With all the current conversation about running with DVD RAM drives in bags
etc etc...why is it that dramatic based post houses seem to have such an
issue moving towards files? You got X number of post houses X2 numbers of
sound people and it seems the sound people are the ones who have to come up
with extra drives and gear to accommodate a much smaller number of post
houses. Is it really so difficult for a post chain to figure out a way to
accept CF cards, FTP or whatever way you want to get your files to them and
sync and do their pull downs or whatever they have to do? Are computers not
capable of working in the telecine environment?

On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:10:49 -0700, schreef:

This is a very local , or national related problem. Since almost every
country is using different telecine <> Indaw, or avid /Fcp sync
workflows.
Yes, i did a whole production already done with FTP, doing now one
with 16 GB swap CF, do it normally with DVD +R, and sometimes with
Swap HD's, but that is getting less and less.
I do not use DVD RAM, but some of my fellow mixers are ( All Cantar ,
few SD )

And i'm sure your local US ''buddies'' will tell you a complete other
workflow. (telecine, dv40/824, no indaw, dvdram etc etc )

R

There are 2 ways to deal with telecine houses. You can A: either have
a ton of meetings, get a list of their requirements, do what they want
(and they'll still ask for changes a week into the show) or B: Don't
talk to them at all in advance and give them whatever format YOU
desire at wrap on the first production day. They will either figure
it out or lose the account. It's in their benefit to figure it out.
Their main issue isn't transferring the audio into their system, it's
finding a way to do it as quickly and automatically (and cheaply) as
possible. Our responsibility is to the production, not to the
transfer houses. I'd go with plan 'B'.
Billy Sarokin

And you'll still hear about it anyway.

D.

"Billy Sarokin" verizon.net> wrote in message
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On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:51:02 -0700, Billy Sarokin commented:

Forgive me, Billy, but I think that's a very stubborn and combative approach.

Surely almost every production has a post supervisor. It should be up to
them to communicate with post and find out what works (and what doesn't).
The specs for post need only be a couple of paragraphs, assuming it's a
simple, straightforward dailies project.

We have had (literally) clients who handed us MP3s or non-timecoded WAV files
and told us to use them for syncing with film for dailies. And I already
recounted a situation on Jeff's forum where I had a sound mixer give us files
with no logs, no notes, no slates and no tones. Luckily, we figured out it
was 30ndf/48K, but what if it hadn't been?

One five-minute conversation could have prevented lame-brain situations like
that. This ain't rocket science.

On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:07:44 -0700, Charles Tomaras commented:

Show me a standalone system that will a) work in any standard (525, 625, 1080
24psf, 1080 25pfs), b) output audio timecode, c) be controllable by a
standard RS-422 control signal, d) take external sync and/or wordclock, e) do
pull-down reliably and accurately, and f) uses regular computer files on a
drive. InDaw is a good system, but it still requires that everything be
copied from an external disk to its own internal disk, and that takes time
that we often just don't have. Plus, it doesn't work well with conventional
(non-Aaton) telecine systems, which is what 90%% of the LA market uses.

The Fostex DV-40 (and the later DV-824) are a fairly bulletproof system that
we use day-in and day-out in over 12 rooms, every single day. The discs cost
under $5 and last for years, and the sound quality is great. Compared to
what preceded it -- a $10,000 Sony PCM-7030 DAT deck, or a $12,000 Nagra-T
analog deck -- the Fostex DVD players are both cheaper and more reliable,
plus they're capable of storing far more sound in a single load.

I mostly agree with you Marc, but I have had, as have most production sound
guys I know, the not so rare call from post to do something in production
that makes our lives miserable so that the guys in post won't have to do
something like read a sound log. I am not saying you, or your company, but
I am talking about some pretty time consuming on-set procedures that would
take little time, or skill to do in the comfort of the transfer facility if
it wasn't deemed such an imposition. I am talking about, primarily, disk
(DVD-RAM) copies that are very time-consuming in the rush of the production
day (we don't have a lot of extra computers in our rigs) and also some crazy
sync requests that make it easy in post, but silly on the set.

Communications can go miles to keep every one on the team playing nice
together, but I have had discussions with my post supervisors where I have
said that the trade off for time spent doing things that post was trying to
put on my plate might be better spent paying attention to the sound track,
And to a one, they have agreed. Disk copies, multi backups, weird
frame-rates and excess meta-data all take time, and if anyone is more
crunched in schedule than the post guys, it is us on set. Sometimes we can
make things easier for you all, and sometimes, it makes for us not being
able to do our job, and we can't.

On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:50:09 -0700, schreef:

Hmm, let me calculate this.... so, you need to copy a day's data ( 3
GB +/- ) that takes 7 minutes or less from a DVD + R. to whatever
system , including some ext player like a DV model that is hanging on
the Telecine.
And therefore it does not work..hmmm...

R ( shakes his head )

This is how I see it:

Post houses have two options, they either deal with whatever they are
given, or they have some sort of standard they set up for production
sound mixers to send deliverables.

In order to deal with whatever they are given, they need to have an
arsenal of machinery. CF readers. DVD-R drives. DVD-RAM drives. These
need to be able to either hook straight into a computer or sync with
telecine.

Coming from the post world, I'd rather set a standard as to what is
delivered. First, it makes it more cost effective for the post house,
as you don't have to have a bunch of different readers. Second, it
sets up a standard work flow that the post house is comfortable
working in. Right now there isn't one machine that does everything. If
it were me, I'd like to see DVD-R as the deliverable. It's easy to
mount pretty much anywhere, and is immediately archivable. CF cards
need to be returned to back to production, and if you want to make an
archive of those, you have to go through another backup process. DVD-
RAM is slow, and not every computer can read them with their internal
drives.