Mac HD Editing Turnkey Solutions

Zephyrnoid

Zephyrnoid

Veteran
Mac HD Editing Turnkey Solutions
OK. I'm still hammering out the fine details of our turnkey solution...
HV20WorkFlow.jpg

So now, what's your professional opinion on the Mac Pro Hard Drive Configuration? RAID strategy? Etc.
NLE_EditSolution.jpg

Best Answer wins a short-hair Dead Cat for your shotgun mic ..
GattoMuerte_FPO.jpg

or a Dead Kitten for your Samson H2!
 
The top one with the laptop...forget the DROBO as media storage. It is slow and not intended for this purpose. It is archive only.
 
Also a lot of that high end gear is kinda wasted on a camera like the HV20. Any particular reason why that's part of the package?

But yeah the Drobo is not good here. You want a G-RAID 2 or a similar Firewire 800 RAID meant for editorial rather than archiving.

Noah
 
Why the HV20/HV30? HDMI ( ie Native HD) out at under $1000 is a challenging incentive . That camera is a fabulous First Turnkey system capture device. Take the camera out of the equation and substitute an XLH2 or comparable and nothing about the rest of the turnkey changes.
Besides, for budget Indies, you can pour the cash saved on the next level up in camera into the rest of the turnkey solution.
I'm made a name for myself shooting with off-the-shelf consumer gear and delivering pro results just to prove a point. The point is the camera is the least critical part of the turnkey solution.
Point well taken on Drobo. Though it is a FW800 and RAID capable device.
Thanks!
 
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The 30" ACD can't be color calibrated for video and it can't work w/the MXO 2. Speaking of the MXO 2, for a studio configuration why not go w/an internal card from Kona or Blackmagic? Who is the target market for these systems? Right now both options just look like a random assortment of gear.


-A
 
Wait this is a turnkey system for you or one you want to sell? The HV20 is high end consumer *at best* and you could easily edit its footage with an iMac and you're done. Why surround it with all of those more expensive high-end parts when the camera itself is by far the limiting factor?

I'd shelve the Drobo, the MXO and the HD monitor and spend all that dough on an EX1 or an HVX200. Your footage can only be as good as the weakest part in the chain and the HV20's chips and lens are going to be the weak spot. Not too many folks out there getting pro results HDMI from a consumer cam, not for paid gigs anyways. It's going to be garbage in-garbage out- no offense. Well anyways you asked for opinions. :)

-Noah
 
Zephyrnoid said:
The point is the camera is the least critical part of the turnkey solution.
Click to expand...

I guess we disagree that.

It may not be the most important, but it is an essential -- a very essential component -- of workflow.

Color space and compression cannot be corrected in post.

What you have with a HMC150 sounds good.
 
Guys. Pretend the camera is depicted by a BLACK BOX. Now, tell me the rest of the story. FORGET the camera. You cannot edit the world's best capture without the REST of the story. So far, not one person has been able to detail the turnkey system (and by implication, the rest of the workflow). Of course the Camera matters, cinematographically. But the hypothetical or actual turnkey solution is a matter of the sum of the parts. Unless you JUST shoot and hand over a DTE or Tape.
 
But the type of camera really matters if you're building an editing system around it. The system you'd get to edit HDV is not the same the system you get for RED or HDCAM SR. So why don't we start from the beginning again. Are you asking for system recommendations for your own personal rig to go with your Canon HV20. Are you asking for rhetorical- what's best for a certain budget- then what's the budget? Or are you asking for a system you plan to offer as a solution to others? If so- what cameras will they use? HDV, DVCPROHD, RED, etc?

If you're saying the camera doesn't really matter and you just want a system to edit stuff with- well that could be pretty much anything from a Macbook with a FW 400 drive to an 8-core Mac Pro with a Kona 3 and a Fibre Channel RAID. There's no such thing as a turnkey system that edits footage from all cameras. Well I guess the latter is but it's also $$$$. It's the details that make all the difference.

Noah
 
NoahK said:
But the type of camera really matters if you're building an editing system around it. The system you'd get to edit HDV is not the same the system you get for RED or HDCAM SR. So why don't we start from the beginning again. Are you asking for system recommendations for your own personal rig to go with your Canon HV20. Are you asking for rhetorical- what's best for a certain budget- then what's the budget? Or are you asking for a system you plan to offer as a solution to others? If so- what cameras will they use? HDV, DVCPROHD, RED, etc?

If you're saying the camera doesn't really matter and you just want a system to edit stuff with- well that could be pretty much anything from a Macbook with a FW 400 drive to an 8-core Mac Pro with a Kona 3 and a Fibre Channel RAID. There's no such thing as a turnkey system that edits footage from all cameras. Well I guess the latter is but it's also $$$$. It's the details that make all the difference.

Noah
Click to expand...
Your clearly phrased points are well taken and in light of your astute observations that the Camera (format) drives the path at the capture & edit ends of the system. Then the hypothetical system I'm trying to Spec. out is indeed for HDV format from HV20 to XL-H1a and comparables . Not for , DVCPROHD, RED.
There is no specific budget. The key requirements are:
- The system must make optimal use of the 8-Core Mac Pro for Edits of two types of capture: Compressed (various) to Uncompressed 8 bit & 10 Bit streams.
- The peripheral HW specifications requires optimal support for efficient workflow, Color grading and output to DVD & Blu-ray
-The content is corporate Promotional and Instructional in nature. Not intended for broadcast.
- There should not be any splurging on overkill, BUT the system should be expandable to accomodate larger projects with potential for camera upgrades from HV20 for example, as well as more Uncompressed and potentially broadcast applications.

In other words, it should be a springboard from a mid-level system to a higher level option, but again- not expecting it to cater to 4K et al.
 
Like I told you on MacRumors,

Uncompressed 8bit and 10bit would be "splurging on overkill". You don't need uncompressed if you work with FCP6 and ProRes (or Avid and DNxHD).
 
bigbossbmb said:
Like I told you on MacRumors,

Uncompressed 8bit and 10bit would be "splurging on overkill". You don't need uncompressed if you work with FCP6 and ProRes (or Avid and DNxHD).
Click to expand...

Understood. So is an external RAID array useless in FCP/ProRes in the Compressed NLE scenario on the Mac-Pro? How would the internal MacPro drives be config'd ? :undecided
 
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