New update on the FCP5 MPEG2 Export Hack. I’ve uploaded a DIFFERENT QT component that is the actual export module. Again, once downloading, install the entire component folder in Machintosh HD>System>Library>QuickTime.

This has worked on most every machine I’ve tried it on. Click on the picture below to download the zipped QTMPEGExport.component, or see the original post for more details.

STILL TROUBLESHOOTING

This hack WILL add the MPEG2 option to your FCP5 export menu (and hopefully troublefree MPEG2 exporting), but some users are receiving this following error upon export.

Readers: Any thoughts?

—
Thanks to Jimmie and Eric at Post Modern for continued help in cracking this hack.

DV.com article requires login

Wow. Just got done reading an extensive article covering a (6) camera shootout comparing the performance of (4) Pro-Sumer grade HD and HDV cameras and (2) of the “big-boy” 2/3″ CCD cameras (I’ll call them ProDef). The test was performed by a bunch of really really smart engineers and written by Adam Wilt

The cameras compared were…aquisition media format listed in paranthesis.

Pro Def Cameras
Sony F900 CineAlta (HDCAM)
Panasonic Varicam (DVCPRO HD)

Pro-Sumer Cameras
Canon XLH1 (HDV)
JVC GY-HD100U (HDV)
Panasonic HVX200 (P2)
Sony Z1U (HDV)

This article is extremely in-depth in terms of telemetrics, color sampling, and techno jargon that made even my most intersted head burst. All of the spec info listed by Adam is worth the price of admision (DV.com create-an-account), but let me comment on a few of Adam’s conclusions.

–
All the 1/3″ cameras clustered together more tightly than we expected. Each camera excelled at some aspect of image rendering, but all of them were more alike than different; none stood out as being clearly superior all around.

Furthermore, they all came a lot closer to the 2/3″ cameras than we thought they would: while we could clearly see that the big cameras made superior images, the contrast between the 1/3″ and 2/3″ cameras was nowhere near what we expected to see.

DP and CineAlta operator Art Adams once characterized my Z1 pix as “half HD” for their horizontal softness, and that perception holds as I look at the 10-bit uncompressed clips: The 1/3″ 1080i camera pictures are only about half as crisp as the CineAlta’s. In 720p, the JVC comes close to the Varicam in raw detail, although its noise is quite a bit higher.

When you consider that none of these 1/3″ cameras comes anywhere close to half the price of their 2/3″ brethren, you’ll see that “half HD” isn’t bad for the money.

We came away convinced that any of the cameras would do a creditable job in the hands of a skilled user, and that the choice of camera should be made more on features and ergonomics than on image quality. This is not to say that people didn’t pick favorites; people did. It’s just that no one, not even the most partisan among us, would have claimed that any one of the cameras was unacceptable for doing serious work.

We also understood how sketchy and rudimentary our explorations were. We didn’t look at motion rendering, or how the camera’s different codecs and recording formats affected image quality. Do the cameras behave differently in daylight-lit exteriors than in tungsten-balanced interiors? How does each one handle handheld? What kind of work is each camera most suited for?

We didn’t have time to answer these questions, so they remain subjects for future tests.

—
Given that most of the participants (an interested readers, I’m guessing) are Indie film oriented (as opposed to broadcast), I don’t believe the shootout touched on enough subjects to help many Indies make an informed purchase (or rental) decision.

Specifically, how can Indies acheive their “filmlook” with each of these cameras, and to what price will they pay? The biggest caveat in the price per “filmlook” equation: Workflow.

Look for an extensive upcoming article (by me) to expand on DV.com’s marvelous test by hitting home on what most Indies are concerned with…their bottom line.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Aha! The holy grail (is that overstating it?) of FCP5 exporting. Users of DVD Studio Pro1-3 and FCP3-4 remember when you could export MPEG2 (for DVD compression) directly from FCP’s export menu without using Compressor.

Don’t get me wrong. Compressor’s a nice tool and everything - but for a simple MPEG2 export its kind-of a pain in my ass. I like the old days…

THE HACK
FCP5 seems to delete a package of files @ System>Library>QuickTime>QTMPEGExport.component. Check your box, you won’t have it with the newest version of Final Cut Studio.

CLICK THE PICTURE AND DOWNLOAD THIS ZIPPED FILE

Hehe. My best guess is that this is the old package that FCP updates erase (ported from an old FCP install). There’s no serial number attached to it this package.

Unzip the package and notice the “QTMPEGExport.component” is a package (control click - show package contents).

Close Final Cut Pro.

Navigate to System>Library>QuickTime> and drop the entire QTMPEGExport.component package in.

Open Final Cut. Attempt an export. The option will now appear in FCP>File>Export>Using QuickTime Conversion>(dialogue box)Format>MPEG2.

Return here and let me know your progess. Did this work for you? Any other ideas? Let me know.

(and the fucking disclaimer…download at and install at your own risk, author makes no claims about the functionality and safety of this process…thank you lawyers).

My most recent dealings from with Apple and XSAN have produced myriad whirlwind thoughts populating specific hardware issues to the never lands of indie HD filmmaking. How do LUNs and faulty firewalls relate to budgets, workflow, and audiences?

In the interest of getting excestential on you, lets chat.

XSAN has been a major pain in my ass recently. I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can about console scripts and IT management, but end the end…alas…I’m much more art that techno.

When our wonderful German Apple engineer was originally installing SportsHD’s XSAN system just three weeks ago, I spent hours watching over his shoulder attempting to osmosisize (obviously, my word…you can use it too) his process. It is at this advanced stage of production architecture that I believe Apple becomes much less intuitive.

The friendly GUI and bombproofedness has worn out.

Monday Morning: 10:36 A.M.
SportsHD 2 (Quad 2.5, 8 GB RAM, Kona LHe - KL box) eats shit while pasting an audio filter in FCP5. The whole machine freezes. Mouse, keyboard, everything.

Manual power down.

Meanwhile, video playback on SportsHD 1 (Dual 2.7, 8GB RAM, Kona 2 - K box) is hiccupping profusely. Installing AJA’s replacement-replacement Kona 2 (yes, now on our third one - all warranteed) doesn’t solve the problem, using the HD10A helps ingest momentarily. Hardware issues persist - Shut Down, Install, and Restart.

SportsHD 2 is fucked. It won’t reboot - just Apple grey screen with endless “circle of death”.

Restart SportsHD 1 - No XSAN volume mounted. XSAN utility is no help. Can’t find the server - XSERVE controllers not working - resetting controllers doesn’t work. Power down whole system, QLogic and all.

Power system back up. Ethernet Switch, QLogic Box, RAIDS, G5 XSERVE,
Sports HD 1.

SportsHD 2 requires “Archive and Reinstall of 10.4″. Great. Power back up - No XSAN.

—-
Okay, so here’s where it gets tricky
—-
(flashback)

MATTIOUS:
Okay, your XSHAANN system, is now setthoup. You should have plently of space and speed to run both boxes fullspeed and simultaneous access of all media.

JOSH:
Okay great, but walk me through my operation of “fixing” the system if the XSAN volume fails to mount on either computer.

MATTEOUS:
Hmmm, well - I vouldn’t vvorry habout zzit because zzit shfuould sknot haaapen. You can try the XSAN utility, but be careful not “change any settings.”

JOSH:
So that’s it? Don’t worry and hope for the best? This IS bleeding edge technology, right? I mean, its bound to fail at some point….

MATTEOUS:
Veeelll, hin zat case, you call me and vVee vVork thrsrvuooo zzit, okay?

—

Mattious - great guy, but he’s very busy teaching XSAN all over the country. Emails and phone calls are days out on return. He’s nowhere to be found.

—-
Shit. All this has me thinking. My days of guerrilla (guerilla meaning - oh this is YOUR car…, homemade dollies, cigarette power inverter, show the cops the DVX100 is NOT a bomb) shooting are long over. The more productions I’ve taken on, the more I’ve found my time has become my most valuable commodity.

Even with all this $$$ in production and post-production infrastructure at SportsHD, this operation is still Guerrilla HD. Hell, even HDNet was low budget by many standards (only CRT reference monitors in the edit suites, and no reason to ever shoot “real” things - If you couldn’t green screen or flying 3D logo it - there was no production).

Some Honest Guerrilla HD Revelations
CAMERAS
Sony HDV: Buy the Z1U - the XLR inputs alone are worth every penny. It’s not hard to use this camera, but your image will look terrible if you don’t know the camera basics. Play with this for hours before you shoot your masterpiece. I’ve seen sooooo much production money wasted because the last thought anyone had was about camera operators.

JVC HD100 - great camera, interchangeable lenses, but its still Medium Def. 1280×720? Come on - I know that’s how ESPNHD and MTVHD broadcast, but still, 1080i/p WILL BECOME the broadcast standard. My feelings are this camera is good for now in broadcast settings, but in 18 - 24 months it will be ultimately UNrevered for high-quality feature filmmaking much the way the DVX100 is looked at now (again, I LOVE my Panny - but it looks like shit when blown up…anyone catch NOVEMBER? Even the DVD looks TERRIBLE). Technology will outpace the resolution of this camera in a quick way, and not too many indies are giving you the straight skinny.

For my next short - I WILL BE RENTING the CineAlta F900. I’ve got free HDV’s here, I feel right at home on the HVX200, but I don’t trust either of ‘em yet WITH TRANFERSING MY MONEY TO THE SCREEN.

Sure, the CineAlta’s expensive to rent (not that much more so than the HVX) - but I’ll take HDCAM workflow any day. I’m lucky enough to have those post resources in place (and working okay until recently…).

POST
Final Cut is awesome, but storage is still a major major issue. Even with all the XSAN bells and whistles - it is absolutely NOT BOMBPROOF - yet. My SD workflow at home is stacked to the nines - but it’s going to take HD workflow at least another 3 years before I’ll call it trouble free. It will happen, eventually….

HDV is a LIMITED CODEC, and FCP handles it the best it can. Layoffs back to HDV (even HDV sequences with HDV clips require an extra conform) are a bitch, logging tapes is difficult (capture preview/ deck mechanics lag time), and experienced camera operators are absolutely required.

You need to buy ATI’s Radeon 9200 Mac Edition video card for the XSERVE. It’s just not worth the hassle. Spend the extra $120 bucks and get in installed right.

Don’t trust Apple Care. They will not bail you out. They are smart people with very little hands-on experience. Reading from manuals is not the same - I can do that. EDUCATE YOURSELF AT ALL TIMES.

INDIE SPIRIT
Buy that ZIU now and get yourself some 35mm lens adaptors. The Z1U will be your most cost effective option for indie HD features until Panasonic gets rid of the P2 cards - or figures out a way to make hard disk recording more portable. The right shooter and post-guru can make the Z1U’s 1080i everybit as convincing as the Panny’s 24p.

Keep moving forward. Can’t afford that workflow you want? SHOOT IT ANYWAY. Shoot early, shoot often, make up your own tricks - But draw your line. Sometimes its better to wait for the financing, even if it means taking a job in a medium (TV) that you despise.

I’M MAKING THAT PATIENT STEP NOW.

—
All said and done…you’ll never catch me shoot a frame of film in my life. Progression is natural.

I BLEED FOR FILMMAKING.

Wow! Just what everyone was waiting for! Finally hits such as “Reba”, “Amercia’s Top Model”, and “WWE Smackdown” will be housed on the same channel!!!!

To what do we owe this pleasure, top creative executive Dawn Ostroff?

Well, the new CW network will offer “some of the most popular programming that appeals to young adults in the media business. ”

—
What the hell kind of demographic is that??? Yeah, just what informed, media savy, ADD ridden professionals will be glued to - “Beauty and the Geek”.

check out the press release, errr…news story

I just posted the final demo video for SportsHD’s Fantasy Poker Camp.

check it out
–

Steven Soderbergh’s Bubble doesn’t hit theaters for another two weeks, but an HDNet Movies insider dropped some knowledge on me after he/she viewed the new HD master. Here are his/her thoughts:

Looks great in 1080i
Nothing happens for 40 minutes
…then…there’s a murder…kind of…
“…for what it is, the budget must have only been 20 bucks….”
Its only 74 minutes long
The acting is atrocious

—
Hmmm. Having cut many promos for HDNet and HDNet Movies, I can tell you the precarious trailer has me a bit confused. It tells you absolutely nothing about the movie - just shots of doll parts from a doll factory (a result of the terrible acting?)

I commend Cuban, Wagner, and Sodebergh for their ambitions in redefining production and distribution, but if the movie still sucks then who gives a damn how its aquired and marketed?

Regardless of my cynical contact’s thoughts, I’m looking forward to seeing this blown up (also heard the 35mm print looks great). Unfortunately, neither Denver or Boulder’s Landmark Theater is equiped with a digital 2K projector, because that’s where the real novelty is at.

Please let me know if you check this out on a digital projector. Go Progression.

Holy Crapnetto Batman! Today I have seen the biggest advantage to date of SportsHD’s new XSAN system: DVD Studio Pro hauls ass!

Muxing and Formating on the old XRAID (RAID 0) setup via the Dual 2.7 to Fiber Channel used to take 45 minutes (apiece) for a simpled menued-23 minute mpeg2 DVD.

Now the whole process takes 7 minutes and 14 seconds.
—
Thus far, I have been unimpressed with any perceived (ie: end user) differences the XSAN system has made with FCP5, but this new experience with DVD Studio Pro has gotten me excited again about the whole deal.

Sweet-

Honda and Makai Events had me up in Vail for the second year in a row maintaining spirits and product placement in the Honda Base Camp during the 4th annual Honda Sessions at Vail snowboarding competition.

The format goes like this: tunes and free giveaways hosted by me during the day, gnar shredding and roasted marshmellows during the evening while I shot miniDV for Honda internal. Repeat two days/nights.

Brought “The Panny” (DVX 100) for shooting, and my DJ equimpent? Heheh, no turntables this year (I suck), just a 3rd gen iPod and my G3 iBook stacked full of tunes. Good thing we had a propane heater on Sunday during the amateur comp…as you can see, it was bitter cold.

Good times.

—
Sample Set List:

The Boy Least Likely “Be Gentle With Me”
Bloc Party “Banquet”
Hall and Oats “Private “Eyes”
Beck “Qué Onda Guerro”
Good Little Sheep “Jigga What”
Andre 3000 “My Favorite Things”
Brand New “Sic Transit Gloria…Glory Fades”
Grace Like Gravity “Celebrity”
Presidents OtUSoA “Boll Weevil
Mark Mothersbaugh “Ping Island”
Broken Spindles “Italian Wardrobe”
Karen-O “Intelligent Shoes”
Pinback “Offline PK”
yada
yada
blah…

—-

Damnit.
Advertising coming to a cellphone near you - Arrrrggggggg!!!!!!

New York Times story

…thank Blanket for…

(8) Josh Oakhurst edited (and in the Paradise Jam instance, shot) videos avaiable for iPod or QT download. Find em here.

“My drive’s not mounting! My Masterpiece! Noooooooo!!!!”

–

Yup, many of us in the post-production industry have been in this exact situation. The truth is: most failures are due to USER ERROR. There ARE thousands of reasons why your external firewire drive may have failed, but regardless of reason we’re going to breakdown troubleshooting into three major categories so you can hopefully save your drive and save your a$$.

–


BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING! Try these sanity checks.

Connect external firewire drive to a different firewire port on your computer.
Attempt USB 2.0. connection (if possible).
Try a different Firewire cable.
Try a different power cable.
Try connecting to a different computer.

Drive still not mounting? Okay, lets get into some nitty gritty here. For each problem, we are first going to focus on drive troubleshooting and then move to data recovery.

1.) Physical Damage: Has your drive been dropped, spilled on, burst into flames, ran over by a truck; does it make clicking noises, spin iradically, or fail to make power up and altogether?

2.) Case Issues: Firewire bus failures inside the case itself are the second most common cause of drives not mounting.

3.) Bad Directory Structure: Saying bad directory structure is really broad but I’m basically saying - somewhere along the lines you had a bad string of data written onto the disk itself.

Onto repair and/or data recovery.

Physical Damage

This is the worst of all problems. If you are experiencing any of the above problems, power down your drive immediately and focus on data recovery. If your drive has been fucked hard with a sledge hammer, expect to pay big bucks to have some dudes in a clean room dig through it microscopically.

Here’s a short list of Data Recovery services who don’t advertise charging and an arm and a leg.

NationwideDataRecovery.com
Gillware.com
EcoDataRecovery.com

Case Issues
If you’ve ruled out physical damage, lets next turn to case issues and how to troubleshoot them. I will explain in detail how to free your hard drive from its firewire enclosure and then either swap cases or install your drive into a G4 or G5. (The following pics and instructions use a typical LaCie enclosure with and internal parallel drive.)

STEP ONE: Get your drive out.

Unscrew #1, bend the back plate a bit, and twist off the other screw by spinning the backpate in a propellor type motion. If you don’t care about your warranty - just pierce the sticker and unscrew both screws normally.

With the backplate off, slide the drive forward (my drive is actually upside down in the picture, don’t be alarmed).

Remove the two screws holding the firewire bus in place.

Unsnap the top of the firewire bus and remove it from the case.

Remove the parallel tape and power supply from the hard drive.

Remove the three screws on the back of the internal drive case.

Nice work. You have now freed your hard drive from LaCie’s confines.

At this point you have a couple of options. If you have another working firewire enclosure, you could pop that drive out too and simply swap the drives (installing by reversing the above process). If your drive mounts, SWEET! All you need is new firewire case. If you drive fails to mount, keep reading.

IF YOU HAVE A G4:
Using an G4 to install your newly removed parallel drive is actually preferred because the G4’s original drives are all parallel drives as well. Hooking your firewire drive inside your G4 may not work if you’re still running OS 9, even if you formatted your firewire drive to be Journaled and OS 9 enabled.

Hello G4. Make sure your computer is turned off and unplugged.

Open the case - sweet. Get rid of your static electricity. Zap your cat or hamster or something instead.

There’s your empty drive slot.

Plug in parallel tape and power supply. Close the case and restart.

IF YOU HAVE A G5:
(disclaimer)
This next step is more of an IDEA. In theory, this should work. The drive used in the follwing photos would not mount at all, and I was only able to save my files by using a data rescue program (continue further down the post). I can’t think of too many reasons this won’t work in practice, but at least I’ll show you the simple mechanics (if you have experience with this, please reply at the bottom).

Even though your G5’s internal hard drives are serial drives, your G5’s optical drive remains parallel.

Hello G5. Power Down and unplug this biatch too. AGAIN, be sure not to zap the innards with your static electricity.

Unplug the optical drive’s parallel and power ports. Shrink your hands if neccessary.

Plug it in, and let it hang…or prop it up or something. Maybe use ducktape - who knows?

I’m guessing it will mount on your desktop after that, but no guarantees. Let me know.

Bad Directory Structure
If your directory structure is fucked up enough to prevent the drive from mounting - then this is actually a pretty serious problem. Through a few troubleshooting steps, we will attempt to figure out exactly how up shit creek you are.

Unfortunately, 90% of the time bad data is written to your drive is a result of human error. Before you call up LaCie or Maxtor and start bitching, ask yourself: Did I unplug the drive before properly ejecting the disk from the desktop? Was I a careless operator and not using a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply - ie. battery backup) during a storm, power surge, or while the dog chased his ball into the electrical outlet and unplugged the computer?

Even if you’re guilty here, you can most likely receive a replacement drive from your manufacturer as long as your drive is still under warranty. You WILL need a proof-of-purchase, and DO NOT EXPECT THEM TO PAY FOR DATA RECOVERY. Drives fail - expect it and prepare. Do yourself a favor and pickup one with a 5 year warranty (like Seagate) instead of a cheapo 1 year warranty (Mator) - (ed. note: As of 12/22/2005 - Maxtor and Seagate have merged so lets hope they won’t be sharing parts and fucking up Seagate’s quality. Seagate bought our Maxtor to the tune of $300 million in hopeful annual savings….damnit…).

If you DON’T CARE ABOUT DATA RECOVERY, try running Apple’s Disk Utility and simply erase the disk. It will probably work again with a restart - but keep your eyes open for trouble. I wouldn’t trust my drive with important info after that - but I’m a paranoid SOB who doesn’t like loosing shit (try it once, you’ll be converted immediately). So who knows, you might reformat the drive and use it for many trouble free years. Your call.

ASSUMING YOU DO CARE ABOUT DATA RECOVERY, at this point we either need to get the drive to mount temporarily after a series of patches, use data recovery software, or start crying.

Lets try to avoid the tears.

STEP ONE:

Open Apple’s Disk Utility. Even though its not mounted to the desktop, hopefully Disk Utility will see the drive and even if you can’t select it. Try VERIFYING the disk but DO NOT REPAIR the disk under any circumstances unless the VERIFY process confirms the disk can be fixed. REPARING a faulty disk may cause more problems and prevent you from further data recovery.

We don’t want that.

Try the more or less the same thing with ALSOFT’S DISK WARRIOR (invauble software). Its about $100 bucks, so if you can’t find a friend to borrow the CD from, buy it. Seriously, Disk Warrior will save you many many headaches down the road if you use it as preventative maintanence. I’ve been a broke-ass student too, so contact your school’s MAC LAB IT gal or guy and see if you can borrow it.

We use Disk Warrior on the PF machines anytime there is a huge movement of media between drives. In essence, Disk Warrior is a bad-ass hard drive de-fragmenting program. It rules!

If your drive continues not to show up in either Apple’s Disk Utility or Alsoft’s Disk Warrior, all is not lost, but start preparing for the worst.

STEP TWO:

Go to your drive manufacturer’s website and look for FIRMWARE updates under SUPPORT. Firmware is a big deal, and somehow its very important to how shit works but nobody can really give you a laymen’s explanation on what the hell it does (…its file structure shit…or something).

The reason this is step two is because some firmware updates can accidentally erase your drive. Yeah.

So be careful. If you’ve done your homework concerning your OS and your manufacturer’s firmware update, proceed with confidence. However, if you’ve come this far in the trouble shooting, a firmware update is probably not going to work anyway.

STEP THREE:

If your drive is still not mounting, but showing up in either both or one of the disk utilities, its time to BUY YOUR ASS A DATA RECOVERY PROGRAM!!! Look, its either that or your first born….you decide from here on out how important the info is to you.

Okay, I know. “I can’t afford it! What if it doesn’t work!”

If you’re trying to save all your precious pirated mp3s, then yes, you probably can’t afford it. But if the shit on the drive is important enough to you - you can afford $100 bucks for a data recovery program. Trust me. Housing 200 hours of work and 5 FCP projects? Yeah - lets do it.

I have one data recovery program recommendation. PROSOFT ENGENEERING’S DATA RESCUE

If an “over the counter” data recovery program doesn’t work for you - then unfortunately, its time for you to call some data recovery pros. Good luck.

—-

another good techie article on this issue

My first observations:
Writing and Tranfering files = fast
Finder Acess (opening windows, creating new folders, labeling folders) = slow

FCP5 digitizing interface = increased lag time when asking FCP to capture - program taking time to recognize capture scratch storage on the RAIDS?

—
On a side note, stay away fromthose goddamn LaCie Porche drives. Are they making those fuckers anymore? The brandnewSportsHD backup LaCie 250GB Porche drive is already crapping out.

some data may not be read or written

WTF? “You’re a 2 week old drive and have never been unmounted poorly! Piece of shit….
—
more info on troubleshooting firewire drives

The new SportsHD XSAN configuration seems to be working quite flawlessly thanks to Apple’s own XSAN instructor, Mattaus. I’ll skip the bore and get right to the facts.

(2) 5.6TB XRAIDs (11.2TB total) have been divided into (3) parts: 800GB for MetaData (at RAID 5), (4) 400GB spare drives needed for future expansion, and 5.6TBs for Storage (also at RAID 5). Additionally, each controller has now been left (1) empty hot-swappable drive.

Interesting note - With only (1) XSERVE G5 in the rack, the 2.5 Quad will now function as backup MetaData controller. Fucking genius…

So, after 40 hours of weekend re-digitizing (for the slaves, not me…heheh), Monday will begin anew with the first chance to put XSAN speed to the test. SIMULTANEOUS MEDIA ACCESS!!!

Here’s a list of great 3rd party Apple OS X Tools that I’m currently using.

Transmit Sweet FTP client, just drag and drop like you’re used to. (free trial/ $29.95 activation WORTH IT)

Celtx Screenplay writing tool (free!)

Tinker Tool Give Finder more options, kill the annoying Dashboard, etc. (Free!)

Shadow Killer Great for G3 iBook users, kill GUI shadows - prevent wasted memory. (free!)

Blue Coconut Listen to and create playlists using iTunes music “shared” across a network. (free!)

Data Rescue 2 (not pictured) Awesome data rescue program for those pesky firewire drives who won’t mount. (free WOW Demo, $99.00 to buy ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT)

Anything to add to the list? Post ‘em up.
—

The Brass over at SportsHD have decided to upgrade the whole storage infastructure amid MANY projects. The reasoning - adding a new edit bay (and additionally, a second editor) for the pre-NATPE push, as well as to finish our 6×30 deliverables to INHD2 by late February.

Enter XSAN.

Basically, our setup right now is (1) Dual 2.7 G5 to (2) 400GB drive XRAIDs via fiber channel. We will be adding (1) new AQuad 2.5 G5 and thus a large purchase order for a G5 server, XSAN, and ethernet switch was fufilled.

At RAID 0, our two drives are now housing about 3.6TB of 8.6 (n’change) of all available storage which represents about 40 hours of DVCPRO HD ingest and another 40 (or so) hours of HDV ingest, plus various graphics, DVD bullshit, and other nonsense. The problem: In order to XSANify our current setup, we must properly STRIPE AND INITIALLIZE BOTH RAIDS. Eeesh!

Calls to other Denver post-houses came up empty while looking for an XRAID to “borrow”. Alas - this weekend will be one of ’round-the-clock ingest, as our schedule deems we must have (2) edit bays up and running by Monday 1/9.

I will be chronicling the install and setup here. This shall be quite interesting….

PrivilegeFilms.com

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This was announced on 12/21/2005 but I didn’t see it posted anywhere else so I figured I’d toss it up. SeagateMaxtor.com

Remarkably, both of these huge companies are located in Longmont, Colorado just mere miles from each other (and my house…)

I haven’t dug through the details yet, but lets hope Seagate’s quality (5 year warranty) is not affected by the merge (Maxtor offers 1 year warranties - my most recent drive failure was a 250GB Maxtor in a LaCie firewire…grrrrrr).

–
On a side note: Why do Seagate Firewire enclosures only come with a 1 year warranty while the 3.5″ drives bought singularly are issued with a 5 year?