Remote client viewing tip

I've just started to get into a new concept of shipping media to clients for approval - iChat. Probably someone has gone through this before, but I haven't seen it myself, so I thought I would add it to the general Font of Funky Stuff To Do With FCP.

It might sound silly but it's actually very efficient because you can make iChat see the output of your deck, which means you can play off your timeline or tape to a remote client in real time.

All you need is a (free) AIM account or (not free) dot mac account, a client who can manage to download and install iChat (free for mac and pc) and a video camera at both ends (a deck at your end is fine - as long as they have a camera to activate the 'video' function of iChat)

Then you both log in to iChat, initate a video chat and play the program out in real time while they watch it at the other end. You can also chat via voice or text.

Of course, you need broadband to achieve this, but it's SO much faster than encoding something, uploading it, and then the client having to download it to view, then get a message to you. With iChat it all happens at once.


cheers
Jude



Post Edited (01-14-06 06:28)

The guys from SCRUBS have been going it for a couple years now.

Not to burst your bubble or anything.

I plan on using it myself, with my producer in Long Beach.

I'm actually just trying to get it running nicely at the moment, and I can't seem to make it play off the timeline now.. I did upgrade a bunch of stuff yesterday, so not sure if it's an incompatibility or an inherant problem.

Anyway - it plays off tape to the chat fine and is coming in nicely at the other end.

I don't think the client even needs a camera. If you cntl+click their name in the buddy list, you can invite them to a "one-way" video chat.

You might try this to see if it works.

Jude,

My understanding is that you need TWO Macs to pull this off. One to play out the timeline and the second to run iChat. Substitute the video feed from FCP for the camera input on Mac #2 and away you go.

By using this method you'll have full timeline control. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can do it all from one system. At NAB last year Apple demonstrated this exact process. They took advantage of the "conference" feature in iChat using one of the "screens" for FCP and the other for editor, producer, executives etc.

Very cool.

Mark

<<<Apple demonstrated this exact process.>>>

Unless, of course, you're behind an industrial grade firewall at a large company. Then it's a lot more of a problem. You and the IT people will not be able to "poke a hole" in the firewall because iChat uses so many different ports and they negotiate on different ports than they actually use.

We were able to release enough services so we could establish a connection but it could only be *started* in one direction. After that, it was normal.

Yes, once you get this running, you can use the iChat camera to look at your video monitor (on a second system) and play the video to the client. This has the advantage that you can poke a pencil into the view to point out areas of interest, which you can't do when you transmit your timeline, then zoom out to a regular conference.

In extreme cases, the Powerbook can be run on Airport and walk into any conference room cold and hold a conference with, say WETA in New Zealand.

Since the seasons are reversed in New Zealand, there's no truth to the rumor that when they call you, you have to wait six months to call them back.

Koz

YOu are right Mark...two Macs are needed for this.

I do this all the time, and you can do it with one mac, if you are using a video card (kona, blacmagic, ect) that is not firewire based. I output throught the kona and back into my DSR-25 which is set as my "camera" in iChat.

I can then scrub and play my timeline, while chating with the client. If they have a camera on their end, i can even see their reactions live.. which is cool. Obviosly patching in a microphone so you can chat is pretty simple, as wel as having a camera instead of a deck that you can flip between video input and the lens so they can see you mug as well.

Quality isn't as great as compression for web, but that will come along as newer codecs and faster broadband become available.

I predict in 5 years you can be editing on your laptop on the beaches of hawai, while your client is "sitting in on the edit" in New York.

I have been into creating video podcasts for aproval purposes. Its easy to add discriptions, dates posted, and multiple clips in one project/link.

I am also looking into the "groups" feature of .mac as a "post hub" for a film i am working on. Seems like a an easy way to have a paper trail of comunication between several departments, as well as a place to share project files and such on a .mac public folder.

Technology is fun!

Can you record the sound from the far end whiie you're doing all this fanciness? We've never figured out a way to do that.

That's important when the client tells you to do something and then has a fit when you do it claiming he/she never said that.

We had a director who used to put up a fuss when we recorded stuff and then just gave up and started believing us. A number of other houses took to doing the same thing and caught him in so many "mystery instructions" that he had to admit finally that he was actually saying those things that we said he said.

Koz

This is all great info - thanks guys. I'll be trying out a bunch of these things tonight.

>>Can you record the sound from the far end whiie you're doing all this fanciness? We've never figured out a way to do that.<<

You could use WireTap or Audio Hijack - these programs will record any sound coming through your Mac. WireTap use to be free, I think it might be $19 now..

[www.ambrosiasw.com]

>>I don't think the client even needs a camera. If you cntl+click their name in the buddy list, you can invite them to a "one-way" video chat.<<

This works great. As long as video is playing when they accept the chat, they get a screen with your video playing even if they are not video capable at their end. Brilliant.

Still working on the other stuff.