Hi Mike & Dan:
It was great to learn you have now caught up on the backlog in development you had with the Nano. Along those lines, I have several questions about both existing features and future developments for the Flash XDR.

1. Now that 3:2 pull down removal has been added to the XDR for use with recording Canon's 24 F frame mode, is the simultaneous output which is available for realtime monitoring (HD-SDI out from XDR) also at the adjusted rate of 1080 24p, or is it still 1080i 59.94 Hz like it is out of the HD-SDI camera output ?

2. Are their any secret feature development projects on going for the XDR at this time ?

3. Can you give any time table for the development/enabling of the FireWire 1394a and RS-422 interfaces currently non-functional on our XDR units ?

4. Do you have a time table for the development/release of full uncompressed recording capability on the XDR ?

5. Will it be possible to enable an extra analogue recording setting in the XDR Audio Menu, which would allow recording @ 96Khz 24 bit sampling rate and bit depth ?

(I consider this setting is something which would go nicely with uncompressed video capture, since the application for this mode is cinema 35 mm film out)

6. Now that we have larger capacity - much faster speed CF media available, would it be possible to record Long GOP with much higher data rates (From about 220 to 500 Mb range) ?

* Caveate: NLE Support of course is a question.
** Caveate No. 2: For use in recording high quality dubs from HDCAM or HDCAM SR VTR's in Tv stations.

7. Would it be possible to offer a pure I frame MPEG Time Lapse Mode capture above 220 Mbps ?

Hi Mark-
I can answer some of your questions, but not all. Some of the answers are confidential.

1) If you input 1080i60 and enable 3:2 pulldown, then you get 1080p24 out the HD-SDI.

2) I will leave this one to your imagination!

3) No, not yet. We're up to our eyeballs working on short-term new features. I'll post of list of the features planned for the next release shortly.

4) No, not yet.

5) Yes, this is possible, but not on the development schedule at this time. We can recommend using a seperate sound recorder and synchronizing to the XDR/nano via LTC.

6) Doubtful and really unnecessary. We have done a lot of image overlay tests with uncompressed and 100Mbps Long-GOP. The differences are so small, it's not worth the extra engineering work and storage requirements to bump up the rate. That said, we do offer 140 and 160 Mbps rates for those super complex, super high-motion events.

Note that the 100 Mbps Long-GOP rate is already superior to HDCAM quality.

7) Possibly, but why? Long-GOP is already 2-3X more efficient, so 160 Mbps Long-GOP = 320 Mbps I-Frame in quality.

Best-

Hi Mike:
You wrote: "6) Doubtful and really unnecessary. We have done a lot of image overlay tests with uncompressed and 100Mbps Long-GOP. The differences are so small, it's not worth the extra engineering work and storage requirements to bump up the rate. That said, we do offer 140 and 160 Mbps rates for those super complex, super high-motion events.

Note that the 100 Mbps Long-GOP rate is already superior to HDCAM quality.".....Yes. but not HDCAM SR, which is the VTR of choice over at CTV Network in Canada. The high data rate setting could be a Master Dub Only mode application. Think VTR replacement or the XDR as a bridge between VTR/File based post operations.

You Wrote: "7) Possibly, but why? Long-GOP is already 2-3X more efficient, so 160 Mbps Long-GOP = 320 Mbps I-Frame in quality."....Yes. It's more efficient but only so in the recording process, in fact, it's the inverse in post production editing. I-Frame beats Long -GOP MPEG in NLE handling every time. In fact, Long GOP was *never* designed as an editing format (I-Frame was) rather, Long GOP was designed as a delivery format. I-Frame looks just as good, only, you must record at data rates about 2 X that of Long GOP to get equal quality. A good example of this is your excellent 220 Mb I- Frame capture rate in the XDR. This looks pretty much equal to the 100 Mb Long-GOP (just a much higher data rate,thus less recording time per CF card). Now that we have ultra high speed 90 MB per second 64 GB CF Media - who cares ? Crank it up ! :-) :-)

Interestingly Sony themselves now officially state that XDCAM HD (50Mb/s 4:2:2 long GoP as per 50Mb/s XDR/NanoFlash) to be superior in quality to HDCAM. It's in the latest presentation materials from them. I can't see a lot of point in recording Long GoP at bir rates higher than 160Mb/s as the compressed is already pretty much indistinguishable from uncompressed. At 500Mb/s that's only around 2.5:1 compression and a real waste of a good codec. Also while the cards are getting faster and cheaper at higher bitrates you do still have to think about long term storage and archive plus off load speed will be slower.

100Mb/s does seem to be the sweet spot.

Hi Mike & Alister:
Perhaps I haven't been clear about the reasons why or the application for the higher data rate Long GOP settings. (??) Alister, I wasn't aware of any claims by Sony that their XDCAM HD Codec was superior to the quality of their HDCAM *SR* VTR's. You write HDCAM, but this has already been superceeded at the network broadcast level by Sony's new HDCAM SR VTR family. The HDCAM SR VTR records all the way up to 4:4:4 color space HD video. However, the majority of Network HD is still in 4:2:2, so we're good with the XDR.

.....Final Cut Pro 7.0 can now handle data rate video all the way up to 4:4:4 color space and the data rates which go with it (Including HD uncompressed). This is a VERY significant development, which no doubt, will propel FCP forward as a professional editing application.

.....Avid Symphony DS, Nitris DS can also work freely with 2K 4:4:4 color space DI files.

.....The opportunity here for the XDR to act as a bridge between online and clip based editing, and as a VTR replacement, is obvious to me. If I could record in Long GOP (Because, as Mike often points out, it's more efficient than I-Frame encoding), and take dubs from an HDCAM SR VTR onto the XDR @ a Long-GOP based high data rate, then pull the CF card an import that clip into FCP 7.0 or Avid Media Composer, then suddenly I could now re-edit and update a Network program *without the need of a $110,000.00 US Avid Symphony Nitris or DS to do it on without any loss of quality !* Wow ! Would this be sweet ! I then could feed the re-cut back out to the CF card and pop the CF card back into the XDR and play the program back out via HD-SDI into another HDCAM SR deck.

.....The only possible compromises I can see in all of this is twofold.

A) I don't think the 100 Mb Long-GOP setting (As good as it indeed is) is enough for Master quality VTR replacement or dubs from an HDCAM SR VTR. (??) * I need to test the 140 and 160 settings. At least why not give us a 220 Mb Long-GOP setting equal to what CD has already given us for I-Frame MPEG :-)

B) What is the bit level of the XDR ? Is the XDR 8 or 10 bit capable ? I asked this question before, but I don't remember if I got a clear answer or not. (??)

Dear Mark,

The Flash XDR is 8-bit.

When we add uncompressed, we will support 10-bit.

But, I want to be real clear:

A lot of people want 10-bit since they saw banding in 8-bit.

While this is attributed, by many, to be due to 8-bit versus 10-bit, we feel that it is most like caused by the codec. A bit starved, inefficient codec can produce banding.

No one has ever reported seeing color banding in our Long-GOP 100 Mbps footage.

To the best of our knowledge, no one has ever produced banding in a torture test of our 100 Mbps Long-GOP footage.

Some people have been lead to believe that 8-bit is 256 colors.

It is actually (approximately 256 times 256 times 256, less a few) or around 16.7 million colors.

Planet Earth, with all of its color and glory was broadcast in 8-bit, as is every other television program.

Dear Mark,

The Flash XDR and nanoFlash at 100 Mbps Long GOP is better than HDCam.

It is not better than HDCam SR.

The Flash XDR and nanoFlash record 4:2:2, not 4:4:4, which the HDCam SR does.

One flavor of HDCam SR is 440 Mbps, and another is 880 Mbps.

Our very best image quality is 160 Mbps Long-GOP (but remember, we recommend 100 Mbps Long-GOP). HDCAM SR is Intraframe not Long-GOP, so we have an advantage in codec efficiency, but they have an advantage in bit-rate.

If recording 4:2:2 to both, we feel that it would be a close race, visually very close, but HDCam SR would win. But a HDCam SR tape deck is not $2,995 either.

Just remember, if no one can tell the difference between live HD-SDI and recorded HD-SDI, as recorded on the nanoFlash at 100 Mbps Long-GOP, isn't that good enough?

Hi Dan:
Yes. The 8 bit banding thingy has persisted very heavily in network Tv broadcast circles. In reality, 16.7 million colors is probably way more than enough :-) Hey, if it works for planet earth then who am I to disagree ? ;-)

....Now you wrote that the XDR is 8 bit, but when you go to uncompressed you will "support 10 bit." I want to be crystal clear here, so I must ask what do you mean by "support 10 bit ?" Are you expressing the idea a firmware upgrade will allow the XDR to accept a greater bit depth video signal thereafter, or do you mean something else. Can you elaborate ?

Dear Mark,

The Flash XDR and nanoFlash at 100 Mbps Long GOP is better than HDCam.

It is not better than HDCam SR.

The Flash XDR and nanoFlash record 4:2:2, not 4:4:4, which the HDCam SR does.....No this is incorrect. The Sony HDCAM SR VTRs record *both* 4:2:2 and 4:4:4: Most networks use the HDCAM SR decks @ the 4:2:2 color space setting @ 440 Mbps.

One flavor of HDCam SR is 440 Mbps, and another is 880 Mbps.....Up the Long-GOP data rate to 440 on the XDR and the XDR is now *Equal* to the HDCAM SR technology @ the 4:2:2 mode 440 Mbps setting.

Our very best image quality is 160 Mbps Long-GOP (but remember, we recommend 100 Mbps Long-GOP). HDCAM SR is Intraframe not Long-GOP, so we have an advantage in codec efficiency, but they have an advantage in bit-rate.

If recording 4:2:2 to both, we feel that it would be a close race, visually very close, but HDCam SR would win. But a HDCam SR tape deck is not $2,995 either.....No it would be an exact match with uncompressed and 10 bit enablement, plus you are already only a razor's edge away from accomplishing an exact data rate match with your Long - GOP XDCAM HD codec. - Just follow through with a little more data rate and you've done it with the XDR/nano. Turn on that RS-422 interface and Convergent Design is there with every TV Network wanting the XDR as a solid state VTR supplement allowing low cost clip based editing without having to buy the very high end NLE's to do it ! What a great cost cutting tool !

Just remember, if no one can tell the difference between live HD-SDI and recorded HD-SDI, as recorded on the nanoFlash at 100 Mbps Long-GOP, isn't that good enough?...I can. Network technicians can. Some producers can. I think 100 Mb looks great, it is close, but it's not quite enough. Perhaps the 160 Mbps Long - GOP is, or how about a possible 220 Mbps ? Can you do 440 Mbps on the XDR/nano ?

Hi Mike:

You Wrote: "7) Possibly, but why? Long-GOP is already 2-3X more efficient, so 160 Mbps Long-GOP = 320 Mbps I-Frame in quality."....Yes. It's more efficient but only so in the recording process, in fact, it's the inverse in post production editing. I-Frame beats Long -GOP MPEG in NLE handling every time. In fact, Long GOP was *never* designed as an editing format (I-Frame was) rather, Long GOP was designed as a delivery format. I-Frame looks just as good, only, you must record at data rates about 2 X that of Long GOP to get equal quality. A good example of this is your excellent 220 Mb I- Frame capture rate in the XDR. This looks pretty much equal to the 100 Mb Long-GOP (just a much higher data rate,thus less recording time per CF card). Now that we have ultra high speed 90 MB per second 64 GB CF Media - who cares ? Crank it up ! :-) :-)

Hi Mark-
I see your point, we'll consider a higher I-Frame rate in the future.

Best-

Sorry I wasn't able to join this conversation in progress. There's a few things I disagree with in this thread but I'll play along. 8 bit versus 10 bit is a big deal, a bigger deal than I think this thread will represent.

I don't think anyone has ever thought an 8 bit codec only rendered 256 colors. That's ridiculous.

It really boils down to what are you shooting. The 256 levels per channel is significant, if the majority of your image lies in one of those channels. Like greenscreen work for example. Getting fine edge detail on greenscreen work can be maddening, especially if you don't have full control on the shoot.

Even when your image is evenly spread across all the channels, like shooting smoke on against black for compositing with a luma key. Those extra bits will help get a much better final product.

What I'm most interested in is what Dan said above, that 10 bit is technically possible on this hardware (XDR). Uncompressed of course, since MPEG is an 8bit codec. Is this true? If it's technically possible to do 10bit uncompressed, I would hope this moves to the top of the priority list in development.

My guess is, the RAID'ing of the CF cards would be a requirement for this though since there is no human affordable CF card fast enough to do uncompressed.

Hi Aaron & Dan & Mike & Everybody:
Aaron Wrote: "What I'm most interested in is what Dan said above, that 10 bit is technically possible on this hardware (XDR). Uncompressed of course, since MPEG is an 8bit codec. Is this true? If it's technically possible to do 10bit uncompressed, I would hope this moves to the top of the priority list in development."

........Yeah, me too. Specifically, I want Dan to elaborate a little more on what he means by saying CD will support 10 bit in the XDR when they go full uncompressed recording option. What exactly does that mean ? Is it true that the XDR *can* do 10 bit video with a firmware upgrade ? If so, WOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW !!!!!!!

Aaron wrote: "My guess is, the RAID'ing of the CF cards would be a requirement for this though since there is no human affordable CF card fast enough to do uncompressed.
Today 11:00 AM"

........I believe this is incorrect. The 90 MB Sandisk 64 GB cards should be fast enough for a stream of 10 bit uncompressed HD. Striping four x 64 GB 90 MB cards is definitely a really good idea. Striping four 60 MBps 64 GB CF cards is a good idea too !

Dear Aaron,

Two companies, one frequently, and another one in the past, asked:

What would you want 1024 crayons or 256 crayons? This implies that 8-bit only has 256 colors, unless one clear states 256 levels per color.

Yes, the Flash XDR is designed, hardware wise, to allow for a future full uncompessed, 10-bit option. This applies to the nanoFlash also, now that very fast, large capacity CompactFlash cards are available.

So uncompressed is feasible as a firmware update. Please note, that from day one, we always discussed this as an extra cost feature. We have also quoted $995 (US) for this feature.

Yes, with both the Flash XDR and the nanoFlash, we expect that we will need to stripe the data across at least two cards to achieve the raw bandwidth necessary to do uncompressed.

Aaron, it was nice speaking with you!
(Aaron called just as I was writing this.)

........I believe this is incorrect. The 90 MB Sandisk 64 GB cards should be fast enough for a stream of 10 bit uncompressed HD. Striping four x 64 GB 90 MB cards is definitely a really good idea. Striping four 60 MBps 64 GB CF cards is a good idea too !

i think you skipped right over the "humanly affordable" part. 4x 64GB-90MB/s cards = $$$$

but I guess it's still cheaper than an S.two box :-)

If I had meant HDCAM SR I would have said HDCAM SR. I was referring to HDCAM which has been the high quality standard for broadcast HD acquisition for several years. However long GoP, while I agree not designed for acquisition (mainly because the processing power need wasn't available at the time) MPEG 2 at 50Mb/s is now regarded by Sony and others as superior to what was previously the de-facto standard for HD shooting.

It is not always true that I frame is easier to decode than Long GoP. At high bitrates to decode I frame only the CPU has to load every frame, requiring large bus bandwidth to decode it. With long GoP the CPU only has to load the I frame and then only needs to use the much smaller B and P frames to decode the image. With fast, modern CPU's in many cases this takes requires a lot less CPU bus bandwidth than having to load every single full frame. With well written software codecs there should not be that big a difference between I frame and long GoP in terms of processing speed. The higher the bitrate the closer the gap between I frame and long GoP gets. With very high bit rates long GoP can become easier and quicker to decode.

Yes, 10 bit is better than 8 bit, IF you give it all the extra bandwidth it needs and you have the hard drives to handle it. The results I am getting from the NanoFlash are nothing short of astounding. I can grade, edit and encode my footage very hard and it holds up solidly and robustly. I can encode my footage to 10 bit ProRes, but I can't see any advantage in my end results. I am convinced that 100Mb/s Mpeg 2 is the sweet spot. Robust enough for heavy post production yet small enough for economic storage and use over a network. Personally I don't want enormous 10 bit uncompressed files that need very fast, very large raid arrays to store and edit. You'll find 2 streams of uncompressed 10 bit HD a lot harder to work with (in computer performance terms) than two streams of compressed long GoP, primarily because of the vast amount of data your dealing with. I've been able to record uncompressed 10 bit via my decklink card for chroma key shoots in my studio for several years, but the advantages over 8 bit are so small that it's never been worth the trouble. However the difference between 35 Mb/s (EX) or 50Mb/s (HD 422) and 100Mb/s NanoFlash is much more significant.

Of course these are just my views and you don't have to agree :)

Dear Friends,

We are qualifying another 64 GB card which is far more reasonable, currently at $299 (US).

This is a high-performance card which makes the $299 price very attactive.

We are going thorough a thorough evaluation, including using beta testers, to ensure that this will be a good choice.

I'd probably agree that there are more widely wanted features than uncompressed recording. I think most users would still record 100Mbs long GOP, even if they had the uncompressed capability.

If the uncompressed feature were available as an upgrade for $995, I probably would not buy it right away. I'd wait until I had a project or a client that required it.

It's definitely something I'd want to have in my XDR though but thinking of the total cost to shoot uncompressed is bringing me down. 4x more expensive cards. Faster mac would be needed. More and faster disks in post production. Capture card. The cost of shooting uncompressed is a downer.

I think I'll stick with MPEG for now.

Gentlemen, you dazzle me with the technical possibilities and actual capabilities of the gear we now have at hand.
However, on the "other" hand we have broadcast networks asking for HD, settling for 4x3 betacam, and wishing they could send their own producer with a PD150 because that is "good enough".
There is an elegance to the Nanoflash that I appreciate as a user and as a consumer of what it possible. I do wish it were an "easier sell" to my clients.
From my perspective we are now at divergent streams, one the best possible quality, the other mass acceptance of a "format".
The same production that would like HDCam SR (looks great!) will also accept DVcam (looks like **it!). A 1000 mbps picture may theoretically look better but if no one can see it why bother?
I'm happy to agree with Sony that XDcam 422 50 mbps is the duck's ass. I'm making better quality pictures than I imagined possible and telling my clients so...but now I need a way to say "here - take it with you and make TV with whatever edit system you have".
To Mike and Dan and all who've developed this - Wow!, great job, I love it, don't want to be without it. I hope for you (and for us) it becomes the next "betacam". Convergent Design has a wonderful way to acquire whatever format the client wants but there is still a question on how to deliver it in a way recognizable to that client. Let's put our minds together and figure out how.
From my perspective it serves us all to come up with a standard way to deliver - kind of like the "Macie standard" for the US shooters among us - an "added value", better than whatever else is out there.
I have no idea what that is - I've tried .mov and flavors of .mxf and keep hearing "what is this?" when I send in a drive.
The Nanoflash is a superior product and maybe a game changer, but not if it means so many options that it becomes a "tower of babble", meaningless in the fray of too many standards.
Shooting time lapse iframes at huge data rates is nice but we'll all recoup our investment more quickly if we agree on and sell a median format and delivery system.

Hi Aaron:
What's the speed of your external HDD and your current MAC ? Allot of folks think full HD uncompressed is a much bigger deal than it actually is. Yes, it's taxing on your system, but not as taxing as some would consider it to be. If you have a FireWire 800 external Raid 0 drive, then this is usually fast enough. If you have external Raid 0 eSata, then that's certainly fast enough. If you have 4 GB of RAM or more and an Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.66 Ghz or faster, then you're OK for uncompressed. You can now use the newer 2009 vintage iMAC's to run FCS on without issue. I have found there to be a few caveates however.

Caveate 1: You need to be Running Snow Leopard on your MAC. Snow Leopard is a true 64 bit addressing OS and it can address a much greater amount of memmory. (8 GB of DDR 3 in my case).

Caveate 2: Your CPU needs to have a good amount of either L2 or L3 cache memmory on die. Core 2 Duo CPU's come in several different flavors of L2 to L3 onboard cached memmory from 4 MB up to 12 MB. (I run uncompressed successfully with a Core 2 Duo with 6 MB of L3 Cache memmory @ 3.06 Ghz)

Caveate 3: Your system drive should be 7,200 RPM to alleviate as many bottlenecks as possible.

Caveate 4: Run a nVidia GT series or a Quadro series graphics card with at least 512 megs of on board dedicated video RAM.

Caveates 5: Run the FCS 7.0 if you can. This version is different in that it has been optimized to run on 64 bit Snow Leopard. I've noticed FCS is much more zippy on Snow Leopard than on any preceeding version of OS 10 (Most likely because they are 32 bit)

Yeah Mark, this disk is a concern but I'm good on speed. I use dual 1U ProavIO 4x1TB RAID systems. These are very fast and can handle 4:4:4 Uncompressed. They connect via Firewire 400, 800, eSata and USB. eSata can handle it. I'm good on the SPEED of the disk, I'd need more 1U boxes though because these stay pretty full with stuff I'm working on.

The real problem with uncompressed is my lack of a MacPro. My main computers are 2 Macbook Pros and an iMac, all which top out at 2GB of ram. They all handle MPEG and ProRes footage up to full raster HD with no issues. They all stutter pretty well easily with uncompressed footage.

Any uncompressed work on my systems would require an offline/online approach with proxies and that's no joke.

Gentlemen, you dazzle me with the technical possibilities and actual capabilities of the gear we now have at hand....The XDR/nano *is indeed dazzling* and a device which is on the brink of being a real game changer because it bridges the gap between tapeless image acquisition/on line tape based editing/clip based post production. Who would have ever thought someone would or actually *could* come up with a device which could do that ? Denis, sometimes I wonder if the good folks at CD actually realise the full potential of what they came up with. I do not intend my statement as a criticism of the team at CD. I told Mike Shell last year they have been telling us for years how tapeless Solid State Digital Recording would change the way we work, but it looks like Convergent Design actually produced the *First* practical device which could actually accomplish this.
However, on the "other" hand we have broadcast networks asking for HD, settling for 4x3 betacam, and wishing they could send their own producer with a PD150 because that is "good enough".
There is an elegance to the Nanoflash that I appreciate as a user and as a consumer of what it possible. I do wish it were an "easier sell" to my clients.
From my perspective we are now at divergent streams, one the best possible quality, the other mass acceptance of a "format".....Ah yes, but is it a "Format" per se, or is it a workflow ? I say it is the workflow which is the key to changing the game and not the format.
The same production that would like HDCam SR (looks great!) will also accept DVcam (looks like **it!). A 1000 mbps picture may theoretically look better but if no one can see it why bother?
I'm happy to agree with Sony that XDcam 422 50 mbps is the duck's ass. I'm making better quality pictures than I imagined possible and telling my clients so...but now I need a way to say "here - take it with you and make TV with whatever edit system you have"....Now you can do just what you wanted. You hand them the CF card out of your Nano or XDR and tell them to import that into Avid Media Composer, or Symphony, or DS, or FCP and when they are finished, then simply spit the edited sequence back out to the same CF card and playout out via HD-SDI to the network feed, or Sony HDCAM SR, or out to tape, or disk from their NLE. What could be simpler than that ? With an XDR you can bridge the gap between on line mastering style post or simple clip based editing. Now there is the proviso that CD must turn on the RS-422 interface on the XDR to make the online connectivity bridge complete, but with high data rate Long GOP (up to 440 Mbps Max) and uncompressed recording capability @ 10 bit color space, then you are walking around with an elegant solution which is both a image acquisition and complete VTR replacement/suppliment. What would you say if you had a simple-practical device which would allow HDCAM SR mastered footage to be editable on any laptop ? Tell your producer this ;-)
To Mike and Dan and all who've developed this - Wow!, great job, I love it, don't want to be without it. I hope for you (and for us) it becomes the next "betacam". Convergent Design has a wonderful way to acquire whatever format the client wants but there is still a question on how to deliver it in a way recognizable to that client. Let's put our minds together and figure out how....Yes lets do that. Start by handing them the CF card.
From my perspective it serves us all to come up with a standard way to deliver - kind of like the "Macie standard" for the US shooters among us - an "added value", better than whatever else is out there.
I have no idea what that is - I've tried .mov and flavors of .mxf and keep hearing "what is this?" when I send in a drive.
The Nanoflash is a superior product and maybe a game changer, but not if it means so many options that it becomes a "tower of babble", meaningless in the fray of too many standards.
Shooting time lapse iframes at huge data rates is nice but we'll all recoup our investment more quickly if we agree on and sell a median format and delivery system....Forget standards or formats and think workflow. It is the basic change to the workflow which makes the XDR and the Nano so unique.

Any uncompressed work on my systems would require an offline/online approach with proxies and that's no joke....Aaron, don't worry about the stutter if you are delivering on DVD, Blu-ray or web formats. You are going to encode those out so they will be smooth upon final delivery format, so who cares ? - Stutter away ! :-) If you are doing a digital cut, then it's time for a MAC Pro or a 2009 iMAC 24 inch top model topped out with 8 GB of DDR 3 1066 Mhz RAM,

The stuttering, I was thinking more in terms of taking forever to edit because my systems are not fast enough. Editing data that my computer can't handle drives my nuts. I'd rather edit a proxy.

Hi Aaron:
True. As long as you don't mind doing a later on-line conform to your proxy.

i.e. Allot of editors (including me) used to edit HD by proxy in Standard Definition. As long as I had the window dub of the HD source TC, or had the HD source TC fed to the VITC of my SD dub I was cutting, then I used by old Pentium II 233 MMX machine to cut and export a CMX 3000 EDL and have an online editor at the station conform it for me. This worked for quite a long while until computers got too good and the producers then asked me to edit, do 3D animation, complex sound editing, DVD Authoring, First & Secondary CC all on one damn machine ! Well. I still do these on two machines, but seem to collect the same check . Hmmmmmnnn ???

Mark is quite right about "formats". We need to educate production companies and users that the need to tie in to a format has long gone. I had a crew from NBC here during the week and it was clear that they had little knowledge of file based workflows. I offered to give them some stock footage on a hard drive as Avid compatible HD MXF's. They said, no, they could not accept it as they only used HDCAM. I spoke to the producer, "what do you edit with?" I asked. Avid was the answer. They just didn't get the concept of a file on a disk. It had to be on a tape. In the end I gave them the footage on an HDV tape.... Arrgh!

The problem is that for the past 20 years production companies have been tied to physical formats in the form of tapes. Until a few years ago this was the only way to deliver and share footage. To do this you had to have the correct (expensive) hardware which was a significant investment for the production companies. Producers, editors, cameramen have become so stuck in this hardware based "format" thinking that it takes a lot of persuasion to get them to even consider a different way of working. Most people reading this are probably already enlightened, but the majority of people working in TV seem to have little interest in learning new ways of working, even if it does open new possibilities and reduce costs.

It will happen, it has to. It just staggers me how blinkered some of the larger broadcasters and production companies can be.

Alister, that is exactly the issue I face ( often). I'd gladly hand over the CF card but usually folks don't know what it is, how to use it, and if it needs any explaining it is easier to say "put it on a beta tape".
I've had total success handing lacie rugged drives to production companies, not so much with the networks.
For example, I'm shooting a job on Tuesday - I'll record on the Nano into MXF files at 50mbps. Transfer all the files onto a lacie rugged formatted MS Dos FAT 32 and make sure the windows side of my mac can see it.
I'll send it off with a usb cable and instructions to copy the contents onto a hard drive and ingest it to the Avid from there.
Am I missing something?
I did just this with a test project last week, the mxf files opened on my mac in FCP and under windows, but the client sent the drive back, said it wouldn't work with their system, to use a hdv camera instead. I'm still working on that one.
It seems a case of "so near, yet so far away".

The transfer to file based HAS to happen in Europe. Regulations about the use of any materials that can't be recycled or contain hazardous chemicals are making it very hard to produce pro grade tape transports at sensible prices. Because of this we are on the edge of a rapid need to switch to file based as tape based cameras become scarce. Hopefully the transition to file based will gather pace an all the old "format" problems will go away, free up people to use the most appropriate cost effective tools for the job.

Dear Friends,

Denis and I disucssed this dilemma on the phone.

I promised Denis that I will be happy to work with the major networks and others in attempt to gain widespread acceptance.

Our files are native Qucktime (".mov") and native MXF, so we can work with a wide variety of systems. Shortly, we will be compatible with Sony Optical media.

What is interesting is that this is actually a win for the networks. Our files can be transferred to their system via a low cost CompactFlash card reader, and the transfer should be faster than real-time.

Hi Dan:
Upgrade the XDR just a few more firmwares and you can go to the them telling them you can bridge their online workflow to file based import and post their shows on inexpensive laptops running Avid Media Composer and FCP **And Retain Their HDCAM SR Original Full Resolution !!** Now that's gotta get their attention. Networks will always want a Master VTR running usually HDCAM SR somewhere in New York, Dallas - Fort Worth, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, but they often have to update and re-edit and re-package their pilots and produced TV series. Due to the fact that they almost always have to go back to their edited Master tape and re-cut from this, thus, they have to handle the job specially with an inside editor running a high end *Finishing NLE* to maintain the HDCAM SR resolution. But now Avid Media Composer is resolution independent. The only bugaboo has been how to get the HDCAM SR master into the editor without going the usual million dollar online finishing suite.

....This is where the XDR and Nano come in. Capture it uncompressed in 10 bit onto 64 GB 60 or 90 MBps CF cards and import that into the network wide fiber optic intranet and they will AMC it wherever they want, then spit the edited sequence back out via their Intranet to a CF card, and that CF card goes into the XDR or Nano and playsout in realtime back to their HDCAM SR VTR and job done !

....Now the Winter Olympics are coming this Winter in Vancouver british columbia and my good friend is head of editing and spot creation for all of the Canadian and some of the Foreign coverage. They are taking a Media Composer, Two Avid Symphony's and I believe a Nitris DS system over to Vancouver to cut around the clock 24 hours a day...Now's your big chance CD ! Dan ! Mike ! Get that Rs-422 inteface on soon :-) I'll go over and show them how this works. :-)

Mark is quite right about "formats". We need to educate production companies and users that the need to tie in to a format has long gone. I had a crew from NBC here during the week and it was clear that they had little knowledge of file based workflows.


From 2006 to the present, I've been involved with pretty much every major media company (CBS, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, Geraldo, NatGeo, G4, ESPN, etc.). With the exception of G4 and ESPN, all wanted me to provide DV or HDV tape. ESPN was unable to accept my MXF files from EX1 at the time because their AVID and Quicktime were not completely current.

My favorite quote was from a fellow at NBC telling me that the files would "clog up the machine." Of course, the producer wasn't much better with my downloadable files telling me that the SD video .avi file (DV25) apeared too small on her monitor. She had no idea how to resize Windows Media player such that the video would stretch to fit her screen.

Hello Dan - you did indeed offer to help with the networks accepting excellent quality footage off the Nanoflash. I hope I did not speak out of turn here, your support has been impressive, appreciated and more is needed.

Hi Denis:
You Wrote: "Hello Dan - you did indeed offer to help with the networks accepting excellent quality footage off the Nanoflash. I hope I did not speak out of turn here, your support has been impressive, appreciated and more is needed."

....Yes. I second this.

Dear Friends,

I will be happy to offer more support.

If anyone has a proper person at a network that they would like to contact, please send me a private email.

I feel that it would not be appropriate to public list a person's name and contact information on this site.