HD editing on a Mac adds flair to live sports production
Jul 25, 2006 8:00 AM
HDTU: What are your thoughts about the arrival of the Intel processors for the Mac and how they will impact editing HD for live television?
TM: : They haven’t arrived yet on the desktop, but already we are seeing the laptop MacBook Pro is performing comparably to a G5 2.0 tower. Think about that. You’ve got a desktop computer that was close to the top end not that long ago, and a laptop with this chip is performing equivalently to it. That’s unbelievable. I’m having trouble imagining how fast the Mac-Intel Desktops are going to be and what a difference that’s going to make.
Today, sometimes I will begin to render something and realize this is going to take a little too long. That forces me to make some sort of compromise. I think the further we go along here, the fewer the compromises I’ll have to make.
HDTU: One reason you’re able to use a personal computer for editing HD sports is all the other technology available on the teleproduction truck. So, using Final Cut Pro HD, while relatively inexpensive, won’t be as affordable for others who can’t rely on such a huge production infrastructure.
TM: Yeah, basically you have this nonlinear editing system hanging off millions of dollars worth of equipment. And you can do all kinds of neat things with the video in that system and then bring it back, and you can do it all by yourself.
Basically, in that box you are able to do all of the things that in a live situation you’d use — the technical director to do the DVE effects and transitions and the graphics department to do the graphics and the audio engineer to do the mix. There is just tremendous hardware and software and human resources being brought to bear.
Inside of a nonlinear editor, all of those things are compressed. You can do them all. You can’t do them live, so to speak. But you can do them quickly enough that it’s usable live. This allows you to take some of these things offline.
HDTU: True, but there’s much more to it than the Mac, Final Cut Pro HD and the AJA board.
TM: To address more of the equipment side of it, if you were building a post-production suite, you’d have to have scopes, tape decks to deal with all the different formats and monitors, not to mention test signal generators, sync generators, routers and the rest.
A high-end HD monitor can cost as much as $30,000. There are some LCD solutions that are $5000 or $6000 that are very good. But if you look at the Final Cut Pro solution that is HD capable with an AJA board and the right amount of RAM and all of the software loaded, you’re talking about $15,000 to $20,000. Perhaps it could be as much as $25,000 if you really push it by buying some more software and upgrading the hardware, especially the storage.
Just to monitor, I am going to pay three times as much, or at least half as much again, just to look at it? Then you start to get external scopes, which will run you a tremendous amount of money if you want to look at the actual high definition signal. So, the thing to keep in mind, I guess, is that while you can get there, while you can edit it, the actual output into a broadcast space and being responsible to what that means requires some additional equipment.
HDTU: How has having the ability to delegate the creation of these HD edits for live sports production to the Mac-based Final Cut Pro HD system impacted traditional sports production workflow?
TM: SSince the EVS became a part of the mobile unit tape room, there’s always been a lead EVS operator who’s had tremendous editing and playback loads. As we move forward, that will lessen.
Two things happen when you get a nonlinear editor into the system. No. 1, your ability to do a more sophisticated edit is there. No. 2, you can take some of that load off the EVS person, or set of people, and allow them to focus better on doing replays and focus better on doing straightforward highlight packages.
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