codec like DV or Offline RT, so that you have room for LOTS of footage, and so many people can access it. I'd have a separate station with a separate drive set up (HDPro from CalDigit...read my review) for Onlining.
And this works for Avid, Adobe CS3, and FCP...the biggies. Overall I was impressed and liked it. And would consider it as an option. Very impressive. I was able to grab a T-shirt as the show closed down. The only swag I was able to swing.
OOP, on reserve power. Gotta go.
Posted by: Shane Ross on Sep 15, 2007 at 10:47:07 am
