Twelve Things Every Geek Should Want for Christmas 2007
by Cutter Stevens

Well now dear readers, clients and friends, another year has passed and it's time for more Geek wishes. It's hard to narrow this list down to just twelve things, especially with all the great holiday goodies on the market right now. I'll do my best.

This last year has revealed a number of major breakthroughs. Some have been on pricing, taking what was virtually unattainable to very affordable. Others have simply been changes in the fundamental way we approach problems. In this 2008 edition of The List,  I offer up 12 products that may not blow your mind, but will certainly make your tail stand on end.

Keeping with tradition, I'm going to start The List off with my nice disclaimer from years past.

It's the holiday season, so I’m going to talk about what every Geek should want, and CAN get, on their wish list. By "Geek" I mean Video/Film Professionals, technical enthusiasts, etc.  So don't be insulted. The term Geek, which I am proud to say I am, has gotten an unwarranted bad rap. So for all you fellow Geeks, here's Twelve Days of Christmas goodies.

1. On the First Day of Christmas Cutter sold to me....An AJA I/O HD (Gasp!! Yes it is actually shipping! And more crucially, we have them in stock!)

This little unit made a big splash at NAB this year, launching side by side with Apple Final Cut Studio 2. It is poised to change the way we deal with the whole production process. Well your wait is finally over! The units are shipping and DV411 has them in stock!

Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar, the I/O HD is a portable, everything-in, everything-out, box that can connect to any professional Macintosh using Apple's ProRes DCT codec. Let me give you a rundown on how I envision I/O HD in your average HD production:

You're on set, comfy in your directors chair, with your new DV411 *snicker* configured MacBook Pro connected to your I/O HD. You're checking focus and lighting in full res on your monitor (HDSDI or HDMI for you budget conscious producers). You have tri-level sync, timecode and AES/EBU coming in so you're frame accurate with your audio guy who's sitting across the room pretending to ignore you. You have today's shot list already loaded up into Final Cut.  Roll Tape...Roll Audio....HIT CAPTURE...Action!

You've wrapped for the day. But wait! It's so early! Not having to argue with your DP about every little piece of cinematography really shaves time off. But you miss arguing with him or her, so you setup a little pow wow in your trailer... hit play...dailies 10 minutes after you wrap, in 10 bit color, right off your bloody laptop. You mark your keepers, save your code, and get ready for day two.

You've finally finished shooting your movie, you go back to your trailer and you realize for the most part you have your takes all picked out and basically have your rough cut already done (not being lazy, having repeated day one's process for the next two weeks) and you think wow, I guess I can start some effects previz and titling. You start up After Effects, Combustion or Motion and suddenly you realize you have full rastor WYSWIG output right to your monitor. And you think, "Damn! This looks good!" And away you go for about 10 minutes before you choke your laptop trying to do a fifty title overlay. Crap...

So you drive on back to the edit suite plug the I/O HD into your ProEdit MacPro Workstation (purchased and configured by DV411, hopefully), transfer all your takes onto your local or San storage...Suddenly the 50 layer composite is no big deal! And it's all coming out in 10 bit color full raster to your super cool production monitor (to be discussed later in this list).

The race to your online session never went so fast!  You saved so much time, money, shooting days, money, tape stock, money...Now you can afford to shove a KONA 3 in your DV411 configured MacPro Workstation, and some 4gb Fibre storage (also coming up on this list). So then you rent a deck, re-capture into uncompressed, and do your online session from the same damn projects you have been working in since the beginning.

Yep, the I/O HD is the real deal!!! *GASP*  And yes, it's actually shipping! If you want one, get on it, there's a lot of little kids with I/O HD on their holiday lists...stock is going fast.  And unlike Santa, we don't differentiate between naughty and nice.

2. On the second day of Christmas DV411 built for me...a Pro Edit Compressed HD Laptop

(HP & MAC)

The days of building laptops from scratch are gone. The labor involved from scratch ends up costing you, (the end-user geek), too much money. Unless, of course, you need something really special--something that even I can't think of yet. If that's the case, I'd be happy to give it a try. But for most people's needs we can configure and supe-up HP 8500 or 8700 series workstations or MacBook Pro laptops to suit most, if not all of your needs.

And whatever those needs may be....we'll find the best fit for you workflow. Give us a call about year-end specials and sales.

3.  On the third day of Christmas Santa gave to me a way cool Blu-ray Burner

You have to check out the new burners from Pioneer and Sony. The Sony BWU-200S and Pioneer BDR-202 can pack up to 50GB per disc, burning up to 5x. Archiving has never been easier, and with media costs around $1/GB, cheaper as well. Both of these models are now available for under $700 and are pretty much plug and play in any PC. Sorry guys, no Apple support as of yet, but that will sure change in the next year or so.
 

4. On the fourth day of Christmas Santa got Creative...Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium

Adobe went bloody gangbusters with their new video bundles! Not only did they fix almost everything that we were bitching about in the past two versions, but they added Flash Pro, the former Serious Magic software, DV Rack (Now OnLocation) and Ultra.

Here's what you get:
• Adobe After Effects® CS3 Professional
• Adobe Premiere® Pro CS3*
• Adobe Photoshop® CS3 Extended
• Adobe Flash CS3 Professional
• Adobe Illustrator® CS3
• Adobe Soundbooth CS3*
• Adobe Encore® CS3*
• Adobe OnLocation CS3†
• Adobe Ultra CS3††
• Adobe Dynamic Link*, Adobe Device Central CS3, and Adobe Bridge CS3

Now let's go over the pieces that get me all excited...

Adobe Premiere Pro - not such a POS anymore. In the past I have heard grumblings about Premiere (mostly from the 6.5 days). Now, it's as professional an editor as any on the market with craploads of hardware support from all the major players, AJA, Matrox, Blackmagic, and Bluefish444. Add to that native P2 support, improved rendering (Multicore support), Clip replacement, improved export engine including Flash and Blu-ray. And my favorite new improvement; a search tool to easily navigate our stupidly complex project bins. Another nice addition is that Adobe clip notes actually works, well better at least!

After Effects - I am not going to go over everything that has been added to this version, but I'll give you the big boy addition. Everyone, and I mean everyone, who switched to HD, would call us and complain about how much of a slow dog old dog After Effects was crashing under these large files. Even on the fastest machine's there still seemed to be problems. Not anymore! Adobe completely rewrote their algorithms to take advantage of today's multicore environments.

And even better, they offer an upsell version ($1195 or $400 off) that upgrades you from almost any piece of software Adobe has ever released.

5. On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me… (I wish) a bunch of next generation 1TB hard disk drives from Hitachi and Seagate

I know, know...how boring Cutter!  Really!? HDD's for Christmas??? Well you should be bloody oooing and ahhing over the new 1TBs. Yes, that's 1000 Gigabytes on a single disk! Both Hitachi and Seagate have recently released 1TB drives with 32MB caches and just over 4ms seek times. I just recently put four of the Hitachis' in a XW8400 using the onboard SATA controller and clocked a sustained 200MB/s up until 80% capacity. Add to that a price point of around $400 per drive and you damn well better be oooing and ahhing!! You can't even imagine the amount of stuff you can store on your local machine. Buy a workstation from us -- we'll even move all your old crap over for you!!

6. On the sixth day of Christmas every Geek should want....an Indigo Mixer from Grass Valley

Finally an HD video mixer that isn't priced into the stratosphere--Indigo! For under $17k (rather that $50k) you can mix, switch, upconvert/downcovert in HD and SD. You can switch between almost any video, audio or computer source as well as simulcast both HD and SD signals. This unit is a must-have for any kind of live production environment, from night clubs to churches.  And it integrates easily into your digital signage system!

Key features include:
~Live seamless switching of video, computer, and audio sources
~Mix digital and analog sources
~Upconvert/downconvert multiple video channels between HD and SD
~SD/HD simulcast output
~Pre-programmable video layouts with keyers for picture-in-picture and other effects
~Digital effects with 2D and 3D transformations, including page turns, ripples, and swirls
~Linear/luminance and chroma video keyers
~Integrated control of the Grass Valley Turbo™ intelligent digital disc recorder (iDDR) and other
devices
~Stereo analog and AES/EBU audio
~SDI and DV audio de-embedding and re-embedding
~Four-band parametric equalizer and motor-driven audio faders
~Simple audio-follow-video mode
~Intelligent audio-delay management for live production lip sync

Just bitchin' to say the least!
 

7. On the seventh day the Heavens rained down because Santa gave me a Storage Area Network! Woo hoo hoo hooooo!

You all want it. Your facility needs it. Now is the time to step up buster, because we can give it to you!

DV411 can give you the SAN that's tailor made for your facility. Whether you use Avid, Final Cut, Premiere or anything else at all, we can give you the shared storage that makes your workflow a breeze.

We now offer solutions from Facilis, Avid, CommandSoft, Rorke, Apple, and Sanbolic so we know we can find you the right fit at the right price. Almost as important as the SAN software you choose is the highest quality storage hardware components to make it work without a hitch.

Lets start with the actual arrays. For the last two years or so G-Technology has been the most impressive in the 4Gb arena. As a company they have never given me a problem with support and their units are fast as, well faster than even I need them to be! Because of this the G-SPEED XL is my San array of choice. They offer both 12 and 16 drive arrays at a cost WAAAY below $2 per GB. In my testing, (which has been extremely extensive as of late) they will sustain well over 400MB/s until 80% capacity. We're not talking weenie burst rate benchmarking here either! I ran these arrays with actual large HD files Captured from AJA, Matrox, Bluefish and Blackmagic. Ranging from 16MB to 20GB. So you can be sure when we say it will play your video, we mean it. DV411 has never believed the hype. Which is why test everything ourselves.

So you got your arrays, now you need your switches.  So Santa gave us a 4Gb switch from Q-logic. Again, there's a lot of players in the Fibre switch market, but I've found no need to experiment. On the low end the SANbox 1400 gives you an entry level 10 port switch for around $3k and moving on up to the infinitely expandable, stackable SANbox 5600Q 16 port switch for around $6k. Both are extremely easy to configure and have almost no latency problems. At least for me it doesn't pay to use anything else.

Finally, 4Gb fiber cards from Atto. Weather you need 1,2 or 4 port cards, The Atto Celerity series cards are again the only ones I feel comfortable using. Yes they are a bit more expensive than some others, but they're worth it. Let me just say this, in the 2+ years we've been selling 4Gb cards I don't think I have ever had one DOA or a single card go bad. Not one RMA! You just can't argue with that kind of track record.

Anyway, let me leave you with this thought...SAN SAN SAN SAN SAN SAN SAN SAN SAN SAN........
 

8. And on the eighth day of Christmas...New monitors for systems and production.  LCD's have come a long way baby! In price, quality and functionality!

Let's start on the production side. My cost/performance monitor of choice is the JVC DT-V24L1DU. I could not be more satisfied with this monitor. It's the first sub $20k LCD monitor that you could even consider doing color correction on. And by sub $20k, I'm talking very far under...I'm talking $4200. That's right, $4200 gets 1920x1200 resolution with HDSDI, DVI/HDMI, Component, Composite, Sync and audio. With all the professional features you expect from blue check to Graphic Audio level/timecode display to YUV/RGB switch. It's finally time to get rid of that old CRT SD monitor, it's too heavy.

On the computer side, there are two models that make me smile. First off is the HP LP3065 30" Widescreen LCD Monitor. Aren't you tired of having two monitors with that bloody bezel right in your face!?! The 30" gives you all the real estate you need with an incredible 2560x1600 resolution. Plus it gives you three dual link DVI inputs so you can run three systems with an inexpensive keyboard mouse KVM. Alex (DV411's President) got one for his office, mounted it on a swivel VESA mount arm and I have been stupid jealous ever since. It's now priced under $1500 so cost can no longer be an excuse for not buying one.

Second is the new Samsung 245T 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor. This is the ultimate input-everything-you-have-to-it monitor. The basic specs are standard for a 24 inch monitor; 1920x1200, 1500:1 contrast, 6ms response. What makes it cool is that it has (bear with me while I list) DVI, D-sub, Component, Composite, S-video and HDMI. So yes, it can support your system--1080p from your PS3, your cable box, and all of your SD sources. And oh wait!!! It has full picture in picture and picture behind picture functionality between all the inputs. Talk about a well rounded monitor...damn!  And under $800 to boot!

9. On the ninth day of Christmas there were ADVC Converters for all!! (Again)

Canopus owns the ninth day three years in a row for its converters!

Whatever your I/O needs, Mac, PC or Linux, HD or SD, Canopus is there for you with a price that can't be beat. Canopus converters have consistently been one of the most worry free and fastest moving items that we sell. And for good reason... they work.  And if they don't come broke outta the box (or/by some fluke) chances are they never will.

10. The tenth day of Christmas rolled around and boy was I tired.  But I got a week off and found time to shoot a damn movie on a cinema camera that everyone can now afford!

First off...the bloody RED camera is essentially still a phantom. So until it materializes, you can't have one yet so stop asking me for it. However, there are two cameras you CAN have RIGHT NOW, and both are just as awesome and....DV411 will give you a package that includes everything you need (and nothing you don't) to shoot it right.

Option number one is the JVC GY-HD250U. Since it was released it has remained one of the best priced performance cameras, as well as one of the most versatile. Not only is it a native 24p camera for that filmy feel, but it gives you; HD-SDI output, a standard bayonet mount with working steps for any lens you can think of (even primes!), Genlock,Timecode input and just about every other feature you can imagine in a pro camera. Add Matte Box and follow focus kits from Chroziel, maybe a Schneider zoom or wide angle extender, Filter sets from Tiffen or anything else you can think of and your ready to go.

One step up on the pricing scale (but not too far up) we find one of the most impressive cameras from NAB, the Panasonic AG-HPX500. Those of you who know me probably remember my irritation with the whole P2 chip scenario--too expensive for not enough recording time. But this camera is priced (14K for the head) where spending ($1500 per card) still keeps it more than affordable for a camera of its quality. In fact I consider it cheap when you take into account its 3x2/3-inch CCD's than scan at a full 1080p 60(or 50). You also get four P2 slots with approximately one hour of record time (using 16GB cards), HD-SDI and analog out, Timecode and Genlock etc. It even has 1394 and USB for uploading. Even though I have never been a huge fan of the VariCam frame rate functionality, there are a bunch of amazing features that Panasonic brought over from its high-end counterpart. One is the cine-gama, which gives you that warm film feel; others are focus assist,  chromatic fix and chroma temp/ND settings. To make it even more attractive Panasonic offers a five year parts and labor warranty. All these features and a picture quality that can't be matched in this price range.

Other 2/3 HD camera packages used to range in the six figure area, but we can put a great package together for half that!

11. The eleventh day of Christmas came about and I was ready to pass out.  But then Santa left me a DigiDelivery server from Avid!

In these days of telecommunication and everybody moving to the boonies, getting your dailies/clips/frames/etc. can be a pain.  Not to mention it'll leave you with  an enormous Fedex bill. DigiDelivery is one of the best solutions in this area. Basically you can send any file of virtually any size to anyone with an e-mail account and with unhackable security. All you have to do is drag and drop into the DigiDelivery GUI and send it. No passwords, no FTP addresses and completely lossless compression. All the files are stored in encrypted form, so even if you get robbed you won't see your movie in a torrent the next day. There are no issues with seat licenses, or confirmations. Unlike FTP, if you get disconnected your down/up load will pick up where it left off. For larger facilities having one DigiDelivery server at each site will automatically send the files so no individual workstation or your main server gets tied up downloading. If you think really broadly, (which I've been earnestly trying to get into our client's heads) it would be really easy to charge others for secure encrypted delivery. There is a tight reporting log built in that would make billing and delivery confirmation as easy as any other part of the system.

We have been pushing this system for quite some time now and it's still the easiest and best solution that I've seen.  Really it's a no brainer. There are two configurations available, a limited Serv/LT which has a smaller hard drive and is limited to 20 pending deliveries at a time (around $4k) and Serv/GT which has a 500GB and is unlimited in every way (around $10K).

12. And finally, on the twelfth day of Christmas, the ultimate goodie... Digital Signage systems from X20Media.

To those of you who are unfamiliar with digital signage as a term: Anytime you walk into a 7-11, mall, or the entire cities of Las Vegas, Hong Kong and New York, and you see video with informational content all over it - that's digital signage.

"Digital signage is a form of out-of-home advertising in which content and messages displayed on an electronic screen, or digital sign, can be changed without modification to the physical sign, typically with the goal of delivering targeted messages to specific locations at specific times."

In the past, doing this on any scale was a tremendous investment in broadcast gear and software. Nowadays, thank goodness, systems have gotten so fast and powerful that you can do signage for the cost of your average home theater.  For under $20K you can set up a turnkey broadcast output system with customized templates ready-made for your company. Whether you are running a retail display, internal corporate channels, real estate, cable TV programming, or even sporting events. X2O is the easiest solution I have ever seen. If you've ever used power point to make a presentation, you can set up an X2O channel. This is because the X2O software works directly inside power point to build the channels allowing you to easily add video, graphics, live data streams etc. without needing to learn a proprietary graphics package. It's hard to cover every aspect of what the software can do, so I urge you to check out X2Omedia.com for all the various data sheets, add on modules and server options. Then call us for the  turnkey system to get you started for the holidays.

But wait, it's not over yet...Stocking Stuffers!

Since it is Christmas time, I'm in the mood for a couple of low cost stocking stuffer items. So here's some fun stuff to take a look at:

The Intensity series from Blackmagic. These little guys are great for monitoring video to your low cost HDMI HD TV and a good match if you have a HDMI consumer camcorder and are having problems with capture quality over USB. Pricing is $249 Intensity and $349 Intensity Pro.

Red Giant plug-ins.  From Film Fix to Magic Bullet, these plug-ins are used by everybody in the industry, and the prices from $99 to $800 make it hard to say no. The best sellers to look at are the Magic Bullet Suite ($799), Primatte Keyer ($699), Film Fix ($799) and Instant HD ($99).

The GEN10 and HI5 mini converters from AJA. DV411 will be running a hell of a special on these items (see our newsletter for details) in December. The GEN10 is the only sync generator you'll ever need; tri-synch, blackburst, color bars and AES-11 tone (390). The HI5 takes your single link HD-SDI signal and converts and scales to HDMI and will even demux to stereo RCA if you need it.  Pricing is $490 for the HI5 and $390 for the GEN10. And because everyone always forgets.... you'll need to order the $40 US power supply or $65 for the universal version.

Now it's time for my traditional sentimental closing words. I'll try and keep the traditional Cutter sarcasm to a minimum =8)

This has been one of the most successful years ever at DV411. This is all thanks to our glorious clients who keep pushing us to the next level of technology, not to mention keeping my ass employed for yet another year. I would especially like to thank Kurt from Unified Pictures (unifiedpictures.com), Randy from Intel, Robert from 24Frame, Mac from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and all the boys from Digital Sports Video (DSV). You guys rock!!

As always, if any of you find you find yourselves in LA, please drop on by!  We'll have a beer and dwell on things past... Or maybe things future. Whatever we do we'll have some fun. As for me, I am looking forward to a holiday season filled with vintage bottles of cabernet, perhaps a few new good books, and if I'm very lucky my girl will give me a massage. Now that's what I call a Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

Cutter Stevens
Technical Director
DV411
310-838-9000