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All the news now and in your digital future
What is needed and how to setup a good editing station
Posted by Jeff Kasper
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Re: What is needed and how to setup a good editing station November 30, 2008 09:02PM |
Welcome to the forum.
What you've got sketched out so far is a good start. As in most things editorial, when you start something new, it's helpful to begin at the end. What do you want to be able to deliver? I mean it literally: Do you only need to deliver Quicktime movies to your clients, or do you want to ship them DVDs for viewing at home, or do you need to deliver one or more tape formats as well? Is your work destined for viewing online, or at home via DVD, or is it going to go out via broadcast television?
Those bits of information will provide you with a really easy way to answer what otherwise might be incredibly difficult questions. For example, if everything you work on, without exception, is going to be delivered online and viewed on computers with computer screens and computer speakers, then it's less important that you equip your room with a broadcast monitor and a mixing board and studio monitors. At the other end of the spectrum, if you're doing stuff for delivery to a broadcast network, then you'll need more tools and such to ensure best-quality product.
Obviously you need some way to view the pictures and to hear the sound ? Final Cut's canvas is not sufficient if your work is destined to be seen on televisions, either via broadcast or on DVD, and let's not even get started on the appalling waste of space that is the Mac Pro's built-in speaker. My system at work has a Kona board, a Panasonic broadcast monitor and a separate client monitor for pictures, and a Tascam audio I/O and a set of KRK VTX6's for sound; if you can describe what kind of work you're planning to deliver, I'll try to make a few recommendations in that department to get you started.
As far as the computer itself goes, I think the one you've described will be fine. I did some fairly demanding work ? HD, with tons of motion graphics and effects ? on an eight-processor, eight-gig system for six months solid, and never had a bit of trouble. Once I got into doing large 32-bit After Effects projects I started running out of RAM, so I upgraded to 16 GB; you might consider doing that right away, since memory is so cheap nowadays. There is a hard limit to just how much memory Final Cut can use, in the currently shipping version, but depending on what else you want to do, you might want more than 1 GB per processor.
The other thing you need to think about is storage. It's great that you're already planning to buy two drives; you wouldn't believe how many people who are new to the business start out with the assumption that they can just use their system disks as their framestores. But with only a single hard drive for your framestore, you're quickly going to run into bandwidth problems. A single disk will handle DV just fine, and probably uncompressed SD within reason. But once you get into HD, even ProRes wants more bandwidth than a single internal drive can offer. For HD, you'll want an absolute minimum of two internal drives striped together, and that's only a configuration I'd recommend if every single element you use comes to you on tape, so it can be batch-recaptured in the event of a disk failure. If you're working with P2 or another solid-state format, you need to budget for storage to back up your cards. I don't personally work with any tapeless formats, so others can give you better advice in that department.
What you've got sketched out so far is a good start. As in most things editorial, when you start something new, it's helpful to begin at the end. What do you want to be able to deliver? I mean it literally: Do you only need to deliver Quicktime movies to your clients, or do you want to ship them DVDs for viewing at home, or do you need to deliver one or more tape formats as well? Is your work destined for viewing online, or at home via DVD, or is it going to go out via broadcast television?
Those bits of information will provide you with a really easy way to answer what otherwise might be incredibly difficult questions. For example, if everything you work on, without exception, is going to be delivered online and viewed on computers with computer screens and computer speakers, then it's less important that you equip your room with a broadcast monitor and a mixing board and studio monitors. At the other end of the spectrum, if you're doing stuff for delivery to a broadcast network, then you'll need more tools and such to ensure best-quality product.
Obviously you need some way to view the pictures and to hear the sound ? Final Cut's canvas is not sufficient if your work is destined to be seen on televisions, either via broadcast or on DVD, and let's not even get started on the appalling waste of space that is the Mac Pro's built-in speaker. My system at work has a Kona board, a Panasonic broadcast monitor and a separate client monitor for pictures, and a Tascam audio I/O and a set of KRK VTX6's for sound; if you can describe what kind of work you're planning to deliver, I'll try to make a few recommendations in that department to get you started.
As far as the computer itself goes, I think the one you've described will be fine. I did some fairly demanding work ? HD, with tons of motion graphics and effects ? on an eight-processor, eight-gig system for six months solid, and never had a bit of trouble. Once I got into doing large 32-bit After Effects projects I started running out of RAM, so I upgraded to 16 GB; you might consider doing that right away, since memory is so cheap nowadays. There is a hard limit to just how much memory Final Cut can use, in the currently shipping version, but depending on what else you want to do, you might want more than 1 GB per processor.
The other thing you need to think about is storage. It's great that you're already planning to buy two drives; you wouldn't believe how many people who are new to the business start out with the assumption that they can just use their system disks as their framestores. But with only a single hard drive for your framestore, you're quickly going to run into bandwidth problems. A single disk will handle DV just fine, and probably uncompressed SD within reason. But once you get into HD, even ProRes wants more bandwidth than a single internal drive can offer. For HD, you'll want an absolute minimum of two internal drives striped together, and that's only a configuration I'd recommend if every single element you use comes to you on tape, so it can be batch-recaptured in the event of a disk failure. If you're working with P2 or another solid-state format, you need to budget for storage to back up your cards. I don't personally work with any tapeless formats, so others can give you better advice in that department.
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Re: What is needed and how to setup a good editing station December 02, 2008 03:47AM |
>There is much that can be done with this setup and I think that is great, but I'm looking
>for the next level.
Decide on what you want to do with your set up. Other than the gear, the monitoring environment is something to really look into. This really ensures the quality of your work. You can't tweak 'em if you can't see/hear 'em. Bad monitoring environment hides a lot of sins.
For audio monitoring environment, there's a bunch of stuff on soundonsound.com on room accoustics and enough is written on it to sink a battleship. Do the speakers sound muddy? Is it transparent enough? Are the placement of the speakers correct? Is the tone of the room even (eg. even tonal reflections across the room)?
Less to do with editing, but more to do with color grading. The colors of the room wall, the temperature of the lights, any mixed lighting, etc... And yea, you are right on the theatre thing. The reflection off a projected screen is quite different from that of a broadcast monitor- the glare/hot spots aren't as bright as on TVs (at least that's the way i feel). Not to mention, the way you will cut for a larger screen is very different. One is a "look into" medium, another is a "look at" medium. The choice of shots, the tempo of the cuts, etc..
2 displays is a must have for me. 1 gets cluttered too fast.. though, I wonder if there's a shortcut to toggle only between browser windows..
www.strypesinpost.com
>for the next level.
Decide on what you want to do with your set up. Other than the gear, the monitoring environment is something to really look into. This really ensures the quality of your work. You can't tweak 'em if you can't see/hear 'em. Bad monitoring environment hides a lot of sins.
For audio monitoring environment, there's a bunch of stuff on soundonsound.com on room accoustics and enough is written on it to sink a battleship. Do the speakers sound muddy? Is it transparent enough? Are the placement of the speakers correct? Is the tone of the room even (eg. even tonal reflections across the room)?
Less to do with editing, but more to do with color grading. The colors of the room wall, the temperature of the lights, any mixed lighting, etc... And yea, you are right on the theatre thing. The reflection off a projected screen is quite different from that of a broadcast monitor- the glare/hot spots aren't as bright as on TVs (at least that's the way i feel). Not to mention, the way you will cut for a larger screen is very different. One is a "look into" medium, another is a "look at" medium. The choice of shots, the tempo of the cuts, etc..
2 displays is a must have for me. 1 gets cluttered too fast.. though, I wonder if there's a shortcut to toggle only between browser windows..
www.strypesinpost.com
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Re: What is needed and how to setup a good editing station December 02, 2008 07:41AM |
I'm not actually a fan of editing in a theater. For doing something like color-correction or sound mixing, absolutely. But when you're editing, having a giant picture to look at encourages you to focus on the wrong things. You might get hung up on detail in that corner, or the way the digital noise in the shadows looks, rather than focusing on the story.
Walter Murch recommends a little trick when you're editing shows destined for theatrical presentation: He cuts out little paper figures, to scale, and sticks them on the bottom of his monitor. He says it helps him keep a sense of perspective.
Once a film has been shot, it's really not up to the editor so much to decide whether it should be targeted for a theatrical run or a release on DVD. Those questions are addressed by the director of photography, who decides just how tight that close-up really ought to be, or how wide a shot he can get away with while still capturing the important elements on the scene. Putting your actors in the center of the frame surrounded by landscape for a particular shot can work in a feature film, because those figures will be three or four feet tall on the movie screen. But if your short is destined for Youtube, those little guys will only be three or four pixels tall, and probably lost entirely in the compression macroblocking.
It's just another example of the begin-at-the-end philosophy. If your work is going to be seen on DVD at home, don't work on it on a twelve-foot-wide screen.
As I mentioned before, my setup is actually very modest, but it represents an investment of nearly twenty thousand dollars. I've got a Mac Pro with two 23" displays for my timeline, bins, mixer and so on. Between the computer and the software I use, that came to around $8,000. My framestore is a G-Tech G-Speed ES, which set me back around $2,000.
My system has a Kona board which I use principally for monitoring, wired up to a bargain-bin Panasonic HD broadcast monitor and a consumer-grade standard-definition client monitor bought from Best Buy or something. The Kona board and breakout box go for something like $2,000, and my broadcast monitor was $4,000. The client monitor cost a couple hundred bucks.
For sound, I use a Tascam FW-1082 mixer and control surface. I think it was around $600. My monitors are KRK VXT6s, which were about $400 each or so.
Add in some sundries, like cables and rackmount cabinets and whatnot, and the total is around $20,000. On my system, I'm capable ? in theory, limited by my talent, which some days is very much the weak link in the chain ? of doing any kind of broadcast work, from DV-originated SD all the way up to HD. I don't have the bandwidth for uncompressed HD, but I've done extensive tests, and to my eye, I swear ProRes looks just as good as uncompressed 4:2:2.
Are there some upgrades I could add? Sure! My broadcast monitor is incredibly disappointing. Sure, it's fine for what it is, but it's not great. I'd love to replace it with a 20F1U, but those are about $14,000. And my room isn't wired for surround sound, though since I'm not an audio expert I wouldn't know what to do with it if it were.
You absolutely need something for monitoring picture and sound, as Gerard said. Exactly what that should be depends on what you plan to do, and unfortunately saying "I want to make DVDs and also features" doesn't cut it. You're going to have to set priorities and make compromises.
Walter Murch recommends a little trick when you're editing shows destined for theatrical presentation: He cuts out little paper figures, to scale, and sticks them on the bottom of his monitor. He says it helps him keep a sense of perspective.
Once a film has been shot, it's really not up to the editor so much to decide whether it should be targeted for a theatrical run or a release on DVD. Those questions are addressed by the director of photography, who decides just how tight that close-up really ought to be, or how wide a shot he can get away with while still capturing the important elements on the scene. Putting your actors in the center of the frame surrounded by landscape for a particular shot can work in a feature film, because those figures will be three or four feet tall on the movie screen. But if your short is destined for Youtube, those little guys will only be three or four pixels tall, and probably lost entirely in the compression macroblocking.
It's just another example of the begin-at-the-end philosophy. If your work is going to be seen on DVD at home, don't work on it on a twelve-foot-wide screen.
As I mentioned before, my setup is actually very modest, but it represents an investment of nearly twenty thousand dollars. I've got a Mac Pro with two 23" displays for my timeline, bins, mixer and so on. Between the computer and the software I use, that came to around $8,000. My framestore is a G-Tech G-Speed ES, which set me back around $2,000.
My system has a Kona board which I use principally for monitoring, wired up to a bargain-bin Panasonic HD broadcast monitor and a consumer-grade standard-definition client monitor bought from Best Buy or something. The Kona board and breakout box go for something like $2,000, and my broadcast monitor was $4,000. The client monitor cost a couple hundred bucks.
For sound, I use a Tascam FW-1082 mixer and control surface. I think it was around $600. My monitors are KRK VXT6s, which were about $400 each or so.
Add in some sundries, like cables and rackmount cabinets and whatnot, and the total is around $20,000. On my system, I'm capable ? in theory, limited by my talent, which some days is very much the weak link in the chain ? of doing any kind of broadcast work, from DV-originated SD all the way up to HD. I don't have the bandwidth for uncompressed HD, but I've done extensive tests, and to my eye, I swear ProRes looks just as good as uncompressed 4:2:2.
Are there some upgrades I could add? Sure! My broadcast monitor is incredibly disappointing. Sure, it's fine for what it is, but it's not great. I'd love to replace it with a 20F1U, but those are about $14,000. And my room isn't wired for surround sound, though since I'm not an audio expert I wouldn't know what to do with it if it were.
You absolutely need something for monitoring picture and sound, as Gerard said. Exactly what that should be depends on what you plan to do, and unfortunately saying "I want to make DVDs and also features" doesn't cut it. You're going to have to set priorities and make compromises.
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Re: What is needed and how to setup a good editing station December 02, 2008 09:11AM |
You answered your own question. The theater tech will be able to tell you how to pass your signal. Nobody here could possibly know that without seeing the set-up.
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
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Re: What is needed and how to setup a good editing station December 02, 2008 09:51AM |
You're going to need some kind of multichannel audio interface for your Macbook. Like I said, I haven't done surround, but I believe the principle is that you set up some kind of multichannel audio interface, then configure your system to use six of those channels (or seven) for the six (or seven) surround channels.
M-Audio makes some portable Firewire interfaces, and I believe at least one of them has eight line-level TRS outputs. I think at least in principle you could use that to patch into the theater's sound system.
What I don't believe you're going to be able to do is to use the optical output on your laptop, because that puts out encoded Dolby Digital surround, not discrete channels of audio.
M-Audio makes some portable Firewire interfaces, and I believe at least one of them has eight line-level TRS outputs. I think at least in principle you could use that to patch into the theater's sound system.
What I don't believe you're going to be able to do is to use the optical output on your laptop, because that puts out encoded Dolby Digital surround, not discrete channels of audio.
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Re: What is needed and how to setup a good editing station December 02, 2008 02:02PM |
I know I sound like a broken record, but I am not an audio professional, so take all this with a grain of salt.
The output from a multichannel audio interface is, well, multichannel audio. Usually balanced analog, either with XLR or TRS connections. Sometimes AES, but that's not what you'd want in this case.
The six (or seven) outs from your audio interface would go to the theater's amplifier, either directly or through a patch panel or mixing board or whatever. The bad news is there's a good chance there is no patch panel or mixing board; theaters are for presentation, not for production, so patching into the theater's amplifier might involve a lot of climbing around in closets or whatever.
The other bad news is that whatever amplifier the theater uses might not have inputs for discrete audio channels. I really don't know. It's not a sure thing that you can patch in at all, much less easily. Your only next step here is to talk to the theater guys and see.
The output from a multichannel audio interface is, well, multichannel audio. Usually balanced analog, either with XLR or TRS connections. Sometimes AES, but that's not what you'd want in this case.
The six (or seven) outs from your audio interface would go to the theater's amplifier, either directly or through a patch panel or mixing board or whatever. The bad news is there's a good chance there is no patch panel or mixing board; theaters are for presentation, not for production, so patching into the theater's amplifier might involve a lot of climbing around in closets or whatever.
The other bad news is that whatever amplifier the theater uses might not have inputs for discrete audio channels. I really don't know. It's not a sure thing that you can patch in at all, much less easily. Your only next step here is to talk to the theater guys and see.
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Re: What is needed and how to setup a good editing station December 03, 2008 12:27AM |
Sorry i took a while to get back to the post. Frankly, you should hook up with a qualified audio engineer in your area who will run you through the stuff you need. Both video and audio can cost you a lot of money in between depending on your requirements. High end? That can be extremely pricey stuff.
Some DAWs you can consider are ProTools and Logic. Also, do you need a synthesizer/midi gear for audio design?
Check out stuff from MOTU as well. They make lots of audio interfaces.
[www.motu.com]
Consoles? These are exceptional.
[www.ams-neve.com]
Other outboard gear, preamps, etc? Rupert Neve has some of the best stuff that money can buy.
[rupertneve.com]
Mics for studio recordings? This is one of the most loved microphones that you can find. Used by major radio stations the world over.
[mixonline.com]
These are quality ribbon mics, but as ribbon mics are, they are also extremely fragile.
[www.royerlabs.com]
www.strypesinpost.com
Some DAWs you can consider are ProTools and Logic. Also, do you need a synthesizer/midi gear for audio design?
Check out stuff from MOTU as well. They make lots of audio interfaces.
[www.motu.com]
Consoles? These are exceptional.
[www.ams-neve.com]
Other outboard gear, preamps, etc? Rupert Neve has some of the best stuff that money can buy.
[rupertneve.com]
Mics for studio recordings? This is one of the most loved microphones that you can find. Used by major radio stations the world over.
[mixonline.com]
These are quality ribbon mics, but as ribbon mics are, they are also extremely fragile.
[www.royerlabs.com]
www.strypesinpost.com
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