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All the news now and in your digital future
Choosing your next editing and finishing system
Posted by MarcAndreFerguson
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 20, 2012 06:48PM |
Sincerely, the biggest problem with Smoke is the price. Great for a house that requires serious finishing, but $15k (without subscription) is outside a lot of budgets I know of right now.
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 23, 2012 10:00AM |
I would like to jump in here...I agree with Jude = Price is the issue. I would say $5,000 or less would make it more competitive. Our facility could use such a high end finishing system but 5 seats x $15,000 will never happen when we have to figure the budget for a new camera, light kit, RAID & backup systems, etc. Smoke is very much out of the range of most of the facilities I know of in my small market (SE USA).
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 23, 2012 06:56PM |
Well, Smoke has a lot outside of the 'normal' NLE functionality, so I'm not saying it's not worth the price, just that for a lot of companies that's like buying an airport to go with your small plane.
Perhaps if there was a specific Smoke NLE, with the high end stuff crippled out, the price point could be lower and therefore the market could be expanded. And if the market was expanded, people would feel safer about compatibility with other post houses and systems they needed to interact with.
I agree with Joe that $5k is about the top end of what most facilities I know would be willing to spend on software, especially on multiple stations. And there's no denying it looks yummy (that's the technical term).
Perhaps if there was a specific Smoke NLE, with the high end stuff crippled out, the price point could be lower and therefore the market could be expanded. And if the market was expanded, people would feel safer about compatibility with other post houses and systems they needed to interact with.
I agree with Joe that $5k is about the top end of what most facilities I know would be willing to spend on software, especially on multiple stations. And there's no denying it looks yummy (that's the technical term).
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 25, 2012 10:42AM |
Hi Marc, if you ask me, the price is fair for what Smoke does. It is also fair for post houses that require finishing. However, the price is a little high for indies, freelancers and end users. And I think that is most of the users of the forum. One thing you can push for is a stripped down "lite" version with little or no hardware acceleration so more users are able to pick up the skills to use the platform. This also means that there will be a larger marketpool of users so post houses don't have to worry about either the cost or time in hiring and training a Smoke artist when they purchase a Smoke machine.
www.strypesinpost.com
www.strypesinpost.com
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 25, 2012 03:22PM |
I'm looking at it without devaluing Smoke- have it ridiculously cheap, in the $300 price range. No Realtime, maybe SD only, software only, no hardware, no monitoring, but with batch. Then it will be like an educational version. I'll buy that just to pick up smoke. It doesn't eat into Smoke's market share since no one at Autodesk expects to sell a machine to a 2 guy in a basement operation, and it could give AE a run for its money (there isn't a competitor for After Effects). Also, it opens up a 3rd market- people who want a render node. What I know about Smoke is that it isn't just about the Realtime, but also the efficient way of getting things done.
www.strypesinpost.com
www.strypesinpost.com
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 25, 2012 07:24PM |
Agree with all these guys. Make it dumber and cheaper so we can all get a chance to learn it properly, and therefore desire the big guns.
Most of us have work going all day every day, and often are already learning new software, so spending $15k for a new station we don't know how to use with features we wouldn't use on a daily basis seems outside the realm of good business sense. If I had a job where they installed it and gave me time to learn it, I'd jump at the chance, because it looks wonderful.
Most of us have work going all day every day, and often are already learning new software, so spending $15k for a new station we don't know how to use with features we wouldn't use on a daily basis seems outside the realm of good business sense. If I had a job where they installed it and gave me time to learn it, I'd jump at the chance, because it looks wonderful.
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 26, 2012 11:56AM |
> what would be Smoke's most compelling features for you?
Easy. It's like AE with a timeline. Fundamentally, that's powerful. You can't actually finish in AE. I mean, you can, but it's painful and there is a lot of pre-comping. And AE doesn't do Realtime playback. Only RAM preview. Not even render down. You can only render out. Which isn't great when you want to watch down a film or even a scene. So this to me is Smoke's biggest feature- an environment for finishing and a timeline where you can watch your show and do touch ups.
www.strypesinpost.com
Easy. It's like AE with a timeline. Fundamentally, that's powerful. You can't actually finish in AE. I mean, you can, but it's painful and there is a lot of pre-comping. And AE doesn't do Realtime playback. Only RAM preview. Not even render down. You can only render out. Which isn't great when you want to watch down a film or even a scene. So this to me is Smoke's biggest feature- an environment for finishing and a timeline where you can watch your show and do touch ups.
www.strypesinpost.com
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 26, 2012 06:32PM |
I can't complain that much about workflow. I've seen Flame take pretty much anything- RED, movs from an FCP XML. And Jeff Harrell was trying out AAFs with subclips to Smoke. The compatibility with interchange formats seem pretty rock solid.
However, I have sat next to the Flame guy and I haven't been able to figure out how the interface works. I understand batch to the same degree i understand how nodes in Shake and Color works, but that's about it. There's a ton of buttons in there.
Smoke is a creative finishing station to be used after picture lock and the show sent for audio mix- roto, key, color correct, comp, playback, etc... The closest in terms of real time is probably the Resolve (or some of the newer GPU powered CC machines) for real time color correction, but you can't pull a green screen key or do a quick roto or try out a new effect in there. Then it would be a combination of After Effects/Premiere (minus the color correction tools), or to some degree, FCP/ Color / Motion (without the bugs). But without the media management of the NLEs, so no, you may not want to do offlines for multicam reality shows in there.
I guess one issue is that Autodesk has little vertical integration (no viable offline editing machines). I don't know how Edit is faring (or did that belong to Quantel). On the other hand, autodesk has loads of horizontal integration- Smoke, Flame, Maya, 3DSMax, softimage, etc... I wonder what happened to Combustion.
My issue as a freelance editor is that it costs about $30k for the whole kit, just to get a copy and I can practice on it, so I can be sharp on it if I do get a job on it. Yea, it is the price for me, as an end user. That means it only goes into my dream list of tools I may want to learn, next to Nuke, and Flame.
www.strypesinpost.com
However, I have sat next to the Flame guy and I haven't been able to figure out how the interface works. I understand batch to the same degree i understand how nodes in Shake and Color works, but that's about it. There's a ton of buttons in there.
Smoke is a creative finishing station to be used after picture lock and the show sent for audio mix- roto, key, color correct, comp, playback, etc... The closest in terms of real time is probably the Resolve (or some of the newer GPU powered CC machines) for real time color correction, but you can't pull a green screen key or do a quick roto or try out a new effect in there. Then it would be a combination of After Effects/Premiere (minus the color correction tools), or to some degree, FCP/ Color / Motion (without the bugs). But without the media management of the NLEs, so no, you may not want to do offlines for multicam reality shows in there.
I guess one issue is that Autodesk has little vertical integration (no viable offline editing machines). I don't know how Edit is faring (or did that belong to Quantel). On the other hand, autodesk has loads of horizontal integration- Smoke, Flame, Maya, 3DSMax, softimage, etc... I wonder what happened to Combustion.
My issue as a freelance editor is that it costs about $30k for the whole kit, just to get a copy and I can practice on it, so I can be sharp on it if I do get a job on it. Yea, it is the price for me, as an end user. That means it only goes into my dream list of tools I may want to learn, next to Nuke, and Flame.
www.strypesinpost.com
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 27, 2012 08:07AM |
You could employ all of us to learn it, and then disseminate the information with tutorials and world tours to prominent Film Schools to prepare the next generation. Personally I wouldn't even require First Class on most trips. Only the very long ones. 
From your perspective, Marc, what does it have that we don't know we need?
From your perspective, Marc, what does it have that we don't know we need?
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 27, 2012 08:09AM |
BTW, here are some words I would like to see associated with my NLE : reliable, compatible, flexible, fast.
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 27, 2012 01:43PM |
Hi Marc, which formats in particular does the Mac version support which the Linux version doesn't? I am guessing it is the proprietary QT formats (eg. Prores, XDCAM, HDV, etc). Do they exhibit the notorious QT gamma shift? I noticed that this happens quite often with proprietary formats and I am guessing those softwares took a legacy QT to RGB decode.
Yea, I like the compatibility with exchange formats, and I believe that Smoke/Flame is 2nd to none in that category. Beats FCP to Avid, Avid to After Effects, Avid to Premiere/After Effects, etc.. However, there is the PPro to AE integration, as well as the FCP to Motion integration, which is tighter. If you need to track, right click, fire up Motion, track, save and quit Motion, and it's there in your FCP project. In some cases, you can also share some effects settings.
Sure, Smoke isn't designed like that. It was meant to be a finishing station. And one thing Smoke has to its advantage is that it minimizes tweak loops between the finishing machines (eg. CC, roto, gfx, etc), as it does all that within the software and powerfully.
In response to Walter's mention of speed, Smoke does one thing that makes it unique- the ability to make changes on the spot, and the ability to see your show as you are finishing, not just one to two shots. This is very elegant and sets Smoke apart from the rest.
Imagine you work in FCP/AE and you have a 3 minute, fairly complex scene with lots of green screen. You send it to AE, and you get hundreds of layers, because AE doesn't have a timeline, but you need to see your color adjustments, and check your background elements for continuity between scenes (or shots). So you pre-comp the scene into little segments. Then you start comping. When you are done, you try to do a watch down. Crap. RAM preview runs out of juice, so you watch it down part by part, over some 6 hours. That or you render out half rez (to save render time), watch down, take notes, then go back to AE and do your fixes. Then you render everything out again to preview. When you are finally happy, you render out in full rez, send it back to FCP. Then crap. The director wants a shot re-graded and he wants to add a couple of shots and trim some shots. So you make those changes in the NLE to fix the time duration, leave markers where the changes are, pop those to the CC room, and then to AE as individual shots. Then you send those individual back to FCP and manually insert those shots back into the timeline. Pretty nutty workflow? Yup. This is where Smoke comes in. You can afford to make changes (not sure about Smoke's ability to export an OMF/AAF). Don't need to go back and forth between the CC room and vfx department. You can watch everything down and fix it as you go along. It's not just fast, sometimes this efficiency is a requirement.
That said, I wish there was a competitor for AE. Motion came closest, although it still falls behind by a mile. Nuke is probably taking over the market share in the VFX category, since AE isn't great at complex effects and heavy comps.
But yea, bottom line is that the more complex the project requirements, the more sophisticated the tools needed. It isn't just about speed. It is also about being able to deliver the project in front of the clients, being able to meet deadlines while you churn out work of the highest quality.
www.strypesinpost.com
Yea, I like the compatibility with exchange formats, and I believe that Smoke/Flame is 2nd to none in that category. Beats FCP to Avid, Avid to After Effects, Avid to Premiere/After Effects, etc.. However, there is the PPro to AE integration, as well as the FCP to Motion integration, which is tighter. If you need to track, right click, fire up Motion, track, save and quit Motion, and it's there in your FCP project. In some cases, you can also share some effects settings.
Sure, Smoke isn't designed like that. It was meant to be a finishing station. And one thing Smoke has to its advantage is that it minimizes tweak loops between the finishing machines (eg. CC, roto, gfx, etc), as it does all that within the software and powerfully.
In response to Walter's mention of speed, Smoke does one thing that makes it unique- the ability to make changes on the spot, and the ability to see your show as you are finishing, not just one to two shots. This is very elegant and sets Smoke apart from the rest.
Imagine you work in FCP/AE and you have a 3 minute, fairly complex scene with lots of green screen. You send it to AE, and you get hundreds of layers, because AE doesn't have a timeline, but you need to see your color adjustments, and check your background elements for continuity between scenes (or shots). So you pre-comp the scene into little segments. Then you start comping. When you are done, you try to do a watch down. Crap. RAM preview runs out of juice, so you watch it down part by part, over some 6 hours. That or you render out half rez (to save render time), watch down, take notes, then go back to AE and do your fixes. Then you render everything out again to preview. When you are finally happy, you render out in full rez, send it back to FCP. Then crap. The director wants a shot re-graded and he wants to add a couple of shots and trim some shots. So you make those changes in the NLE to fix the time duration, leave markers where the changes are, pop those to the CC room, and then to AE as individual shots. Then you send those individual back to FCP and manually insert those shots back into the timeline. Pretty nutty workflow? Yup. This is where Smoke comes in. You can afford to make changes (not sure about Smoke's ability to export an OMF/AAF). Don't need to go back and forth between the CC room and vfx department. You can watch everything down and fix it as you go along. It's not just fast, sometimes this efficiency is a requirement.
That said, I wish there was a competitor for AE. Motion came closest, although it still falls behind by a mile. Nuke is probably taking over the market share in the VFX category, since AE isn't great at complex effects and heavy comps.
But yea, bottom line is that the more complex the project requirements, the more sophisticated the tools needed. It isn't just about speed. It is also about being able to deliver the project in front of the clients, being able to meet deadlines while you churn out work of the highest quality.
www.strypesinpost.com
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 27, 2012 03:24PM |
> and uses the Wiretap Gateway to dynamically send files to Smoke in real time.
That sounds pretty clunky for a QT decode. And I would wonder why anyone would do that- an XDCAM shoot that require access to all the raw rushes?
www.strypesinpost.com
That sounds pretty clunky for a QT decode. And I would wonder why anyone would do that- an XDCAM shoot that require access to all the raw rushes?
www.strypesinpost.com
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 27, 2012 07:14PM |
Ah. I see. Apple's proprietary ProRes format.
>Actually, most codecs are supported natively, including XDCAM, DNxHD
Aside from DNxHD, the XDCAM support is non-Quicktime. Of course, if you ask me, native Quicktime support of mpeg2 based formats would be even better. That means when the editor is done, he can media manage (copy) onto a separate drive, export xml and send it to Smoke. That reduces the need to send all 3 months of rushes to Smoke. This also makes it easier for mixed format workflows.
But yea, I remember sending an FCP sequence with scale, rotate, dissolves and speed ramps to Flame and the Flame guy imported it all with minimal fuss. That was DvcproHD with a bunch of P2 folders attached.
That said, the price is the main thing that stops me from trying to pick up Smoke. I don't exactly have $15K lying around in my garage. Would be nice if there was an affordable educational version.
www.strypesinpost.com
>Actually, most codecs are supported natively, including XDCAM, DNxHD
Aside from DNxHD, the XDCAM support is non-Quicktime. Of course, if you ask me, native Quicktime support of mpeg2 based formats would be even better. That means when the editor is done, he can media manage (copy) onto a separate drive, export xml and send it to Smoke. That reduces the need to send all 3 months of rushes to Smoke. This also makes it easier for mixed format workflows.
But yea, I remember sending an FCP sequence with scale, rotate, dissolves and speed ramps to Flame and the Flame guy imported it all with minimal fuss. That was DvcproHD with a bunch of P2 folders attached.
That said, the price is the main thing that stops me from trying to pick up Smoke. I don't exactly have $15K lying around in my garage. Would be nice if there was an affordable educational version.
www.strypesinpost.com
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Re: Choosing your next editing and finishing system January 27, 2012 07:57PM |
Got any links to tutorials Marc? Like I said, love the look of it, but don't know how to use it and it would be bad business sense for me to spend that 15K there right now. Maybe if we had less fear about buying a box that we didn't know how to operate, we'd be more inclined.
Or, stay in the high-end market. That's up to you guys. Maybe most of us are not the ones you're trying to hit with your product, and that's fine too.
Or, stay in the high-end market. That's up to you guys. Maybe most of us are not the ones you're trying to hit with your product, and that's fine too.
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