Video makers 'post here'

Scotty-Robbo

Scotty-Robbo

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Yer, i was looking but I have lent towards the 550d canon.
The HV40 was great but why not get a better camera if you can afford it.
Yer I am really keen
 
brindog

brindog

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5h1f7y can't wait. Looking forward to the pic's

I just ordered a Audio Kit for the 7d, Phantom Power, two XLR's ect... woohoo !!
Can't wait to make another film/skit.

Z finder, Audio Kit, new tripod....lifes good :D;)
 
Sam.

Sam.

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Nick53

Nick53

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External Hard drives...

Under $200ish although around $100 would be great
Reliable with good reputation
More space the better although needs to be 1TB or more
What else should I be considering?


Thoughts on having firewire port instead of USB 2.0? Costs way more but if you can import and edit smoothly while clips are on the external harddrive with firewire cable it might be worth it? If I got a USB 2.0 port harddrive I'd have to transfer the clips onto my laptop beforehand to edit with oui? Other advantages of the firewire compared to the USB 2.0?

Thoughts would be appreciated. Thankyou :)
 
V

vtwiz

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Nick53 said:
External Hard drives...

Under $200ish although around $100 would be great
Reliable with good reputation
More space the better although needs to be 1TB or more
What else should I be considering?

Thoughts would be appreciated. Thankyou :)
Click to expand...
What are you editing.......DV, HDV ProRes etc.....?

Definately go for Firewire if you can. Although USB2 has a burst speed close to Firewire (400) it can't maintain those high speeds like Firewire can. This is important in video editing as you have continuously high data rates when dealing with multiple video streams.
Saying that, if you just want to edit DV then a USB2 drive will be fine although not as future proof as Firewire.
You should be able to get a 1TB Firewire drive from the likes of WesternDigital, Lacie etc for around $180.
Whatever you do, never put your footage on your laptops (System) drive. This will slow things down considerably.
 
Regan of Gong

Regan of Gong

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Over the past three nights I've been an extra on a locally produced feature film. It's going to be released at festivals nationally and internationally. It's being shot completely on a 550D- thought it was pretty cool.
 
Nick53

Nick53

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vtwiz said:
What are you editing.......DV, HDV ProRes etc.....?

Definately go for Firewire if you can. Although USB2 has a burst speed close to Firewire (400) it can't maintain those high speeds like Firewire can. This is important in video editing as you have continuously high data rates when dealing with multiple video streams.
Saying that, if you just want to edit DV then a USB2 drive will be fine although not as future proof as Firewire.
You should be able to get a 1TB Firewire drive from the likes of WesternDigital, Lacie etc for around $180.
Whatever you do, never put your footage on your laptops (System) drive. This will slow things down considerably.
Click to expand...
Thanks heaps for the reply.
Well I will be putting all of my Canon HV40 files on there (so HDV) but this will be purely for storage as I doubt I will be using them. The main purpose of it will be to put all of the stuff that I shoot on my Canon 60d. It shoots h.264 MOV files if that helps and I will also be putting JPEG's and RAW stills that it takes on the hard drive.
Anyone know any cheap sites that sell external hard drives. I won't buy from them but I'll just print off the page and take it into Officeworks for a pricematch.
 
V

vtwiz

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Nick53 said:
Thanks heaps for the reply.
Well I will be putting all of my Canon HV40 files on there (so HDV) but this will be purely for storage as I doubt I will be using them. The main purpose of it will be to put all of the stuff that I shoot on my Canon 60d. It shoots h.264 MOV files if that helps and I will also be putting JPEG's and RAW stills that it takes on the hard drive.
Click to expand...
On your budget, I would probably go for something like this:
http://www.macfixit.com.au/shop/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=665

This is a quad interface dock so you pretty much have all bases covered. If you ever get an eSATA port you can use eSATA for max performance.

for the actual drive get one of these:
http://www.expresspcparts.com.au/Items/Item.aspx?SKU=DRP-111-ALT-HD103SJ
I have bought a few of these drives and set them up in a RAID configuration. I connect them via eSATA and get fantastic performance editing my 7D footage converted to ProRes.

This is a better option to buying a drive of the shelf like WD, Seagate, Iomega because you know you are getting a quality drive with the Spinpoint. Many of the 'off the shelf' cheapie extarnal drives use crappy OEM internal drives.

Also going for the above option means that you only need to buy the actual drive when you need more space (as you can see these are cheaper) rather than a whole other enclosure & drive.

Just as a heads up, when dealing with DSLR footage, you are best backing up all your original H264 files to a cheap external drive. Then convert the H264 files to ProRes (if you are using a mac) and edit using the ProRes files. This maintains quality and the ProRes files (although larger) are easier for your system to edit.
 
Gluey_trails

Gluey_trails

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So, seeing as I was naive before about the Zacuto Z finders I'm curious. Is it still the whole crop of the LCD finder but just 3x visually bigger OR does it crop it 3x to track focus?
 
Nick53

Nick53

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vtwiz said:
On your budget, I would probably go for something like this:
http://www.macfixit.com.au/shop/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=665

This is a quad interface dock so you pretty much have all bases covered. If you ever get an eSATA port you can use eSATA for max performance.

for the actual drive get one of these:
http://www.expresspcparts.com.au/Items/Item.aspx?SKU=DRP-111-ALT-HD103SJ
I have bought a few of these drives and set them up in a RAID configuration. I connect them via eSATA and get fantastic performance editing my 7D footage converted to ProRes.

This is a better option to buying a drive of the shelf like WD, Seagate, Iomega because you know you are getting a quality drive with the Spinpoint. Many of the 'off the shelf' cheapie extarnal drives use crappy OEM internal drives.

Also going for the above option means that you only need to buy the actual drive when you need more space (as you can see these are cheaper) rather than a whole other enclosure & drive.

Just as a heads up, when dealing with DSLR footage, you are best backing up all your original H264 files to a cheap external drive. Then convert the H264 files to ProRes (if you are using a mac) and edit using the ProRes files. This maintains quality and the ProRes files (although larger) are easier for your system to edit.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks heaps once again. I must admit at first I knew about 5% of what that meant but after a bit of reading I have a general idea.

So this will all be pretty rough but basically the Quad Interface docking system isn't a drive at all, but something you connect an external hard drive too? The external hard drive that you buy (like the Samsung one you linked too) has to have an eSATA port and nothing else like a USB or Firewire ports...just eSATA. Then you somehow connect the drive to this porting system and I assume that seeing as it is a 'quad' docking system (I guess that means the 4 ports; USB, both Firewires and eSATA) that the docking system provides 4 port to port cables to plug from the docking system into your computer?

H'ok so if that is how it all goes together...the main advantage would be that you have 4 porting options and the external drives are cheaper and better quality. I have a few concerns and for my needs just buying an off the shelf one may be better but I'll see what you think.

For starters I will be travelling around a lot, if I run out of space on my SDHC cards for the camera half way during a multiple day shoot the plan was that I could just hook up the external hard drive to the persons computer who I am filming and dump all of the footage onto the external hard drive. I imagine this would be quite a bit harder to do with the docking interface system. Are the cheaper drives without cases as robust either? They do come with a cover don't they, not like in the picture? I suspect when travelling around a lot the ones with the outer case might be a little better.

Problem two would be that currently I just use a laptop for editing, it is only equipped with a USB port, nothing else and if I'm not mistaken you can't really add ports to a laptop. I have a computer with firewire ports as well but it is just too slow. So seeing as the laptop I'm using only has a USB port available would it all be the same speed no matter how I configured it? So would the docking system be just as fast as an ordinary drive if they were both just using USB 2.0. I was enquiring about the firewire ports before as I was contemplating using the slow computer with the available port. Maybe it would be best for me just to buy one really robust off the shelf USB 2.0 for travelling (remember most of the peoples computers I will be staying at will only have USB) and then if I feel the need or I'm stressing carrying around all of my work I could look into getting the docking interface system (probably when I get a more suitable computer where I can utilise all its features) or another off the shelf one for home.

Wow really long message but your thoughts on it all would be greatly appreciated.
 
Nick53

Nick53

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Double post but anyway. I am on a PC currently. Is there a comparable file type to ProRes that is suitable for PC. I'm currently running Windows 7 if that makes a difference. So do you know if there is a similar type of file that you convert h.264 into something similar to ProRes but able to be used on a PC? Worded really poorly but hopefully you understand what I'm getting at haha.
 
?

._._._._._.

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Nick53 said:
Double post but anyway. I am on a PC currently. Is there a comparable file type to ProRes that is suitable for PC. I'm currently running Windows 7 if that makes a difference. So do you know if there is a similar type of file that you convert h.264 into something similar to ProRes but able to be used on a PC? Worded really poorly but hopefully you understand what I'm getting at haha.
Click to expand...
What about Premiere Pro CS5? You can edit DSLR footage natively, no need to converet anything to anything else.

Also, my internet is capped as all fuck, so I couldn't search properly for you, but have a look at
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=hard+drive+dock
I've kust0m ghetto modded and built my own one of these, works brilliantly. Expandable in future too, so instead of dicking around with like 5 external drives, you just have like 5 neatly labelled internal drives that you can slot into this.

I'd go for something like a RAID5 Configuration ideally, but funds don't currently permit. The good thing with having a bunch of internal drives with a docking station is that it's more flexible in future, if you want you'll be able to slot them into something like this later: http://www.drobo.com/ despite being outrageously priced.

By the way, www.msy.com.au will get you arguably the cheapest price for anything computer related, so grab hard drives and the like from here.
 
V

vtwiz

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Nick53 said:
Ok thanks heaps once again. I must admit at first I knew about 5% of what that meant but after a bit of reading I have a general idea.

For starters I will be travelling around a lot, if I run out of space on my SDHC cards for the camera half way during a multiple day shoot the plan was that I could just hook up the external hard drive to the persons computer who I am filming and dump all of the footage onto the external hard drive. I imagine this would be quite a bit harder to do with the docking interface system. Are the cheaper drives without cases as robust either? They do come with a cover don't they, not like in the picture? I suspect when travelling around a lot the ones with the outer case might be a little better.

Problem two would be that currently I just use a laptop for editing, it is only equipped with a USB port, nothing else and if I'm not mistaken you can't really add ports to a laptop.
Click to expand...
OK, seeing as you plan on traveling a lot with the drive and it is primarily for backup I wouldn't go for a dock and internal drives as they are bit clunky to carry around.

A USB2 only drive will probably do you fine considering it's mainly just a backup drive. And if you do go for the USB2 option then get a USB powered drive to save you having to carry around a power supply.

If you are planning to use it a fair bit as a media drive when editing then go for something like this:

http://www.macfixit.com.au/shop/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=624

Then buy the Samsung Spinpoint F3 I previously linked to and install it into the above enclosure.

as for your laptop, it probably has a PCMCIA or express34 slot. If so you can get one of these:

http://www.macfixit.com.au/shop/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=918

or these:

http://www.macfixit.com.au/shop/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=618

These will give your laptop either eSATA or Firewire (depending which you go for) and you will be able to connect that enclosure I linked to with the faster connection.

Yes, you could just go to officeworks and grab a drive off the shelf but they aren't great. Although it wont get your footage back if the drive fails, the Spinpoint F3 is a better drive than any of the Officeworks offerings and comes with a 3 year warranty for more piece of mind.

As for a ProRes equivalent for PC, what editing software are you using?

After ProRes, I would go with XDCAM EX. Yes, the latest Premier will handle your H264 files natively but it's still much harder on your system to edit them rather than XDCAM EX or ProRes.

Gluey, The Z Finder only magnifies the cameras LCD to aid focusing, it does not crop anything.
 
Nick53

Nick53

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H'ok, thanks so much once again for both of your advice.

Yeah I'm currently using Premiere Pro CS5 and it seems to work fairly well in terms of speed and handling DSLR footage. I might just wait and set up editing off the drives I will be buying first and see how it goes before I go to the hassle of converting and all sorts. It's good to know the information on the XDCAM EX files regardless.

To be honest I don't know a great deal about all this RAID shenanigans. Is it just a certain way to configure and operate having multiple drives. Then the numbers after the RAID are variances of it? So the configuration as such happen between the drives and the RAID controller before going onto the system? I did a little bit of research on it but it is rather hard to understand it all when it is as if it is written in a foreign language with all the computer jargon.

The Drobo stuff looks so neat and would be really handy to have but when it costs in excess of $500 for the one that seems suitable for me there's just no bingo.

What seems to be a good idea currently is getting 2x Samsung Spinport F3's with one of the storage enclosures you mentioned (which I assume will be fairly sturdy for travelling as well). Does that storage enclosure act as a docking system in a sense as well? What is the difference between that and the quad interface system you mentioned apart from the enclosure offering protection as well. I'd get 2 drives, one drive for at home and primarily back up and the other for travelling and editing off. Does the Samsung Spinport F3 have the 3.5' SATA drive to fit into the enclosure? The Spinport F3 does have some kind of enclosure by itself as well doesn't it, it's not just bare like it looks in pictures?

To be honest I'm unsure of the spare slot. It's a Dell laptop and seems to have a spare unused port under the USB 2.0 ports although I'm unsure if it is the PCMCIA or the Express34 port. It has a similar sort of shape to an SD card although wider. Definitely against taking the easy way out and just going to Officeworks now anyway.

Thanks so much once again for everyone's help, really appreciated :)
 
?

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Nick53 said:
*snip
Click to expand...
The main RAID configurations are as follows:

RAID0: This basically takes every single drive in the configuration, and turns it into one super fast super big drive.
Pros: Fast, fast fast fast
Cons: You've got twice as much chance of your drive exploding and losing everything

RAID1: 'mirror', both drives will be an exact, 1 for 0 copy of each other. This is not a backup, it's redundancy. It's a failsafe, so if one drive dies, the other will have the same stuff on it (but if you delete a file, both drives delete that file)
Pro: If one drive dies, just run everything offf the other, no need to re-install operating systems, configurations, etc etc etc.
Con: (at least) Twice as expensive, and as said before if you empty the trash without checking properly and you lose something you need, it's a total bitch to get it back.

RAID5: I'm a little hazy on this, but you have upwards of three drives, and somehow it magically writes data across all of these. The fancy thing here is that if one of the drives in the array kicks the bucket, there will be enough 'leftover' data on the other two to, reconstruct the dead drive one you plug a replacement in. I'm pretty sure this is what DROBO does, and seems pretty ideal.

RAID6, 10, etc etc: I have no idea what these even are.

If it were me, I'd grab a RAID0 with two 10,000rpm 500GB (or smaller, maybe) drives to edit from, then have a RAID1 with two 2tb 'green' drives (low power, quiet, apparently lots of people use these for backing up servers and such???) which will hold literally every bit of raw footage you ever record.

Though if money were no object, a DROBO and a massive SSD to edit off.... mmmmm...

Keeping data safe is pretty important, at minimum I'd keep a drive for footage, and have that backed up somewhere else as well.
 
Gluey_trails

Gluey_trails

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Sam. said:
You can pan in post processing...
Click to expand...
That wasn't in post. The perspective shifts and foreground objects interesect with depth. It often works on a electric motor running a really low speed with low gear ratio pulling the camera continuously across a track and the camera taking a photo every 5 seconds or whatever. Then just stitch it together in Quicktime and vouila.
 
V

vtwiz

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._._._._._. said:
If it were me, I'd grab a RAID0 with two 10,000rpm 500GB (or smaller, maybe) drives to edit from, then have a RAID1 with two 2tb 'green' drives (low power, quiet, apparently lots of people use these for backing up servers and such???) which will hold literally every bit of raw footage you ever record.
Click to expand...
Your recommending something way over his budget. Secondly, 10,000 RPM drives are definitely not needed. 7200rpm is more than enough especially when set up in a RAID.
 
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