Compressor and Conversions

Compressor 2 and 3 have very powerful tools for converting and upscaling video, as well as doing slo-mo. The optical flow technology, which Apple acquired when they bought the powerful compositing application Shake (only later to kill it), is the key to the results that you can get from Compressor. The key to getting the best results is the Frame Controls settings in Compressor.

Compressor is very good at standards conversion or converting video to a different frame rate. People often call this PAL and NTSC conversion although this isn't really accurate, but it will handle the same tasks that systems that do this do--namely the scaling and frame rate conversions. Frame rate conversions in particular are difficult to do really well. There are some standalone products from Teranex that just do this for around $2500 Well Compressor does this really well, but Teranex does it in real-time and Compressor is really slow.

Optical flow can also help in up-conversion of interlaced footage. Interlacing makes it really hard to do upconversion because your vertical resolution is basically split in two. For an example of how to scale things up badly look at what Final Cut Pro does in the timeline. FCP basically throws away half of your vertical resolution as soon as you scale a video clip. So the difference between 100% scale and 99% or 101% scale is crisp video and a blurry messy. When scaled up like this over 200%, not unusual when putting in standard-def footage into a high-def project, fine detail like type also starts shaking up and down from the interlacing--it looks ugly.

Compressor is an improvement on how FCP works in a number of ways. First, it can analyze the image and decide to selectively keep detail from both fields when the video isn't moving--if visuals in a part of a frame is moving, then only that part of the frame will lose resolution. With the optical flow technology, Compressor guesses how a part of the frame is moving and intelligently creates an image with more resolution than other results. These two approaches are handled in the deinterlacing settings in Compressor--the first approach is described as Better while Best uses optical flow.

The Retiming controls are where Compressor handles different frame rates. For example going from 25 fps video from Europe to 30fps video over in North America, usually handled as 60i (interlaced) especially in standard-def. The Better and Best settings in Compressor use optical flow. Like with deinterlacing, optical flow analyzes your video and recognizes object and how they are moving--the optical flow then intelligently creates new frames that move objects smoothly without losing detail. By the way, going from 24fps, which is a progressive format, is not a problem for us folks working in 60i. You can do this right in FCP without any fancy conversion (assuming you want to keep the 24fps filmic look.)

As an example, here's what I recommended to someone doing PAL to NTSC conversion:
Resizing: Better
Deinterlacing: Better (motion adaptive)
Retiming: Better
In this case, the scaling is going down (PAL has more resolution than NTSC, so you should get good results without jumping through a lot of hoops.) I reserved the optical flow use to only retiming at the Better setting. I didn't recommend optical flow on deinterlacing to save time. But if time isn't an issue then using Best for deinterlacing should improve results.

Unfortunately, all this intelligent analysis by optical flow is very processor and time-intensive. So for example using optical flow for retiming and and deinterlacing makes my quad-core G5 slow to a crawl--I'd give a ballpark estimate of 1 minute to process 1 second of video. But if quality is important, then the results can be excellent.

There are some plug-ins that specialize in upconversion, namely InstantHD. Check here for my post on upconversion.

Here are two good articles on using Compressor. Macworld discusses standards conversions here that walks you through the whole process:
Send video abroad
This post at Digital Rebellion gives detailed info on all the settings in Frame Controls.
Using Frame Controls in Compressor

The Macworld article also recommends an interesting workflow using Cinema Tools to convert PAL to NTSC by conforming the PAL to 24fps, scaling and deinterlacing in Compressor, then adding pulldown in FCP. Interesting workflow that I've never seen used.

The Retiming controls in Compressor can also give you some very good slo-mo results. Here are some cool tests done that compares Final Cut Pro versus Compressor at various speeds on two shots.
"Final Cut Studio slow motion demo"
"Final Cut slow motion at various speeds"
The author brings up a good point--if you are shooting a shot to be slo-mo, then shoot at as high a frame rate as you can--60p, 60i, 50p, 50i are good, where 24 fps is bad for slo-mo. The more samples per second of the image you can acquire, the better the slo-mo will work.

$500 Shopping Spree

So what would you spend $500 on? I'm soliciting opinions. In another interesting variation, on budgetary outlays, I've been offered $500 to spend on anything I want. The reasoning is that we are charging someone around $500 to make some dubs, and the money can go towards equipment.

Well, after figuring that I couldn't slip a receipt for a Playstation or a 32GB iPod Touch past accounting, I've turned my mind towards more practical purchases.

My number one idea is to replace the tube of the Sony monitor on the A system in Edit 2. Am I the only one noticing that the image is looking greenish? $500 should cover the cost of replacing the tube in that monitor. I'd rather do it now when we have the money--otherwise I'll have to wait around until it is so obvious that the folks holding the purse strings can perceive the bad color on the monitor. That could take a while.

However, I've been thinking about other things too. A few months ago, I was making a big fuss about better production equipment. In particular, I was recommending a new tripod, an LCD field montior and a telephoto lens adapter for the Z1. An LCD field monitor is not out of the question for $500. I wanted to get a high-def one for closer to $1K, but there's a kit for a widescreen one with a resolution of 1440x234 for about $500. Check out the Varizoon kit at B&H. I don't know if this is much better resolution than the Z1's LCD viewfinder, but at 7" it is much larger--ergo easier to see. I've been griping about out of focus shots on the Z1. This should help.

Another idea for production gear is a wireless mic. Anyone recommend a wireless mic for about $500? I doubt $500 is enough for a good tripod but I'd be glad to be proved wrong.

In short, if there's some gear or software that you think would really help our work at Link for $500, please let me know. Please leave your suggestions in the comments sections--that'll let other see your suggestions and allow them to rag on them. Oh, and it's got to be near $500 or under $500--no $500 towards a new computer or something. No saving for a rainy day here--when you've got it, you spend it.

Summer Blogwad

I'm just dumping some interesting links here to check out.

Digital Rebellion: Recommended QuickTime and Mac OS configurations for Final Cut Pro
A list of recommended combos of FCP, Quicktime, and OS versions. Let's just call this why not to update your systems unless you absolutely need to. On the other hand, it sucks being caught in FCP 5.1.4 world while everyone else has moved on. That's more of a money issue than a technology issue though.

Digital Rebellion: List of QuickTime downloads
A continuation of the theme of don't upgrade if you don't have to. If you have to upgrade but it's not to the latest and (ahem) greatest, then this page will help you find the appropriate upgarde for QuickTime. Similarly, the LAFCUP has a wiki page on Quicktime updates.

Little Frog in High Def: APPLE PRO APPS UPDATE 2008-02
Good advice on downloading all updates to Final Cut Pro even if you don't intend to upgrade. The reason is that Apple doesn't make old updates available for FCP (unlike QuickTime). There are situations where you might want to upgrade but not to the latest version--if you don't have the update then Apple isn't going to help you. You can download updates through Apple's Final Cut Pro page--you don't have to upgrade through the Software Update control panel.

Final Cut User: Using FLVs in Final Cut Pro
Some good tips on using video downloaded from the web from sites like YouTube. I didn't know about using the QuickTime wrapper to help the editing of FLV's--sound like a helpful tip.

"Ten Tips For A Better Final Cut Pro Experience"
This is a good read. An experienced editor wrote down 10 good tips. Good write-up on media management. Also some interesting tips on multicam, amongst a number of other good ideas.

kenstone.net: Color Workflows With Different Types of Sources
By Andrew Balis
Want to work in Color? This seems like a good guide for getting footage in and out for your next go as a colourist.

Overview Video on Sony EX3
I don't think I've talked about the Sony EX3 because I think the MSRP was over $10K and that's my cut-off point for talking about cameras. But it lists for under $10K, and it looks like a good upgrade to the Sony EX1. I've been hearing about and seeing folks use the EX1. Seems like the XDCAM format on SxS memory cards could take off.

ProLost: On Clipping, Part 1
Very tech-y. But interesting to get a theoretical understanding of how video works. Folks interested in Red should read. It helped me understand why there is more grain in dark areas of video than in light areas. Also discusses important differences in how film and video represent light.

ProLost: Go Naked pt. 2
A good example of the guerrilla filmmaking model as described in Stu Maschwitz's "The DV's Rebel Guide." More interesting to me is that Vimeo not only streams HD, but allows downloads too of Quicktime movies (the film shown is downloadable at 1280x720). You can upload up to 500MB per week to Vimeo. An interesting way to share footage encoded in h.264--nice that it allows both streaming and downloading.

stockfootageforfree.com
Not awesome but could help in a pinch. I did about 10 searches on foreign countries, and the only video I got was touristy stuff from Cancun. Some OK shots of D.C., SF, and NYC. [via freshdv.com]

Streaming Video: Quality Comparison and Trends

There's a pair of interesting articles about streaming video at Digital Content Producer:
Encoding Best Practices, Part 1
Encoding Best Practices, Part 2

Part 1 is a report based on samples of what kind of streaming video is out there on the web. It's not a huge sample, but he does look at about 20 sites from broadcast video. So that's a good comparison for Link. Flash and Windows Media far outpace any competitors, like Quicktime and Real. One trend in streaming is growing bandwith and image resolution. Most broadcasters were streaming at a frame size of 460x325 and at a data rate of 500 kbps. Lots of good charts showing trends on this as well as frame rate and audio bit rate.

Part 2 is a quality comparison of h.264, on2 vp6, and VC-1 (Windows codec.) VC-1 gets the lowest marks. Both articles are interesting reads. I found them over at FreshDV.

Troubleshooting with Activity Monitor

Recently Activity Monitor has been instrumental in troubleshooting problems for me. Activity Monitor is part of the Mac OS and lives in the Utilities folder, which is in the Apps folder. It gives you read-outs on things going on with the computer, including what the CPU and RAM are doing.

Here are a couple of good descriptions of the RAM display in Activity Monitor:
Final Cut Studio - System Memory Usage--Larry Jordan's Tip of the Day
Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor--Apple Support

The two pages actually give somewhat contradictory advice. Larry Jordan says that if your wired and active memory is regularly half of total memory then you could benefit from a RAM upgrade. While Apple says that even if you only have 10MB of free memory you don't necessarily need more RAM.

I've been noticing some bad examples of slow FCP that I blame on memory issues. So I think it's important to keep track of your RAM issues. Here some tips to keep your RAM usage streamlined and efficient:
- If you don't plan to switch back to an app, quit it and don't leave it open
- Avoid running multiple apps at once, especially programs that can suck up memory, like FCP, DVD Studio Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop
- Only keep open FCP projects open that you need, same things with sequences
- Restart your computer at least once a day and if your system seems really slow then restart it
- Web browser and webpages can use a surprising amount of RAM--avoid browsing with lots of windows/tabs
Now all of these RAM saving tips can reduce your efficiency in working. So it's a tradeoff. If your system zips along fine, then don't worry about it. But if you notice that your system starts the day zippy and ends up later trudging along, then try to follow some of or all of these tips.

I also uncovered a problem recently with Mosaic where the Mosaic project file had become huge even though there didn't seem to be that many clips or edits in the project. The size of the project file can give you an idea about how much memory an FCP project will take up in your RAM and how many resources the computer will use to work with the project. I'm not really sure why the Mosaic project file got so large--over 300MB. But I think it hurt that the editors were just adding stuff into the same project file day after day--even if they were deleting old clips and sequences regularly. I think the Mosaic project seems to have retained data from old clips and/or timelines that had been deleted and didn't appear in the project view. So I created a new project and just copied the timeline and clips that were visible in the project window--the new project was something-like one-tenth of the size, and the system got much quicker. I also read recently that clips that are really long are more taxing on the computer than more shorter clips that have the same amount of media.

Another things that Activity Monitor does is measure CPU usage. This was helpful recently when I was having problems with the single processor G5 computer. An intern was having problems capturing DV footage from a DV deck. I had set up an unusual firewire cabling setup, so first I tried changing that--no luck. Then I brought in a different deck. No matter what I did, I was still getting dropped frames and funky audio dropouts. I noticed that the intern had Firefox running, which I didn't think was I big deal--she was checking her Gmail. Then I opened up the Activity Monitor and I saw that Firefox was quite active. It's CPU usage was hopping all around, peaking at up to 15% of the computer's CPU usage. And it wasn't even like she was actively browsing--that's was up to 15% of the CPU just to keep up with Gmail. Well I quit Firefox and the computer started capturing fine and did about 5 hours of capture with no problems.

Now I'm lucky to have a four-core G5, and I regularly have multiple webpages, email client, and even iTunes running all while I capture from DV. But for a single-processor G5 the demands of running FCP, capturing DV, and having Gmail open were too much. So it is important to know your computer. Also remember that laying off is at least as demanding on your system as capture and almost always much more. You are almost always playing back multiple clips at once (remember all your audio tracks) and your system is probably trying to apply some real-time effects to the video and/or audio. So be even more conservative about what your computer is doing when you lay off to tape.

BTW, I recommend Larry Jordan's Tip of the Day. I don't want to visit his website everyday, so I subscribed to the RSS feed and check out the tips when I have time.

Simplify media transcription with hotkeys and AppleScript

I got inspired by this article to write my first Applescript:
"Simplify media transcription with hotkeys and AppleScript" - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

The article talks about setting up hotkeys to control Quicktime Player. A hotkey is when you assign a command to a keystroke. That way you can transcribe or log in a Microsoft Word or some other word processor and still control the movie playing back without switching applications. The article describes how to create hotkeys by using a freeware app Spark to create hotkeys that run an Applescript.

Well, at Link we tend to have stuff logged from DVD with timecode burned-in to the video. So I set up some simple, one-line Applescripts to play, pause, rewind, and fast forward DVD's.

Play
tell application "DVD Player" to play dvd

Pause
tell application "DVD Player" to pause dvd

Rewind
tell application "DVD Player" to rewind dvd

Fast Foward
tell application "DVD Player" to fast forward dvd

I checked it out with Word, and assigning the scripts to option+J, option+K, option+L, and option+space bar seemed to work fine.

If you do log/transcribe from a Quicktime movie then I blogged about a free app last year that combines logging and playback in one app, QT Movie Notetaker. The program makes time notations based on how far into the movie you are but doesn't read timecode. If you want to spend $99, InqScribe has a unified playback and logging interface and has timecode support for Quicktime movies. That's sort of the complete package for handy transcribing and logging.

Guides on Audio EQ and Compression

Here are some good guides to the concepts and practice for EQ and compression:
"Basic Guide to Understanding EQ"
"Taming Your Audio Signal with Compression"

I've always thought of myself as a visually-attuned person, but much less sensitive to sound. So while I think I have a natural proclivity to catching things with my eye, I think I have to work much harder for sound--I think I learned much quicker what looked right and how to make it that way than I was to learn when something sounded right and how to make it so.

After level changes, the next basic tool in your audio kit is EQ. Back in the day, when someone told you that she or he wanted to make something sound better in the edit room, you were going to turn to the EQ. I've done a fair amount of linear editing, and that meant using the EQ knobs on your mixer. I still turn to the mixer from time to time. It's a quick way to check out how adjusting different frequencies will affect your audio. The Mackie VLZ mixer, which most of our editors have, has low-end, mid-range, and high-end adjustments. If may not really improve the track, but it's a quick way to check if you can make something sound better by raising or lowering the level of particular frequencies (just remember to turn those pots back to unity when you're done testing--so you don't screw up someone else's audio.) Then once I've found a setting that I like, I'll recreate it with an EQ filter in Final Cut. The B&H article Basic Guide to Understanding EQ describes different kinds of EQ beyond what you'll find on your basic mixer. Shelving and cutting are also available in Final Cut Pro as filters.

Nowadays I usually find myself turning to compression first when I want to help an audio track--especially a clean track, like one recorded in a VO booth or a quiet studio. I'm pretty conservative on compression. I think it's overused on a lot of TV and radio, especially when annoying white guys are yelling to be the loudest person in the world. But even in milder forms, it can give a voice some punch. So for example, this article Taming Your Audio Signal with Compression recommends compression ratios of 2 to 4, whereas I usually keep my ratio at below 2. BTW, a ratio of 1 does nothing. Of course, this is the default setting, so if you're not familiar with compression then the first time you use it, you might think it does nothing.

Final Cut Pro does compression, but Soundtrack Pro's multipressor effect is even more powerful. I use multipressor to have a little noise gate in the effect, and I like the graph display so I can the audio levels where the noise gate is working and where the compressor is working. If I have the time then I'll often take a track to Soundtrack Pro. If it's shot in our studio, then I'll want to do some noise reduction first, then I'll do a multipressor, and then I'll apply the limiter in Soundtrack Pro. Soundtrack Pro's limiter works much better than FCP's. I like how you can see how much the limiter is working in the filter settings window. The limiter works similarly, but more crudely, than the compressor in that it can be used to give your track more punch.

I found these articles over at FreshDV. These articles are part of the B&H Pro Audio Newsletter, which you can subscribe to on their homepage. Most of what I have learned about audio I learned from the writings of a guy called Jay Rose . I keep a copy of his "Audio for Post Production" around the office, which I recommend for both beginners and experienced editors who want to dig deep into sound issues.

Maintenance Tips for Your Mac

MacWorld: "Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines"

This a good article at MacWorld.com. A bunch of tips on how to get your Mac in good condition for the long run. I highly recommend the article.

One useful tip I liked was using SMART tests to regularly check on the health of your hard drives. Apparently these tests can give you a heads-up on ailing hard drives (before you lose data.) It's not bullet-proof, but it's supposed to protect against some of the more common types of hard drive failures. Michael Kinimoto says he has had good luck with doing regular SMART tests. The article recommends installing some freeware that regularly checks your hard drive's SMART status: Smart Reporter. Unfortunately, SMART tests don't work over firewire. It may work on an external hard drive hooked up through SATA, but that depends on what kind of hardware connection you have for your external SATA drive. The Firmtek Seritek PCI and PCI-E cards I've used pass along SMART data. But at the very least, you can be checking your internal drives on your Mac.

Cheap Tip for Matching Cameras

Pro Video Coaltion: "Perfect Color Balance for Less than $7"

This sounds like a good tip for shooting, QP Card. Cheap cards with black, grey, and white swatches. Shoot these, and the in FCP use the 3-way Color Corrector to quickly color balance.

Seems like it would be particularly good for matching cameras. Under the light that you will shoot in, have all cameras record a couple of seconds of this. Then the cameras should match very well (assuming the cameras are the same models using the same settings.)

Link TV's Next Camera

"Review: Sony HVR-Z7 & HVR-S270 1/3” 3-CMOS HDV camcorders" by Adam Wilt

I don't make many predictions on my blogs, but if I had to guess I think the Sony HVR-Z7 will be Link TV's next camera. Why you ask? First, it's Sony, and folks at Link in SF seem to like Sony. Second the price is right for us--well below the $10,000 mark, now about $5700 street price. Second it's a significant improvement on the Z1 camera that we have now. The Z1 has been out for over 3 years and Sony has finally released a true successor to the Z1. It's supposed to be faster than the Z1. It's all supposed to have a good LCD and viewfinder (areas where the Z1 is seriously lacking)

I'm basing this on Adam Wilt's excellent review of the Z7 and its bigger sibling the S270. It seems like there are some other good cameras out there, namely the Sony EX1, which records only onto flash memory. But for Link the lack of tape recording is sort of a deal breaker. At least as a post guy I don't want to have to deal with the headache of worrying about all of that media on hard drives with no other backup. Plus the EX1' s SxS Pro recording cards are still pretty pricey. For big shoots, that leaves options like a hard drive recorder, lugging around a laptop to shoots, or renting more storage. So much easier to pack a bunch of cheap tapes for a shoot.

If you want tapeless storage, the Z7 can even record to Compact Flash using the included HVR-MRC1 unit, which attaches at the back of the camera. That's a nice feature if you want the quick turnaround of material, which is a big benefit with tapeless workflows. Compact Flash is much cheaper than Panasonic's P2 and Sony's SxS Pro too.

The EX1 has 1/2" chips--the only sub-$10K HD camera with that. And it's supposed to have the sharpest picture in this price range. Too bad they couldn't match 1/2" chips along with the HDV format. The S270, which is reviewed in the same article, has one big feature that I'd like to see on the Z7--it can take large cassettes. That means 4.5 hours of HDV on a tape. But that camera is over the 10K point. But all things considered, the Z7 looks like a good camera, and from what Adam Wilt says, the champ of the sub-$10K HDV cameras.

Here's Adam's summary of the pros and cons of both the Z7 and the S270:

Pros

• Interchangeable lenses with standard 1/3” mounts.
• ISO 400 sensitivity.
• 800+ TVl/ph resolution with smooth, natural detail.
• DV, DVCAM, and 1080-line HDV recording.
• Interlaced and true progressive modes.
• Killer EVF and very good LCD; good peaking control.
• Best-in-the-business viewfinder data displays.
• Unique in-viewfinder tilt indicator.
• Z7: well balanced and easy to handhold.
• S270: no-nonsense, full-sized shoulder-mount camcorder; 4 channels of audio; 4.5 hour record times.
• Sensible ergonomics on both cameras: controls are where they should be.
• Sony Steadyshot.
• HVR-MRC1 CF card recorder included.
• Comprehensive Picture Profile tweaks, most with 15 steps of adjustment.
• Very good shotgun mike included.

Cons

• Stock lenses have only average chromatic aberration performance.
• Resolution drops with increased gain.
• Smooth Slow Motion clips have low resolution, many compression artifacts.
• Lens iris ring isn’t labeled or calibrated.
• Fastest power zoom isn’t very fast.
• MRC1: buttons lack a “hold” switch and are subject to inadvertent activation.
• MRC1: no single-frame mode in interval recording.

Good Info on Mac Backup Software

"The Evolving World of Backup"
A few years back I bought my first online book "Taking Control of Mac OS X Backups." I basically just copied my plans for backing up at Link TV from this book. A good $10 purchase.

A new version isn't out yet, but the guy who wrote the book has posted some thoughts about trends in the Mac backup realm. I would have thought that Time Machine would have thinned out the available software (you can't beat free.) But apparently, backup software is proliferating and there are lots of new features coming out.

For example he mentions some workable online backup options, namely involving Amazon's S3. Sounds interesting.

Backup is still very confusing, and it takes a real strategy to handle it thoroughly and efficiently. Until the next version of "Taking Control of Mac OS X Backups" comes out, this article has some of the best backup info that I've seen.

Final Cut Server--Extra Credit

I did a big post on Final Cut Server last month. If you have not read it, please do. It covers what FC Server is and also lays out how we could use it at Link. This article is extra credit for folks who are really interested in the software.

I went to a presentation on Final Cut Server. It was hosted by Advanced Systems Group. They had a guy from Apple there to talk about the software. Then another guy gave a spiel about how you really want an expert to set up and customize FC Server. They gave some examples where you'll want an expert--setting up a web interface to videos, interacting with automation/playout servers.

One thing I realized at the presentation is that our metadata situation with our Final Cut projects is poor to useless. I know I rarely label clips with helpful info. I try to name projects accurately with the title of a project, but sometimes I don't get it right or the project name changes. Even tape numbers are not always entered or done so accurately. What's the point of having a giant database if you can't search with confidence that you'll actually find what you are looking for? Not to mention an ideal functionality like having files indexed with useful metadata so you could do keyword searches, say "insurgent attacks" and get some dramatic footage from Mosaic.

At our office editors usually haven't collaborated. I usually took an attitude of "if I can find it/figure it out, that's all that matters." But that kind of attitude is the opposite of what's needed for asset management. Extra work needs to go into getting good metadata with your media. Since we don't have the option of hiring a librarian to organize things, that means more work for the editors probably who have to have bought into the process. If they haven't then things will slack off and the metadata won't get entered.

While Final Cut Server does everything that I wrote about in my last post on it, the Apple guy and the ASG folks were really pushing that you have to have an expert to set it up. I think I could get it to do everything that I discussed in my last post with the caveat about searching through poor metadata.

We've talked about hosting media from Mosaic on the web. Again, FC Server won't do this on its own. But it seems like it would be a good spot to organize that media. Then with automation scripting in FC Server, you could hand off the media to a website that handles the front-end, movie hosting, etc. FC Server would be where staff would import media and attach metadata to make it useful for users. FC Server could automatically hand it off to a system to handle the web part with scripting done by somebody knowledgeable.

Below are the notes that I took at the session:

Once a project is imported into FC Server you need to check in and check out. If you keep a copy locally and work with it again after import, then FC Server will think it's a new file when you try to put it back into FC Server. So basically it adds an extra step to opening a project--you have to check it out of FC Server first. Then you have to check it back in to get it to FC Server to update the media for it. Looks like more work for the editor, who has to have bought into the process--otherwise, he or she will just keep everything locally.

Showed a cool video about Radical Media
Translation done in China and FC Server handled ftp for cutting in New York. Complex workflow with steps and notification automated. Required scripting to make FC Server work with ftp server. Process also described in this white paper called "Final Cut Server in Depth" (PDF download.) Translation was added as subtitles using the title tool in Final Cut Pro. BTW, that's extra work for the translator. For Latin Pulse we do subtitles and it takes a lot of time. Translation is done first by someone with good Spanish and English, then spotting and creation of titles is done afterwards by someone who doesn't need language skills that are that strong. (Another step is me reviewing all of the subtitles, suggesting rewrites, adjusting the layout of the titles, and editing if the translation is too long to get read in real time.)

Check out Final Cut Pro projects from Server
Options to handle media when you check out a project
-Edit in place (doesn't do anything really)
-Edit proxies (good for taking a project home for the weekend or on the road)
-Disconnected use (makes a copy of the project and its media, like media manager)
Can't use project until it is checked back in. That is folks can't work on the same FCP project at the same time.

Media manager only recommended if you are creating a whole new version of a project. Again you have to play by FC Server's rule if you want it to track your stuff well.

Demo'd a web interface to log and annotate clips. But this was only a demo version and is not part of the softare. This was a "what you could do" if you are web developer or could afford to hire one. Hmm, well I'm not and we can't for what I do.

FC Server Strategy Meeting--topics for discussion
-Storage plan (for proxy files)
-Type of proxies
-Workflow strategy (what do you do with your media, where does it go, how does it get there, who does what with the media, aka Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How)
-Users
-Advanced automation
-email notifications
-Compression & distribution
-Web review (again not part of the product)
-"Customer" access to FCS

Automated backup can be done--setup rules for when to backup
For example: if file hasn't been touched in a certain amount of time, move to backup storage

Don't have to do an initial scan that sucks in all of your media, it may be better to add project by project. That way, you can be more thorough with metadata.

Annotate is where you can tag in and out markers and comments on clips. Apple guy said that this is supposed to be for transfer of this info back to FCP, but he didn't know how to do it/if it could be done now. Originally, there was going to be similar functionality to make simple edited sequences--I think those would have been transfered back through XML files. But Apple guy said no editing functionality but he "hoped" that they would add that feature because they touted it last year. Annotate is where producers could check out clips for editing and mark ins and outs for editors. It would be great if that could get into FCP. It would still be great for the producers to mark ins and outs on media directly on the clips as opposed to making notes on paper based on time code from a Beta or DV or timer from DVD. But without sending that info back to FCP, editor has to manually transfer in and out points.

Does it work with stills? Sure. FC Server is based on the Artbox software, which was originally written for still images. Also useful for getting producers to sign off on graphics. No need to drag Wendy into the editing room for her to look at something, which (I hope) she will just say OK to anyway. Yeah, for real collaboration you have to be in the same room but for quick and dirty this would be really nice to speed things up.

Suggestions from presenters that FC Serve can read After Effects files to get the links to the media that the project uses. That would be cool.

24p vs. 30p

So we are moving away (slowly all be it) from interlaced video to progressive video. There are a number of framerates common with progressive. Here's a brief breakdown
24 fps--what's used on film
30 fps--half as many samples per second as regular TV (e.g., 60 interlaced)
25 fps--half the frame rate of regular TV in Europe (e.g., 50 fps)
50 fps--the samples of images per second used in European TV
60 fps--the samples of images per second used in North America TV ( which is usually interlaced)

So people generally prefer the slower frame rates in documentaries and dramatic material because it reminds people of film and the cinema--in short it looks classy. The faster frame rates look like TV and are a must have for sports where things are moving fast.

This post is primarily concerned with the technological differences (and not aesthetic) between different frame rates. (If you want to brush up on your basic knowledge of interlaced versus progressive, check out their definitions from this glossary from Quantel.) So let me outline a couple of the technical advantages of progressive video versus interlaced video:

1) Monitors are rapidly turning progressive--LCD's (both TV's and computers) and plasmas. These monitors can't natively display interlaced video. So some processing has to be done to de-interlace, and very often you end of losing resolution (and lots of it) when the de-interlacing happens. It depends partly on how good the hardware is that does the de-interlacing, but this happens at the consumer's end--so you never quite know how it will look. In short, a cheap TV will do a bad job of this.

2) Better effects work on progressive footage. Lots of effects, including scaling, require the video to be de-interlaced. Final Cut Pro does a lousy job of de-interlacing. If your footage is progressive (and FCP knows it), then it won't de-interlace to do simple things like scaling up the video. This past week, I had to include some letterboxed standard-def video in a high-def show. It looked super soft in FCP. So I used Compressor to do a very slow but very good de-interlacing of the footage, which I then scaled up (but again I didn't even scale this footage in FCP). It looked a lot better with the de-interlacing that Compressor does than the de-interlacing that FCP does.

3) Progressive distribution of video. Computer monitors were never interlaced--so anything for distribution on computers benefits from being progressive. Also DVD's will handle 24 fps. This is great if the video is going to a progressive display, e.g., LCD or Plasma. As mentioned above, interlaced footage needs to de-interlaced to be scaled, but progressive doesn't. So a 24fps DVD will usually look much better on a high-def display than a comparable 60i video.

Important note: DVD doesn't have a standard for 30 fps--it's either 60i or 24 fps. So your DVD player and your TV treat 30 fps just like 60i--if it gets scaled up then you could lose resolution (but not always--again it depends on the display.)

Now let me move on to outline some advantages and drawbacks of different framerates:

24 fps: So if you're going to make a film print, then you should shoot in this framerate. OK .001 per cent of anything shot by professionals will ever end up on film. But because 24fps has been very hot for many years (essentially the Panasonic DVX-100 set that off) there are a lot of post workflows for working with 24 fps. 30 fps is gaining ground though--there are now lots of setups in FCP for it.

24 fps is very close to 25 fps. So a general option for converting for a European master is to just speed up the movie by 4%. No elaborate and/or expensive standards conversion. I think Compressor will handle this 4% speed up for you. I recently did a post of a technology guide from Quantel and they recommend 24fps as a universal format because it is so easy to transfer across the Atlantic.

And it's important that your software knows that you want to work progressive. You can put 24fps or 30fps in a 60i timeline, but then you've lost all of the technological advantages of working progressive. Your editing software, your computer, your DVD player, your TV will treat it like interlaced video. So as a general rule, pick a frame rate and stick to it throughout post and distribution. Obviously this can sometimes be really problematical--what about archival footage that's 60i? Or you want to work with a shooter and they don't own a camera that shoots progressive. You can convert that to 24fps using Compressor, but it's a real pain. No easy answer for this one.

As or 30 fps, one advantage is that is has more samples per second than 24 fps. 24 fps can look kind of choppy--you especially have to be careful with panning quickly. 30 fps is no walk in the park in this regards, but you have 25% more samples of the image per second than with 24 fps--so definitely less choppy.

In general for cameras, especially with CCD chips, it is easier to create 30 fps than 24 fps. CCD's have been doing 60i for so long that a lot of cameras out there are still based around that technology. Namely, the Sony HVR-Z1, which Link owns. The Z1 doesn't do real progressive imaging, but with the Cineframe modes you can get video that has 24, 25, or 30 images per second. Basically the camera blends the interlaced video to get progressive-looking video. Apparently, the Cineframe 24 with the Sony Z1 is supposed to be really crummy. The Cineframe 30 is supposed to be better, as is the Cineframe 25. Basically the camera is capturing video in an interlaced manner 60 time per second and has to figure out how to make progressive frames with it. With all Cineframe modes, this means tossing out some resolution. The Canon XL-H1 also does a similar process to get progressive frame rates. But going to 30 fps from 60i is easier--basically is the image is moving than you throw about every other field. And the Z1 does Cineframe 30 reasonably but fails with Cineframe 24 (Caveat: this is definitely true for HD, but if you are downconverting to SD it might be OK.)

One option I saw discussed over at a great post and discusion, which talks about frame rates, at HD for Indies is to shoot with the Z1 Cineframe 25 and then slow it down to get 24 fps. I think the easiest way to do this would be with Compressor, but these Compressor workflows are a hassle. However, if quality is important than this is an option.

By the way, Sony is moving from CCD's to CMOS, and the CMOS sensors are much more versatile with frame rates. So the HVR-V1 chips natively captures at 24 fps, as does the new EX-1, the HVR-Z7 and HVR-S270.

One problem is that even if the camera can capture images at 24 fps (or 30 fps), the camera often actually records in video that is actually 60i. With 24 fps that is recorded in a signal of 60i, the camera adds pulldown (see the definition in this Quantel post I did). In post you need to remove the pulldown, otherwise your editing software just treats it like 60i and you lose all the technological advantages of working with progressive video. So to post at 24 fps, you may have to convert the footage to remove the pulldown. This can make post-production very complex. FCP has added a setup for version 6.0.2, which is supposed to automatically remove the pulldown from the V1's 24 fps footage. Newer gear from Sony like the Z7 and S270 are doing a native framerate of 24fps recording in HDV. Tapeless cameras like the Panasonic HVX-200 and the Sony PMW EX-1 handle progressive footage in a much more straight-forward manner.

One drawback with 30 fps is that it doesn't convert well to 24 fps or 25 fps. 60i is easier to convert to 25 fps because it has a lot more samples across time to work with. Basically when you are doing a major standards conversion, a computer needs to generate frames that don't exist by analyzing the image information that is available. The more samples of images, the better that this process can be handled. In short if you have to make 25 fps video or 50i video, than 60 images per second is much better than 30 images per second. (Remember that going from 24 fps to 25 fps can be done in a much easier way by simply speeding up the video by 4%.)

UPDATE
I thought I should add a caveat about the above comments on standards conversion. The workflow that I desribe for speeding up 24 fps to make it a European-friendly 25 fps is a workflow that I've only heard discussed as a step done in a computer, e.g., Final Cut Pro or Compressor. So you could convert the footage on your Mac--but you'd still have to make a master on a 25 fps or 50 fps format, usually tape like DigiBeta or if HD, HDCam or DVCProHD. The traditional way to do standards conversion is that folks just make an NTSC master of their program and then send it to a high-end dub house to get a PAL copy done. This is obviously easier than having to make a master on your own for formats designed to work in Europe. I don't know of a dub scenario that exists for taking a 24 fps master and speeding it up during a transfer to make it 25 fps. If you want a standards conversion done during a dub, then 24 fps may not be any better than 30 fps.

In short, there is no easy answer to this question. First you got to know your camera, know your post options, and know your distribution plans. From there, it's a matter of trade-offs, for quality, time, and money.

Adobe--Photoshop and Future Technologies

PHOTOSHOP FOR VIDEO
With Photoshop CS3 Extended, you can now bring in video to Photoshop. Why would you want to do that you ask? What about After Effects? What about Color? Well I just came across a cool site/podcast that gives you a number of interesting ideas about how to harness Photoshop to make your video better.

Here's a video from the Photoshop for Video site that shows you how to use the Shadows-Highlights command on video. I recently used the shadows and highlights command in iPhoto to save some snapshots, and I was thinking "if I can do this on software that's practically free, why can't I do this in Final Cut Pro?". Well I still don't know how to do it with FCP, but I could correct my video this way with the latest & greatest version of Photoshop.


Back to the issue about Color. I haven't used it yet and frankly I'm not thrilled about learning a new interface. Now I have the option of harnessing my knowledge of Photoshop to do some cool tweaking. Also, for you folks who don't know Photoshop, I think this website/podcast is good way to pick up knowledge about the best image editing application out there.

Here are some other cool videos from Photoshop for Video at Adobe TV that I recommend:
Spot Color Grading
Making Alpha Channels for Logos (I do this lots)

So this appears to be regularly updated via a podcast--good way to use podcast subscription to do some regular learning if you're interested in Photoshop. Oh, video in Photoshop only just got added to the Extended verison of the latest Photoshop. But not everything on this site is about this feature, good stuff that can be done in older versions of Photoshop is available too (e.g., the alpha channels for logos movie.)

ADOBE'S FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES
While on the topic of Adobe, there's another interesting video from NAB where Adobe talks about some future technologies. The most interesting one for me is what they call "End to End Metadata". In particular, they were demoing speech recognition that generates transcripts for movies. Then that transcript can be leveraged in editing (Premiere Pro) and in delivery to the web (Flash video.)

Avid has already deployed some of these tools with their Script Sync, which I wrote about on this post. Basically you can hop around in the text of a script or transcript, and the software know where people are saying that bit of dialogue. But I like how Adobe takes it another step further by allowing delivery of the text too--think subtitles, think closed captioning, think searchable text on the web.

I don't know about the voice recognition engine creating automatic transcriptions. I can't believe voice recognition is that good--on the other hand, I'm sure our government is spending billions on voice recognition software so that they can monitor everyone's phone calls. Eventually that technology will filter down to us mere mortals--just another great benefit brought to us by the Bush Administration.

Here's the outline of the Adobe technology presentation if you are interested in any of the other stuff:
1. Cinema DNG
2. End to End Metadata
3. Mobile Delivery
4. Interactivity without scripting

So I found out about these video over at Pro Video Coalition, which is turning into my main source for video news.

Apple Rumors (and a little news)

I try not to pass along rumors, but there's a scary one that's been floating around enough that I thought I'd mention it. I think it started around the time that Apple said that it was going to skip NAB. The word from the grapevine is that Apple is going to sell its Pro Apps, which includes Final Cut Pro.

The rumor has been pretty persistent, enough for Apple to officially deny it. In Robert Cringely's latest article he says that Apple spent the NAB conference looking for buyers for their Pro Apps. He's been saying for a while that Apple will buy Adobe in order to get Flash. If that's the case, then Cringely thinks that Apple can't keep both their Pro Apps and Adobe's competing products, like Premiere, After Effects, and their other audio-video apps because of anti-trust concerns. He's more convincing than any of the other sources that I've heard with this rumor or similar ones, so I'm a little more concerned about it. Although, Cringely goes on to to suggest that if Apple really did buy Adobe, then it would sell the Adobe apps that compete with Apple's.

I still think it's unlikely that Apple would sell Final Cut Pro, and for that viewpoint there's a short blog at Final Cut User.

For a bit of official news, there was a statement from an Apple employee on why Final Cut Server took so long to appear on the market--nearly a year after it was announced. According to this interview at TVBEurope, Apple went back to the drawing board to make Final Cut Server easy to administer. Apple's marketing director for professional video apps said that they were reworking Final Cut Server so that it could run "without an IT department to support it." Final Cut Server seems to have been based on asset management software that Apple acquired late in 2006 from a company called Proximity. If they were simplifying the software, I can appreciate that. I'm not interested in becoming an IT professional, but I'm the most likely person to set up and run Final Cut Server at Link TV.

In the same article, Apple's marketing guy says that they have sold a million licenses of FCP. He also said that FCP had 49% market share in 2007 versus Avid's 22% share.