Workflow for videography 2007
In a previous article Videography Labs reviewed the Pentax W30 waterproof SDHC still / movie camera. While there are a number of features that still need to be adopted to make the classic videography recorder, this camera is a good start.
Since the late 1980s we have conducted research on cameras mounted to the human body. Now that the size and weight has shrunk to the point that strapping the Pentax Optio W30 onto the forehead gives minimal parallax problems. The trick is learning to turn on / off the camera, and by listening, know when the camera has gone into record. Three beeps and it was recording. One beep and it's stopped. There should be a more sure fired way of assessing camera recording status than hearing little beeps. Often the ambient noise, like in a crowd, can overwhelm such subtle signals.
Obviously leading an active life with a camera strapped to ones forehead can result in an enormous amount of digital data to be managed. It is the goal of this article to give the workflow for simple data storage and retrieval that will enable anyone with any type of editing software to access their digital library, edit the stills or movies and transmit the content wirelessly to a distribution network.
Let's begin by backtracking to SDHC. The current capacity of these tiny and ubiquitous media is 8GB (8/22/2007) but the word on the streets is to expect 16 GB cards in short order. This means very little to us at this time. 8 GB will hold 120 minutes of Standard Definition VGA (640x480 @ 30fps). Considering that every movie ever made was done with 20 minute loads of film, we see no immediate need to rush to 16GB SDHC cards as soon as they arrive.
Our tests of lithium-ion batteries for the Pentax camera show that a fully charged battery cannot run the life of the 8GB SDHC card . . . becoming lifeless somewhere between 75 - 90 minutes of recording time.
Future demands of HD devices will make higher capacity SDHC a must but that is not the Tech-Plateau upon which society rests. This notion of Tech-Plateau is most important at this time. The giant media and manufacturing companies are in pitched battle to see who will control the media of tomorrow. Estimating that it will be 2-4 years before the future of HDTV delivery systems for User Generated Content settles, we decided to publish this report with SD (VGA) video as the current standard.
While currently producing in SD we contend that there is a rock solid standard for HD that is being ignored as of late October 2007.
Videography workflow begins with an 8GB SDHC card (full of content) which we just pull out of the camera and insert into an SDHC compliant PC card reader. Note: Older memory card readers are not SDHC compliant, so when acquiring an SD card look for the SDHC logo or test the card. (During the life of this testing, the OS was Windows XP Pro. Videography Labs advises holding with Windows XP Pro during the current Tech-Plateau.) When the SDHC card is inserted into the computer a window opens asking you what you want to do with the data. Scroll down to "Open in Explorer Window" and highlight and OK. All movies, stills and voice recordings will be in a folder marked DCIM and will have subfolders which tell the date on which the content was created. It is recommended that the date folder structure remain intact during archiving.
We have found that stills are much easier to quickly triage than movies so we usually just hit Thumbnail view and than look at each still in the Windows Media Viewer. If the photo is a keeper we go on to the next . . . if it is a loser we delete it on the spot.
Than we go to the movies which are produced in Quicktime. We purchased Quicktime Pro for Windows so we could easily trim long takes to get just the desired material. And that's how we approach watching our dailies. We open each movie directly off the card and scan it for quality of sound picture and content. If there is a lot of waste we trim and rename the file to reflect the subject when we Save As. Confirm the recording of the trimmed take on the card and than delete the original long movie. This procedure can save GB per day of future screening time. We used to say "Tape is Cheap" Now, once purchased, SDHC media is "free". It's too easy to build up an unworkable collection of old content, so we keep fair discipline on watching and editing our "dailies".
Voice recordings can be flowed through Dragonfly voice to text software (www.nuance.com) to create digital documents on the run. All of this content needs to be migrated off active hard drives for archiving.
Our test notebook was a Gateway 450ROG Pentium 1.7 which we featured in this earlier article. Perhaps our specifications got some traction for Tech Web today ran a 7 part article about the 2008 breed of notebooks entitled "Next years notebooks will be worth the wait".
High on the list for old or new laptops is the ability to swap components in what we generically call a Universal Drive Bay. Years ago we contacted Adobe Tech Support while beta testing their Premiere Pro 2.0 program complaining about "write delay" errors. They wouldn't even address the problem unless the drives holding content were 7200 rpm. So we allied with Hitachi Systems and installed their 7200 rpm drives not only as our C: drive but in several Universal Drive Bay holders. This allowed for the swapping into system of a dedicated 60GB Hitachi 7200 rpm drive when capturing (now getting to be an old notion :) and editing projects. We call this our Project Drive and on it there is a folder titled "Transfer to DVD". The contents of SDHC cards, after initial triage editing, are transferred into this folder.
Since we had already standardized on the 8GB SDHC memory card, it made sense to find a DVD media that would cover the same amount of data.
The low priced, but capable, LG GSA 21640 Super Multi DVD Rewriter which is connected to the laptop by USB 2.0 and has as a principle feature the ability to write data to Dual Layer disks. This provides a conveniently matched 8.5GB per disc. The software bundled with the player is Nero Express, which we found to be very reliable.
Theoretically at least, every 8GB load of flash memory could be faithfully preserved and stored on an individual DVD. As a practical matter the archiving of the contents of the "Transfer to DVD" folder ended up with date priority. , filling up each disc as much as possible before making the transfer. We are very careful to check data integrity on the DVD DL discs before erasing any files from our "Transfer to DVD" file.
It is possible to print information and graphics on the DVDs using software supplied with the LG DVD burner, but we have yet to utilize this "LightScribe" feature because it requires more expensive media, so a Magic Marker is employed. The finished disks are stored in simple DVD books available at Wal*Mart with a sleeve for each disc.
Once the system is up to speed and all material has been transferred we give high points to Microsoft's iView catalog for accessing both movies and stills. We have pleaded over the years with Adobe Systems for such a catalog, but they have yet to come forward with a viable still/movie catalog system.
So now everything is stored and cataloged and it's time for a project. At that point the desired source material should be copied onto a 7200 rpm drive on your computer. Edit using desired software. If your a MAC person it will be iMovie or Final Cut Pro. If your on a PC the options are more varied. At Videography Labs we beta tested Premiere Pro 2.0 from Adobe, so we persist with that program. It matters little which software is used because there is no Capture required. Just import the data files from your hard drive.
The main bottleneck creating our Tech-Plateau is distribution online/broadcast of edited material. The most popular online website, YouTube, with 75% of all on-line video viewers tops out at a resolution of 425x353 pixels? This requires a reduction of resolution of an odd percentage from the original 640x480 recordings. YouTube's compression scheme seems to induce a lot of blurriness to original material that is dynamic in nature. Here is an example we call Wonder-ful Sounds from Kayak:
Talking heads, with little movement, don't seem to suffer the blurring as much. YouTube needs to fix this. Whatever it's current shortcomings, YouTube gives User Generated Content providers a quality venue, if they are into marketing their productions.
People, around the world, now have the capability of being first on the scene to record major events. The workflow described here can get the material into an edited, or at least trimmed status. The next step in our complete workflow is uploading the desired content to the venue of choice. CNNs iReport and YouTube are two examples of venues that are well established at this date, but this is just the beginning.
Timely and easy delivery of content can be critical in marketing and reportage. To fill this task we found the amazing Junxion Box. Originally developed for platoon level communications in Iraq, the Junxion Box converts a standard Aircard (we used Sierra Wireless Aircard 875) into a wireless hotspot that allows networking without wires from your RV or SUV or home. We are so fond of the wireless hot spot that we installed identical Wilson Cellular on our lab and field mobile unit. When it's time to hit the road we just plug the Junxion into the cigarette lighter and the laptop into the RV house inverter. Wireless hot spots allow us to use identical mail settings and other protocols, whether we are at home or in the field. They also free us from the restraints of having to compute in a fixed position. We like to be comfortable when doing field work.
Wireless network quality is already acceptable for small projects like those accepted by CNN and YouTube. We tested download streams during the "Live Earth" concert for 11 hours straight and had NO dropouts of picture or sound. We viewed the concert on full screen. We have noticed a degradation of signal strength during peak use periods. The network infrastructure required to overcome such slowdowns is part of the Tech-Plateau that will take some time. In the case of AT&T wireless, the HSUPA standard is long overdue. It will double the speed of the current 3G standard.
UPDATE: September 6, 2007
We are impressed by the writing in ZDNet about Digital Rights Management. The concept of using "hash function" to secure content producers rights is intriguing.
The underlying principle we follow with regard to creative compensation is that a reasonable royalty structure be established and paid for the enjoyment and use of another entities creative content. Without paying our artists and creative thinkers a fair return for their contribution, art will eventually stagnate in the digital domain.
The debate over how to fund high levels of creativity in a "cut & paste" world where many want something for nothing is a primary roadblock to progress in videography. It is also fundamental to maintaining the "Techn-Plateau" upon which we currently rest.
We would also like to send a special kudo out to Creative Cow the forums for videography professionals and advanced users for their very informative and entertaining primer on "video compression" for the web.
See: http://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/ITKVS/Compression_Pt_1_Fixed.mov
Since the late 1980s we have conducted research on cameras mounted to the human body. Now that the size and weight has shrunk to the point that strapping the Pentax Optio W30 onto the forehead gives minimal parallax problems. The trick is learning to turn on / off the camera, and by listening, know when the camera has gone into record. Three beeps and it was recording. One beep and it's stopped. There should be a more sure fired way of assessing camera recording status than hearing little beeps. Often the ambient noise, like in a crowd, can overwhelm such subtle signals.
Obviously leading an active life with a camera strapped to ones forehead can result in an enormous amount of digital data to be managed. It is the goal of this article to give the workflow for simple data storage and retrieval that will enable anyone with any type of editing software to access their digital library, edit the stills or movies and transmit the content wirelessly to a distribution network.
Let's begin by backtracking to SDHC. The current capacity of these tiny and ubiquitous media is 8GB (8/22/2007) but the word on the streets is to expect 16 GB cards in short order. This means very little to us at this time. 8 GB will hold 120 minutes of Standard Definition VGA (640x480 @ 30fps). Considering that every movie ever made was done with 20 minute loads of film, we see no immediate need to rush to 16GB SDHC cards as soon as they arrive.
Our tests of lithium-ion batteries for the Pentax camera show that a fully charged battery cannot run the life of the 8GB SDHC card . . . becoming lifeless somewhere between 75 - 90 minutes of recording time.
Future demands of HD devices will make higher capacity SDHC a must but that is not the Tech-Plateau upon which society rests. This notion of Tech-Plateau is most important at this time. The giant media and manufacturing companies are in pitched battle to see who will control the media of tomorrow. Estimating that it will be 2-4 years before the future of HDTV delivery systems for User Generated Content settles, we decided to publish this report with SD (VGA) video as the current standard.
While currently producing in SD we contend that there is a rock solid standard for HD that is being ignored as of late October 2007.
Videography workflow begins with an 8GB SDHC card (full of content) which we just pull out of the camera and insert into an SDHC compliant PC card reader. Note: Older memory card readers are not SDHC compliant, so when acquiring an SD card look for the SDHC logo or test the card. (During the life of this testing, the OS was Windows XP Pro. Videography Labs advises holding with Windows XP Pro during the current Tech-Plateau.) When the SDHC card is inserted into the computer a window opens asking you what you want to do with the data. Scroll down to "Open in Explorer Window" and highlight and OK. All movies, stills and voice recordings will be in a folder marked DCIM and will have subfolders which tell the date on which the content was created. It is recommended that the date folder structure remain intact during archiving.
We have found that stills are much easier to quickly triage than movies so we usually just hit Thumbnail view and than look at each still in the Windows Media Viewer. If the photo is a keeper we go on to the next . . . if it is a loser we delete it on the spot.
Than we go to the movies which are produced in Quicktime. We purchased Quicktime Pro for Windows so we could easily trim long takes to get just the desired material. And that's how we approach watching our dailies. We open each movie directly off the card and scan it for quality of sound picture and content. If there is a lot of waste we trim and rename the file to reflect the subject when we Save As. Confirm the recording of the trimmed take on the card and than delete the original long movie. This procedure can save GB per day of future screening time. We used to say "Tape is Cheap" Now, once purchased, SDHC media is "free". It's too easy to build up an unworkable collection of old content, so we keep fair discipline on watching and editing our "dailies".
Voice recordings can be flowed through Dragonfly voice to text software (www.nuance.com) to create digital documents on the run. All of this content needs to be migrated off active hard drives for archiving.
Our test notebook was a Gateway 450ROG Pentium 1.7 which we featured in this earlier article. Perhaps our specifications got some traction for Tech Web today ran a 7 part article about the 2008 breed of notebooks entitled "Next years notebooks will be worth the wait".
High on the list for old or new laptops is the ability to swap components in what we generically call a Universal Drive Bay. Years ago we contacted Adobe Tech Support while beta testing their Premiere Pro 2.0 program complaining about "write delay" errors. They wouldn't even address the problem unless the drives holding content were 7200 rpm. So we allied with Hitachi Systems and installed their 7200 rpm drives not only as our C: drive but in several Universal Drive Bay holders. This allowed for the swapping into system of a dedicated 60GB Hitachi 7200 rpm drive when capturing (now getting to be an old notion :) and editing projects. We call this our Project Drive and on it there is a folder titled "Transfer to DVD". The contents of SDHC cards, after initial triage editing, are transferred into this folder.
Since we had already standardized on the 8GB SDHC memory card, it made sense to find a DVD media that would cover the same amount of data.
The low priced, but capable, LG GSA 21640 Super Multi DVD Rewriter which is connected to the laptop by USB 2.0 and has as a principle feature the ability to write data to Dual Layer disks. This provides a conveniently matched 8.5GB per disc. The software bundled with the player is Nero Express, which we found to be very reliable.
Theoretically at least, every 8GB load of flash memory could be faithfully preserved and stored on an individual DVD. As a practical matter the archiving of the contents of the "Transfer to DVD" folder ended up with date priority. , filling up each disc as much as possible before making the transfer. We are very careful to check data integrity on the DVD DL discs before erasing any files from our "Transfer to DVD" file.
It is possible to print information and graphics on the DVDs using software supplied with the LG DVD burner, but we have yet to utilize this "LightScribe" feature because it requires more expensive media, so a Magic Marker is employed. The finished disks are stored in simple DVD books available at Wal*Mart with a sleeve for each disc.
Once the system is up to speed and all material has been transferred we give high points to Microsoft's iView catalog for accessing both movies and stills. We have pleaded over the years with Adobe Systems for such a catalog, but they have yet to come forward with a viable still/movie catalog system.
So now everything is stored and cataloged and it's time for a project. At that point the desired source material should be copied onto a 7200 rpm drive on your computer. Edit using desired software. If your a MAC person it will be iMovie or Final Cut Pro. If your on a PC the options are more varied. At Videography Labs we beta tested Premiere Pro 2.0 from Adobe, so we persist with that program. It matters little which software is used because there is no Capture required. Just import the data files from your hard drive.
The main bottleneck creating our Tech-Plateau is distribution online/broadcast of edited material. The most popular online website, YouTube, with 75% of all on-line video viewers tops out at a resolution of 425x353 pixels? This requires a reduction of resolution of an odd percentage from the original 640x480 recordings. YouTube's compression scheme seems to induce a lot of blurriness to original material that is dynamic in nature. Here is an example we call Wonder-ful Sounds from Kayak:
Talking heads, with little movement, don't seem to suffer the blurring as much. YouTube needs to fix this. Whatever it's current shortcomings, YouTube gives User Generated Content providers a quality venue, if they are into marketing their productions.
People, around the world, now have the capability of being first on the scene to record major events. The workflow described here can get the material into an edited, or at least trimmed status. The next step in our complete workflow is uploading the desired content to the venue of choice. CNNs iReport and YouTube are two examples of venues that are well established at this date, but this is just the beginning.
Timely and easy delivery of content can be critical in marketing and reportage. To fill this task we found the amazing Junxion Box. Originally developed for platoon level communications in Iraq, the Junxion Box
Wireless network quality is already acceptable for small projects like those accepted by CNN and YouTube. We tested download streams during the "Live Earth" concert for 11 hours straight and had NO dropouts of picture or sound. We viewed the concert on full screen. We have noticed a degradation of signal strength during peak use periods. The network infrastructure required to overcome such slowdowns is part of the Tech-Plateau that will take some time. In the case of AT&T wireless, the HSUPA standard is long overdue. It will double the speed of the current 3G standard.
UPDATE: September 6, 2007
We are impressed by the writing in ZDNet about Digital Rights Management. The concept of using "hash function" to secure content producers rights is intriguing.
The underlying principle we follow with regard to creative compensation is that a reasonable royalty structure be established and paid for the enjoyment and use of another entities creative content. Without paying our artists and creative thinkers a fair return for their contribution, art will eventually stagnate in the digital domain.
The debate over how to fund high levels of creativity in a "cut & paste" world where many want something for nothing is a primary roadblock to progress in videography. It is also fundamental to maintaining the "Techn-Plateau" upon which we currently rest.
We would also like to send a special kudo out to Creative Cow the forums for videography professionals and advanced users for their very informative and entertaining primer on "video compression" for the web.
See: http://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/ITKVS/Compression_Pt_1_Fixed.mov
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