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Final Cut Server and Qmaster Cluster Storage

After a week off from work, I found Final Cut Server and the Xserve where it’s setup very slow. I realized that it was because the system hard drive was full. I used an excellent tool called WhatSize to find out what was the problem. It was because of the size of the folder /var/spool/qmaster. I’ve never realized before that qmaster was copying all the files there in order to start the encoding requested by Final Cut Server.

So I changed the settings in Qmaster preferences to a temp folder created on the same Volume where we store the source files. Not only I did empty a lot of space on the System Hard Drive but now the encoding starts within a shorter time because it copies the files on a much faster Volume (Xraid).

Tags: Final Cut Server, Qmaster, Workflow

NAB Show ‘09 : Photos

The NAB Show ‘09 is now over. It was my first one and it was such a great pleasure to have the opportunity to be here. If I do go again though, I would only stay for 2 or 3 days because a week is far too long to spend in Vegas.

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Tags: AJA, Blackmagic, Matrox, NABShow, Photo

Broadcast Monitors - The Right Choice

I talked to different people here at NAB about my quest for the perfect monitor. Guess what, there is no such thing as a perfect all-in-one monitor.

So let’s imagine that your target is either SD, HD or web - or even all three of them. For web, you can use your computer monitor to correct color and check on quality. What about SD or HD? No matter what you produce, some will watch it on CRT Television and others will use a HD LCD flat screen. So you need to have BOTH to make sure that in both cases your picture looks good. You will use CRT more for color correction because it has better accuracy when it comes to color - and the LCD to check your picture’s details and ensure a great quality.

Equipped this way, you would be able to also check interlacing issues. you would also see how your SD pictures look on a HD display or your HD picture on a CRT - it could be useful if you want to check your safe and title zones.

You need to output an SD video signal and a HD one. You also need your card to be able to convert your HD down to SD in an HD editing case. You can have a look at Blackmagic design website. They have cards and addons that would do the job and play your content on both screens simultaneously. The other big advantage to use a solution like Blackmagic’s  is that they have HDMI output meaning you can just go to Best Buy and get a consumer LCD monitor for a good price.

I’m going to try that setup in one of our editing rooms. I’ll keep you posted. I have many things that I’d like to blog about, especially what I learned here at NAB Show ‘09. Stay tuned.

Tags: Color Correction, Hardware

Tool to draw your workflow

In case you would like your workflow to look more interesting than boxes and lines (Microsoft style) you might want to have a look at Omnigraffle (Apple style).

It’s a good diagram software but its big advantage is to have an Apple oriented library. If you look at graffletopia.com you’ll be able to download Apple hardware icons, Leopard icons, Apple Storage and Servers icons (called stencils) … and for free!

You might not want to go for the pro version if you don’t need the extra import/export features. I’m actually working on the UNICEF workflow using that software, I will post it here to show what it looks like once I’m done.

Tags: Software, Workflow

Broadcast monitor for color correction

Last week I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which new monitor we should get to replace an old SONY CRT that recently died on us. When you look at main brands like SONY or JVC, you realize they push in the LCD direction.

I went to a conference today hosted by David Bigelow (great speaker) who argued that LCD is not a good choice for color correction unless you are willing to spend $15K. If you want to get the best color feedback you should stick to a CRT monitor.

Apparently SONY has good HD CRT Multi Format Monitors. I will take the time to look into that soon.

Tags: Color Correction, Hardware

NAB Show : Day 0

I received my business cards with my logo from moo.com. Vegas, NAB Show ‘09, I’m ready!

Tags: Blog, NABShow