Quick update, I talked with Mr. Cinedeck himself late last week and we both decided it’d be best if he got my unit (technically @Salah_Baker’s) updated and brought it to NAB. I did grab some footage off of it though I’ll get posted up later today. Otherwise, I’ll be dragging one around NAB with me and working on testing any DSLRs I find as well as other things. I heard a rumor about getting my hands on an F23 as well, so that plus a Cinedeck would be much fun. However, I’ll have to see what’s up with that when I get there.

Speaking of NAB, I’ll in participating in the All in Film poker tournament. Look for the loudmouth, cigar-chomping, tattooed, bearded, black glasses bald guy with some whiskeys in front of him…also, the piles of chips will be a dead giveaway for me too *wishful thinking* I made a comment a couple weeks ago about going after Shane Hurlbut (@HurlbutVisuals) like Christian Bale on set, but he might not have a sense of humor and its always bad form to rag on someone when you don’t even know them…

Back to NAB…

I plan to be visiting with my friends at the following booth locations and maybe spouting out unnecessary advice to unsuspecting people at: Cinedeck (@Cinedeck), Cineform (@David_Newman), Avid (@MediaComposer), Adobe (@Beatlejase) and Matrox. Yes, these are my weapons of choice and I’m on the official beta crew for two of them, but I can’t say who. I might also do a brief stop-in at Zacuto only to rip on them for how expensive their stuff is or the fact that…well, I’ll think of something to rag Sue (@Zacuto_Sue) about- She did say I’d better watch my back at NAB since I think I’ve made myself a target for her Z-Finder ninja stars or something like that.

You WILL NOT find me at anything related to FCP or R3D- so don’t go looking. Not because they don’t do good stuff but because I don’t use FCP and R3D has nothing to offer (insert vaporware joke here).

Salah and I will be attempting to do some vlogging (mainly about said Cinedeck we’ll be loafing around with but don’t expect @FreshDV out of us. It’s more for our own posterity- well mine anyway. But with Salah and Cineform there’s bound to be some 3D in there somewhere.

Overall, I’m greatly looking forward to learning during Post Production World, hanging out with all my friends- making most of these online relationships face-to-face for the first time, getting my hands  on actual gear (I have NOTHING in this small town to actually work with), meeting the people I’m working with on Beta as well as just the general vibe. Should be a grand party and I hope to see you there too.

Here’s me looking rather goofy (which is mostly normal):

Tags: adobe, avid, cinedeck, cineform, education, hdslr, NAB, tech, tools, travel

…or at least my Mulitface. I know there’s admitted support for RME’s MADI stuff.

I have a few projects coming up and am considering moving more and more of my editing over to Avid Media Composer. Again, $295 for non-profits through Academic Superstore. There are a variety of reasons I want to do this but two of them being:

• Editing is easy and fast on MC4
• My online Cineform masters (PPro Cs4 blows).

I just finished up two shorts and screened them this last weekend at a local church. They were edited on Avid on my MBP at home, online’d to Cineform files, AE’d, Nuendo’d and graded, then presented in Cineform masters. They looked stunning and played back on the laptop flawlessly. Several compliments from the church staff that this was the best looking stuff they’ve ever had out of that projector.

In a nutshell, it’s a workflow I’m going to keep because it works really, really well and looks stunning when finished. But I’d like to edit on Avid on my MacPro. I can’t because I use the RME Multiface as my primary audio D/A. I’m left with three options:

1. Continue to only edit on my MBP
2. Research and purchase and new D/A interface
3. Dual boot to a second version of OSX sans RME drivers?

Honestly, 1 and 3 look the most promising. My Mulitface is yes, old, but it works great and has no issues. Option 1 seems doable since my MacPro is an online machine for the most part anyway and I don’t do EVERY project in Avid…just most (with a couple big ones coming). 3 intrigues me because it’s totally doable but then I have no way to listen to anything although a small set of Foxtex monitors or something out of the headphone jack would work.

I’ll update as I research and figure stuff out.

Tags: after effects, avid, cineform, premiere, RME, tech, workflow

Real quick while I’m rendering, what I want but can’t have is one graphics/capture/playback/whatever card that gives me:

1. 3 monitors in Avid for editing
2. 3 monitors in Adobe for finishing
3. Blue-only, Matrox-esque monitoring capability
4. After Effects support
5. Cineform playback support including sending First Light to my Matrox-esque monitor for grading

Avid seems to playback fine out of any old secondary monitor so perhaps just another graphics card? I don’t need to capture or play out, just monitor but with better calibration which is why I love the Matrox stuff but it’s doesn’t support Cineform playback like AJA or BMD and definitely no First Light send-to like Blackmagic.

Maybe I just run a second graphics card and plug in the Matrox when I need it and do the multiple input selection on my monitors? I dunno…

Tags: after effects, avid, cineform, tech, tools, workflow