A Stopgap Solution

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I was working on a movie in Avid Xpress Pro (on Windows XP) recently and I figured it was time to finally get some equipment so I (and a client) could watch the video on an external monitor. A DV deck is the usual way. You hook up the deck to the computer via firewire, the deck translates the DV to analog, you hook your TV into the deck and you’ve got NTSC video. Trouble is, I have very little use for a deck. Most projects I edit these days come to me already on a hard drive. DV tape is obviously on its way out, and spending $2000 on a deck I won’t be using much longer seems a little silly.

I was hoping to get an Intensity Pro. I didn’t need to capture or output any tapes, so that seemed ideal since it could also handle HD. But then I remembered that Avid doesn’t play well with others. Avid only works with Avid DNA products like the Mojo. The Mojo is essentially a glorified digital/analog converter that also adds 2:3 pulldown to 24p video in realtime and retails for $1700. It’s worth noting that Final Cut Pro adds 2:3 pulldown for free.

sony-dcr-hc28192046.jpgI considered a D/A converter, but they all run around $200 and don’t have any tape decks, in case I do need to capture a tape here and there. Eventually I decided that a cheap camcorder was my best option. First I got a $160 Canon camcorder. With Avid Xpress Pro I was getting a 16 frame delay and often drifting out of sync, which I assumed was because it was a cheap piece of crap. I returned it and got a $190 Sony DCR-HC28 since I’ve had such good experiences with Sony decks. I still get the 16 frame delay with the Sony camcorder, but I don’t have the drifting problem. I was working on a different project in Final Cut Pro, so I booted up the Mac OS to see what the delay would be. Turns out it’s only 2 frames, which is what I usually expect from FCP with a firewire deck. That really surprised me since it’s the same computer. From what I’ve read in online forums, the 16 frame delay is standard for Avid without a DNA like the Mojo. I’ve turned on desktop play delay, which keeps the video in sync, but it makes editing a bit more difficult.

I don’t have any plans to start shooting home movies, so I can’t say anything about the image quality of the camera. I can only assume it’s horrible.

Thank God That’s Over

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Well, it’s official, HD DVD is dead. Now you can finally get a high definition DVD player without worrying it’s going to turn into a Betamax. I’ve looked at the options available and it seems pretty obvious that much like my first DVD player, the best value comes from the Playstation. Way back in 2001 I bought a Playstation 2 because I wanted to watch DVDs on TV instead of on my computer. And also because I like to play the occasional video game. It turns out the Playstation 2 was a pretty bad DVD player, but it served its purpose for a couple years until I got a very nice standalone DVD player. The PS2 spent a few years in the closet until it was resurrected for Guitar Hero.

Now, all the Blu-Ray players available retail for $300-400. A Playstation 3 can be had for as little as $400. So for a few extra bucks you get a really fancy computer along with the ability to play high definition DVDs. I think it’s going to be a while before I pony up that cash. I’m still really happy with the quality of anamorphic DVDs on my plasma. It might have to wait until after I get a 1080p display. I’d love to get Rock Band though.

Other pieces of equipment in line ahead of the PS3:

  • A new graphics card. Leaning towards an nVidia 8600. My 6600 is getting pretty long in the tooth.
  • A spiffy HTPC case for the guts of my old computer. I’m planning to hook up my computer to the plasma TV in the living room so we can check IMDb without leaving the couch. We’ll even be able to do picture-in-picture. Also, we can watch videos downloaded from the Internet.
  • A Blackmagic Intensity Pro. For only $350 you get HD out of your computer, and realtime downconversion to SD.
  • A new HD TV. Probably a 42″ plasma for the living room, so I can use the year-old 37″ as a client monitor in my office. I’m hoping Panasonic puts out some smaller 1080p displays soon.

Editing 24p footage at 29.97

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In the past I’ve surveyed the many issues of editing 24p video in a 60i world. A recent comment on that page reminded me that there’s another option that I hadn’t discussed.

Shoot 24p. It looks great. Once you’ve shot it in 24p, you’re never going to lose the “filmic” quality of the motion that you get from shooting progressive frames. Because you can only get interlaced video on a DV tape, what’s on your tape is now interlaced, but it’s interlaced in the same way that The Matrix is interlaced when it’s shown on standard definition TV. It still looks like The Matrix, it doesn’t look like the 11 o’clock news just because it’s interlaced.

Editing in 24p can be tough. If you don’t really understand what you’re doing you can end up causing a lot of unnecessary trouble. So you can edit in regular old 29.97 NTSC. You probably won’t see the difference. The one time I see a problem with footage that was shot 24p but edited at 29.97 is playing on my HDTV. My TV is a progressive scan monitor. It automatically detects 3:2 pulldown and removes it from the video, which results in a nice progressive picture. This works best when the video has a continuous pulldown cadence. A film that is telecined has pulldown added in the same cadence throughout, so once the TV picks up the cadence, its work is done. The same is true for videos shot and edited in 24p. However, a video shot at 24p and edited at 29.97 has a pretty good chance (80% I think) of changing its cadence on every cut. So after every cut I see a few frames of interlaced video before the TV figures out the new cadence.

The good news is, nobody else notices this.

My advice is, if you’re going crazy trying to figure out how to edit 24p video, do yourself a favor and skip it. NTSC 29.97 works just fine.

Cloverfield & Acceptable Moviemaking Practices

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Like many other people, I saw Cloverfield last weekend. And I got really queasy. The handheld video was unbearably shaky. The movie was pretty good, even if it required a lot of suspension of disbelief. It’s funny how we’ll accept that a giant monster from the sea would attack NYC with no provocation, but not that a human can walk from Spring St to 59th St in 15 minutes.

But what really made me think was this motion-sickness thing. I saw The Blair Witch Project when it came out, and I didn’t have any trouble with the shaky-cam. I didn’t like the movie, but that was because it was awful. Am I more susceptible to motion sickness now that I’m older? Why is that? Google hasn’t been much help. Apparently motion sickness peaks when you’re around 10. But I read books in the car all the time when I was young.

cloverfieldblur.jpg

My big question was, in a film designed for sensory assault, is it OK to induce nausea in the audience in addition to the usual increased heart rate? I’m going to have to say no. A movie can be a lot of things, but vomit comet should not be one of them. It’s definitely possible to shoot a film from a first-person perspective without tossing the camera around. Just watch any Ross McElwee movie. Of course, Ross never has to deal with giant sea-creatures in his movies (except in the upcoming “Gojira’s March”) so he tends to have a pretty steady hand, but the point is, shakiness is not required for a sense of immediacy and reality.

Here’s my dream script for the beginning of a first-person horror movie:

INT. AN AWESOME SOHO LOFT PARTY

A scary noise is heard outside.

General Pandemonium.

                   RANDOM PARTYGOER #1
      Oh shit, we have to get out of here!

                   JOSH (to the camera)
      Come on Bobby, there's an army of 50-foot 
      vampires attacking the city!

                   BOBBY (from behind the camera)
      Hold on, let me get my Steadicam harness!

The camera becomes noticeably smooth and steady.

                   BOBBY
      Ok, let's run!

The camera glides out the door.

More YouTube Thumbnail Data

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Last June I noticed a trend caused by the arbitrarily assigned thumbnails on my Truth @ 15fps YouTube videos. Videos with Jennie thumbnails got almost 7 times more views than videos with Kyle thumbnails.

Now that we’re allowed to choose from 3 options for thumbnails, I’ve switched all the Truth @ 15fps videos to Jennie thumbnails (with the exception of the first one which Jennie’s not in) which has raised the average of those videos to 5,765. Although the other ones still lead with an average of 29,700, the difference is closer to 5 times as much now. Since last June, the Bad Webcam Sex video views have doubled to over 2 million.

What’s interesting me today though, is my film Two Night Stand, which at 18 minutes is a tough sell for YouTube. They don’t even let people upload videos longer than 10 minutes anymore. I managed to get a director account before they imposed that limitation though, so I got grandfathered in. Here are my thumbnail options:
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When I uploaded it in July 2006, the only option was the middle one. I switched it to the left-hand one a few months ago, and hits have gone up considerably since then. People commenting who have actually watched it all the way through are way up too, which is the most important thing to me. As of today, the video is at 97,506 views, which is way more than even Getting Laid Tonight, which is both short and has a suggestive title. The main difference I see between the two thumbnails is that rather than just a shirtless Chris in the original one, you get an indication that there may be a naked lady under those sheets in the left-hand option. It’s a lesson for the kids out there.

3 Films at Sundance ’08!

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It turns out I worked on 3 films that are premiering at Sundance this year. I knew that Blind Date and Choke would be there, but I just discovered today that Quid Pro Quo will be there too. I haven’t seen the final versions of Choke or Quid Pro Quo, but I’ve seen Blind Date quite a few times and it’s very good.

So far I don’t have anything lined up that would be eligible for Sundance ’09, but the year is still young.

That Was Hard

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inside_computer.jpgI upgraded my computer a couple weeks ago, swapping out the motherboard, CPU, and RAM, but leaving the hard drives and case alone. I thought it would be pretty simple. I knew Windows would work without a hitch, but I knew from the beginning that I’d have to reinstall the Mac OS because it had been patched to work on my old AMD processor. What I didn’t know was that the OSX-on-a-PC drive interface situation had flipped since the last time I installed OSX. With my nForce4 motherboard, it was a hassle to install onto SATA drives. With my ASUS P5K-E P35/ICH9R motherboard, OSX refused to even see my PATA/IDE drives. My DVD burner and my Mac hard drive were both IDE, so I was in trouble. I went through a lot of work, so I thought I’d document it all for anyone who’s dealing with the same problems. The geniuses over at the Insanelymac forums were a huge help. Here’s what I did:

  1. Bought a new SATA hard drive. I can never get enough storage anyway.
  2. Used VMware Workstation to format the disk to HFS+ and install the OS. I followed the instructions on this post, although I used the Kalyway 10.4.10 install disc because I need 10.4.10 in order to run FCP 6
  3. Replaced AppleAHCIPort.kext with the one at this post
  4. In the BIOS, switched SATA mode to AHCI (from IDE)
  5. BOOTED UP OS X!!!!!!
  6. Ran script to get onboard components (sound, ethernet, etc) working.
  7. Switched SATA back to IDE mode in the BIOS and booted into Windows.
  8. Followed these instructions to enable AHCI mode in Windows XP
  9. Switched SATA to AHCI mode in the BIOS and booted into Windows.
  10. Suddenly I had a nasty audio skipping problem. It was clearly related to AHCI mode. It turns out it was caused by an eSATA drive I had plugged in to the computer, but not powered on. My guess is because of the hot-swapping capabilities of AHCI, the system kept polling the drive trying to figure out what it was, while in IDE mode it doesn’t bother looking.

I’m sure I missed a few steps, but those are the ones that stick out in my memory. There might have been some extra fiddling with ATA-related kexts. I also continue to have a problem mounting the boot disk when I boot with cached kexts. I use the -f flag on the Darwin bootloader to get around that problem.

2007 Editing Tech Wrapup

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For me 2007 was the year of HD. I bought an HDTV, but more importantly, I edited a number of videos on my own computer in HD. It’s kind of old news for a lot of people, but it turns out DVCPro HD is a great format that you can play back from a regular old hard drive without any fancy RAIDs. In the past I’ve insisted on sticking with DV because I didn’t trust a regular old hard drive to reliably play back HD video. And at least on a feature film there’s always going to be an online assembly at the end anyway, so the advantages of working in HD are generally not as great as the hassles. One feature I worked on last year was edited with 14:1 compressed DV on a G4 Avid Meridien, so HD was beyond out of the question. It literally took an hour just to output one reel of the DV reference quicktimes for the sound editors. But despite the old-fashioned tech in the offline, we did the online in 4:4:4 1920×1080 at a post house, and it ended up looking terrific. I always say that in the end offline editing is just about generating a list of numbers for the online anyway.

But working in DVCPro HD has really opened my eyes. For one thing, it made my pretty nice 2-year-old AMD X2 3800 computer seem way too slow. Rendering times were unacceptably high. I’ve just upgraded to an Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz system with 4GB of DDR2 RAM and I’ve seen some real performance increases. Rendering titles is much improved, and realtime HD effects work really well. Of course, I’m still limited by slow hard disk speeds, but now I have 4 eSATA connections (2 built-in to the back of the motherboard and 2 from an SATA to eSATA bracket) which ensures that on the newer external drives I don’t have any Firewire interfaces slowing anything down.

All of the DVCPro HD projects I’ve worked on have been short, and came from P2 cards; my new favorite things. If there’s one thing that annoys me the most about editing, it’s real-time capture. It’s too slow!!! P2 cards copy faster than real-time, and generally have to be loaded onto hard drives during production, so in many cases I get a hard drive all ready to edit without having to load anything into the computer. This is the way of the future. In FCP there’s still some futzing around with conversion from the MXF format on the P2 cards to QT files, which seems like something that won’t last long. Avid loads MXFs without any conversion, which I find very cool.

We edited Blind Date using XDCAM. In this case it was PAL DV saved as MXF files to XDCAM discs, which are basically Blu-Ray discs in a cartridge. All I did was copy the files from the discs to a hard drive and we were ready to go. It was at least twice as fast as real-time capture, possibly faster. My favorite part was syncing up the 3-camera shoot. Everything had the same timecode, so it was a snap to group every bin using AutoSync.

The big new thing that I haven’t tried yet is Apple’s ProRes codec. I’ve done a little bit of testing and it seems to work really well and really fast, but I haven’t done any serious editing with it. It looks like I’ll have a chance in April when I’ll be editing HD video for an opera in Amsterdam with Hal Hartley. Everything will be shot in HDCAM and we’re going to capture straight to ProRes HQ and edit with that throughout the process. At the end it all needs to be converted to MPEG-2 for the playback hardware installed in the theater, so ProRes seems ideal. I will of course post more as I learn more.

2 For Tuesday

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Even though it’s New Year’s Day, it’s still 2 For Tuesday. It’s a tricky tightrope to walk. I hate about 25% of classic rock songs and when I listen to the radio in the shower I only have time for 2 or 3 songs. So if Rush comes on 104.3 on Tuesday morning they lose a listener for 8 minutes. But this morning I got two great Zeppelin songs off the back wall, so it was cool.

Happy New Year to my half-dozen readers.