Rarevision’s 5DtoRGB tool is making the blog rounds this week, and it looks rather amazing. Here’s a quick summary of the tool and links to initial user testing.

At NAB 2010, one of the coolest new features in After Effects was the Rotobrush. We got a peek at Rotobrush in our video coverage of NAB. Now that Adobe CS5 is in wide use, you might want a tutorial on how to use this sweet new tool…so here you go, compliments of the always useful kenstone.net.

Scott posted a nice review of the recently updated color correction and grading plugin for Final Cut Pro. The new color selection tools for secondaries look like they alone are worth the price of admission.

Here’s a tutorial with more than you ever wanted to know about Cinema Tools. Beyond it’s obvious pro applications, some indie DSLR filmmakers are also using Cinema Tools to conform 29.97 or 30p Canon footage to 24p (applying a slight slow motion effect in the process). This is also how you can conform Canon 7D footage from 60p to 30p or 24p, getting that smooth slow motion.

Over at PVC, editor Scott Simmons has posted about the new Magic Bullet Grinder tool, for prepping and transcoding your DSLR footage into an editable format. If you are looking for an introduction to this new tool and what it offers, Scott’s got you covered.

Jerome Stern has many many thoughts and comments on the myriad gamma issues swirling around Mac editors using DSLR footage. It’s a very long, very detailed article, and to be honest I haven’t been able to read it in it’s entirety yet. But he’s piqued my interest with the topic, so perhaps this will interest you as well. Check it out, love to hear feedback as readers digest his comments.

Over at Shockwave-Sound, Terry Wilson has penned a nice article with tips and tricks for faking the best foley and sound effects for your film and video productions. He’s got some great advice for how to creatively tackle your project. Here’s a snippet:

The two key priorities which you should remember to help you do this are:

* Create a world which has distractions removed as much as effects put in.
* Create a world which is believable as opposed to “real”.

A director of photography uses light, framing and depth of field to get the audience to focus on the most important part of the picture. The basic principle of mixing sound is the same: The focus should be clear, crisp and sharp while the background is more indistinct, helping to create the required sense of space and time.

Head on over there and check it out.

Next Wave DV has posted a lengthy tutorial on how to use Video Copilot’s Optical Flares plugin package to integrate realistic high-quality lens flares in your next production. So now you can make your work look like Star Trek, or Transformers, or any number of popular music videos. It’s an effect that is at times overplayed, but one you’ll no doubt be asked to create at some point, so better arm yourself with knowledge! Watch below.

G-RAID Review
G-Technology
www.g-technology.com

Introduction
Monday April 12, 2010 marks the beginning of FreshDV’s fourth year broadcasting daily video coverage from the National Association of Broadcasters tradeshow. The week of NAB is always a busy one for the FreshDV crew; we run camera crews all day on the tradeshow floor, meanwhile editors ingest, edit, and output video segments for broadcast here at FreshDV and also via syndication partners. It’s nearly-live coverage from this incredibly large tradeshow, and the pace is frenetic.

For the last two years we’ve shot and edited the show in HD, downrezzing for the web on output. NAB 2009 was the year we went solid-state, shooting on the Sony EX1 platform and running media cards back and forth to the edit suite. When we transitioned to HD acquisition, we also adopted a new storage strategy. For the last two years, we’ve been using G-Tech G-RAID 2 hard drive systems for storage and editing. They are reliable, fast, and durable enough to hold up to the rigors of our crazy production schedule. Since we started using these hard drives, G-Tech has released a new version, the G-RAID 3 with even larger max capacity space and a few other options like the addition of an eSATA port (and removal of the FW400 option, except via a FW800-to-400 cable). Beyond that, it appears that the overall design and has not changed. For the purposes of this review, we’ll be talking specifically about the G-RAID 2 systems.

Design and Construction
The G-RAID 2 is a two-drive RAID system, configured in a RAID-0 striped volume array for speed. In my testing, these units deliver upwards of 65MB/s read and write speeds, so they are plenty fast for our compressed EX1 footage and ProRes 422 sources (the latter which is used for our sponsor bumpers and supporting footage/b-roll). While the beautiful aluminum exterior matches the look of Apple’s pro line of desktop towers, it’s not all about looks. The aluminum case acts as a heat sink, and is built like a tank…they are rock solid. These are solid drive systems that can literally take the heat of production.

One of the things I most appreciate about the G-RAID 2 is the multiple interface options. These drives come equipped with Firewire 800, Firewire 400, and USB 2 ports for connecting to your computer system. What’s great is the fact that there are two FW800 and FW400 ports, and the drive acts as a hub. So if you are working from a laptop system that is only equipped with a single Firewire port, you can daisy-chain multiple firewire devices via the GRAID. I can’t tell you how many times this has come in handy when working on the road. Obviously the first drive in the chain needs to be powered up to pass through connections to other devices. What’s interesting is that you can chain a single or multiple G-RAID drives to one another via FW800, and add a FW400 to the end of the chain. Very helpful.

Setup and Configuration
The G-RAID 2 comes with all the necessary cables and power cords you need to connect to your computer with Firewire 800. If you want to connect via USB 2 (why?), you’ll need one of those USB cables with the squarish end for the drive port. The first thing you’ll likely notice upon unpacking the drive is the large power brick. That is one of the minor annoyances of the G-RAID, as the power brick is nearly half the size of the drive. The other think you’ll probably notice upon connecting and powering up your drive system is the G-RAID’s internal fan. Heat is the mortal enemy of hard drives, so G-Tech includes a small fan in their enclosures. This adds a bit to the noise level of the drive system, and I suppose is a necessary evil. I’ll trade a little ambient noise for increased reliability any day. Setup is quick and simple, as G-Tech ships drives pre-configured to work with Mac OSX. Windows users will want to reformat the hard drive before use. Beyond that, there’s not much else to report. Setup is simple.

Drive Performance
In testing with AJA’s drive System Test utility, I was able to obtain 77.2MB/s read and 65.7MB/s write speeds. At the time of the test, the drive was 1/3 full. I also tested the drive when 3/4 full, and saw the read and write speeds drop slightly to 76.9MB/s and 63.2MB/s, respectively.

Reliability
G-Tech is a well-respected name in the industry, and I know a lot of production users who swear by their drives. But every good name is not without the occasional issue. In my case, about 6 months after acquiring my G-RAID system, I started noticing a clicking noise when powering up the drive. Soon thereafter, the drive would occasionally refuse to mount on my computer. After sending the drive in for replacement, I’ve been running this G-RAID 2 system for about 18 months with no other such issues. I use the drive as my editing scratch, for captures, renders, encoding and such. So it gets used on a regular basis on a variety of HD projects, mainly various ProRes flavors and some RED R3D sources. The only other issue I’ve run into recently is the fan on the enclosure is starting to get loud on occasion, and will need to be replaced. It’s my understanding that this is a user-replaceable part, and it’s simply some maintenance that I need to make time for in the near future. happily, our 2nd G-RAID 2 system has not experienced any such issues, and continues plugging away on a daily basis in heavy production use.

Summary and Conclusions
I’ve been very pleased with my G-RAID system for the past two years. With the exception of the above-noted issues, it’s been a rock-solid post-production companion, it’s white glow illuminating my steaming coffee mug on late-night editing jobs. We’ll be leaning heavily on a few G-RAID systems for our NAB 2010 coverage and post-production tasks, and I’ve gotta say that it’s nice to go into a stressful production schedule like this without having to worry about your storage solution.

Current G-RAID models are available in 1TB, 2TB, and 3TB storage capacities, and pricing starts at $229. Find them online at your favorite retailer. Happy editing!

Recently Avid contacted us and asked if we’d participate in a Community Q&A with the post-production team behind Alice in Wonderland. We asked a couple questions about the how editing for a 3D release may have changed editing style, and what new tools and workflows have changed the director/editor relationship. You can read these questions and their answers here.

Over at PVC I’ve posted a video tutorial from Cineform on muxing multiple 2D sources using their Neo 3D software. It’s a great demo of very cool tech, check it out.

CoreMelt is running a contest called Show us Your Pixels, and they are giving away $25000 in prizes. The submission window closes “end of business on the 8th February 2010.” Bear in mind that CoreMelt is based in Australia, so they are roughly 12hrs ahead of the US. Winners will be chosen on Feb 10th.

Prizes include:
Orangutan Adventure Trek to Sumatra
AJA Kona LHi Board
Euphonix MC Transport Controller
Crumpler bags
Red Lightning HD Monitor Pro
Artbeats Video Packs
Final Cut Studio 2009
Final Cut Express
Digital Juice Packs
Creative Cow packs
motionVFX templates
+ Many more!!!

Categories:
Best existing work:
Work previously created for a commercial or spec project using CoreMelt plugins.

Best student work:
Work created by a current student in Digital Media, Motion Graphics or Editing using CoreMelt plugins.

Best rainforest themed work:
For creation of a new piece on the theme of Rainforest Rescue’s projects. CoreMelt and Rainforest rescue will provide stills and video footage that can be used in this category.

Jem Schofield has posted a few greenscreen footage examples at The C47 that were shot with the Canon 5D Mark 2 and Canon 7D. I’ve not personally seen a lot of keyed footage from these VDSLRs, so this is good stuff. Not surprisingly, he recommends turning camera sharpening settings way down for best results. You can watch his video entry below, but if you have any interest at all in the topic you should definitely go read his blog entry for technical details and some full-resolution framegrabs.

Oliver Peters has written an incredibly detailed tutorial on how to accomplish post-production when tasked with editing and grading Canon 5D MKII footage. It’s an extensive article that demystifies some of the post questions, and I highly recommend taking the time to read it through. Fantastic work as always, Oliver.

Between now and December 31st, 2009, Imagineer Systems is offering discounts on all nodelocked software. Special pricing is as follows:

* monet placement station: $699
* mokey removal station: $699
* mocha (full version) tracking station: $349
* motor roto station: $349
* mocha for After Effects: $110
* mocha for After Effects v2 upgrade: $80
* mocha shape for After Effects: $55
* mocha for Final Cut: $110
* mocha shape for Final Cut: $55

This is a really nice sale on some fantastic software! You can purchase your discounted copies online here.