questions for the editors

[PJoseph]

"The way its set up here is pretty cool, we capture or record through airspeed and it goes onto a Unity ISIS server, this then dsitributes the media across huge raid disks and then becomes available to any edit suite on the floor up here, there are six of them so potentially you can have six people working on the same media, great for tight turnaround stuff..." That's how it is at most of the networks here - like MTV - it's all shared between several machines because if you are on a series, you have to use elements on half a dozen machines. pJ

[georgefox]

to edit hd id get a mac pro the new ones can have dual 3.2ghz quad core processers up to 32gb ram 4 1tb hdd and up to 4 seperate graphics cards im going to get one switch to mac

[Danny]

im currently editing something on a mac pro using adobe premier pro, and filming on a sony hd-dv camcorder, cant remember the brand but its about 2 grand so id say fariyl recently out.

[MinionZombie]

im currently editing something on a mac pro using adobe premier pro, and filming on a sony hd-dv camcorder, cant remember the brand but its about 2 grand so id say fariyl recently out. One of these by any chance? Sony HDR-FX1

[Danny]

close, very close, but a bit bigger than that, with a pic port on the front adn the eyelens at the backs telescopic.

[MinionZombie]

close, very close, but a bit bigger than that, with a pic port on the front adn the eyelens at the backs telescopic. Bah, I'm all curious now. Get googling ya bastard and find me a pic of it to sate my spike in curiosity juice! ... Like this?

[Danny]

thats even closer but the eyepiece is still off it can be rotated up and dwon by about 90 degrees.

[MinionZombie]

thats even closer but the eyepiece is still off it can be rotated up and dwon by about 90 degrees. Surely all video camera eyepieces can be moved up and then back down by 90 degrees. The heavenly DVX100B for example, from it's default horozontal position it tilts more than 90 degrees upwards. Damn it, find me a picture you ... you ... somethingeruther! Hurrumph!

[Danny]

i tell you what you schaaalg i get you a piccy form moiy classroom tomorra squire (sorry, just back from sweeny todd)

[MinionZombie]

i tell you what you schaaalg i get you a piccy form moiy classroom tomorra squire (sorry, just back from sweeny todd) Ah-so, I can put my obsession to rest, very good Sir... Sweeny Todd eh? Place full of 'goffs' was it?

[Danny]

Ah-so, I can put my obsession to rest, very good Sir... Sweeny Todd eh? Place full of 'goffs' was it? nah actually, grey haired blokes with gaotees and berees i sheet u nawt.

[lifelikecarcass]

I prefer the Mac personally. I'm running a PowerMac G5 quad(older PPC not core2 or quadcore, 4 actual CPU's) with 4GB RAM, 2x500GB SATA drives, Nvidia Geforce 7800GT with 512MB vram. External 500GB Maxtor firewire800 HDD. Running MacOSX 10.4 tiger. Apple Cinema 23" display and an older Sony trinitron 21" CRT monitor for color corrections. Wacom Intuos3 9x12 tablet. A tiny DCR PC-55 miniDV cam and a Canon 350D dSLR. I use it mainly for 3D modeling/rendering with Cinema4D, Zbrush, and Photoshop. I do have Final Cut Express HD with Soundtrack Pro, Livetype and what not. I do freelance work so it was a business investment not simply a home computer. Cost me an arm and a leg, then 2 months later they announced the switch to Intel! Grrrrrr It's a good workstation though. Sounds like a spaceship taking off from under my desk when all the CPU's are working. And yeah, I'm in debt with it due to other things I took out a business loan for. Kind of takes the fun out of it IMO. Wow. I've never seen so many editors in one place that wasn't industry related. So many wise words being tossed around and industry terminology. Makes ya feel all warm inside, ehh. Personally, I hate editing video. The video I edit from time to time is always boring **** like safety in the workplace videos, or history bios for local legends. There's no creative fredom in it. And I only do it for the money because contrary to popular belief, it's not very difficult to learn how to efficiently use software. I used to toy with the notion of making a zombie flick, but then everyone started making them or wanting to and I totally lost interest. It's to the point now where anytime I hear someone talking about making a zombie flick that I know it's just gonna be a total clone of something that's already been done. There aren't many unique ideas about zombie flicks because everyone wants to make a gory shoot 'em up machete mayhem flick. Too shallow for me. Now I'm more about light. How light illuminates and interacts with surfaces. I like to create physically accurate and photorealistic stills on my G5. Painting with light, telling a story with light. A world where everything is totally unique, where ideas aren't bound by what can actually be put in front of a camera. Where 1's and 0's describe images and ideas found only in the mind. Yeah, there's the occasional undead themed project, but it's actually a lighting and surface study that tells a story of a person that could be your neighbor or teacher, or even a loved one. It's mostly just pixel chrominance brought out by photons and luminance. Chromatic aberration fills my mind, and monochromatic noise surrounds me. I have a real indication, of a laugh coming on.

[Danny]

I used to toy with the notion of making a zombie flick, but then everyone started making them or wanting to and I totally lost interest. It's to the point now where anytime I hear someone talking about making a zombie flick that I know it's just gonna be a total clone of something that's already been done. There aren't many unique ideas about zombie flicks because everyone wants to make a gory shoot 'em up machete mayhem flick. Too shallow for me. man i hear that.

[lifelikecarcass]

Sounds complex to you lot perhaps, but it makes sense to me and it's what I'm comfortable with - it eases me at the very least in terms of not wanting to run the risk of losing any data (no matter how slim the chance) - because I know that if that ever happened, it'd be soul destroying and make me so f*cking angry...so I like to be safe rather than sorry. Anyway, it makes sense for me, and does the rendering in stages, which for my rig is helpful. You could just keep double backups of your captured footage, and use the auto or incremental save function set to autosave at short intervals. I mirror my capture scratch folders to an external HDD, and keep copies of autosave data and render data there too. This is in final cut though, and in the event of a crash(which pretty much never happens on a Mac in final cut) that actually results in data loss, I can just replace the lost data from one of the backup locations. I also keep all the original footage on the tapes I recorded with in the event of a catastrophe. I keep all my assets in a library on the external HDD and also on DVD-RW. I know that your method makes you feel safe, but if you were working under a deadline you'd be forced to modify your workflow. And if you plan to do this for a living, you will be working under deadlines and will have to modify that workflow. So you might as well develop the proper workflow now instead of later so you're used to it. Not sure how Vegas handles asset management or capture/render data, but I'm sure there's a better way than printing to tape and re-capturing. I can't imagine printing out to tape, only to re-capture that same data. I frequently render 3D animations that are an order of magnitude more complex and resource intensive than rendering video. So sometimes a rendering can take up to 14 days non-stop, and as you can imagine that leaves alot of room for disaster to strike such as power failures and what not. There's a simple trick to it. Render to image sequences rather than to a video file or tape. So in the event of disaster, you can just pick up where it stopped. Maybe have to redo a frame or 2 but that's it. Then you import your rendered image sequence into your editor or quicktime, and export those frames to a video file or to tape. Since it's already rendered it only takes an hour or so to export. Major productions also use image sequences rather than video because it's more versatile, and easier to work with in your compositing app like Shake or After Effects. Traditionally, film cameras actually record individual frames not video so most professional apps and workflows still maintain those standards. It's just an overall better workflow than encoding video or printing to tape. I'm sure Vegas allows this. Might want to start practicing proper methods like that in preparation for the future.

[MinionZombie]

I am not going to become an editor for a living, and if I did I'd get professional training to do it the way of the industry standard, as that is the way you do it. But I just edit my own things, and I do them however I want, so what's wrong with that? It gets done, and it gets done how I want, so it's fine. Also, I don't just wipe over all my stuff or delete things. I back-up all the data and keep the original tapes. What I meant was that I personally like to work in stages, render that out, then import again and do the next stage. Again, I don't plan on editing professionally whatsoever, which also means I don't own a really fast, dedicated fancy editing rig...so that factors in as well.