Don,
In response to your WiebeTech question, yes I believe that their Firewire RAID system is configured as a striped ("RAID 0") array rather than a true RAID level 1. They are boasting of its performance rather than its reliability.

Humorously, though, I just noticed that WiebeTech indicates that the system has -dual power supplies-, presumably one for each drive. What a hoot! Dual power supplies are actually a hallmark of large RAID 1 arrays where half of the array continuously mirrors the other half. If one half of the array fails, mirroring stops and the other half immediately takes over. Power supply failures are the most likely cause of trouble and such systems split their supplies between two physically separate circuits to help ensure that one side of the array remains in operation.

But splitting a "RAID 0" array between two power supplies would actually have the effect of reducing the engineering reliability of the whole array by at least half if the end user actually connected each side to a separate house circuit (which is highly unlikely anyway).

I really like WiebeTech's drives; I own two. But I'd stick with their single Firewire drives. In fact they just announced that their Super Desktop GB drives are now available in capacities up to 200Gb! That's where I would spend (and have spent) my money on Firewire storage.

Firewire has a bandwidth of 400 Mb/sec. That gets shared with all the devices on the 1394 bus. My own simplistic tests with firewire RAID have shown that this sharing with other devices on the bus can impact the performance...dropped frames, and such.

May I suggest that, if time is not of the essence, ie, you can wait until January, there is a new IDE standard already approved and released called Serial ATA. Motherboards are already being sold with the SATA controller implemented. SATA is backwards compatible with ATA100 IDE bus hard drives. What happens in January is the new SATA hard drives are scheduled to hit the streets. The SATA HD's are advertised to have thruputs on the order of 100 MB/sec!! Sounds too good to be true, but, the initial independent tests I've read have verified the numbers as real and achievable.

Oh, and BTW, there already are serial ATA PCI controller cards available from several sources, including PROMISE. Can you imagine a SATA RAID 0? hehehehe

Yes, Bill makes a very good point. During dv capture via Firewire the incoming footage is jostling down the same cable as the outgoing footage if you're using a Firewir drive. I've not had a problem doing this but, admittedly, I don't do this very often.

An onlooker to this thread just asked me offline (via email) how I would implement a RAID 0 array if I had to do so. My answer is that I would use 10,000 rpm ("10K") SCSI drives with the best caching SCSI RAID controller I could afford. Yes, SCSI is a bit of a hassle with its byzantine variety of connector interfaces and hard address assignments. But, once set-up, this is tried-and-true technology that keeps the drive traffic off of the Firewire bus as well as off the main system bus to the greatest degree possiblle.

New Avdi Xpress DV Educational Discounts
 

GLEN COVE, New York – Specialty Video Supply, the educational division of The Electronic Mailbox and Avid Authorized Reseller, has joined forces with Avid to offer the lowest price ever on the Xpress DV 3.5 EDU and Student Pack bundles. For a limited time students, teachers and educational facilities will save $100 when they purchase the Xpress DV 3.5 Student Pack or EDU Pack from Specialty Video Supply. The Student Pack is available to students and teachers with current and valid school ID at only $399.95 and the EDU Pack is available to any educational facility at only $899.95. EDU Packs may also be purchased in 10-seat license bundles for use in larger multimedia labs for $6,995 ($1,000 off the regular 10-seat price).

Avid Xpress DV 3.5 educational bundles include everything needed to teach & learn the professional Avid editing interface on any Windows XP or Mac OSX system. Xpress DV 3.5 EDU Pack and Student Packs include the full version of Avid’s professional non-linear editing software that is based on the same Avid architecture as their broadcast solutions and offers hundreds of real-time transitions, filters and special effects plus the complete Avid color correction tool set with realtime color correction. The educational bundles also include Avid Xpress DV Filmmaker's Toolkit with extra capabilities for students and independent filmmakers shooting on film or on video; Avid Image Stabilization for correcting shaky camera work, one license key (USB Dongle) and one CD set containing all software and documentation necessary.

Specialty Video Supply, a division of reseller The Electronic Mailbox, is dedicated to providing solutions for schools and educational institutions. For more information on the Avid Educational Discount Program call Dan at 1-800-323-2325 ext. 123 or go to http://www.specialtyvideosupply.com/prodpage/avid.html.

I wouldn't use SCSI unless I was doing uncompressed video. It is totally uncalled for in mini DV applications. SCSI is too costly, too high maintenance costs, and too complicated for most users. Many of the SCSI controllers are problematic with the newer operating systems.

Instead I would use an ATA RAID 0. It could be put together for less than 1/2 the price, with nearly equal performance.

First you need an IDE RAID controller. There are 4 I know of for the Mac.

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_raid133.html

It supports up to 4 drives and is bootable and also allows you to break the 137 gig drive barrier.

I would choose Western Digital Special Edition drives (8MB cache buffer), probably 120MB offer the most bang for the buck.

http://www.wdc.com/products/Products.asp?DriveID=27

Total cost is around $200 for the controller and $280 (after rebates) for 2 120MB drives. So, $500 bucks for a blazingly fast RAID 0 set up. That's 18 hours of mini DV footage.

Jeff

DV DVD deck
 

I have looked and didn't see any information on DV / DVD decks. Mini DV decks in the past have been married with VHS decks, isn't it reasonable someone will come out with a DV/DVD deck, or have they already done so and I haven't found out yet. I am trying not to abuse my XL1S when a simple deck might be used instead, and if I am going to buy a deck why not have it burn DVD's.
Thanks
Don

Makes sense to me, Don. Check again in, say, 2-3 years. Perhaps such a unit will be introduced when DVD recorders and blank media come down in price and are more accepted in the market.

Ken's right. Look at the price of a stand alone DVD recorder and the price of a mini DV player recorder. Historically these combo units cost more the sum of their parts. You paid for the convenience. An all-in-one unit would probably cost $2,500 or more.

Jeff

I've heard nothing but great things about the
escalade raid controllers from 3ware.

Here's a quote from their site

"3ware Escalade 8500 Serial ATA RAID controllers deliver full-featured hardware RAID for PC servers and workstations. With 3ware’s point-to-point packet switching architecture, each disk drive has its own dedicated port, increasing throughput and enhancing reliability. 3ware delivers unmatched capacity, scalability and performance using inexpensive Serial ATA disk drives. The Escalade 8500 Serial ATA controllers set the standard for Serial ATA RAID. ."

In raid 0 for either paralell or serial ata drives, they are claiming up to 190MB throughput. People I know in the pro audio and high end Home Theater PC crowd use these for video/audio serving.

http://www.3ware.com

When my budget can afford it, I plan on getting one those babies.


they're expensive, but still less expensive than SCSI.
They are nothing like the Promise or Highpoint raid controllers.

-R -RW +R +RW , I read an article that stated 76% of sales were (-) type. the good thing about a well engineered combo unit would be to drop in a tape and a DVD disc, push a button and walk away. But I am up against a wall. I don't know about everyone elses neighborhood but in mine the local stores only stock a few VHS decks and the quality is garbage. I also have heard Blockbuster is going 100% DVD on future movie releases. Your average Grandparents have a DVD in their cabinet and a mini DV in their palm. I have looked into outsourcing dvd burning and it looks expensive, 30$ per 30 minutes plus the disc. I might as well start a little conversion business.

The films from the Halloween Instant Films are now up on our site at instantfilms.com. It was our best festival yet, some really great pieces of work. Check 'em out and enjoy...

(Mac users, we are still trying to get a Quicktime sponsor. In the meantime, option-click on the "watch" button and download the files to disk, then watch on Windows Media Player. The image quality is not great. We are hoping to have this improved by the next festival in December).

I can't see cost as a factor, not when u have £100,000 beta recorders with hard drives built in etc.

Especially when it would save time in a professional situation. why tie up your computer for half a day or more when u could pop it in a machine, and as CentralFla said, push a button and walk away.

hopefully the manufacturers read these forums...

Free Texture Loops
 

MainConcept sent me an email announcing that it is once again permitting downloading of its texture loops. These are loopable AVIs with moving, abstract patterns that are good for backgrounds for titling, etc. MainConcept put up two a week last year, and I snagged most of them -- found them quite useful.

Apparently, they're doing it again (you can also buy a CD with all of them for $15).

I have no connection with MainConcept, except that I found their loops useful.

Here's the website address:

http://www.mainconcept.com/texture_loops.shtml

Thanks very much for sharing this with us, Paul. I've never seen their site or products so this is a good intro to a new resource for me!

"Carrie" shot on Panasonic's HD cams
 

From: Panasonic Broadcast Newsletter <PanasonicBroadcastNewsletter@list.panasonic.com>
Date: Mon Nov 4, 2002 2:07:59 PM US/Eastern
To: ProductionNews <ProductionNews@list.panasonic.com>
Subject: "Carrie" Shot with Panasonic VariCam HD Camera, Airs Tonight on N BC

========================================
PANASONIC PRODUCTION E-NEWSLETTER
========================================
November 4, 2002
========================================


MGM & NBC'S NEW TV MOVIE BASED ON STEPHEN KING'S CLASSIC NOVEL, "CARRIE,"
SHOT WITH PANASONIC VARICAM(tm) HD CAMERAS

Horror Saga Airs Tonight on NBC

MGM & NBC's new, three-hour version of "Carrie," based on Stephen King's
classic horror novel, starring Angela Bettis ("The Crucible," "Girl
Interrupted") in the title role, was shot this past summer on location in
Vancouver with Panasonic's AJ-HDC27 VariCam(tm) HD Cinema(tm) cameras. The
movie will be telecast by NBC tonight (8-11 p.m. ET) in standard definition
and high definition.

King's chilling tale of a teenaged girl, shunned by her peers, who discovers
she has inexplicable telekinetic powers has been powerfully adapted for
today's audiences in Bryan Fuller's compelling three-hour teleplay, which
includes scenes from the novel that didn't appear in the original 1976 film.
Victor Goss ASC served as Director of Photography.

Additional cast members include Emmy winner Patricia Clarkson starring as
Margaret White, Carrie's mother, whose religious fanaticism has made an
outcast of her daughter. Also starring are David Keith, Rena Sofer, Kandyse
McClure and Emilie de Ravin. David Carson ("Star Trek: Generations," "In His
Life: The John Lennon Story") directs; screenwriter Fuller executive
produces along with Mark Stern, Pen Densham & John Watson, partners in
Trilogy Entertainment Group. The movie event will be distributed by MGM
Worldwide Television Distribution. Lab and post-production services were
provided by Rainmaker Entertainment Group, Ltd. (Vancouver, Canada), and
Stargate Films created the visual effects.

Five VariCams were utilized for first and second unit photography on the
seven-week "Carrie" shoot. The AJ-HDC27 VariCam replicates many of the key
features of film-based image acquisition, including 24-frame progressive
scan images, and offers a wide range of variable frame rates (4- to 60-fps
in single-frame increments) for "overcranked" and "undercranked" off-speed
in-camera effects achieving fast or slow-motion, plus programmable
time-lapse recording. The AJ-HDC27 VariCam also offers CineGamma(tm)
extended dynamic range software that permits Panasonic's HD Cinema recording
systems to more closely match the dynamic range of film stocks.

DP Goss, a veteran of television production acquisition, recently completed
another high-profile project with Panasonic's VariCam, the pilot for "Oliver
Beene," a half-hour comedy that was picked up for Fox Television's
mid-season line-up.

"I was totally pleased with the performance of the VariCams on this
project," said Goss. "I like the way the AJ-HDC27 photographs and consider
it the most film-like of the digital cinema cameras, which is why I lobbied
hard to use it for 'Carrie.'"

He continued, "I've now used Sony's CineAlta HD cameras and the VariCam
quite extensively, and while they are both good cameras I prefer the way the
VariCam handles color. It has a way of interpreting greens with greater
depth and subtlety, especially khaki and autumn tones. It represents skin
tones very pleasingly. These are critical factors to me.... plus the fact
that the AJ-HDC27 handles overexposure a lot like film does, achieving, for
instance, gently washed highlights rather than creating a lot of compression
artifacts in overexposed areas of a shot, common in exterior daylight work."

Goss added, "Ultimately, I chose VariCam because of its ability to create
really beautiful images, with sparking highlights. We also made use of the
camera's off-speed capabilities, and did a fair amount of shooting at
60-fps, both for slow motion sequences and to give the effects guys extra
frames to work with. But the majority of time we shot at 24-frames."

Goss approximated that he shot close to 125 hours of material with the
VariCams, and estimated the savings compared to film stock and developing
were significant. "We were able to shoot twice as much material on tape for
action and effects sequence," he said.

Director David Carson commented, "I'm most enthusiastic about how quickly we
were able to move about the set. The cameras are flexible -- most of our
work was hand-held, and the VariCams are somewhat more rugged and better
suited to that style than film cameras are. I didn't miss worrying about
film stock, and was able to get much more coverage from many more angles
than on a comparable film schedule.

"I love Victor's work, and have collaborated with him previously in HD. The
look he achieved on 'Carrie' is tremendous, softer than I've ever seen
shooting digital, and he was able to attain different atmospheres
throughout, with many different color codes, which was integral to the
narrative. While I love working with film, I am convinced that HD is
becoming increasingly important to the future of global entertainment, and
as a director, I'm extremely interested in getting on board with the
technology."

Goss characterized the shoot as having considerable outdoors work, with many
night exteriors, as well as stunts such as crashing a truck and blowing up a
gas station. He said, "The VariCams are pretty sturdy, and didn't react to
vibration, dust or moisture. We shot almost entirely hand-held, with
occasional Steadicam work, where the lightweight cameras performed quite
well."

The DP noted that, for green screen work, the output of the AJ-HDC27 VariCam
was line recorded via the camera's high definition Serial Digital Interface
(HD-SDI) to a Panasonic AJ-HD3700 HD Cinema mastering recorder, providing a
10-bit, full bandwidth recording for high-quality compositing.

"Carrie" was post-produced at Rainmaker, Western Canada's premiere post
production facility. According to general manager Barry Chambers, who
supervised the "Carrie" work along with chief engineer Bill Hammond, the
Panasonic HD Cinema equipment, including the AJ-HD3700 mastering VTR,
AJ-HD150 deck, AJ-FRC27 frame rate converter and AJ-UFC1800 format
converter, performed well in the post-production process.

"Our first step was to make a 720p/60 selects master, which we then
converted to 1080p/24, a D-5 master, which was then down converted for
off-line," Chambers explained. "We did our on-line assembly in 24p, D-5 to
D-5, and implemented color correction and titling all in 1080p/24. Once we
got procedures established, post was fairly seamless, and we see no reason
to think that originating in 720p inevitably leads to excessive costs in
post."

========================================

To learn more about the world of HD, please visit:
http://www.panasonic.com/hdworld

========================================

Yes, thanks for the link. I visited the site and thought the CD version (100 loops for $15).

I'm sure I can find some use for them!

Thanks for posting that, Jeff. I only watched it on a Standard Def TV, so I couldn't really evaluate the capture medium. But I confess I thought the movie as a whole was ridiculously incompetent. Unmotivated camera dutching in half the shots, crazy editing, ineffective reusing of footage over and over in "tension" scenes: everything about the shooting and cutting evinced the feeling one was watching amateurs at work, and resulted in an overlong mess of a film that I'm suprised NBC accepted.

added info
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Jeff Donald : I wouldn't use SCSI unless I was doing uncompressed video. It is totally uncalled for in mini DV applications. SCSI is too costly, too high maintenance costs, and too complicated for most users. Many of the SCSI controllers are problematic with the newer operating systems.

Instead I would use an ATA RAID 0. It could be put together for less than 1/2 the price, with nearly equal performance.<<<-- Originally posted by Jeff Donald

I would have to agree with Jeff.........

Although not directed towards DV "stuff" I just setup 2 dual CPU servers on a RAID 0 config.
#1 for a business system of record/order processing that gets hammered by 50 users at a time with 2 branch offices via a VPN.
#2 for a SQL server 2000 setup and a few other nominal applications.

Both are running Windows 2000 advanced server as an OS.

For the amount of money saved, and the overhead SCSI creates, it was a good way to go since SQL and advanced server 2000 are so pricey(SQL also requires a separate license for each CPU cough/cough/spit).

I'm still impressed with the WD drives, but I'm migrating to the Seagate Barracudas (currently have 100gig in my Vegas Video editing box, and both of the above servers are running them).

I'll keep this board updated if the barracudas don’t live up to my expectations, but they are currently singing along just fine.

>>For the amount of money saved, and the overhead SCSI creates, it was a good way to go since SQL and advanced server 2000 are so pricey(SQL also requires a separate license for each CPU cough/cough/spit).
<<

Try firebird, it's the free open source version of Interbase, and I can say it works great. The company I worked for uses it on just about everything. It's commercial strength, and works on several platforms,... windows, Linux, BSD, MacOs10.x, and a few others. I've been writing high performance security software with it for over 3 years. Has ODBC, ADO and other 3rd party drivers.
I've been using Delphi C/S for development. I've also used it for creating custom market research systems.

Firebird also works with various multi-tier technologies.

check it out at http://www.ibphoenix.com, follow the links for downloading. won't cost you a thing except time.

Thanks for the reply jojo
 

jojo,
To make it even worse.........I'm stuck in VAR hell.......

The software producer (Macola, now owned by exact software out of Denmark), only sells this software through VAR's and has support specs like "you must use this and that OS" to not void your support warranty. The spec sheet is annoying to say the least.

It's unfortunate, but the decision to buy this software was Y2K related and was bought at the end of 1998.....just before I was employed here and took over Operations & IT....

For the business model, Oracle came out with a proggie that meets our needs, but they waited until after Y2K to release it.

Otherwise, SAP's R3 is the best (again, for our business model) but the problem with SAP is that you need to lay a million dollars on the table so they will even talk to you (slight exaggeration =) as a per sey small business.

Thanks for the info though.........I'm always "sniffing" out new or existing products.

Dv Ny
 

Probably most people in the NY area already know this, but thought I'd post it just in case... I received this message in my mailbox:

Wired.com: "Crooked Path Ahead for Digital TV"
 

An interesting article reflecting on the prospective effects of the upcoming Republican-controlled Congress. Bottom line: no need to rush to Best Buy any time soon.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56244,00.html

WeibeTech FW drive
 

Is it possible to contect the super desktop gb directly to the GL2 and film? In another words, capture directly to the FW drive and not use the minidv tape.

Panasonic AJ-SDX900
 

Pro shoulder mount, 24p, records DV25 and DV50, dirt cheap at the bargain-basement lowball introductory price of only $35,000:

See http://www.panasonic.com/PBDS/subcat...AJ-SDX900.html

From Jan Crittenden:

It will be 24P, 30P, and 60i, 16:9/4:3 switchable, dual resolution in 50Mbs and 25Mbs. We have a little bit of information about it on our web page, www.panasonic.com/broadcast look for the
camcorders and click on the link. It will have 12 bit DSP allowing for a matrix that is unrivaled by any standard def camera. It will also have more adjustability to the gamma, with a preset for Cine Gamma, but still have some handles. There is a wireless receiver pocket and a lot of small but thoughtful features. I am the product manager for this camera and this is the nicest SD camera we will have brought to the market ever... we will start to show the camera in January and deliver in March of next
year. Wish it was sooner.

And probably without lens. I was excited when I read about this camera.
I went to the site and saw the price (which I thought would be no more than the DSR570WS).

I am sure it is wonderful, but for that kind of money, I want HD (with lens).

Oh, by the way . . . another panasonic rant ;)

I ordered the varicam DVD demo. Hey, even if the varicam is out of my personal price range, you never know if the U. of M. will eventually buy HD.

To make a long story short . . . the DVD won't play. I am SURE panasonic has its own lovely DVD spec (what is it again . . . DVD-RW?).

Well, just like ALL the reasons I heard about why Panny's firewire was NOT delivered on time, and then why Panny firewire wouldn't play with ANYTHING, I am positive there are_plently of excuses_.

Bottom line, I want to put their DVD into my player (new magnavox) and have it work. So far, this is THE ONLY DVD this new player has "no disc"ed.
I won't be taking chances on Panny DVD burners.

Sorry Panasonic, BUT when are you going to WAKE UP!

No. Shooting to disk (as with the Firestore or other similar units) requires more than just a Firewire disk. There is additional programming and circuitry involved.

Nikon Fans might be interested to know . . .
 

This link about Nikon's finanical outlook http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ey/4493506.htmmight be interesting to a few of you. Nikon had long been rumored to be for sale. But with their stock so low (7 year low) no sales are imenent.

Jeff

I know the price sounds high, but it isline with other cameras like the JVC D9 cineline d90w, which lists for 25k without lens and doens't offer progressive output. Would like to see a JVC alternative though.

Magic Bullet used on feature film 'Jackass'
 

Came across this article http://www.theorphanage.com/webconte...ass_10-02_web/ about The Orphanage using MB on this MTV feature film. It was mostly shot on NTSC Digi Beta (some S16). MB was used to conform the video to 24p and reduce video artifacts.

Jeff

Soderbergh talks about going digital
 

Texas Instruments has an interview with Soderbergh on their DLP site http://www.dlp.com/dlp_cinema/dlp_ci..._article_1.asp

Jeff

Interesting. Too bad Magic Bullet couldn't remove the artifacts of inane, insipid imbecility from this feature. <g>

I like that term, "grain sniffers"!

Ah, I think your referring to their new plug in MI (Magic Intelligence). When I saw who produced it, MTV, I had a clue what it was.

Jeff

Is there a Twelve Step program for that?

Jeff

The Soderberg article contains the same cheerleading we've been hearing on the part of TI for half a decade. From TI's perspective, it's important to establish a monopoly on theatrical digital exhibition in the next 15 years, before their DLP patent portfolio expires. Without some weight being thrown around behind the scenes, widespread digital retrofitting is unlikely to happen, because exhibitors know that if they wait another decade, there will be more competition in the market, and the associated costs of upgrading their projectors from 35 mm film to DLP will be fraction of what they are today for technology that will have since been improved many times over.

Those looking for something new in the article will be disappointed. Just the same, thanks for the heads-up, Jeff!

They should have kept making manual cameras, and with mounts to use Zeiss and/or Leica lenses. They should also have made better lenses for their cams. I've got to track down old ones all the time, and with even these, it is slim pickin'.

Firewire to DVD
 

Won't save wear on Don's XL1s tape drive, but I wonder if the Panasonic and Phillips DVD recorders that claim to take Firewire input and convert to DVD discs would save Don's time anyhow?? Would appear to save having to download DV tape info to some editing/conversion computer suite and use computer DVD write drive to burn DVD discs. Anyone have any experience or thoughts on using these $900 DVD recorders to burn DVD disc using Firewire output from DV camcorder??

<<<-- Originally posted by Ken Tanaka : Interesting. Too bad Magic Bullet couldn't remove the artifacts of inane, insipid imbecility from this feature. <g> -->>>


Yep, once you pull all that out though, you are left with a 3 minute long show. :)

No wonder they are having trouble, they have licensed Kodak and Fuji to use their F mount on their pro digital cameras which cost a lot less than the Nikon versions