JULY 2013
Are you seeing Spots?
Vol 193
sometimes it’s quite a big job and it costs everybody money. Ed: And this is not just for making television movies, this is actually for commercials and a whole range of things, even making DVDs?
You will see an article called “Dealing with a dead pixel on your sensor” alongside this and you really need to read both. The other article came from the internet Olivier: Maybe not DVDs. In a commercial, you ( with a few modifications by me ) and has passed would see it straight away because it’s short and you scrutiny by my guests for this interview, namely Olivier have time to watch it. But definitely in all TV content Wardecki from Next Technology and Clive Cannon from they have to be checked for seriously. Sony NZ. The other author, Andy Shipsides, covers the issue extremely well but I had a few questions too. Let’s Ed: So not DVDs … is the situation that, when you start with Olivier who brought this problem to my down the resolution, does it all get blended together and attention. you don’t notice it? Ed: Olivier, this has been an issue for a long time, but I Olivier: Yes. I mean if you really look for it, you guess it’s becoming more and more noticeable because might see something, but it gets blended in standard def. people now have the technology to actually see it and On a Blu-ray you’d see it straight away. detect it? Ed: So that’s it … it’s really the modern situation of the Olivier: Yes, you can see it in the monitor picture high definition monitors? I guess now that we’re coming and scan for it. into 4K it’s going to be even more of an issue? Ed: Is it becoming obvious because there are more and more monitors that are capable of seeing this, whereas I guess, in the old days, a CRT monitor might not have picked it up? Olivier: Yes, the pixel would have blended into the general picture and it would not have been noticed. Ed: Okay, so now we have high definition monitors where you can see it, but also now there is software that detects them? Olivier: Yes. When we QC a tape or a file, if we see any dead pixel, it’s a reject, especially for international releases. Some TV channels, and many internet providers, use software to correct all sorts of artefacts including faulty pixels. As soon as one of their software programmes detects one, they will reject the file or the tape. Every Clive Cannon (from England), Ed (local) & Olivier Wardecki (from France.) The interview went like this: time we find one, we have to send the file You go to a cockfight. How do you know a Frenchman is there? back to the postproduction facility that made He’s the one with the duck. it; they have to paint it out by hand and
Morikawa has got a hole straight through the middle of his body where the cosmic ray went, straight through the block underneath his chair and out the other side of the aircraft. It’s the only way it could have happened. It just goes to show that flying, certainly towards the Poles ( in this case it was Northern Hemisphere,) did exactly as we predicted – two arrived in perfect condition but one had a huge hole through it and ended up with what we call a “supernova” – a really, really white pixel that made the block unusable. Ed: But it is a random event isn’t it? It’s something that you can’t predict is going to happen, or how many times it will happen? Clive: Totally and utterly unpredictable. Those things come from outer space, whether it’s from the sun or some other cosmic body I don’t know, but they’re certainly coming in from outer space … cosmic ray, bang, hits the target, that’s it. Ed: But in NZ, you’ve had a pretty good run in terms of having to change a block?
Here’s a spot for you.
Clive: Since I’ve been in New Zealand, I’ve never Olivier: Yes, yes. With better definition, you will needed to change a block because of RPN. see every artefact in the picture. Ed: And “RPN” is? Ed: Okay, so that’s the situation, programmes are being rejected because of these defects. We hear the Clive: Residual Point Noise we call it – it’s a term “dead pixel” but in fact, Clive, they’re not dead Sonyism for a pixel blemish, without using the word pixels are they? “blemish”. Since I’ve been in New Zealand ( which is Clive: I’ve never seen a dead pixel. In my whole almost 10 years now ), since the advent of standard def time with Sony which is now 24 years looking after XDCAM, I have not had to change a camera head broadcast cameras, I can honestly say that, on broadcast cameras, I have never seen a dead pixel. We have extremely active ones, hyperactive ones, call them what you like, but not actually “dead”. Back in the mid-90s, I used to be technical product specialist for Sony Broadcast & Professional Europe, based in the UK but covering the whole of Europe, Middle East and Africa. NRK in Oslo had issues with some BVP-375 studio cameras. These were 3-chip, two -thirds inch, analogue cameras but CCD, standard definition. We agreed to provide three brand new blocks for them and hand carry them out to Oslo and install them. We had the ability ( even back then ) to compensate for pixel Well then, how do you know an Englishman is there? issues but, in this case, I had three He bets on the duck. absolutely perfect blocks as optical block, an OHB as we would call it, or a CCD replacements. On the flight to Oslo, these three blocks block because of RPN. I have changed one at a were put under the seat in front of me and in that seat customer’s request because he felt uneasy and I said was the product manager for Broadcast Cameras at the “yes, ok, I will swap it with the one out of our support time, Shige Morikawa. Well, when we got to Oslo, I camera” and he felt over the moon. That block is still in installed the three blocks in the three cameras and two our support camera and is perfect. He just felt of them were absolutely perfect but one had what I uncomfortable and it was just so easy to swap it, so I would describe as a “supernova” right in the middle of did … but I didn’t need to. the picture. To this day, I can state that Shige
Go www.finnzed.co.nz and follow the link to NZVN for more news. P13 What’s on at the Pro Audio Show P14 New Improved Cloud from Adobe P20 KTVU Oakland P26 Grant Petty Interview Page 3
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Ed: Okay, so back 20 years ago, when you had one of these events in a block, it pretty well ruined the block, but nowadays you’ve got a lot more tools up your sleeve? Clive: Totally, totally. Early CCD cameras were analogue cameras but “yes”, we had techniques available even back in the early days with, I would say, second generation CCD cameras, so we’re talking about BVP-70s and cameras like that. The factory gave us kits which we could retrofit which allowed us to compensate for a very, very small number of RPNs or pixel defects. But it was a very small number and, generally speaking, we needed a jig and we could work out where the defect was, compensate for it and basically store the data into a ROM. So it was very much a … how can I say … an “engineering heavy” sort of way of doing things. The customer couldn’t do it and then, if you got another problem, you went back and blew another ROM, so it was quite difficult. Ed: But nowadays it’s something that’s built into the circuitry of your top end cameras? Clive: Oh most definitely – it’s built in since the advent of digital processing broadcast cameras, which is quite some time ago now. We had techniques available that worked, triggered by an auto black balance, but first generation digital cameras, we were talking about 42 blemishes or pixel defects maximum that we could conceal. Nowadays, that’s into the thousands, and the techniques are just getting better and better and, in our latest cameras, it’s all done in the digital domain.
week, and it’s only when somebody shouts “you realise you’ve got an issue there?” or they see it in the viewfinder, that the problem becomes apparent. Normally, just a quick 1 or 2 black balances, bang, the problem has gone. Ed: So you get coloured pixels. If you see a blue pixel it means that there’s an issue with the chip that’s receiving the blue signal? Clive: Exactly that, yes. A blue pixel defect or RPN as we would call them, means that there’s an issue on the blue CCD sensor. The red and the green sensors are obviously absolutely fine, so yes, if you see a pixel defect it’s going to be one of three colours. If you look at it on a full HD monitor, then it’s either going to be red, green or blue. Ed: Okay, so how does that work with something like the F55 which has one sensor? Clive: Well again, it might have one sensor but each pixel is defined with a colour layer over it, making it either a red, green or a blue pixel. So basically the same thing applies. Ed: Well I know what I’m going to do when I get home, because I immediately have to put my hand up and say “guilty”. I think the last time I did a black balance I did it by mistake, and thought “oh, why am I doing that, that’s a bit silly, I meant to do a white balance”. I bet you’ve heard that story? Clive: Yes. Ed: Okay, Clive, you turn on a camera cold and what happens? Clive: If you’re looking for pixel “defects” you may not see anything at all. However, leave the camera to
Ed: So now it’s something that the operator should be able to do mostly themselves and it’s something that, if they know the process and what to look for, they should be able to prevent it appearing in a shot or fixing it very quickly when it does? Clive: Essentially. As I mentioned before, the process gets triggered by an auto black balance. Now when you do a black balance, generally speaking, it’s only looking at one colour at a time, so you might need to do 2 or 3 black balances in order to hit, let’s say, a red pixel issue. Of course the issue could be on the red, green or blue CCD. It might be that you need to do three auto blacks to get the colour that’s causing you the problem. Once upon a time, everybody did an auto black balance before they started shooting, but cameras have become more and more stable and people just don’t do black balances anymore. So consequently, they just How do you know Fox is televising the fight? keep shooting day after day, week after The duck wins. (Photos by Kate.)
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warm up and of course, to the hand, the camera warms up quite gently, but the substrate of the CCD device can get up to very high temperatures. What you need to bear in mind is that the amplitude of any pixel defect doubles for every eight degrees Celsius rise in temperature. So when the camera has been left to stand for, let’s say, 30 minutes or even an hour, then what might at cold start-up have been an absolutely clean picture, might now be speckled by RPN. The other issue is “gain up”. If you put say 9 or 12 dB gain in and then turn up the monitor, again, RPN becomes quite obvious if there’s an issue. Ed: So you have to wait to do a black balance until the camera has been on for a while? Clive: Wait till it’s warm, because when you do a black balance, the automatics are searching with the camera capped, basically looking at black and it’s looking for any little pixel defect to pop its head up above the parapet. Now that parapet remains a constant, but as I said, those pixel defects are doubling in amplitude for every eight degree Celsius rise. So it might be that when cold, there’s barely any issue and any pixel defect is going to be way below that threshold or below the parapet. When the camera’s warm, yes, it might be popping its head way above, in which case, bang, we can hit it. Ed: What sort of temperature does that substrate get up to? Hot enough to fry an egg? Clive: I can’t honestly say. I mean it’s going to vary from camera to camera, but they do get pretty warm. In the early days, some of the cameras even had Peltier cooling on them to keep them cool and to keep the noise floor down. That’s no longer needed, but there’s still a substrate temperature in any device, whether it’s a digital processing device or a CCD sensor, it gets significantly warm.
Ed:
Ed: Yes, but before you call Clive, do try the black balance and I’m sure Clive can send you an email with any specific details of some minor menu things that you can do before you panic and try and find where Clive lives and take your camera to him. Now if people want to know more about their cameras … obviously this is something that they could have known right from the start when they bought their expensive camera – if they want some training, Sony does offer training for camera operators? Clive: Yes, generally each year I give a significant number of courses. The majority of those are in Australia, but they don’t need to be, they could be in New Zealand. That’s all co-ordinated by our administrator, this is Riki Martin who sits in our Sydney office. Last month, I gave three training courses for broadcast cameras and digital cinematography in Australia, so anything’s possible. You can contact Clive at <clive.cannon@ap.sony.com>
Ed: Now we’ve been talking about broadcast level material, but in fact Olivier, you’ve recently seen exactly this happening on GoPro footage? Olivier: Yes, this year we’re seeing it on the GoPro camera, several times from different sources. We haven’t actually seen it this year on broadcast material. Ed: So it’s not camera manufacturer specific, it’s not even camera specific or type of chip specific, it’s anything that has a chip will potentially have this effect on it. Whether it’s noticed or not, that’s the potential problem. In terms of fixing it, if you found this on a GoPro, do you know what to do Clive? Clive: could work would love susceptible Ed:
OIC!
Clive: Absolutely. So what happens? Okay, in the digital domain, the camera has identified the dodgy pixel let’s say. What we do is that we tell the camera, at the sensor side of things, not to read out the data for that particular pixel, and then in the digital domain, we interpolate three pixels before, three pixels afterwards, three pixels above, three pixels below – and we’re interpolating on a field by field basis. So we’re filling in that missing information in real time. So as the camera pans, we’re putting in the correct data.
Absolutely not. I’ve no idea … and if I out how to fix it on my Pentax Digital SLR I to know, because Digital SLRs are just as as broadcast cameras.
So you can’t do a black balance on your DSLR?
Clive: Unfortunately not – at least I haven’t found out how to do it. Ed: And if you haven’t found out, I guess you can’t do it, but luckily on every Sony broadcast camera that’s been manufactured in the last 20 years or so, you can do a black balance? Clive: Absolutely, yes and if the black balance doesn’t work, then we have other tricks up our sleeve. I can go into service menus and I have extra tools there that I can use to eradicate the problem shall we say. Ed: Why does a “black balance” generally fix the problem in a video camera? Clive: When you perform a black balance, it initiates APR. This is Auto Pixel Restoration. So we’re applying APR to the RPN – Automatic Pixel Restoration to the Residual Point Noise. Page 8
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What’s on offer at the Pro Audio Showcase in Auckland. Proudly distributing Shure in NZ
Now Sound will have some exciting new broadcast and media products from Shure on demonstration at the 2013 Pro Audio Showcase, including the New Zealand debut of Shure VP83 and VP83F Lenshoppers that go on sale later this year. The VP83F is for use with DSLR cameras and camcorders, featuring integrated flash recording / playback (MicroSDHC) that enables WAV file capture at 24-bit / 48kHz sampling rate. Delivering detailed, high -definition audio, this compact shotgun microphone offers an intuitive menu and one-button recording that make it easy to use in almost any environment.
Protel is very excited to be part of PAS 2013 as we’ll be releasing a number of break-through products, all very significant to the industry and by attending you’ll be among the first to see these in New Zealand. We’ll be mainly focusing on solutions for Live Sound, Production Sound, Post Production and Music Creation/ Recording/Mixing. Plus, there’ll be Show Specials! Introducing: Avid - S3L Digital Console - AVB and EUCON enabled digital mixing system for live sound and studio. Genelec - Music Creation Series - New low-cost range of speakers optimised for home and project studios.
The VP83 is an ultra-compact shotgun microphone, providing an all-in-one solution for capturing detailed, high-definition audio with DSLR cameras and camcorders. Easily accessible controls for low-cut filter and three-position gain enable adjustments for different recording environments.
Zaxcom - TRX900CL ‘camera hop’ transmitter, MAXX and Nomad location recorder/mixers. EarTec
Randall Hedges of Mint Video recently used the VP83 and VP83F Lenshoppers in a Shure videography project based in New Zealand, stating “The sound quality from the VP83/83F mics was exactly what I'd expect from Shure, really natural and pleasing audio.” We look forward to the release of Randall’s video clip soon.
Avid - Pro Tools 11 - A milestone release of this industry standard DAW features all-new audio and video engines, 64-bit performance, offline bounce, extended metering and lots more. Direct Out Technology
Also on demonstration will be Shure’s first full line of broadcast headsets. The BRH range was designed specifically for broadcast and media production applications; the line combines the pristine audio reproduction of Shure critical-listening and monitoring headphones with dynamic microphones.
- MADI interface and conversion products including Andiamo Series and MA2CH.Box MADI Headphone amps. Kv2 Audio
Other products on display include Shure’s flagship wireless systems, microphones and personal listening products.
- Rugged and simple headset comms system using DECT.
- ESM26 small-footprint vocal wedge, JK Series DIs, EX and ES Series point-source long throw live sound speaker systems. …and much more including; Apogee, Muse Research, Riedel, SPL, McDSP, iZotope, etc.
Sound Techniques new products: We will launch the ADAM Audio F series speakers with the F7 model. Designed for home and project studios with tight budgets and available exclusively online at www.soundfondue.com for under $1,000 a pair including GST. These are an economical alternative to ADAM Audio’s A7X speakers, its most popular model. Pro Audio Showcase exclusive: collect a voucher for an extra $100 discount on a pair of F7 speakers, for a limited time only. Seminars: Sound Techniques expects to run a couple of seminars. We have invited representatives from Sound Devices and Lectrosonics, Inc. Stephen Buckland will wear his Wireless Users NZ hat and present the latest news on what spectrum is available to run your radio microphones On display: Radio microphones from Lectrosonics, portable recorders and mixers from Sound Devices, recorders from Nagra Audio, time code solutions from Denecke, microphones from Sanken, K-Tek booms, the inimitable RF Explorer, MOTU computer interfaces and our range of lapel microphones. Pick up a copy of the latest rentals catalogue. Look out for show only specials and the occasional prize. Talk to us “we listen and give sound advice” Page 13
A New Improved Cloud from Adobe Just a few weeks ago, there was an email from Stuart at DVT saying that the Adobe Creative Cloud is here, everything’s changing and, by the way, you’ve got a week to sign up to this, pay your money and you’re going to get all Adobe Master Collection products with monthly updates. No, it wasn’t from Nigeria – it was for real. In Stuart’s defence, this was not something that DVT had any control over, it was something that Adobe presented as a fait accompli and Stuart, in his diligence, was out there immediately telling everyone to get on board with it.
Ed:
You weren’t very happy at that stage Stuart?
Stuart: Well we’ve been selling and supporting Adobe product for over a decade now, and their traditional software model, like many other vendors, has always been to sell a certain version of a product and then, when they release a new version of that product a year later, to charge you a certain amount of money for the upgrade. As of the end of last year, Adobe decided to dramatically change their tack on that approach to selling their software. They decided to move to a subscription or a rental model for their software, which meant that they would stop selling a licence for the software and upgrades and move to a subscription based model where you pay a certain amount of dollars every year to access the product. If, after a year’s time, you decide not to renew your subscription, then you stop using the products. So they packaged this up in what they called the Adobe Creative Cloud, and in that Adobe Creative Cloud they give you all of their desktop applications. So in our world, of course, it’s all our video applications like Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects; now includes SpeedGrade and Prelude and some of the newer ones … Ed: Alright, there are lots of things in there that you get that you never got before or had to pay a huge amount of money upfront to get, but the communication from Adobe was an issue? Stuart: Oh definitely. Adobe, having decided to change their tack, have then communicated both with resellers and directly with end users with certain messages around the change, and some of them have
been confusing. A lot of our customers who are looking at the Adobe Creative Cloud think that these applications are hosted in a web browser. Most importantly, they’re not. They’re desktop applications that you can download onto your desktop machine … Ed: I can understand the confusion because I was confused. We think of “clouds” as being cyberspace storage but, we’ll get to that in a minute. It was the way they let us know. I’m an Adobe user and I have not had any communication about this Cloud, apart from seeing it at NAB and avoiding it, until the email from you. But things have dramatically improved within the last 24 hours? Stuart: Yes, it’s fair to say that we’ve certainly been kept guessing about promotions and messaging around this over the last six months from Adobe. It’s been very difficult for us as resellers to get the right messaging across to our customers and we’ve been frustrated by that to a certain extent. The people at Adobe that we deal with really do believe in their products and they’re trying to do the best they can for their customers and I think they’re just tripping up as they’re trying to run this subscription based business model and haven’t quite fully thought through each little aspect of it. The good news is that we now have a reasonable window in which we can communicate all the messaging around the Creative Cloud to our customers and allow them to take advantage of this awesome promotion, so we’re excited about that opportunity. Ed: So what’s the new deal? Stuart: The new deal is that you can get a 12 month subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud for Teams for just $585 plus GST per year, for the first year. If you purchase it before the 31st of August 2013 you will also be able to get your second year’s subscription for the same price – so now you have until the end of August this year to sign up. So you’ve got nearly a two month window from now to do that, and we think that the opportunity around that is quite compelling for anyone doing anything professional with video. It’s a phenomenal opportunity. Ed: Okay, users can do that through the Adobe website or preferably through you. What’s the benefit of doing it through you? Stuart: There are two different ways you can join the Creative Cloud. One is what they call an individual membership, which is designed for freelancers and one man band type outfits, where you can go onto adobe.com and pay with your credit card every month to access the product. Or you can purchase Adobe Creative Cloud for Teams, which is what DVT sells. Currently with this promo Adobe Creative Cloud for Teams through us is very competitive with the individual membership option and has many more features that the individual offering. With the Adobe Creative Cloud for Teams the company owns the licences and files, you can assign to different users from
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PRODUCTION | POST | VISUAL EFFECTS
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a centrally managed console, you get guaranteed licence compliance, have a single anniversary making it easier to administer and budget for, plus professional support and many more options. And one of the biggest advantages is your ability to talk to us about your licences, workflows and productions solutions that fit with this. So we’re reaching out to our customers to make sure they fully understand what the Creative Cloud for Teams can offer them and how they can go about taking advantage of that. Ed: That’s good that we’ve got a bit more time to think about it and to get some information as to what this Adobe Cloud is. I guess my biggest problem is the term “cloud” because whenever I hear “cloud”, I think I don’t want stuff of mine sitting up there in cyberspace. I don’t want my software there that I can’t access. If, for some reason, the Telecom system breaks down and I don’t have internet access, I’m screwed … but this is not how Adobe use the term “cloud” is it? Stuart: So the first and most important thing to understand is that this is a subscription to desktop application. These are applications you download and install on your computer just like you always have, so it’s Adobe Premiere, it’s After Effects, Photoshop downloaded and installed on your local computer. It also means that all the files that those applications work with can reside on your computer as well; you don’t have to use any of the Cloud storage that comes as part of the Creative Cloud. So that’s it in simplest terms. Ed: So the cloud storage is a bonus. You have a certain amount of space allocated in the Adobe Creative Cloud where you can put stuff if you want to, but you don’t have to? Stuart: Yes. So in addition to renting the full suite of desktop applications, what was the Adobe Master Collection, there’s two extra things that the Creative Cloud gives you that you can choose to take advantage of if you want to. The first one is online storage – so you can take Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Illustrator documents and save them in the Cloud. And of course we’re all very used to using that already, because we all use either Google Drive or Drop Box or many of the Cloud syncing applications. They’re already existing and lots of people are already using those, so Adobe, as part of the Creative Cloud, are offering their own version of that. In addition to that, they also offer syncing services – for example, you can use one of Adobe’s iPad apps to create a document – a Photoshop document for example – and you can then sync that via the Creative Cloud to your desktop. But really it’s a rental or subscription to desktop applications for a fixed period of time, plus this Cloud storage, plus this syncing service. That’s what the Adobe Creative Cloud is.
renew the licence. The Adobe servers will automatically tell your software when your licence expires and the software will cease working at that date unless you renew your subscription for the next year. Ed: And what say you have a three month period when you’re overseas and it expires? Stuart: We’re very used to selling subscription based software and we have a very good notification system for all of our customers on subscription – we give them a three month notification of when it’s due to expire and then a four week update to that as well, to make sure that they renew in time, so we’re pretty confident that we’ll be able to maintain our customer subscriptions for them. Ed: Okay, now this is an upgrade isn’t it, so if you don’t have an Adobe Creative Suite at the moment, this isn’t the same deal? Stuart: That’s correct. This offer is only available to existing Adobe customers who have got any licence of CS3 or later. So you might just have a Photoshop licence in CS3 – that’s enough to get you this deal. You might have the Production Premium Bundle for CS6 – that’s enough to get you this deal as well. But if you’re not an existing Adobe customer, then unfortunately, this deal is not available to you; you can still buy the Creative Cloud but it costs you a little over $1,000 for your first year’s subscription. Ed: And if you have your Production Bundle CS6, this still works doesn’t it? Stuart: Yes indeed. You get to keep all your existing licences, so Adobe don’t take anything away from you. If you’ve got a copy of Photoshop CS3 that you want to use on a different machine, you can continue to do that. You will have the Creative Cloud as well. Ed: And once you sign up to this it’s only available on the one machine? Stuart: That’s correct. So the Adobe Creative Cloud licence is available to download and install and licence on one machine and that gives you access to any one of these 30-odd products on that one machine. You do have the ability to move the licence around, so you can deactivate the software on that machine, go to a laptop and install all the software on the laptop and then just activate the licence on the laptop. That gives
Ed: And if your internet goes down? Stuart: No problem. You obviously have to connect to the internet to download the software and install it. You also connect to the internet to activate the desktop applications, but you don’t need to connect to the internet every time you use the applications; in fact you can stay disconnected from the internet for up to 180 days and the software will continue to work for that period of time. So all you’ve got to do is touch base with the Adobe servers once every 180 days just to Page 16
more on page 19
on demonstration at
booth G
Preview: Lenshoppers VP83F Lenshopper
VP83 Lenshopper
For use with DSLR cameras and camcorders, the VP83F features integrated flash recording / playback (MicroSDHC) that enables WAV file capture at 24-bit / 48kHz sampling rate. Delivering detailed, high-definition audio, this compact shotgun microphone offers an intuitive menu and one-button recording that make it easy to use in almost any environment.
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you the freedom to work on your desktop machine when you’re in the office and then when you’re going away and travelling around the country to do a shoot, you can activate the software on your laptop and take that with you. So a very flexible licensing system.
also share any of those files externally as well, just by sharing the link via an email. So there’s lots of ways of using this online storage collaboratively, either amongst your team or to people outside that team as well.
Ed: But you can’t download half of it onto one machine and the other half onto another?
Stuart: You can do all of that with just one licence, yes. Now, if you’ve got internal closed content, this material is secure and can be shared amongst your team if you’ve got more than one licence.
Stuart: You can have all of the software installed on multiple machines, but only licensed on one at a time. Ed: There seems to be an awful lot of software in there Stuart. Are there actually any tutorials available for us to learn what Pb means apart from lead? Stuart: Yes, we’re looking at the Creative Cloud portal on a desktop now and we can see there’s over 30 applications available in the Creative Cloud; 30 desktop applications, with everything from Acrobat through to Dreamweaver, InDesign and of course our video applications. Even in the video world, there’s a good 8 or 9 applications that are available to us to use from Premier Pro, Photoshop, SpeedGrade which is their new grading tool, Adobe Audition for doing audio and After Effects that we already know, plus a whole bunch of other software that you can use to enhance your workflow for video as well. But you will notice in the portal of the Creative Cloud right at the very top are already links to the training that’s available online. One of the big buttons at the top of the screen is “learn”. As soon as you click on that button, it takes you into Adobe TV with huge resources for learning all of the new features. Ed: It sounds better than “help”? Stuart: It is awesome. Having somebody sit there and show you exactly what these features are is awesome. One of the really cool things with the Creative Cloud and the new CC versions of these desktop applications, is that Adobe will be releasing new features across the software products every month. So for example, one month they might release two new features for Adobe Premiere; there will be online tutorials and videos showing you how to use those two new features and that’s far easier for us to learn moving forward a couple of extra features on our different products each month, rather than waiting once a year to get 50 new features deluge us and trying to grapple with getting up to speed with those. The reality is that we only ever look at the top four and ignore the rest, which could be quite useful features. So it’s a much more mature way of delivering software to customers, delivering updates and keeping things up to date, rather than having to wait. It’s been annoying when there’s a new codec come out for a camera and we’ve had to wait for the next major release of the software to take advantage of that codec. Now hopefully, with the Creative Cloud, we’ll be able to get access to these new codecs and new features as and when we need them. Ed: Now just going back a wee way, the actual value of having a Cloud – and I use the term “Drop Box” even though that’s a proprietary name – their drop-box will enable you to put a version of a programme on there and then tell your client to go to this website or follow this link and they can have a look at it? Stuart: Yes. The Creative Cloud for Teams includes 100 gigabytes of storage online and if you have more than one Creative Cloud for Teams licence it’s shared among those people. So you could create baseline key graphics in Photoshop that you want to share across a project that you’re working on; or you might have ID slates or whatever that you want to store online that everybody can access, but in addition to that, you can
Ed:
And you can do all of that with just one licence?
Ed: I’m nearly convinced Stuart, I’m hovering over my chequebook. Stuart: I guess the one last thing I would say is that, when we look at some of the histories of our customers in terms of how much they’ve been paying for upgrades for their software over the years, and you consider the cost for this at $585 + GST for effectively, the old Adobe Master Collection of just about every desktop application that Adobe has for a one year period, including monthly updates, plus the Cloud storage, plus the syncing services, that I do believe once people get into it and take advantage of and use, it’s extremely inexpensive. There are plumbers and builders and taxi drivers that spend an enormously larger amount of money than that every year to keep their tools up to date, so I would suggest that the $585 to keep your tools of your trade up to date is dead cheap and for those reasons I think every customer that’s using Adobe products commercially should jump on the bandwagon with this as quickly as possible. Ed: Have they made any announcement what it might cost after two years? Stuart: Currently it stands right now if you order before the 1st of August and you’ve got an existing licence of CS3 or later, it’s $585 + GST for the first year. In a year’s time it will be $585 + GST for the next year ( that is subject to exchange rate fluctuations.) And the year after that it will be back up to the normal price which is currently $1,050 + GST per year. So that’s the deal – and even then, at $1,000 per year to keep the tools of your trade up to date, I’d still argue is pretty reasonable value for money. Ed: I still have a slight feeling of buying a “pig in a poke” though – have there actually been any announcements as to what might we expect in the first few upgrades? Stuart: Oh they’ve already been out and yes, look that’s another interview. We can go over all the new features … Ed:
Just tell me a couple of good ones?
Stuart: Well Premiere Pro CS has Editing finesse which is the newly designed timeline, Link & Locate, new Lumetri Deep Color Engine, new Precise audio control, Adobe Anywhere integration, new Mezzanine codecs, native formats, Closed captioning, new Mercury Playback Engine, new High-fidelity interchange to name just a few … There’s been some huge enhancements in the software products already and they will continue to roll out on a monthly basis. So this has already happened; this is not something that’s going to happen; the Creative Cloud is here, it’s well established, it’s now been running for six months and is ongoing. Ed:
And they’ve actually put back “Paste Attributes”?
Stuart: Yes they have, so you can now Paste Attributes in Premiere’s timeline. Ed:
Who do I make the cheque out to?
Stuart:
Page 19
Why DVT of course.
NZVN
KTVU – broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay area KTVU is actually in Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, California. I was visiting on my way to this year’s NAB show, taking a tour of the station to see for myself the technical side of their business. I like visiting stations here and overseas because they offer a reality check on what technology is actually being used and why. Cindy Zuelsdorf from Ensemble Designs ( Gencom story in May issue ) made the introduction to Ken Dixon, Senior Engineer. Ed: Ken, what’s the background to KTVU? Ken: We’re owned by Fox Broadcasting and KTVU Channel 2 is probably the best looking station in the Bay area. Jim Wagner, who supervises the maintenance department, probably knows more of the history than I do.
Mark Ibanez, sports presenter.
Jim: The station started in 1958. It’s still a privately owned station but now a Fox Affiliate. We service the sixth largest market in the United States and we’re the only Fox station in the top 12 or so that Fox doesn’t own outright. We’re the largest affiliate. Ed: So how many hours of programming a day would be Fox? Jim: Two hours of prime time Monday through Friday, and three hours on Sunday. Ed:
And that’s News?
Jim: No. Ed:
Or national?
Jim: Fox does not provide us with a national news show; you have to watch Fox Cable. Ken: CBS and national weeknight news, half hour newscast it’s a national coming from New York City. All I know is the affiliates carry it. Fox does not provide that. Ed: So do you actually broadcast any international news?
Jim: No, that’s network produced programming. We act like an independent in that we buy all the shows that we air but we do a tremendous amount of News. How many hours of News a day do we do Ken?
Ken: No, not unless you’re carrying CNN or Fox live. There’s a lot of cable news that deals with international stuff all day long, national and international, cable news doesn’t really get to the local level.
Ken: 4.30am till 9.00am, then 12.00pm till 12.30pm, then 5.00pm till 6.30pm and then 7.00pm till 7.30pm – 7 hours a day.
Ken: Yes.
Ed: I’m just going to make a comparison here with New Zealand, where we can get Fox, but that’s just the Fox News channel … Ken: That’s Cable News – that’s basically an independent TV station and it’s Fox Network programming seven nights a week. Ed: So if you’re in the Bay Area of San Francisco, the only way you can get these Fox programmes is through you? Ken: Yes, on the broadcast network. channels are different.
The cable
Ed: One thing I have noticed in watching American television is that a lot of your News is local and national. There’s not a lot of international news? Ken: Why would we want to educate the American public? Jim: The thing about being a Fox Affiliate is that, other than re-airing a Fox News Show, let’s say on the weekend – Fox News Sunday for instance – there is no network news that they send out to their affiliates every day, like there are on the other networks, ABC, NBC, TVF. Our local competitors are a combination of local and national news. We don’t have a national news show that we air on a regular basis from Fox. Ed:
You mean you don’t have any international news?
Ed:
So you really are a local station?
Now we’re in one of the engine rooms at KTVU – the production control room – and we have Clarke Dempsey. Ed: Clarke, you have an Ignite here. baby?
Is this your
Clarke: Yes. This is the Ignite production control system. In a nutshell, it’s audio and video combined into one software programme. It can execute everything that a normal traditional production control room can with one person controlling it. Ed:
What did you have before?
Clarke: We had a Grass Valley 4000 switcher, standard def cameras, ADO digital effects, Chyron, so you needed more people to operate that combination – a lot more – and then a Discreet audio console. We had camera people running the cameras, a director, a prompt operator. Now we have two Ignite directors who share duties. The system is designed to run with a single operator but we feel that, in late breaking News, if something’s happening, it’s a lot better to have two people running the ship. Ed: That’s more “throats to choke” is an expression I’ve heard? Ken: Yes … the assistant director might be talking to people in the field as well as the producer, but they’re helping make last-minute changes to the rundown and also aim cameras.
Page 20
think the product suffers a little bit, a small amount, through automation, because when you have a control room with 10 people in it and each person is really focused on their one job, you know everything is just a little bit better. Ken: Sometimes the system can say “turn” – and everybody turns, right, and even the system takes a little longer to turn about. Clarke: Right, and more than that, if you’ve worked together for a while, you anticipate what the captain’s going to say and so when he says “do this” – you’re already there, you already have thought, “oh, he’s going to want to do this, so I’ll get my cameras ready.” It’s a lot harder with this automated system but the benefit is that it only takes Clarke Dempsey at the Ignite and Jim Wagner at the back. two people instead of 10, and the company can take those resources and apply them towards more News Clarke: Theoretically, one person can run the Ignite gathering. So maybe in the end, it is better for the system, but we think that for quality control purposes, public, because we’re bringing them more information. it’s much better to have two. The assistant director’s function, his number one responsibility is cameras, you know, setting the shots, focusing, shading the cameras and all that. His second responsibility is communicating to the talent. So you know my hands are both busy, I’m here running audio and video and it’s hard for me to reach over and say “okay, stand by.” So he’s doing that part of it. He’s also making the cameras look as good as they need to. His third responsibility after those things are done, is to sort of just watch the director’s back. He’s looking for things that have changed or that were coded improperly or incorrectly … he’s basically just looking for blind spots, which are many when you’re in the moment and doing the show. Five minutes away, you’re not worried about that, you’re worried about what’s happening right now, so he’s kind of doing that. Right now, Lena, who is another director, is working on the Five News and I’m going to do the Six and Bill’s going to AD those shows and he’s going to direct Seven News. We kind of rotate around. It’s not a case of one’s a better director or a worse, we all help each other out, we all do the same job.
Ed:
Okay, and what happens when this goes down?
Clarke: system. Ed:
We have a completely redundant backup
What, another Ignite?
Clarke: Another Ignite system, yes. So if this one crashes … as part of our workflows every day, we load up the show on the backup system, so it’s ready to go and if this crashes we can go to a commercial, hit the button and then we’re back up and running again. That’s true for everything … well not really the Dekos, but the video servers are all fully redundant too. We have a complete mirrored backup system so, “uh-oh
Ed: Do you have voting as to who has done the best News of the night? Clarke: We don’t really vote on that. As soon as it’s over it’s out of our minds. That’s the best way to survive this business I think. Ed: And you think this system has sped things up and made things critically better for the public … or do you think the public would notice? Clarke: I think, theoretically, the public would not notice. If anything, I
Bill Smith at the controls. Page 22
Jim: What we have over here of course is the weather set; that lefthand section is weather, they have a stand back area and of course green screen. All the “eye candy” monitors have their weather computers on them and forecasts; and then the centre is the News Desk and on either side there’s large projectors. There’s a day and a night version and they’re on a pulley system so the floor crew pulls the day and night version back and forth. Over this side is an interview set – it rolls away, the desk rolls away and there’s a flat floor piece that goes in so we can put a throw down rug and couches and do interview shows there. We have an 83 inch perceptive pixel touchscreen – you know that technology where they’re always flipping … Ed: Like Report?
that’s broken”, hit the button, we’re on a complete other set of equipment. Ken: Everything stops, you just have hot keys. Oh, you can do it manually?
Clarke: Yes, this is actually a switcher, so, if need be, you push buttons. It’s virtual, but I can cut cameras just like this. Ed: But if you press those buttons while automated system was going, would it ignore that?
Cruise
the
Clarke: No, it overrides. It’s automated in that I’m telling it what to do at all times, so I can stop it and reverse and do anything I want at any time, it’s not like I hit the button and it goes, I’m still controlling each action. Now we are in the main studio which is nearly twice the floor area of that at TVNZ in Auckland. Jim: This studio is a little over a year old, but it seems like it was just yesterday. We took the existing set that was in the studio, and on a Friday night, we hurried it into another studio.
Jim: And somewhere in here I think there might even be an LED light. Those are starting to come down in price and our lighting director has looked at them, because I’ve seen a couple of demos come in. So in the future we will be buying the LED version. Ed: And replacing those big hot ones? Jim: By the way, just a trivia note, this is the studio where Mrs Doubtfire was filmed with Robin Williams. It happened just three months before I came to work here too, so I didn’t get to see it happen, but that was a thrill. Ed: A lot of old Mole-Richardson lighting, that’s the name I was looking for with those ones there. Cameras – what cameras have you got on your robotic plinths? Jim: We have Sony 1500. We bought them when they were brand new. There have been 3 or 4 newer models, but these are still the basics, the top of the line model. more next month
interconnects between the two had been figured out and we everything back in here and by the afternoon News.
Ed: I’ll have to send you a link to an issue of NZVN where I interviewed TVNZ ( February 2012 ) because they did exactly the same thing – completely redid the studio and moved everything out and then back in …
Minority
Ed: I notice in your lighting you’ve got a bit of a mixture here, some fairly old style hot ones and some fairly new Kino Flos?
The floor department built a faux set that they only did close-ups on for the anchors the next morning, because we had a Saturday morning show, while we continued to wire in Studio B. Then we moved in there for a couple of weeks while they constructed the set that had been prebuilt in this studio. Then on a Saturday, we rushed back in here after the morning News was over and had this set, this studio ready to go. All the studios moved made it
in
Jim: Yes, exactly.
The weather desk.
Ed:
Tom
I can see Simon Dallow quivering in his boots. Page 24
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Grant Petty Interview In addition to the Blackmagic story with Stuart and Chris from DVT, I had the chance to interview Grant Petty, owner, manager, CEO bit of everything of Blackmagic Design, Australia. Ed: Grant, I guess you’re still designing some of the products we see at NAB? Grant: Well I do involved in the design, obviously, when you get big, I don’t actually circuit boards any more. Ed: You used circuit boards?
to
get but this do
solder
Grant: Yes, I used to design the circuit boards and Grant, Chris and Stuart at Blackmagic. write some code. The first time I ever got a picture up nest now and think about the things that I don’t like on a monitor, I wrote the code for it. That was an about it and that’s really a strange transition. So it’s amazing day, I floated off to dinner that night, it was great to make people happy but then of course you incredible you know. But these days you work with want to keep doing that. It’s fun if you’ve got a lot of some pretty smart people. ideas and you’ve got a lot of stuff to do, but it is a Ed: Now I say that every year I come here, the pretty strange process. Blackmagic stand gets bigger, and it’s full. This is near the end of the last day and there’s still a lot of people … you must be pleased?
Grant: Yes I think it’s exciting. My feeling is that this is my annual review, like we work hard all year and obviously when you’re running a company and you’re the top guy … we’re always talking about “us” and “we” and everything and “we’re working together” but what it comes down to at some point is who do I answer to? I answer to everybody. So I’m standing on the front of the booth and people are coming up and talking – you’re kind of nervous, are people going to like what you’ve done? So I get very nervous about that. I never think what we’ve done is good enough and it’s funny, once you’ve made a product, you’re kind of got to go off and start hating it, otherwise there’s never a new model. That’s really strange, because you’ve got to love the product to make it and you just want to sleep with it and hold it and cuddle it and then suddenly you’ve got to go, I’ve got to kind of push it out of the
Ed: I don’t know whether you know it, but Blackmagic is becoming a name now that other manufacturers are comparing their products to – I hear it more and more in my interviews “well you know our one does this, the Blackmagic one doesn’t” sort of thing and in many ways that’s actually good kudos for you guys?
Grant: Well I don’t really watch any of our competition. I love making products and my products actually do heaps more than other people’s stuff does. You get a lot of egomaniac sales guys who sit there on a booth, with a crap product that’s overpriced and garbage packaging and crap metalwork and all they can do is bag out us. It’s like well I don’t even care about it, I don’t know who half these guys are. Unfortunately, that’s how nasty this industry is and you get all the creative people coming along and getting totally hoodwinked by these manufacturers. My feeling is that we make it very clear what we do, we don’t even talk about our competitors. We’ve got beautiful machined
Page 26
metal, a load of 6 gig SDI technology, incredible processing. I mean what is there that we don’t do? So they just make up stuff. People tell stories about how we’ve stolen their appliance or their IP. I mean it’s disgusting what goes on in this industry so I’m really glad we’ve got such a great team of people here. My feeling is that, year after year, we will end up proving how good we are and how good the products are. Ed:
But that’s the “tall poppy syndrome” isn’t it?
Grant: No I think it’s just scared sales guys who can’t make a win. I read books on how salesmen think and it’s frightening. I remember one time on the first day of a show there were all these guys doing their “Power” thing and I’m like “what the hell are you doing? Are you going to leap out of the roof and attack customers?” Why would you motivate yourself to be like all aggressive – you talk to the people. People are going to come up, just have a conversation and tell them what you do. If they want to buy it, they want to buy it; if they don’t want to buy it, it’s up to them. But they’ve got this whole ram the deal through and close the deal and make the sale. I say that if you haven’t done that in the lab, by the time you get to the trade show, it’s over. The thing I love most about NAB is that it’s a huge community of people making stuff. We don’t make everything, we make certain things that we think are fun to make, based on ideas we can put into them. I look at a product line and wonder why no one has ever done it properly, or done it a certain way which would be very useful, and I’ll pursue that; otherwise there’s tons of other things that we don’t do, because the guys doing them are actually really good at it. I’ve got a huge amount of respect for what they’re doing, so there’s nothing I can think of that we could do better. NAB is like a giant marketplace, people come and go … Ed:
And they can test the reality for themselves?
Grant: Yes exactly – look at 6G-SDI. That’s going to be published in a manual next week, submitted at SMPTE and it’s an open standard. Nothing we do is closed. Even DaVinci and the cameras – it’s an open file, so we don’t close anything off, things work on Mac and Windows; we’re the first people to do a product that actually switches between SD and HD; we were the first people to do 3 gig; the first people to do 6 gig; the first people to do an OS10 drive to do uncompressed video; I was the first person to do 10 bit uncompressed. All these things were done first and then you get these guys saying Blackmagic stuff’s no good. Customers know the difference, customers know who we are. That stuff used to work 10 years ago, it doesn’t
work now and I think that particularly I notice with this show, the guys have been saying there’s a lot of customers coming up and telling us about some sales guy in some dodgy booth who’s been saying our software doesn’t work and apparently a well-known camera manufacturer has been trying to say that the software in our camera doesn’t work, it’s not reliable. We’ve sold thousands of cameras and they’re all working fine, and everyone has been coming up with our cameras, filming us at the booth and telling us how much they love it. It’s got filmic quality images and it’s beautiful. Ed: And that must be important for you Stuart … if Blackmagic were producing dodgy products or ones that the customers would come back and say they’re not
Page 28
working, that’s not going to be good for you as a reseller? Stuart: Not at all, it’s fundamentally the product that people want. We sell such a huge volume of Blackmagic product because they’re making products their customers want and they’ve got such a wide range of different product. It’s not like one product fits all, so whether it’s a video IO device or a monitor or a router or any of those things, there’s so much choice and that’s what customers really like. And of course they’re extremely affordable as well and that actually makes the business work. No, they do a wonderful job. Grant: When I started out, I didn’t actually try to make things low cost, it wasn’t on my mind. What was on my mind was that I’m going to build a capture card that I’m going to sell to a guy who is creative, and that’s what I want to do. I want to empower creative people. They’re all my friends hanging out in postproduction. I really loved hanging out with telecine colourists, Paintbox guys and, if I’m going to empower those guys, I’ve got to give them something that they can buy themselves, install and it works. I remember a distributor about 16 years ago and he said when these guys (long gone now, but one of the early pioneers of capture cards when they were analogue and compressed, JPEG) … when these guys launched blah blah blah, it didn’t really work for six months. And I said to him “you don’t get it, the whole point is I’m trying to deliver a product that a creative person can actually use and they can trust it, they can rely on it at 3 o’clock in the morning when they’re trying to get the job out the door, because it’s going on air later that afternoon, they can get it out and get it done.” And
they can trust it, they can rely on it, so that a computer can actually be used for video. I mean 20 years ago at NAB 1993, Multimedia World was in the Hilton Hotel and there were all these really weird crackpot DVD things and computers. Now the whole south hall and in fact most of the show is computer-based. That’s what people saw computers as – they didn’t do video … Ed:
Not serious video?
Grant: Well Avid kind of made them work, but otherwise they were crackpot things and everything everyone made was junky, because they were computer guys trying to do video. I remember thinking the problem is that you’re computer guys, you don’t get it. Video is an analogue system that’s been digitised and we don’t want analogue by the way, we want digital. I kept asking everybody in ’94 “do you have anything SDI in and out?” and they all told me “no, there’s no market for it.” So eventually I started building it myself. What I had to do was make awesome quality so that when a person bought it they could plug it in and actually rely on it … and to be able to rely on a computer based video product was actually unheard of. So that was really important; I think the designers picked up on it first, we had a lot of designers using our products, especially when we did 10 bit uncompressed and with the DigiBeta that was a huge thing at the time – and it’s always been that way. We always have to put better technology and make it much, much more reliable because the guys aren’t engineers. We’re selling to people who aren’t very well educated in the technology side, because they’re thinking about colour all day; they think about fonts; they think about graphics design and multiple layers in a document …
Page 29
Ed: They don’t want to know about what goes on, they just want it to work? Grant: Well they want to know what’s going on with the animation on layer 3, or the colour on the foreground. That’s what they’re thinking about. My job is to package all that technology up, solve their problems and then it’s done. I get a colourist coming up and saying you’re going to put me out of business; or I’m an editor and you’re going to wreck my life. And I say I’ve got this philosophy that there are three things that matter in postproduction – and I’ve said this a million times to all kinds of people – I’ve seen thousands of postproduction companies, you do these three things right, you kick arse. You do them wrong and you will die. It doesn’t matter who I’ve seen, it always matters. The first one is a nice building, beautiful environment, like you’ve got beautiful carpet, great friendly receptionist to get you awesome coffee, beautiful sofas and funky cool stuff and it’s just a nice place to be. The second one is showmanship. You know if you think about the client’s energy level, they’re not sitting in the room by themselves while you’re running the cables outside. You’re in there talking about the job, how did the shoot go, here’s some photos of my kids, how do you like this music, let’s play that … really keeping the energy level up, keeping it exciting so they’re sitting there having a good time. And the third thing is creativity. You’re doing awesome creativity, so that when they leave they say “I’m so glad I’ve come to you guys. I love coming here, you take care of me, I just love the environment, it’s exciting and you’ve taken my job to a level I never believed it would be. I dreamed of it being 10 and you’ve made it 20.” If you do those three things, then you will grow and do well in postproduction … and funnily enough none of them are to do with technology. In not a single one of those points does the technology matter. The technology assists in (2) and (3) – great showmanship, well you can use a router, you don’t have to fumble with cables, you push a button it’s all routed. Great creativity, well I’m using the software tool I want to use, I’ve got powerful tools and I’ve got the capability of being more creative … they help, but the core thing is creativity – it comes from the person and showmanship comes from the person and a beautiful environment comes from the people preparing themselves for the client. You know the technology actually doesn’t matter, which is weird coming from a technology manufacturer, but I’m a postproduction person first. Ed: I would say more than that, you’re a people person, because you understand that businesses are about people and everything flows from that?
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Grant: Exactly, equipment doesn’t matter. Everyone gets caught up in equipment because that’s where they make their money. Ed: That’s a quote from Grant Petty “Equipment doesn’t matter.” Grant: Ed:
It doesn’t matter.
Do you have that on your wall somewhere?
Grant: No, but it just doesn’t matter … you know I hope to make things that people go “oh I’m empowered by that, I can do those three things.” Ed: I do notice that you have quite a lot of equipment that is there to fix problems that other people have with their workflows … that you provide that glue that they haven’t managed to figure out how to provide? Grant: That was my job as a postproduction engineer. I mean, sure, I fixed bits Intel telecine and when we bought Cintel I spent two hours telling them everything I hated about Cintel. Then we had to see if we could fix that and we’ve got a lot of experiments and things to see if we can do anything. We’ve got a lot of good IP with Cintel but I kind of braindumped what my thoughts were on how Cintel used to treat people 20 years ago. I think when it comes down to it, we built edit suites, we built colour correction suites and changed equipment rooms and we modified the building and changed the environment to do what we needed to do – you’d hang out with the colourist and chat about different things you could do. So you use your creativity to do things in the posthouse. In some ways I’ve just gone a bit further because I’m now making the equipment that’s in the posthouse, because the equipment that was there was a poor quality or strange or didn’t do what we wanted. In the old days (20 years ago) a lot of people made broadcast equipment and sold it to postproduction. We didn’t have Avid equipment made for us. When we built our router I put twice as many outputs in the first models as inputs. If you want to run separate monitoring – you know if you have a deck or something plugged in, but you want a separate monitor feed. And all the routers we had were an even number by an even number, so what you ended up getting was all your outputs used up and then you had all these spare inputs. So for me, building from a design for postproduction was actually really the first thing that was a good thing do. To me it’s just an extension of being a postproduction engineer. I used to take equipment and build systems; now I build equipment so the other guys can build the systems, but I’m thinking about the system as well. Ed:
You have a spare moment in your day do you?
Grant: boring!
No, but it’s a lot of fun. Who wants to be NZVN
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