Video Editing Workstation

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

No, that's not an opinion. TFT monitors often have a contrast ratio of 400:1 or so. Any CRT can double that. Good CRTs can triple or quadruple that - in fact, CRTs are generally capable of much more contrast than a film print, which is one reason it's possible to match the two.

 

The reason this is possible is that a CRT can, give or take a bit of blooming and focus issues, increase the brightness of its maximum white areas simply by increasing the tube HT. The only way an LCD can increase brightness is by using a more powerful backlight - and that increases the brightness of black areas as much as it does white.

 

There's just been released an LCD variant which uses programmable LED backlighting, allowing it to achieve very high contrast ratio, probably higher than any other practical display ever has - but it isn't capable of putting a full white pixel next to a full black one, since the LED backlighting is comparatively coarse.

 

Print people do seem to have a strange fondness for TFTs, possibly because they're Apple Mac people and they get them with their G5s, and possibly because they're often not very competent technically (these two things may or may not be connected). Ask a print person what resolution something should be, and he'll say "300dpi" or whatever, and not understand how that doesn't tell you anything unless you have a size to go with it. Anyway - this is why print people generally have reasonably upscale proof printers, because their TFT monitors are all over the place. Certainly you can't reliably calibrate a TFT to ICC colour profiles, which is what CMYK printing generally uses.

 

TFT monitors are not accurate for imaging work. They're pretty, and easy on the eye, but the contrast ranging is all over the place.

 

Phil

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

Well, CRT is overall better yes, but I don't think contrast is a big issue. I just got mine today actually, seems bright enough. I think it's about 430 on contrast.

 

I mean, it's GOT to be good enough if graphics artists use them. I don't know maybe they have some other reason for it, but they?re certainly not amateurs.

(I've seen their work, amazing)

 

And yes, easy on the eye may seem like a nice feature, but in my opinion it's essential for someone that's going to be working on it all day.

 

Certainly you can't reliably calibrate a TFT to ICC colour profiles

Ahh who bothers with that.. Seriously, what is the point of doing that? I've never bothered with it before.

Edited November 12, 2004 by Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

>> Certainly you can't reliably calibrate a TFT to ICC colour profiles

>Ahh who bothers with that..

 

Anyone who wants their printed output to look like the monitor, for a start - or in this context, applied to a calibration tool like Truelight, anyone who wants the film print to look like the monitor. When you're charging for stuff it has to be right.

 

Phil

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

Surely it can't be far out though, can it?

 

I've never really got into the technical bits of display devices before; PC's are my thing. I've left my new TFT on factory default settings, although I'm not sure how it would look when compared with colours of a TV.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> Surely it can't be far out though, can it?

 

Yes! I've just spent the last howevermany-hundred words telling you it is!

 

> I've never really got into the technical bits of display devices before

 

Then don't try to tell other people about them.

 

> I've left my new TFT on factory default settings, although I'm not sure how it

> would look when compared with colours of a TV

 

But you just told me that TFTs look like TVs. If you aren't sure, how did you form this opinion?

 

Seriously, I don't mean to be, well, mean, but you really have got to separate fact from opinion a bit better - and try to inform your opinion a bit better before expounding it.

 

Phil

[Alvin Pingol]

TFT monitors are not accurate for imaging work. They're pretty, and easy on the eye, but the contrast ranging is all over the place.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I concur. Although my LCD display is quite sharp, everytime I master something in Photoshop (the computer with the CRT) and view on the secondary computer (that with the LCD), the differences are extreme.

 

The overall white balance on the LCD is too warm. There are RGB adjustments that I've tweaked, but this doesn't actually change the white-point of the monitor. Thus, if one's monitor is calibrated for 5300K, and they adjust the blue strength so as to raise it to "5600K", everything but the pure whites will be at 5600K. This can result in some very weird pictures. (It's a Samsung, BTW).

 

Also, saturated colors seem to hit their maximum before they do on my CRT, probably due to the differences in gamut.

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

Ah, right.

 

BTW to anyone interested in this, http://experts.about.com/q/1521/3356921.htm

[Michael Most]

Seriously, I don't mean to be, well, mean, but you really have got to separate fact from opinion a bit better - and try to inform your opinion a bit better before expounding it.

 

Well, to quote your earlier post, "Final Cut Pro is better (than Avid) for long form and film." Unfortunately, over 90% of the editors and producers of long form television programs and feature films happen to disagree with you. That doesn't necessarily make you wrong, but it certainly makes what you said an opinion that is somewhat uninformed and out of step with those who actually make their livings editing longform and feature films.

 

All opinions should be welcome here, regardless of the source. And the more experienced of us should offer the benefit of that experience.

[Elhanan Matos]

I just recently put together a small computer for editing some of my small projects at home.

 

It's a PC

 

Windows XP Pro 64-bit edition (beta)

Athlon 64 3500+ (socket 939)

1GB of Corsair RAM

Nvidia GeForce FX 5700 plus

and a SeaGate 160GB SATA drive

 

It cost me roughly $1000

 

I haven't edited anything on it yet because I havent picked out which editing software I want to use yet, but it plays Doom 3 just fine! ;)

 

Oh and on that note, does anybody have any recommendations on editing software? My only real requirements is that the program has to be able to take in and spit out TIFF or DPX sequences.

[Jason Maeda]

All opinions should be welcome here, regardless of the source. And the more experienced of us should offer the benefit of that experience.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

sort of...

 

phil has proven himself to be a trustworthy source of information. when someone asks a question regarding video, we all look for phil's answer. when i asked my question in this thread, and then went back to read the replies, i quickly learned to scan past all of daniel's answers because they were clearly uninformed. the reality is that if everyone is encouraged to respond to questions regardless of how accurate their information (or how polite their manner) we will quickly become bogged down in an innavigable maze of fractured threads.

 

"the price of freedom is eternal vigilance" - we all know who said that (well, all the americans should) and it is true for societies of all sizes, including our little group right here.

 

certainly i have been caught trying to answer questions that i should have left for someone else, and it is a mistake i have tried not to repeat. when it comes to other diseases of this website, like political discussion, (also perpetrated mostly by people who have little understanding of the topic) we have seen a marked improvement due to vigilant effort and tim's powerful veto.

 

my point is that reckless replies should be discouraged in order to maintain a useful format.

 

and by the way tim, "innavigable" IS a word, tell your spell checker to stop telling me it isn't! oh wait maybe that's my computer...

 

jk :ph34r:

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Premiere, without question, on the PC. In fact, get the Adobe digital video collection, and you're completely sorted. Premiere won't read DPX, but it will read TIFF sequence - at this level it's unlikely that a piece of software will be able to anti-log the image data even if it could understand the format.

 

And by the way, you've only just started to spend money! Monitoring, test and measurement, audio monitors, metering and mix, VT, patchbays - get your bank account ready for a rude awakening.

 

Phil

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

I have to admit, I was wrong, sorry, I was just going by what I THOUGHT I knew. I was under the impression that TFT's were good for image editing. Which of course their NOT.

 

(But bear in mind, that was only the TFT comment, what I said about the computer was correct and I still stand by it)

 

I'm just curios on the contrast ratios. I take it people mean the actual brightness of the screen? If so then, I find that kind of strange because CRT's can double TFT's, but my TFT seems VERY bright.

Edited November 15, 2004 by Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

[Jon Allen]

I'm just curios on the contrast ratios. I take it people mean the actual brightness of the screen? If so then, I find that kind of strange because CRT's can double TFT's, but my TFT seems VERY bright.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was talking to an old instructor I had last week who said that the human eye can only see about 300:1 contrast ratio. Which means that there are a couple things at work- The TVs and LCDs that are manufactured now with 1000+:1 ratio are either making TVs that are simply out of this world, or they're lying (or using a poor standard, excuse me).

On this note, ever wonder why we're still using Quake 3: Arena as a benchmark for video card scores? I remember playing that with an old voodoo2! The point is, they're benchmarking video cards that can easily display the game (at maximum res and highest settings) at well over 500fps! When you can't really tell the difference sometime after 25fps- nevermind your monitor will never display all those frames.

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

ever wonder why we're still using Quake 3: Arena as a benchmark for video card scores?

Yeh I've noticed that, not always Quake 3 but I get what you?re saying. Yeh new graphics cards can run them brilliantly, and the graphics look so smooth. Just another advertising thing I would have guessed.

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

I have the following setup, it has worked pretty much flawless. I've had maybe two frozen screens the entire time I've used it.

 

Off the shelf emachine T3065

 

AMD Athalon 3000+ @ 2.17Ghz

 

Pumped up with

 

1GB RAM

160GB 7200rpm system drive

250MB 7200rpm media drive with 8MB buffer

Pioneer A07 DVD burner

Radeon 9200se Dual head video card

Very old but compliant ADS Pyro 1394 card

 

EMU 1820m sound card with PCI and sync daughter card (completely awesome sound card by the way same ADC's as PROTools TDM)

 

Two Dell CRT's M990/M991

 

I can edit with Premiere Pro 1.5 and run the sound through the EMU mix system at the same time with no problem. That being said I'm not stuck on one kind of system. If I could afford an Apple I would probably get one setup with FCP HD.

Edited November 16, 2004 by J. Lamar King

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

Seems like a nice system. One thing that piss*s me off about the Athlons is that they call it Athlon 3000, and people think it's 3.0 GHz, when it's not.

 

Oh by the way Craig if you do end up getting a PC with windows, don't get XP Professional. Get the home edition. Professional edition is designed to run servers, they leave more ports open, and run more services. So its bad security wise, and it will also slow your system down.

 

Everyone seems to think they need Professional edition because their using it for their work, complete rubbish. Home edition is cheaper aswell. Ok if you were running a sever (i.e. IIS) then the extra features in professional may come of some use.

Edited November 16, 2004 by Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Nrrrrrk! XP Home doesn't support multiple processors!

 

Phil

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

Nrrrrrk! XP Home doesn't support multiple processors!

Nor does it support multiple monitors. But (no offence Craig) he doesn't seem like a professional editor, so I doubt he would even use multiple processors. Great if you have loads of ?dosh? to spend, but for fundamental editing they?re not necessary.

 

For anyone interested, here's a document listing the differences between Home and Professional Edition. If there's a feature you need then check with this first.

Document

Edited November 16, 2004 by Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

[Jon Allen]

What is the origin of that document?

Anyway, as it seems from the hardware discription, he only has one processor anyway.

I always thought that even though the processor says 3000, it doesn't mean 3ghz, but it means that 3ghz is the "effective" clock speed. So even though it's not, it still is- kind of. I don't know where I heard this, so I have no proof- nor am I committed to this side.

I personally don't care for AMD processors anyway. I can still edit long or short projects on my old p4 2ghz just fine. It's just a matter of being able to do as quick as the other guy.

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

I always thought that even though the processor says 3000, it doesn't mean 3ghz, but it means that 3ghz is the "effective" clock speed. So even though it's not, it still is- kind of

Yeh that's a good point, I'm not sure why they do it exactly. But I think advertising may have something to do with it though. Like.. "FCUK" .... that's just stupid.

-------------------------------------

The one thing my computer struggles with is editing film strips. Completely insane..

----------------------------------------

I can't wait to test out Adobe Premiere 1.5, it has some cool new features that I?ll be looking at. I just won it on eBay for £100. Not too bad considering the RRP is round about £500. Although I'm most likely going to sell it, for even more. I don't get much time to play around with these things. (Damn education.. pha... who needs it..)

 

I know this is slightly off topic, but on the odd note, how much do you reckon I could probably sell it for? I kinda bought it so I could make a small profit on it. It is brand new, serial code unregistered.

Edited November 16, 2004 by Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

The multiple monitor feature that is missing from XP home refers to the ability to have extended desktops. This is good for NLEs as it allows you to split the long horizontal timeline across two displays, or perhaps keep one display full of your effects and tool palettes. However, this isn't essential (I've never used it) especially if you have an additional PAL or NTSC (or, I suppose, hi def) video monitor - and you can still do that under XP, as it simply sees the DV device and not the display it's driving.

 

Phil

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

Hi,

 

The multiple monitor feature that is missing from XP home refers to the ability to have extended desktops. This is good for NLEs as it allows you to split the long horizontal timeline across two displays, or perhaps keep one display full of your effects and tool palettes. However, this isn't essential (I've never used it) especially if you have an additional PAL or NTSC (or, I suppose, hi def) video monitor - and you can still do that under XP, as it simply sees the DV device and not the display it's driving.

 

Phil

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you Phil, are you saying XP Home doesn't support multiple monitors with extended desktop? Mine does. You go to the monitor control panel and it allows you to pick which monitor is number 1 or 2 then you can check a box that says "extend my desktop" or something. That allows me to stretch the PPro timeline and move palettes across both monitors. In order to do it with that program though you have to minimize the screen then drag it out and save the workspace.

 

I have XP Home and service pack 1. I'm deadly affraid to install service pack 2 yet.

Edited November 17, 2004 by J. Lamar King

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Actually I was basing that on Mr. Ashley-Smith's statement. Whoops.

 

Phil

[Jon Allen]

This is kind of a cop-out, but you have to understand- if you're not an authorized distributor/retailer, then you'll only be able to sell it for whatever someone will pay for it.

It's like an auction, you have what the appraiser tells you it might sell something for and what someone will actually pay for it at an auction. Different factors are too numerous to consider for.

But I'd guess maybe half retail would be a safe sticker price. ;)

[Guest will]

Craig,

 

What do you shoot on? Do you expect to deal with multiple formats regularly?

What will you be finishing on? For film - DVD? For broadcast - DigiBeta, BetaSP, DVCPRO?

 

I'll tell you what works well for us and you can decide if it fits.

 

I personally use a dual 1.8 with two Dell 21" LCD monitors

(much cheaper than Apple displays and very good quality).

 

Attached to the Mac is a cool box called an IO...that's it, just IO.

It's made by AJA (aja.com) and works directly with FCP.

It has every connection immaginable and we use almost all of them.

 

Inside the mac is two 250gb HDs and 4GB ram.

 

For external storage there is two 500GB Lacie drives connected

to a Lacie 800mb Firewire PCI card.

 

We get lots of SD formats, digital and analog. If you are doing

broadcast editing you will most likely experience the same. This

system works great and can input and output just about anything.

 

We do a lot of short and long form ducumentaries, and this system has

worked very well. I would assume it would do the same with your short

and even full length features.

 

*Something to consider. If you will be working in 24fps from DigiBeta, or any

other SDI or component only source, then consider a Kona 2/LS, Decklink,

or Pipe Pro card as well. The IO currently does not support 24p, but hopefully

soon. :) If it's on DV, DVCPRO25/50, or DVCPROHD then you can just

bring it in at 24fps over regular firewire.

 

I'm begining to ramble, just email me with questions.

griffithw (at) comcast (dot) net.

 

 

hope that helps

 

-will