CF cards as deliverables

[Jeff Wexler]

This question goes out to all but specifically to our resident post expert Marc Wielage: when, if ever, do you think CF (or any other solid state storage device) could become a standard deliverable to telecine, replacing the optical disks that have finally become the standard? This topic has been discussed quite a bit here and on r.a.m.p.s., and it seems that the submitting of CF cards is happening in other countries, particularly where syncing resides with picture editorial and telecine is often picture only. Here in the US, the telecine process is the first stage and almost always produces the daily sync material delivered to editorial, so facilities would have to find a way to utilize CF directly since there evidently is no time to copy data off CF card.

I think we would all like to see this happen --- I was just wondering when it could become a standard practice.

-  Jeff Wexler

[Guest jimg]

Hi, Jeff

NFL Films has been using CF cards for deliverables for a while.

They use  them for their game coverage and I've done some commercials that were transfered there and submitted CF cards.

They are on InDaw in the transfer suites, and I've been told that the cards are dumped onto servers and accessed via their network. This happens while the film is processed, so there is no time eaten in the transfer.

Today isn't a great day to get info out of them what with the Monday Night Football deadline, but I'll try getting in touch with my contacts there later in the week and report back as work allows.

I've also used CF cards in the Red camera workfow. I hand them off to the DIT or transfer guy and they get dumped onto the drives used for file transfer.

Best regards,

Jim

[chriskellett]

Jim is right (Hi Jim) 

I have done a lot of work for NFL Films in the past and we have been using only CF as the method of delivering audio for the past few years. Turn around time issues have been greatly reduced using this method, now the audio waits for the film/video and not the other way around.

[Guest jimg]

Jim is right (Hi Jim) 

I have done a lot of work for NFL Films in the past and we have been using only CF as the method of delivering audio for the past few years. Turn around time issues have been greatly reduced using this method, now the audio waits for the film/video and not the other way around.

Hey, Chris

You are huge, dude......

As an additional note, the workload at NFL Films during football season dictated this change. They process, transfer and sync a lot of film pretty fast and have adapted pretty well to the new way of doing things.

Bobby Johhansen, an old friend and colleague and one of the colorists there, has embraced this workflow as saving a lot of time. Maybe it doesn't work as well when processing isn't part of the package.

Best regards,

Jim

[RPSharman]

I am delivering CF and DVD-RAM on my current film.  The telecine is being done by Deluxe New York, and they have advised me that it is just as easy for them to take the CF, since they transfer the files into the workstation before the session, so the the origin of the files is irrelevant.

Post is taking the CF, which contains Boom Recorder files, and is using the auto sync function on the Avid Adrenaline to import the BR files from the CF card using the telecine ALE file.

Robert

[Marc Wielage]

when, if ever, do you think CF (or any other solid state storage device) could become a standard deliverable to telecine, replacing the optical disks that have finally become the standard?

It doesn't work for a traditional telecine workflow if the post house is doing normal real-time dailies with off-shelf gear like Evertz and Fostex. The CD cards would have to be copied to a DVD-R (or more accurately, from CF to hard drive, then use the hard drive to burn a new DVD-R or DVD-RAM disk), which would be expensive and time-consuming.

Even in the case of Aaton InDaw, you'd have to first copy the CF cards to the hard drive, and that is very slow at best. Ideally, the way to go would be to access the CF directly in the player, so nothing is copied at all, and then you can just play the individual files back and forth with timecode accuracy, still do pull-downs/pull-ups, and so on. If Fostex or another enterprising company would just make a timecode-capable sound player that could handle CF cards, provide RS-422 remote capability, external video reference, and so on, we'd have no problem accepting CF cards.

There are now new non-real-time workflows where the film or digital camera material is scanned to servers first, then synced with the sound as a later process. There are advantages and disadvantages to this process, but it would work fine with CF cards for sound. Unfortuanately, it takes about twice as long (or longer) than traditional dailies. But I'm skeptical as to how much longer conventional dailies will last. I give it 5-10 years at best, as digital cameras make more inroads into film & TV production.

As Robert says above, this is a moot point if the producers elect to have post do the picture dailies M.O.S., and has the assistant editor sync up the sound separately. The flaw with this method is, it adds another 4 hours to the process. My experience is, studio execs are impatient and want to see picture AND sound starting at no later than about 10AM. The crew typically sees Avid or projected digital dailies around lunchtime, but every production is different.

--Marc W.

[Noah Timan]

If Fostex or another enterprising company would just make a timecode-capable sound player that could handle CF cards, provide RS-422 remote capability, external video reference, and so on, we'd have no problem accepting CF cards.

I think the issue is that Fostex doesn't make a CF-capable recorder, so they're probably not in a rush to sell a telecine machine that will encourage the use of the competition's recorders.

As Robert says above, this is a moot point if the producers elect to have post do the picture dailies M.O.S., and has the assistant editor sync up the sound separately. The flaw with this method is, it adds another 4 hours to the process.

Also needing to consider is that many productions require many, many copies of the dailies DVDs to be distributed as soon as humanly possible.  I'm not sure if that's part of your four hour estimation or not.

[Noah Timan]

for 2 years I have delivered HDD's with .wavs on them to post production which just copies the drives over to the server for community access and then I pickup the drives, so I don't see why a CF or XX couldn't be used in the same way.

And how do they make quick dailies in that workflow? 

[cmgoodin]

I think the issue is that Fostex doesn't make a CF-capable recorder, so they're probably not in a rush to sell a telecine machine that will encourage the use of the competition's recorders.

Also needing to consider is that many productions require many, many copies of the dailies DVDs to be distributed as soon as humanly possible.  I'm not sure if that's part of your four hour estimation or not.

But Noah,  Fostex was one of the first on the market with a CF based time code enabled recorder.  The Fostex FR2 has been available for several years now and only records on CF cards.  The problem is they haven't had a Post machine like the DV-40 that does  TC chase-lock and RS 422 control  with CF media.  I believe the Tascam machines support this, including the new X48  but they are not very popular in Telecine suites

---------Courtney

[Noah Timan]

But Noah,  Fostex was one of the first on the market with a CF based time code enabled recorder.  The Fostex FR2 has been available for several years now and only records on CF cards.  The problem is they haven't had a Post machine like the DV-40 that does  TC chase-lock and RS 422 control  with CF media.  I believe the Tascam machines support this, including the new X48  but they are not very popular in Telecine suites

---------Courtney

That's true...I did not think about the FR-2, although it was never a real player in the field (as it was only a two track machine) and has since been discontinued, no?  I just feel like Fostex might be more inspired to update the DV824 (does anyone still use the DV-40 over this by choice as opposed to because it came out first?) to a CF-capable model if the PD606 had a CF slot.  I'll ask Rick if it's in their future plans next time I have the pleasure to speak to him.

[jamieg]

The last few films I've mixed have used CF for the delivery of rushes - a rotation of cards used throughout the shooting week, with an external HD for the final delivery to the sound editors.

Seems to work quite well.

[Daniel McIntosh]

Any recommendations for stand-alone CF card readers?  I guess fast and robust are the operative requirements.

Daniel

[Brent Lestage]

Any recommendations for stand-alone CF card readers?  I guess fast and robust are the operative requirements.

Daniel

I use the Sandisk FireWire reader and have been quite pleased with its small size and performance.

http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(2015)-SDDRX4-CF-901-SanDisk_Extreme_FireWire_Reader.aspx

--

B

[jamieg]

I don't have mine to hand, but it was a USB 2.0 which worked incredibly fast

[ProSound]

I have the $12.00 one that most every walmart or bestbuy has works great with all my cards usb 2.0 very fast had it for 3 years never an issue.

[Noah Timan]

Any recommendations for stand-alone CF card readers?  I guess fast and robust are the operative requirements.

Daniel

I got a firewire one from B&H called from a company called "Lexar" for about $15.  Works as advertised, small size fits nicely in the bag.

[Marc Wielage]

Also needing to consider is that many productions require many, many copies of the dailies DVDs to be distributed as soon as humanly possible.  I'm not sure if that's part of your four hour estimation or not.

We can basically turn around the first hour of film -- synced, with ALE files, transferred to HD and multiple SD copies -- in 3 hours. It then takes another hour or so to create DVDs from that. In many cases, another crew is creating digital files for the editor, but this all happens simultaneously. So yes, the first dailies hour are completed in four hours from the start of the session. Note that many studios are now eliminating DVDs in favor of digital files, all heavily protected and posted on a private server. This is referred to as "desktop dailies," where the execs just go to a website, click a button, and watch each take on their laptops.

If we start by midnight, and have two or three hours of material (typical for a Tier 3+ feature), all DVDs and digital files will be done by 9-10AM. We often deliver part of the dailies material in one early-morning batch, and then the rest of the material a few hours later.

And how do they make quick dailies in that workflow?

You can't. If you want to see sound and picture organized by clip, early in the morning, you have to go through a dailies process of some kind. Eventually, once they can shoot digitally (say, via Red Camera) and capture a dailies mix at the same time, they can actually do the dailies live on the set (except for organizing all the material, naming the files, and fixing all the metadata). If the material requires color-correction, all bets are off.

--Marc W.

[Jose Luis Diaz]

In my country, Argentina, sync is done into Avid or FCP.

CF is the normal way to deliver production sound from the set.

Normally we have at least 3 CFs of 4 GB.

The most popular recorder here is 744.

José Luis

PS: Forgot to add that normally we work at true 24fps, not 23.976fps. Our country is PAL. 50 Hz main.

[Sergio Sanmiguel]

PS: Forgot to add that normally we work at true 24fps, not 23.976fps. Our country is PAL. 50 Hz main.

Isn't PAL 25 fps?  Here in NTSC land we do 24fps for film & 23.976 for some HD formats. I'm a bit confused...

This is an excerpt from an Avid site explaining PAL @ 24fps:

Telecine B: 24 FPS adding a field at the 12th and 24th film frame (24 FPS film is cine-expanded to 25 frames). Film shot at 24 FPS is played at that rate with an additional frame generated in the telecine process so one second of film still plays at that duration on the PAL tape.

Odd...

[Jeff Wexler]

This isn't directly a "CF deliverables" question but I didn't want to start a new topic. On my last shoot, Fotokem was insisting that we do a film and sounds break at 6pm everyday (and one day we actually broke twice, I don't know why) so they could get the dailies out on time. I will not question why they needed so much time, we were not shooting a lot of film, but that's their business. My question, probably directed to Marc W., relates to multiple disks on a single day. My usual procedure is to start the day on say Roll no. 56, so there is 1 folder which is mirrored to 1 disk which is then turned in. If we need to do a break, I start a new "Roll" and call that (folder) 56A, mirror to a new disk and turn that in at wrap. I prefer to NOT give the 2nd roll a totally new roll number, 57, but that's just the way I do it. Now, my question is, would it cause problems down the road if I did things differently: at the break, send in mirrored disk, roll 56, but DO NOT change the folder but rather just carry on recording to Folder 56 and mirror a new disk (which would be the 2nd disk to be turned in at wrap) that would pick up after the last segment on the 1st disk.

I have reasoned this out and assume that if each disk had a good sound report with it that noted where each disk starts and ends, this would not be a problem. By doing this, I would be able to skip one step, starting a new folder, and this would make the "reload" that much quicker. It really is no big deal either way, the reload now takes me less than a minute, but I was just curious if the procedure I just proposed would create any difficulties.

What does everyone else do (also in the case where there isn't a break but there are multiple disks for the same sound roll.

-  Jeff Wexler

[Philip Perkins]

Since I come from The Era Of Tape, for me a new load is a new roll, no matter how short it is.  As a postie I would rather not see a sequence of "Roll 56, Roll 56A" etc, because then I would never know if I really had all the rolls by just counting (again--a tape bias).  I'd rather have a pure numerical sequence where any new load was a new roll #, and if my last roll is #100 I know that I should have exactly 100 rolls, or folders or whatever.

Philip Perkins

[samsound]

Marc Wielage said:

Note that many studios are now eliminating DVDs in favor of digital files, all heavily protected and posted on a private server. This is referred to as "desktop dailies," where the execs just go to a website, click a button, and watch each take on their laptops.

DVD's,digital files for dailies - how sad! Actually seeing and hearing dailies on the big screen was always a great way for all crew members to learn and progress their own skills and gain some understanding of the craft of others. Dailies also gave the crew a feeling of real involvement in the production - especially when the Editor had a rough assembly of a scene or sequence. Nowdays,I rarely see dailies, they are never projected, and getting into the DVD loop is often like trying to get membership to an exclusive club. Who sees them? - some 'suits' in far off places, with little or no understanding of the movie-making process who then hand down 'opinions' and comments on technical matters of which they are completely ignorant. Meanwhile the majority of the crew are detached one further step,and removed from the learning experience of seeing and hearing their work in  context before others get to change,enhance,or reject.

It can be argued that I had heard my dailies when I recorded them - but there really was a kick in having sound and picture combined on the big screen.

And there are stories to be told of having location dailies,and the fun we had trying to get decent sound reproduction - building makeshift projector booths,trying to get something respectable out of the amplifier/speaker systems etc. Not to mention the DoP going crazy over the erratic illumination from the projector and the 1st.AC tearing his hair at the fall-off of focus across an ill-located screen.

Ah well,times change!

Apologies for going off-topic

Gentle rant over.

Mutt n' Jeff

[Noah Timan]

What does everyone else do (also in the case where there isn't a break but there are multiple disks for the same sound roll.

Each time I make a new (and separate) disc that goes to telecine, whether it's a film break or not, I give it a new consecutive roll number.  It's simple and easy and seems to cause no confusion.

[Darren]

I'm with Philip and Noah. A new disk, flash card, or whatever, is a new "roll" no matter what. Keeps things simple for everyone. Easy for post to tell if one has gone missing, etc.  You're giving each disc a new name anyway, so why not just keep it simple and give it a whole new role number?

[Richard Lightstone, CAS]

Jeff,

I follow the same procedure as Noah and Darren. A new consecutive "roll number".

I do not change folders -- it's one folder per day for me.

As far as the sound report, the first "roll" of the day would be Segment 1 - (ex) 56. The new report after the break would be Segment 57 onwards. The first segment of each "roll" has metadata referring to which DVD-Ram number it is and of course verbal id and tones.

RL