We need it yesterday. We always need it yesterday. A common theme in post production is that high-end creative must be produced on a tight deadline. Few things are more frustrating than waiting on an After Effects render while the clock is ticking loudly in the background. Like many post-production facilities, DotLot generally has a limited amount of time to deliver beautiful videos augmented with amazing graphics. Even though our computers are fairly powerful, we use of dozens of video layers and plugins at once, which taxes our poor little 8-core processors to the edge of their capabilities. By putting our heads together with our amazing IT tech Aziz, we were able to construct a solid render farm at a fraction of the cost of most high-end professional solutions.

For the uninitiated, a render farm is a group of networked computers that help to speed up render time by sharing the workload. For instance, a 30-second commercial has 900 frames. If each frame takes 2 minutes to render, then a single computer would require 1800 minutes, or 30 hours to complete the job. With multiple computers working together, each one can tackle a single frame at a time and then take the next frame in queue when it is done. If you have a five-node farm, that very same render would be completed in one-fifth of the time, or just 6 hours. In a world of looming deadlines, this makes a huge difference.

Our render farm journey started at Ikea. Sort of. A while back, Aziz sent me a link to a blog post about a guy who had built a multi-core Linux cluster using DIY parts and an Ikea Helmer cabinet. (To be fair, Obscured Clarity actually credits this guy for coming up with the original idea.) Prior to seeing this post, we had assembled a five-node render farm using old workstations that were left behind when systems were upgraded. It was a decent solution, but having five big Dell towers in a small edit bay made a lot of noise and heat and wasn’t very practical. This Helmer idea seemed to be a great alternative - we could build cheap, bare-bones systems; connect to them through our network; and they would take up less space than a single tower. Good deal!

Our plan was to split up the work - Aziz would set up the computers while I modded the case. His first task was to order all the parts for the computers. Since this project was somewhat experimental, we decided to start small with three render nodes, figuring we would add more later. Here was our buy list from NewEgg.

We originally ordered 3.5″ drives - DON’T DO THIS!  The Helmer is only big enough to fit 2.5″ laptop drives. We returned the 3.5″ drives and ordered up some spiffy Western Digital Scorpio Black 160GB 2.5″ hard drives.

With all the parts in hand, Aziz set out to build the master drive, from which we would clone all the others. He installed Windows XP and the After Effects render module and then added all of our plugins and fonts. (We primarily use Red Giant’s Trapcode Suite and Knoll Light Factory.)

While he worked on that, my first task was to head out to Ikea to buy the Helmer. It’s available in a few colors (silver, white and red) but since we were building a render farm I decided it would be appropriate to go with the barn-red version.

Like most Ikea stuff, the basic build was pretty easy. The hardest part was cutting holes in the back of each drawer for the PSU and cooling fan.

Word to the wise - if you’re using a Dremel, be sure to use an appropriate routing bit for metal. I burned through a few wood routing bits before I finally realized that there was a bit made specifically for metal routing.

Once the rear panels are cut and the screw holes are drilled, you can mount your PSU and fan.

All that’s left to do after that is to slit the label holder on the front panel of the drawer so that you can fold it back to allow for a little extra airflow over the CPU.

The next step was to build the three systems into their drawers. Aziz used Clonezilla to make identical copies of the master drive.

In order to avoid issues with the bottom of the motherboards touching the metal surface of the shelf, we cut insulating sheets out of the tops of the motherboard boxes. High tech, I know!

With a handful of zip ties we were able to get the cables under control without having to cut any of the extra ones away.

We added a switch so that we could connect all of the systems to our network.

And our Pièce de résistance is our patent-pending screwdriver power switch. We had planned to order some lighted power switches that we were going to add to the front of each drawer, but there was a problem with the order and we needed to build the farm, so we went super low-tech and decided to forego any physical switch at all. We literally said “screw it” and picked up a nearby phillips head driver instead.

In this shot you can see the CPU fan is finally up and running…

We assigned each of the three render nodes a unique, static IP, and using the Windows Remote Desktop Connection feature, we were able to connect to each one from our primary edit system.

It worked like a charm!

Now all of our renders are three times as fast as they used to be. In the near future, we plan to expand our farm to a full six systems. Eventually, we might even add additional Helmers to make our rendering lives even better.

–Mike

We are a studio. We have gear. Gear breaks.

I’m all for sending pro gear back to the manufacturer to be serviced, but in this economy, I also like to save where I can. When one of the four ballast boards on my Kino Ve 4Bank Ballast took a permanent nap, I decided to fix it myself.

With a quick search on the Kino site, I was able to identify the part number I needed. It took a few days to get the board (Kino made me order it from Samy’s) but once it came in, it only took about 5 minutes to swap.

I took some pictures…

Here’s the main ballast unit…

That had a dead ballast board, as evidenced by the non-op tube…

Start by removing 10 screws from the case cover. 3 on each side and 4 on top.

Here’s what is looks like inside. You can see in this picture (and the next) that I have already removed the white connectors on either end and the smaller red connector at one side on the second board up from the bottom.

To remove the board, just undo the three hex nuts. Two are on one side of the board (I’m pointing to one of them) and one is one the opposite end. DO NOT remove the small phillips head screw - it’s part of the board.

That’s all. Now, back to making movies…

- Mike

I’m not an engineer.

I don’t have a degree in electrical engineering, or any other form of engineering. I’ve never sat on an ISO, IEEE or any other standards panel. I’m not a computer genius. Everything I know about cameras, color space and NLEs I either picked up in film school or learned on the job along the way. I do, however, work with cameras and post-production workflows on a daily basis. I do a lot of shooting, editing and keying and I’m always trying to grasp the concept of different color spaces across the SD and HD spectrum. 

If you’re reading this post, then that probably closely describes you, too.

What is 4:2:0 HDV color space? How does 4:2:0 color space work? 

As I have done research over the years, the one thing I have learned is that color space is a deep, complicated topic. To make things worse, there doesn’t seem to be a single, easy-to-understand post on the web that breaks the concepts of color space down into layman’s terms. This post won’t be all-encompassing, but I do aim to share with you the concept of 4:2:0 color space in clear english to the best of my ability.

I highly encourage conversation on this topic. If you read this post and think I’ve gotten something wrong, please post a comment. If you can help to further clarify a point, please join in. As I continue my research and learn more about color space I’ll write about it in future posts.

Okay… here are the oversimplified basics of color space…

4:X:X refers to the number of pixels being sampled for each component of a three color image. “4″ is the maximum number and “1″ is technically the minimum number. 

For digital images, the whole ratio is generally referred to as YCbCr, where “Y” represents luminance, “Cb” represents the blue channel (as a difference between that and the luminance channel) and “Cr” represents the red channel (also as a difference from luminance). In the analog world, “YPbPr” means basically the same thing.

The first number refers to the number of luminance pixels that are sampled for each block of 4 pixels. In almost all cases, the first number will be 4. The second number refers to the number of blue pixels that are sampled for each block of 4 pixels. The third number refers to the number of red pixels that are sampled for each block of 4 pixels. Thus, 4:4:4 color space is the best possible option, since every single pixel is sampled for luminance, blue and red information.

Enter digital video and HDV. In order to save bandwidth and bitrate during DV compression, most manufacturers made their standard def DV cameras work on a 4:1:1 system. This meant that for each block of 4 pixels, all four were sampled for luminance, 1 was sampled for blue and 1was sampled for red. This means that DV doesn’t take up much bandwidth, but it does lack a significant amount of color information, which means it’s not ideal for pulling keys.

With the 4:2:0 color space of HDV the color information issue gets just a bit better. HDV works by sampling every luminance pixel as well as 2 of every 4 blue and red pixels. But what’s that crazy “0″ all about? Apparently, when the third number is 0, it means that every other line is skipped. This means that we now have 2 blue and 2 red pixels of information out of every 4, but only on alternate scan lines. This effectively gives us 4:2:2 color space, but at half the true resolution. This is better than 4:1:1, but still not great, since it leads to issues when trying to key out fine edges, moving objects, fingers, etc.

I hope that this helps to clear up some of your basic questions about 4:2:0 color space. I’ll be updating this post and adding new ones as I learn more.

– Mike

We took a trip out to Vegas to visit DTS at CES where we were able to see our three commercial spots featured prominently.

Each spot was given its very own display area!

UltraPC

Broadcast

At the Broadcast display they also turned some of our animation into print materials…

Car Audio was also on display…

DTS also put together a 15-minute presentation that showed off several of their technologies, including the brand new 11.1 audio format. For their demo of UltraPC they chose to use our UltraPC spot. Each viewer had their own pair of headphones that they were able to use for the UltraPC demo. It’s an amazing technology - two speaker or headphones truly sounds like full surround sound. Here’s a group of audio professionals and journalists watching the demo.

CES is always an amazing show that features great new technologies. DotLot was proud to be part of it.

Here’s one more cool shot. The video for this Kodak display was shot entirely on the DotLot green screen stage in Irvine.

For even more on CES, see this Buddy Blog post on the conference.

– Mike

Coming this fall … Adobe is going to release the next installment of its production suite, CS4. And after learning about some of the updated features, I have to tell you I’m quite excited. Here are some of the new or enhanced features I found most entertaining.

After Effects (AE), added several features making it even more user friendly while opening your creative genius with more tools. For instance you now have the ability to use adjustment layers like you do in Photoshop. Very nice! Also you can use the advanced clone tool to remove video blemished or add elements to your production. Adobe’s website mentioned filling a stadium of people which was fitting for DotLot and TBG as we just worked on the Madden ’09 rich media advertising. Here’s another great feature … import FLV files directly into AE. How many times have you wanted to edit or import a FLV into your production? There are so many other new and enhanced features that I implore you to look at. After Effects is an even more powerful than before.

Another Adobe tool we use often is Premiere. Here are some of the new / enhanced features YOU should be aware of: native tapeless workflow for RED, Panasonic P2, Sony XDCAM, and AVCHD. This is an awesome timesaver for us and keeps the content in its truest form. Premiere added per-sequence settings to mix content with different editing and rendering setting for each sequence. It’s something we ALL have been waiting a long time for. You can now edit multiple clip’s effects, speed/duration and transitions, all in one instance, another great timesaver. Import FLVs, cool! Blu-ray authoring. Finally, here’s a rather interesting one, automatic transcription generation with speech-to-text analysis where Adobe uses a built-in speech-to-text analysis to create a XMP metadata which allows you to make corrections to transcription. You’ll just have to see for yourself.

This blog is not the place to review all the awesome new tools Adobe has updated and enhanced. But I will tell you that with all these new features, you will see Adobe gaining more ground in the post production world, especially in online videos. Now have fun and explore all that Adobe can offer your productions.

Google has now entered into the browser world with its deployment of Chrome. At first it takes a little getting used to as the toolbars are now incorporated into the whole interface. But, what I think Google does best is how they use videos to walk you through how the browser works and what to look forward to. This form of explanation through illustration is ideal for all us visual types. Check it out: How To’s

There are several interesting features you might want to take a look at. For instance, dynamic tabs allow you to rearrange your tab’s order, move it to create its own window, and drop it back in to consolidate windows. It reminds me of Adobe’s new interface where you can create new windows for bins or tools as well as place them in the same window for tab navigation. It makes a cleaner interface and over crowding with toolbars and other nonsense we all download.

Another interesting feature is the “Incognito Mode”. It allows you to browser the web without storing a record on your computer. Now there’s an interesting use of browser technology. Now I can check the scores with peace of mind.

Google set out to create a browser to run on today’s complex web application better. Being a participant in this digital media space, one has to wonder how this new browser is going to handle all the other pitfalls of creating web pages with video, Flash, Flex, Air, Papervision, etc.  Overall, I’m very excited of this new entrant and I’ll be testing its limits to see if it retains my default browser award. Has anyone been using Chrome and want to share their experiences with us?

YouTube may be getting ready to push the envelope of online video advertising even further. Accoring to the folks over at Mashable, YouTube may soon be experimenting with big ads and captions. The idea is that premium content would draw premium viewers who would be inclined to check out premium video ads.

As an advertising professional who is usually resentful of being advertised to, I can say that I like the idea so long as the ads remain specifically targeted to me based on the content I’m viewing.

Read the whole article here: Big Ads and Captions to Make YouTube More Like… TV!

We have used several different formats for shooting video. We own a Sony Z1-U and have fought the HDV battle for a long time. Over the past year or so, though, we have also shot extensively with the HVX-200, the RED ONE and several small consumer style cameras, such as the Canon HV-20 and the Flip. We are working hard to identify the perfect production workflow for acqusition for online distribution.

After having attended an LA area reseller’s seminar on the camera we had initially been unimpressed. Recently, though, our friends at Hollywood Press TV let us borrow their Sony EX-1 for some tests.  The results changed our perspective on the camera. We’re still getting acquainted, but at first glance we know that the camera can shoot 1080p at 24 and 30fps. It can shoot overcrank and undercrank. It has a fairly intuitive menu. The footage looks amazing! We struggled a little bit with some missing frames in After Effects, but assuming there is a fix for that, I think we may have found a great all-purpose camera for web production.

Who out there has used this camera? What has your experience been? If you have shot with this camera and used it for keying, web, or just about anything else, send a comment to let us know if it was a good camera for you.