Fri, Sep 14, 2018
Blackmagic RAW was announced by Blackmagic Design during IBC 2018. Patrick Southern, the Lead Editor and Producer at LumaForge explains the benefits and draw backs of this new codec in relationship to other RAW codecs on the market. Blackmagic RAW benefits from providing two types of encoding: Constant Bitrate and Constant Quality. Whereas RED focuses on Constant Bitrate and ProRes RAW focuses on Constant Quality, Blackmagic RAW is capable of both.
Fri, Sep 21, 2018
RED Digital Cinema made huge waves when the popularized the idea of shooting in RAW back in 2007. But what is RAW, exactly? Is it high-dynamic range video? Does it have to do with controls for ISO, White Balance, and Tint? Our Lead Editor and Producer, Patrick Southern, discusses the basics of raw video. From Bayer Patterns to Tone Mapping, find out how RAW sensor data can help your productions elevate to the next level.
Mon, Sep 24, 2018
MacOS Mojave was just released. We take a look at some of the coolest features for filmmakers in post production and video editorial. These include the amazing new Dark Mode, Gallery View in Finder, and the Stacks feature for organizing your Desktop. We also discuss the viability of Mojave for LumaForge customers using a Jellyfish or Sharestation. Hint: Don't update until new drivers have been developed for your 10GbE to Thunderbolt adapter. We're also seeing slower performance on NFS and major issues on SMB.
Mon, Oct 1, 2018
DNxUncompressed is a brand new mastering codec for Avid Media Composer 2018.9. It helpful as a replacement to image sequences for VFX. DNxUncompressed currently supports both 4:2:2 32-bit float and RGB 32-bit float color, depending on the color space of your project. DNxUncompressed requires a lot of bandwidth. For editing, it is recommended that you transcode to DNxHR. Then, for mastering you can reconnect to DNxUncompressed or generate new DNxUncompressed masters from your camera originals. Currently, you cannot export DNxUncompressed from Avid Media Composer or work with it in any other application. However, once that changes, HDR deliveries to Netflix and Amazon Prime should be possible. Additionally, VFX houses will be able to export shots in DNxUncompressed rather than image sequences like DPX or EXR.
Tue, Oct 30, 2018
Apple announced a new Mac Mini at an event in New York in October. The brand new Mac Mini comes in space gray, just like the iMac Pro. While it isn't being called the "Mac Mini Pro", it certainly has plenty of features directed at professional filmmakers and video teams. The Mac Mini now has 6-core i5 and i7 processors, up to 64GB of RAM, and up to 2TB of high-speed flash storage, and can be configured with 10GbE for connecting to network storage. It appears that Apple is standardizing on 10GbE for network connectivity. For the sake of the Mac Mini, this means high-performance render farms can be created with a small footprint. This is great for DITs who need to transcode dailies on-set, or VFX teams that are exporting complex image sequences. Another benefit for filmmakers are the four Thunderbolt 3 Ports. The new Blackmagic eGPU Pro can now be connected to the Mac Mini. MacOS Mojave recently made eGPU support for apps like Final Cut Pro X possible. This makes the Blackmagic eGPU and eGPU Pro great accessories for those wanting to super power any Mac, including the 2018 Mac Mini. At LumaForge, we're very excited for 10GbE. Our Jellyfish line of servers allows for direct connections over 10GbE to the Mac Mini. This allows you to connect multiple Mac Minis to the Jellyfish for high speed editing, transcoding, rendering, and copying.
Thu, Nov 15, 2018
Final Cut Pro X 10.4.4 has a number of new features. Some build on existing tools in FCPX, while others are brand new. Learn about Final Cut Pro X's new Workflow Extensions, Batch Sharing, Video Noise Reduction, Comparison Viewer, Timecode Window, and much more. In addition to the major features, FCPX 10.4.4 now includes support for SRT captions, burn-in closed captions, a new Tiny Planet projection for 360 VR video, and a set of Comic Book looks.
Tue, Dec 4, 2018
Which RAW camera format is best? To find out, we purchased a flamethrower from The Boring Company. We compared RED Raw, Blackmagic RAW, and ProRes RAW using the RED Raven, Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro and the Sony FS5 with an Atomos Shogun Inferno. Each camera was evaluated on its dynamic range, noise handling, sharpness, rendition of skin tone, and workflow. Thanks to the Rokinon Cine Lenses for the beautiful chromatic aberration around the flames. On a side note, our Chief Marketing Officer, Krysta, really wanted to use the flamethrower, but we didn't let her. She may be a little upset.
Tue, Jan 29, 2019
What is Fair Use and how does it apply to filmmaking? In entertainment law, fair use allows for the limited use of copyrighted footage, music, and photos without permission or payment of royalties. Sven Pape and Patrick Southern discuss how the copyright act, which is design to protect intellectual property rights, also provide filmmakers a way to work with copyrighted materials for the purpose of news reporting, criticism, commentary, research, education, or parody. Sven also talks about how to deal with YouTube copyright claims when working with fair use materials. He gives a specific instance of how he was able to remove a copyright strike on one of his videos using Fair Dealing/Fair Use as an argument. No Legal Advice Intended. The contents of this video are meant to convey basic information only and not to provide legal advice or opinions. An attorney should be contacted for advice for the specifics of how Fair Use can be used on your specific project. If you are unsure if your use of footage counts as Fair Use, you can also look into using Public Domain content. If you need something not covered by Public Domain or Fair Use, there are always great Stock Footage and Archival websites that can license footage to you. Or, you can simply ask the owner of the intellectual property you want to use for permission to use their stuff. You'll want their consent in writing to ensure you are safe when using their footage, photos, or music.
Mon, Feb 18, 2019
RED recently announced the DSMC2 Dragon-X 5K camera. Since the RED Raven 4.5K camera and the Dragon-X both use the RED Dragon sensor, what's the difference? Is it worth upgrading from the RED Raven to the Dragon-X? If you are looking to up your cinematography game, the Dragon-X can certainly help you. The interchangeable lens mount means you can attach your favorite lenses even if they are something odd like a Nikon mount. You can also change out the Optical Low-Pass Filter or OLPF on the Dragon-X. This allows you to change how Infrared and Ultra Violet light are blocked from the sensor. The Skin Tone-Highlight OLPF has the best color rendition, while the Low-Light Optimized OLPF has the least amount of noise in low-light situations. We also found that the larger size of the sensor on the Dragon-X meant overall smaller noise and a wider image on the same lenses when compared to the RED Raven. Perhaps the biggest upgrade to the Dragon-X over the Epic Dragon is the ability to create color graded dailies in-camera. This means you can use with RED's new IPP2 color pipeline for your camera originals, and can also record ProRes or DNxHR 2K proxies in Rec. 709 with the director of photography's creative LUT applied directly to the footage.
Thu, Mar 7, 2019
Meet the Jellyfish Collaborative Editing Servers. The Jellyfish Mobile, Tower, and Rack are perfect for connecting small, medium, and large sized video editing teams. The Jellyfish line makes collaboration in post production easier than ever. Some workflows are largely dependent on passing hard drives back and forth. This costs large amounts of time and money. No longer does this have to be a problem. The Jellyfish is network attached storage designed for 4K+ video editing with a team. Management of media on a Jellyfish is simple and straightforward.
Thu, Apr 25, 2019
Jonathan Morrison used the help of Austin Evans to edit one of his 'What's in my Bag?' videos live at the Faster Together Stage at NAB in Las Vegas. Learn how our team worked with Jonathan to shape this high-risk presentation in front of a live audience. Jonathan and Austin cut the video in Final Cut Pro X on a LumaForge Jellyfish, and even grabbed a shot of the crowd to finish the video. The video was finished and posted at the Faster Together Stage event on April 9th, 2019.
Tue, May 14, 2019
Video Production is hard work. After a long project, the last thing you want is to lose all of your data. Everything can be lost in an instant. That's why it is so important to backup all of your media. So how do you go about that? The best strategy is to have 3 copies of your data in 2 places and only work from 1. Your first copy is your working copy. If you're working by yourself, try to use a RAID array to help protect your data. If you are working with a team, you can use a collaborative editing server like the LumaForge Jellyfish. This will allow your team to work from the same footage at the same time, and includes the projects of a RAID. Your second copy is meant to be an easily accessible backup of your working copy. This is sometimes called a near-line backup. This should also have some sort of RAID protections if possible. The Promise Pegasus, OWC Thunderbay, and G-SPEED Shuttle are good examples. Your third copy should be a long-term or archival copy. There are two primary options for this. The first is a cloud backup. The benefit of cloud is how easy it is to access. Additionally, you don't have to personally upkeep the data. The cloud service does that for you. The second option is to do an LTO backup. There is an up-front cost with the LTO drive. However, once you've purchased the drive, the cost per TB is about $10-12.
Tue, May 28, 2019
There are three main ways to synchronize your audio to your video when editing. First, you can sync manually to the clapper. Second, you can use audio waveform matching tools like Pluraleyes. Third, you can use timecode. Learn the benefits of each from Edit Bay A. Finally, discover the secret power of the UltraSync ONE and Tentacle Sync type devices. Jam-syncing linear timecode (LTC) wirelessly can save you huge amounts of time in post production. Especially when using batch sync tools like Sync-n-Link X.
Mon, Jun 3, 2019
Apple finally announced a new modular Mac Pro at WWDC 2019. Learn how the the new features of the Mac Pro affects filmmakers worldwide. Also, learn about how the new Pro Display XDR enables high-end color grading for High Dynamic Range and SDR content. The new Mac Pro boasts up to a 28-core Intel Xeon processor, 1.5 TB of RAM, 8 PCI Express lanes, 10GbE ports, and a great amount of airflow. With PCI-e, you can now install AJA or Blackmagic IO cards, multiple GPUs, network cards for 25, 40, 50, and 100GbE, and Apple's new Afterburner card. The Afterburner will allow you to play up to 3 streams of 8K ProRes RAW at full resolution, or 12 streams of 4K ProRes RAW.
Thu, Jun 20, 2019
With Frame.io, director's can now watch footage from their phone while on set. Want to know what t-shirt the talent was wearing three days ago? You can pull up that shot. But how do you get these magical dailies onto your phone? Learn how to use the built-in proxy media on the RED DSMC2 line of cameras, along with Hedge, Kyno, Sync-N-Link X, and Final Cut Pro X to create your very own in-house dailies workflow. Hedge will make sure your data makes it safely from the camera cards to your storage. Kyno will help you sort your proxy files and fixed spanned clip issues. Sync-N-Link X makes batch syncing super fast. And Final Cut Pro X now supports batch exporting files to a Frame.io Watch Folder. Learn how to get these tools to work together to make your like easier.