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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Data Management and Dailies

J

John Logan

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I have a client who wants me to data wrangle as well as provide DVD dailies for him.

Any advice on generating dailies?

I don't want to spend another few hours after wrapping to transcode, and burn DVD's. So my plan is this:

1.) Download first magazine as soon as I get it. Make sure everything is good.

2.) Start transcoding media for dailies immediately. If next magazine comes before transcoding is finished (this is what I'm worried about), I'll continue transcoding while downloading the new magazine.

3.) Import into/export from NLE.

4.) Burn DVD.

5.) Rinse, repeat.


... so my question is this:

Does anyone foresee any issues with simultaneously transcoding and downloading? Will one process slow the other down, and how significantly?

Also, any advice on dailies delivery would be hugely appreciated.
 
What sort of machine do you have to do the transcoding with?

are you fcp, or avid? or adobe?

what's the required turn around for dailies viewing?

is it possible to screen dailies from quicktime files instead of a dvd?
 
Your workflow will depend on how much footage is being shot, but I'll assume since you're making dailies, we're talking about a feature-length script.


First copy footage to 2 different drives, at the same time, using ShotPut Pro or something similar, do not just "drag and drop" files as it is pretty easy to lose footage this way. If you're doing this on-set, be damn careful what you plug into, consider (strongly) a UPS for on-set backup or just take the camera drive someplace else and backup there. If they're shooting to cards you'll have to be on-set.

Transcoding will take a long time unless you have at least a 4-core MacPro. Using Log and Transfer in FCP, my MacBookPro was doing about 1 frame every 8 seconds, then we got a new MacPro 8 Core and now we get 8-12 frames per second - big difference there! FCP is not multi-processor aware, believe it or not, so we do the transcodes in RedRushes now, which is.

Also depends what you mean by "transcoding". Actual ProRes transcodes or QT-wrapped R3D's? The latter will be faster to look at immediately, but harder to work with and sync sound to.

And no, you can't do anything else while transcoding or backing up, for sure not on the same drives anyway, you will slow both processes down to a crawl and/or crash and/or end up with corrupted camera files. You need 2 Macs to do both at the same time, and obviously you can't connect 2 computers to the same external drive at the same time.

If you're recording sound separately from picture you need to wait till you get the sound from the sound guy/gal to make dailies.

Really, the ability to actually keep up with a shoot as far as backups, transcodes, making dailies and burning DVD's is maybe more than one person (and for sure more than one Mac system) can handle. If you want any more advice (or another experienced guy to help) hit me up at jghedge@earthlink.net
 
R3D Data Manager will do all the above - ensure your files are copied correctly to up to 4 destinations and transcode R3D files to QT for export to DVD.

As others have pointed out, your bottlenecks will be:

- getting the data to multiple destinations (firewire speed).

- processor speed.

You cant do much about the first, since firewire is the fastest offered by the Red Drive, but if you use non-firewire drives (preferably eSATA or better), you'll see a speed bump.

The processor will determine how fast you can transcode. The faster/more processors the better.

BTW, you can connect 2 computers to one drive set, if you are using NAS or SAN or something of the sort. Those are a bit more complex to setup, but would be valuable to be being able to turn over a DVD disk the next day. However, most features Ive setup have 2 systems for this - one on the road doing the data management and one back at the office doing transcodes (where it is by far a much more stable environment)
 
That sounds more like what video assist would do. Jobs I have been on the VA will record to a dvd recorder each time a roll is called. At the end of the day he hands off a DVD or two to whoever wants it.

This is the unit he used.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=1892395&sku=S167-4060(this one is discontinued)

New unit
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3516758&csid=_21

If you use this you would also need to down convert it to SD because I think it only takes a composite and s video signal.

Using this you won't have to worry about doing to much on your transfer machine.

Hope this helps.
Curtis
 
Joe, thanks for your detailed response.

I'm not sweating the data management, I've got that down pat. :thumbsup:

Mainly because I'm using R3D Data Manager (thanks Conrad!)

Cunyet... good call, I might just do that.
 
drag and drop proxy files to toast titanium, burn dvd. No transcoding required....
 
open proxy in quicktime > Window > Show Movie Properties > Audio Setting > Mute > Save As > burn in toast
 
Logan said:
I have a client who wants me to data wrangle as well as provide DVD dailies for him.

Any advice on generating dailies?

I don't want to spend another few hours after wrapping to transcode, and burn DVD's. So my plan is this:

1.) Download first magazine as soon as I get it. Make sure everything is good.

2.) Start transcoding media for dailies immediately. If next magazine comes before transcoding is finished (this is what I'm worried about), I'll continue transcoding while downloading the new magazine.

3.) Import into/export from NLE.

4.) Burn DVD.

5.) Rinse, repeat.


... so my question is this:

Does anyone foresee any issues with simultaneously transcoding and downloading? Will one process slow the other down, and how significantly?

Also, any advice on dailies delivery would be hugely appreciated.
Click to expand...


I found that when I did anything on the system while it was transcoding, I would get clips that only transcoded the first couple seconds. not the full clip therefor i would have to reload them, its happened twice both i was doing other copying or FCP shot renaming, all other times i never touched the system they were fine.

coincidence?

I'm on a series right now and we have a specified transcoding system for the amount of footage we get in.
 
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