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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 :)

DIT Station

Peter Majtan said:
Looks great, but pardon my ignorance - why would You choose the glossy display, since obviously You are using this frequently outdoors? That must be a nightmare to work with on a sunny day... No offense...
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The glossy display gives You better blacks, and i like that. I don't see the reflections as a problem - the angle is very specific and it's quite easy to avoid bright reflections.
 
tlorenzo said:
Great job Kristian. I've been thinking about doing something similar myself - and scaringly close to yours, actually. Something like this will be expected as standard equipment very soon.
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If i can be of any assistance, just mail me.

Next version will most likely hold a wireless keyboard and mouse.
 
Or you could make one of these...

Or you could make one of these...

Chaps

So I'm shooting tonight and have wireless and saw this thread. Here's something I knocked up recently.

I've been working out of a Pelicase similar to that but after a while I got sick of sitting in odd positions / having no power/ having nowhere to put my coffee.

I've used USB powered drives too which are ok in a pinch but when you're in a field all day with no genny how many MacPro batteries o you want to buy (and how are you going to charge them?).

Running a 75amp hour gel battery with inverter gets me a 14-15 hr shoot day (dumping and processing in red rushes so pretty much spun up all day).

The top tray slides out so I can sit under it (one of the reasons I didn't just buy a sound cart). It slides back in when I put it in the car.

Total cost in parts around £600 including the battery/inverter and took about 2 days to put together.

I'm comfy on my shoots now but am slowly getting fatter.

Cheers
Jeff Brown
Red 708 "Ruby"
 
steadimoose, I really dig that! Couple of questions. First, are those gaps in the foam sufficient for air ventilation? I'd hate for the HDDs to overheat. Second, did you shock-absorb the HDDs? Better yet, how about a picture of that setup with only the laptop missing?

Third, why orient the CF drive face up? That seems like an open invitation for a stray rain drop or dirt particle to fall down in that.
 
Equilibrio said:
Peter,
Do you have any picture of your 4RUNNER?
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I will try to dig out some, this was 7 years ago...

I am now designing the same for the new FJ cruiser. The main reason is work in remote locations, so it will even include "accommodation" and basic sanitary requirements (solar shower, not the other...). It is going to be build around our new accessories, especially the portable RAID that can work in vibrating environments - even in a helicopter - certainly in a moving car...

If things goes well You can expect to see the FJ Cruiser at NAB'09... (there's no bloody emoticon for finger crossed...)

:) Peter
 
Shawn Nelson said:
steadimoose, I really dig that! Couple of questions. First, are those gaps in the foam sufficient for air ventilation? I'd hate for the HDDs to overheat. Second, did you shock-absorb the HDDs? Better yet, how about a picture of that setup with only the laptop missing?

Third, why orient the CF drive face up? That seems like an open invitation for a stray rain drop or dirt particle to fall down in that.
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Hi Shawn. Heat was a major concern, so i made sure that heat could escape from both the Mac and the hard drive - it's a passive system and i works fine. The HDD i mounted in the foam and i believe that You could really knock the case around, if you wanted to. Now, the CF reader is really hard to work with, in terms of mounting the card and to eject it, and i find it nice that it sits firmly in the case. Yes You should try to avoid crumbs and liquids to get inside the reader. ;-)
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Here's a quickie of my cart.

It's a maxed out Mac Pro with the requisite eSATA, FW800 and infiniband cards... along with two maxed out MacBook Pros and redundant power supplies. This is an older picture [it's come a long way since then], but you get the idea.

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On my current show, I'm offloading to my 7.5TB RAID 6, a lot of five 1TB G-RAIDs and two daily "shuttle" drives for post delivery [one for the lunch film break, the other for the EOD break]. I offload to all of these drives from three cameras... all faster than realtime.

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The laptops are used as more mobile stations for downloading or - mostly - for remote reference. As an example, I can physically mount a backed up RED DRIVE to a laptop and take it to a remote set [or to the clients, director, etc.] and demonstrate a given look on a shot. I have a smaller tent I set up for the laptop as needed.

The tower spends most of its foreground time creating looks in REDCINE that - with the approval of the DP and gaffer - get passed on to the post house for timing the dailies. The post house can either be off location or - in the case of Blair Paulsen's Road Grader SCRATCH van - parked by the camera truck.

If the show requires it, the station can also be used to produce low quality dailies, reference stills or various other bits of media. It also has a few tricks up its sleeve... but I'll keep those for me. :ninja:

Its in beta now, but it gets the job done right at this point.
 
Thanks for sharing the setups guys. Definitely inspirational. I'd also be interested in advice on which 12v battery to add to the storm case setup. With some aux battery power it would be the ultimate DIT kit for guerilla work. You can set the Macbook up so you can close the lid without it sleeping - so theoretically you could have a mag transferring with the case briefly closed (not long enough to overheat) - while you moved locations?

The other thing that would make it killer would be a couple of slots for extra F2s in there. Has anyone tested backing up to 2 x F2s simultaneously using R3D Manager or similar? Would be interested in the speed difference.

Jens - are you able to post some pictures of your case with the extra storage slots etc.?

Thanks again,
graetzy
 
Wow! Brook, why three Macs? Just to be able to download from three sources simultaneously?
 
Partly as backups and partly in case I need to reconfigure to a smaller setup for a distant location. If I'm spending the day in a helicopter or hiking up a mountain... I'm taking a few laptops and calling it good.

Another good example is a commercial situation. I've got my cart set up by the cameras, but nobody wants clients around. I can mount a drive onto the bottom of a laptop and go make the "ooh/ahh" rounds to client village, blow a few skirts up with how great things look and keep my real workstation separate and safe from the email checkers. :)

As for straight downloading, the tower has the throughput to deal with multiple cameras [multiple cards or drives] simultaneously on separate busses in realtime. It's nice... it's sort of a background task on that system. Since the RAID reads/writes at roughly 600MB/s, I can download data to it [plus a handful of eSata and FW800 drives] and simultaneously grade other footage with no loss in performance.
 
One small question... I see no provision for a mousing surface in either of both setups shown here...

Do you guys do all your work with the trackpad? I use it in a pinch, but isn't it a little bit limiting in a stressful situation? Not to mention drag&dropping isn't the same.

edit: wrote this before brook's mofo post. Was referring to the laptop setups, obviously.
 
Brook, what are you using to power the Mac Pro and RAID setup?

Brook Willard said:
It's a maxed out Mac Pro with the requisite eSATA, FW800 and infiniband cards... along with two maxed out MacBook Pros and redundant power supplies.
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I've started working on a cart based on the Xantrex PowerHub 1800.

I'm waiting on another external battery enclosure for a total of 400 Ah of power (300 watts of power for about 9 hours).

My favorite thing about this setup is the ability to charge the batteries using either wind, solar, household power, or a generator.

I will make room for the Mac Pro on the cart, but the 24" HP monitor will probably stay on the MSE monitor stand.
 
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