by studio006
As I’ve written about previously our department is undergoing a massive re-encode, about 1600 files. We were previously using Sorenson Squeeze 4.5.7. It’s main problem revolved around the time it took to transcode a Quicktime movie into a .mp4. To create one mp4 took about three hours. And for each Quicktime file we need to output two mp4’s and one mp3. Now 6+ hours to get through one file is just rediculous.
It became important to take advantage of our multi-core machines, which Squeeze 4.5.7 wasn’t doing. We decided to take the plunge and upgrade to Squeeze 5 because of it’s claims to utilizing multiple cores. Come to find out that it does and it doesn’t. It does utilize multi-core machines, but only in certain instances. For example, if you important files manually it can use all the cores you have. If, however, you use a watch folder to encode files you only get one core of fun. Now that seems pretty short sighted. Watch folders, in a multi editor studio is of the utmost importance. Since everything we do is in a networked envirnoment watch folders make the encoding process much simplier.
For those who may be unaware of what or how a watch folder works, let me explain. A watch folder is a designated folder that is “watched” by the encoding software. Whenever a file of an appropriate type, say a Quicktime .mov, is placed into the folder the encoding software will transcode the file into whatever settings are specified. So from one watch folder you may have five different output formats. In other words, one .mov goes in and out comes a mp3, mp4, wmv, flv, and mpeg-2. This makes repetative tasks easily managable. And it makes repetitative taks that come from multiple editors easily mangable through one piece of software.
The upside to Squeeze 5 is when it does take advantage of your multiple cores it allows you to rock ‘n roll. Instead of doing 5 files in a 24 hour period, my 8 core machine was cranking through 26 files in the same time. Now that’s a serious time saver! My recommendation to Sorenson is to tweak their programming so that multi-core encodes happen whether you import manually or setup watch folders. The software has an extremely intuitive interface with simple, easy-to-use plugins. For the price point and its feature set, not much can touch it. Overall, I give squeeze a 7 out of 10.
So now that I’m utilizing all my cores I’ll keep ya posted on how long it takes to transcode 1600 files! Maybe one day we’ll have a faster solution to these kinds of tasks….but until then….
by wayne
Last night’s FCPUG meeting went off without a hitch. We met at AMS at 7:00 - ajourned sometime after 9:00 PM - then went to Two Rows for dinner. We had about 40 people in attendance.
www.DallasFCPUG.org : Wayne Walker gave us an introduction to our new website. We are going to start using a new discussion forum for communication. Please everyone - sign in and give us feedback. Thanks to Jønny ReVøl†! for design ideas!
Color : Ryan Holmes gave us a real world workflow example using Color to correct and grade poorly shot video. Ryan showed how to take media from Final Cut - to Color, grade it, render it, and send it back to Final Cut. Check our Ryan’s video podcast (Studio006) for color training - as well as other production applications.
Viewzi - Steve DeVoll introduced us to a new way to graphically view web search results. Steve was one of the founding members of our FCPUG and is now the CTO of a great new company. Viewzi takes the best of web search results (Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask and others) and delivers those results in a radically new way. You’ve never seen your search results look so good. Who though web searches could be fun again?
ShotPut Express - Ned Soltz gave us a demo of this utility used to copy media from your Sony SxS card (from the Sony EX1 XDCam) to an external Firewire, a usb drive, or your internal drive. After you shoot - you need a quick way to empty the card so you can keep rolling.
Matrox - A rep from Matrox came to visit us and gave us a demo of the MXO and MXO2. He led a fun discussion of these two products. The MXO is an output device - that enables you to output from your computer - in the correct color space to a standard DVI LCD monitor (or SDI, Component, or composite). The MXO2 is an IO box. It is not codec dependent. You can use it to import and export over SDI, Component, Composite, SVideo, or HDMI. It can be powered by a 12 volt source, and lists for $1595.
It used your express34 slot - thus will only work with Intel based macs. Very lightweight and compact. It competes with the AJA IO HD.
Thanks guys - I’m sure discussion will kick up quickly in the forum. Please remember to leave us feedback about the site. What do you want to see her?
~Wayne
by wayne
Another year - another phone - but this one is really different.
What Apple has just created will probably be the most popular media device ever. With a beautiful screen and fast 3G internet access, it will be in the pockets of millions. Those iPhone owners are exactly the people that we are trying to reach. I know fourteen year olds with nothing better to do than to spend their parents money on an iPhone. I also know a sixty five year old iPhone owner who loves the device.
So what does this mean to you? You need to know the device - and how to deliver your media in the correct format so that it can be viewed on the iPhone. Does this mean that you are changing your delivery for one particular device? Sure it does - but the target audience of millions of iPhone owners is worth the effort. The format is not obscure - it is a widely accepted codec that will also allow your content to be shown in any web browser and can be downloaded for an ipod. From Apple’s website:
iPod and iPhone can play the following video formats:
* H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Low-Complexity version of the Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
* H.264 video, up to 768 kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
* MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file format
How do you get your video in that format? Final Cut (using Compressor) or Quicktime already has built in settings for iPod video. Remember, the iPhone is still an iPod. Just choose one of those presets and try it out.
So once you have the video in the right format - to place it on your website you have to use the correct code. Just any code won’t do. Here it is:
<embed src="sample.mov" width="320" height="256"></embed>
Now there are a ton of extra pieces you can put in the code to make it do really cool stuff - but sometimes easy is better.
Remember - try it out before you make it live for the world to see. Use your own iPhone - it’s less than $200 and you can always blame the “I’ve gotta have it to test our video” excuse, or ask a friend to hit your website. We just started using a new process for encoding our videos - only to find out that the new encode won’t load on the iPhone. Test, test and retest before you look silly to your audience - or they can’t see it at all.
Check out this video with your iPhone. See.. it actually works!
Have fun with your new iPhone audience.
by studio006
Last week I posted how we were in the midst of searching for a way to adequately encode almost 2000 files using the h.264 codec into some sort of wrapper. The problem was deciding what type of wrapper to use. Should we use .mp4, .mov, or .m4a?
The problem centered around how long it took Sorenson Squeeze (our transcoding software) to create a mp4 from our full quality mov. What I failed to consider was how much unnecessary work Squeeze was doing. For instance, we exported from Final Cut Pro a DV25 720×480 interlaced timeline. Squeeze had to resize the file down to our output resolution of 640×480, deinterlace the footage because we were delivering via web (and you don’t put interlaced material on a progressive display like a LCD or Plasma), and then create a new mp4 file. So Squeeze took anywhere from 4-6 hours just to do 1 file. That just isn’t going to work. I’ve seen mud move faster. Hence our dilemma.
We looked at Compressor as a solution, but it didn’t offer a mp4 file using the h.264 codec. If we want h.264 it either meant wrapping it as a m4v or as a mov. The solution: stick with Squeeze but take some work off the programs shoulders, force FCP to do much of the grunt work upfront. So when we batch export from FCP our sequences were manipulated from FCP into our target resolution (640×480) and deinterlaced. Encoding a file that Squeeze no longer has to resize and deinterlace took the transcoding time down to 1-2 hours. Much better. Still not light speed, but not as slow as molasses either.
What we learned: sometimes its easier to let FCP do the grunt work, like resizing or deinterlacing, and then let a secondary software, like Squeeze, do what it’s made to do, namely, transcode.
by studio006
Here’s the goal: you want to use the H.264 codec to distribute video content via Amazon S3, used inside a Flash player, and playable on any iPod/iPhone. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong!
The question is what kind of wrapper you want to encase the H.264 in, mov, mp4, or the arbitrary Apple standard of m4v (to distinguish it from m4a). We have adopted a .mp4 standard at our studio. So there’s 2 ways to go about producing a .mp4 video either QuickTime Pro or stand alone encoding software (Cleaner, Squeeze, Episode, etc.)
“Not so fast,”you say! Just use Compressor. It comes with every version of Final Cut Studio…you’ll be good to go. The problem is that Compressor only creates .m4v or .mov using the H.264 codec. If you create a .mp4 you get stuck with the generic mp4 codec
“O.K. Well just change the extension when it comes out,” you say. Well the problem is that the mp4/m4v/mov gets data written into the header of the file to specify what format it is. If it gets changed QT Pro cannot recognize it
We use Sorenson Squeeze (version 4.5.7) at our production studio to encode video. Squeeze only does the H.264 codec in a mp4 wrapper. So no .m4v (Apple’s iWhatever approved format) or .mov. Plus version 4.5 of Squeeze takes about 1.5-2 hours to encode one twenty minute file on a four-core machine (that’s too many numbers for one sentence). Now consider this: we have almost 2000 videos to encode. Not the fastest solution
So we could change our format from .mp4 (what we currently use) to .m4v and just use Compressor. The trouble with Compressor is that the settings in Compressor only go down to 1000kbps. That’s almost 4 times our current data rate (275kbps). What’s a boy to do
No solution has of yet, revealed itself. I continue to research how to make a H.264 .mp4 file with speed and efficiency (Sorenson is the best option so far). Oh and in case you were wondering….QT Pro can create mp4 files with the H.264 codec, but they aren’t compatible with the iPod/iPhone. In fact there’s a specific setting inside of QT Pro for the iPod or the iPhone (it creates a .m4v file)
Bottom line: too many formats within just this one standard. This doesn’t even begin to delve into the .wmv, .mov, .flv race. It’s a jungle out there. Can we please simplify this….and soon?!!
by wayne
Apple invited me to a preview and demo of Final Cut Server early in May at SMU.
Could the wizards of Apple come up with another magical tool to make all of our lives better? It seems as if they have tried.
Final Cut Server is Apple’s response to the industry’s cries over asset management. The press release given by apple was:
…powerful software solution for media asset management and workflow automation. A scaleable server application, Final Cut Server automatically catalogs large collections of assets, allows searching across multiple disks and SAN volumes, and enables viewing, annotation and approval of content from anywhere using a PC or Mac. “With the introduction of Final Cut Server, collaboration just got a whole lot easier for millions of editors, producers and clients who work with Final Cut Studio,” said Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of Applications Product Marketing
Anyone who works with multiple Final Cut projects deals with the management of assets. From offline files, to missing assets, red areas in your timeline - FCS tries to alleviate this by doing the work for you. It allows you to catalog and search your assets via meta data and drag resources from project to project. The interface is separate from Final Cut Studio (not really integrated) - which is a plus and a minus.
In a production workflow where number individuals might work on the same project,FCS tries to bridge the gap between editor, producer and reviewer through it’s online interface for reviewing, commenting and management.
The demo was performed at a distance. It was installed on a laptop and running on a machine that we couldn’t actually touch. The interface was shown to us on a project - we couldn’t login and play with it ourselves(like NAB - back when Apple did NAB). I don’t think that we would have actually wanted to touch it - since the Apple rep kept saying “that button is supposed to do this - but it keeps crashing on me”.
From a philosophical standpoint, it looks like a great idea. But as I look at the backend, it looks like iTunes/iPhoto library for my video assets. This isn’t a bad thing, unless you need to find the files by using finder. iTunes and iPhoto work because they use meta data. Meta data (descriptive information) is used to describe content. If I place a picture of a chicken in iPhoto - it doesn’t know it’s a picture of a chicken unless somewhere I have typed the name “chicken”. The same applied to assets in Final Cut Server. Unless someone painstakingly adds meta data descriptions to all of your assets - you will not have a clue which video is of a car and which video is of - my chicken.
Final Cut Server resolves this by its “Automatic Asset Cataloging”. This process is supposed to scour your server (or servers in our case) and import all assets that it finds. If a piece of media is associated with a final cut project and sequence - it is supposed to be able to import the meta data from your project files. All of those descriptions that you have placed on subclips and captures - will be added into your assets when they are imported into FCS. This sounds great!
The client (the application that you actually use on your computer) is built in java. It is cross-platform - so it runs on both Mac and PC. It supports drag and drop with asset and all of the index information is stored on the final cut server.
Cataloging - all assets - even files that it doesn’t understand - are supposed to be cataloged. One problem that we ran into during our demo was trying to get FCS to ackowledge non Final Cut Studio files. It will import them, but you can’t access them through the java client. We often master our audio in Apple Logic. This is one (of many) file formats that FCS does not regnize. It knows it is file - but doesn’t connect it with logic. Hence the problem - you often have to return to finder and find the files that you are working with. And if you have to spend so much time in finder - how is this helpful? We discovered during the demo that it wouldn’t recognize files from Logic, Photoshop, Apperature, After Effects and Shake. It knows they are files - but doesn’t associate it with the applications that use them. Thus - you must find those files in finder to actually work with them.
Also, if you move a file or rename it in finder or create a version2 - does this automagically show up in FCS? Or does it cause another level of “offline files”?
FCS does help with automation. You can setup watch folders like in Sorenson or Episode for encoding. Drop a file into a folder and it can automatically encode and FTP it to your server. The interface is another GUI for Automator or Applescript - but it is ran from the server level.
Some of the key features:
- Search all of your assets and projects - asset cataloging
- Project check/check out: - and moving a project off of the server to a laptop - then checking it back in to the server. (copies assets or proxies)
- Project review and approve: let a producer or client watch your project over the web and comment
- Automation: Watch for the presence of a file (watch folder) or watching the change of the meta data on a project. Once a file is moved into a watch folder, or the meta data is changed (meta data) it can fire off automated responses. (encode, status emails, move/copy assets, etc…
I know I don’t sound overly positive about it - but I was impressed. I think the transition to FCS for larger production teams - will be a painful learning curve. Would you want to drop your 20 Terabytes of assets into an application - let it rename, move and reorganize all of your files? I guess I’m gonna need that LTO backup sooner than later.
Final Cut Server looks like an early product - it looks like a beta release application. I might want to install it on a test server - maybe run a small project or two through it before I commit our entire post department to this beast.
by wayne
The Dallas Final Cut Pro User Group (man that’s a lot to say) has been in existence for a number of years. The Yahoo Group has been somewhat sufficient to handle simple user interaction.
As we migrate to newer technology, a real website, and a real discussion forum - what should this site include?
Please post your opinions in the comments of this post.
by Ned Soltz
Highpoint Technology has updated the firmware for the RocketRaid 3522 to allow booting from Mac OS X 10.5. Now, this is not quite as significant to the video editor since we would not be capturing to a startup volume, but it is a significant advance in the evolution of the RocketRaid card for those users who require large start-up volumes.
This is one impressive raid card. Bootable (for those whose applications need bootable raids), easily updated via firmware patches, ethernet port for remote control of raid and computer functions, multiple raid levels, optional battery backup, but most importantly its Intel IOP 81341 on-board processor. It is a true hardware raid controller with all of the speed, security and management capabilities that any editing installation would demand.
by wayne
Amazon is a household name and now that name is becoming more common in webhosting circles.
Why is this important for ministries who use media? = cheap and reliable web storage.
All of the media that you create needs to get into the hands of those that you are trying to reach. Downloadable video and audio has been littering our hard drive for years now. If you want your message to hit the masses - then you have to make it available to them. One common method is to place your media (audio or video) on your website for download. A subscribed download of your media- is called a podcast. Every time your files are downloaded, someone has to pay for the bandwidth. It’s like cell phone minutes - you think you’ve having fun on the phone - until you get the bill at the end of the month and realize that you used up all of your minutes and the overage charges are killing you.
Amazon’s web services devision has a solution for mass download storage. Amazon’s S3 (simple storage solutions) is not for everyone, but it is providing us (DTS) a very cheap alternative for podcast hosting. For a few years we have been using our streaming provider (Akamia) to host our podcasts. Bandwidth for streaming is not cheap, and as a result - as our podcast has grown in popularity so have our bandwidth charges.
Bandwidth is charged by the amount of data that is transferred. For example, if your MP3 is 10 Megabytes in size, you will be charged for every time it is downloaded. If it is downloaded 100 times then you would be charged for 1000 Megabytes (which is equivalent to 1 Gigabyte).
Our streaming provider charged a flat fee of $1.29 per Gigabyte.
Amazon charges $0.18 per Gigabyte! (once you hit 10 Terabytes it drops to $0.16 - and then to $0.13 at 50 Terabytes)
Now let’s imagine that you have a very popular podcast and consume 1 Terabyte of bandwidth each month. On the old provider it would cost you $1290. On Amazon the same bandwidth would cost you only $180!
Now Amazone S3 is not for everyone. But for raw download, the price is untouchable.
http://aws.amazon.com/
by Ned Soltz
I've been writing quite a bit about storage over the past couple of years going all the way back to this first
roll your own raid article to a more recent review of an 8-drive array from
Dulce Systems with more general storage articles (check all of the out on www.dv.com).
Currently waiting for publication is a review of the
3Ware Sidecar.
This time I wanted to build an ultimate raid. But just what does an editor need? Well, what I needed was a single workstation unit with lots of capacity, with redundancy and with the speed to handle capture and playback of 10 bit uncompressed HD. 2K capabilities would be a nice bonus but I really only see myself working in 2K just in technology demo rather than production at the moment.
I had built a Raid 1+0 based upon the CalDigit eSata card for my MacPro and a Sonnet card in my PowerMac G5, connecting to a 5 enclosure port-multiplier box I bought from CoolDrives.com.
The CalDigit and Sonnet cards are software based, utilizing port multiplier chips from Silicon Image but with the raid itself configured and managed through the OS (in my case, MacOS X) and
SoftRaid, a superb management utility.
I wanted to go the hardware route this time, so I chose to create a solution based upon Highpoint Technology's
RocketRaid 3522 card (note-- this is the Mac page, but it works as well with XP and Vista-based PC's) and and the
Enhance Technology E8 MS enclosure.
The Highpoint RocketRaid card is hardware based with an onboard Intel IOP 81341 processor with 2 external mini-SAS ports, each capable of supporting 4 drives in Raid 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 50 and JBOD. It is a PCIe 8x card which works as well in a 4x PCIe slot and includes browser-based raid management. It will work with any enclosure and with SAS or SATA drives.
An added bonus with the Highpoint card is an ethernet port which allows remote access to the card to configure the raid or even initiate rebuilding remotely in the event of failure.
Hardware raid means, in brief, that all processing is performed by the card's processor taking load off the computer's processors. Hardware raid level 5 represents a good compromise between speed, capacity and redundancy. Effectively, parity is spread across all drives and the raid capacity is reduced by the size of one drive. Raid 5 allows for the failure of one drive, while raid 6 allows for two drive failures.
The Enhance E8 MS enclosure allows easy mounting and removal of drives and has two miniSAS connectors. It will accept either SAS or SATA I/II drives.
I have been testing with 8 Seagate 7200.11 1 tb drives as well as with 8 1 tb Samsung F1 drives. Stay tuned for the detailed comparison of these drives but catch a sneak preview below.
Preliminary testing is very favorable with some amazing speeds, 3-4 layers of 10 bit uncompressed HD without rendering and seemless playback of 7 layers of 10 bit uncompressed. This can be attributed not just to the quantity of fast drives but in great measure to the Highpoint card.
One problem so far-- my MacPro (early 2008) dual 3.2 will not recognize the RocketRaid card in Slot 2 (the 16x slot). In fact, it will not recognize any card in Slot 2 other than a 16x video card. I suspect there are some issues with this machine on Apple's end and I look forward to solutions from Apple. I suspect that I will obtain even faster results once the card works in the 16x slot. Hurry up and fix the incompatibility, Apple.
Meanwhile, here are some AJA System Test results for both the Seagate (first graphic) and Samsung drives.
Not bad, eh?
Oh, and the cost to create all of this: About $550 for RocketRaid 3522; $650 for Enhance E8 MS; $250 each for 1 TB Seagate or Samsung drives. Total-- around $3200. Compare that to pre-configured 8 tb turnkey systems costing over $8000.
The upside-- you save money. The downside-- assembly required (but a lot easier than your kid's bicycle), configuration required and no unified support. There remains a great deal to be said for buying a turnkey system from a storage vendor like Dulce Systems, Sonnet or CalDigit (just to name three which I have evaluated recently). Roll your own, though, does have its place in the market.
Stay tuned.. more coming on this site and eventually in print.
