I drew inspiration from the design of Apple’s MacBook Pro when crafting the Premium Data Kit, I essentially wanted to create a jumbo laptop with the speed of a desktop computer. Portability is key for equipment on-set and data equipment is no exception. Due to the high specs of the machine there is no risk of errors while multi-tasking so your data will be completely safe and secure. By running both in unison you save time, often transcodes are complete before the card is finished being backed up. I then set off the transcode from the internal drive and start the transfer of the data from the camera card to the client drives simultaneously.
Utilizing the Super Fast SSD in the Premium Data Kit I can offload cards to this internal drive very quickly, creating a separate backup of the footage solely for transcoding. All I had to do was reinvent the workflow. This problem will take years to solve, so in the interim I have devised a solution that will boast faster turnaround times. 99% of the time the Achilles’ Heel rests in the hard drives provided for each job. WORKFLOW REINVENTIONĪnything to do with processing data, be it transferring or transcoding, you are always at the mercy of the weakest link in the chain. That being said, the Premium Data Kit combined with the ‘New On-Set Transcode Workflow’ still offers a modest speed improvement and time saving. Unless you are equipped with a RED Rocket X Card that is not guaranteed to be future proof with new RED Formats, it’s near impossible to get amazing transcode speeds. RED is still RED and remains the most difficult format to work with. Transcoding can convert your footage to a lower tier HD ProRes 422 to deliver your footage Post-Ready. Shooting 4K or 3.2K ProRes 444XQ? It’s not the easiest codec to edit because of the large file sizes and drive speed limitations. 1 Hour of Phantom Flex 4K Footage can be transcoded in 30 Mins with the Premium Data Kit where as a Standard MacBook Pro Data Kit would do the same work in 5 Hours. cine Files are anything but edit friendly and always require transcoding. Often avoided due to large file size and processing times, with transcodes this fast there is no reason not to utilize ARRI’s flagship format on your next production. Shoot high quality ARRIRAW and transcode at twice the speed of real time. Built specifically with quick turn around times in mind it offers transcoding capabilities up to 10x faster then a Standard MacBook Pro Data Kit. I see transcoding becoming a standard in the future as camera formats evolve and get more complex, it got me thinking, there has to be a better way to do this.ĭesigned completely from the ground up, the Premium Data Kit is the complete solution for on-set transcoding. It’s always a tricky service to deliver as the MacBook Pro in every Data Kit just can’t keep up with the workload and results in lots of unnecessary overtime. Over the past year I have seen requests for on-set transcoding steadily increase.
I knew there would be speed humps along the way but I had a vision and wanted to bring a new level of game to the world of on-set transcoding.īelow is my finished rig alongside the documentation that I put together to educate clients about the advantages of using this over a standard data management kit. I’d never even built a computer from scratch before but did have some background knowledge such as pulling apart iPhones and MacBook Pros for DIY Home Repairs. I started researching and compiling information, delving deep into the Hackintosh World. The inside of a Codex Vault XL, you can see a NVidia Graphics Card, Power Supply, PCIe Cards, Fans, etc. If you take away the proprietary technologies you just have a computer, which you can buy and build yourself which lead me to Hackintosh. If a custom built computer can handle one of the most data heavy codecs in the world, 6K ARRIRAW, it can copy it, process it, transcode it. This got my brain ticking and I began to think outside the box. Turns out it was just a connection on the power supply that had come loose in transit, but this process of looking inside made me realise that it was just a giant custom built computer. When the Vault landed in Australia DOA (Dead On Arrival) the only option was to pull it open to see if I could get it running. I had the privilege to use a Codex Vault XL for an Alexa 65 Job in January and got very well acquainted with the technology. The choice was to buy outdated technology, buy new inadequate technology or find another solution. The MacPro dated back to 2013 and the recently re-designed MacBook Pro Models didn’t come equipped with Intel’s latest Kaby Lake Processors nor did they exceed 16GB of RAM which has been a limitation for a long time now. At the start of 2017 it was a sad state of affairs for using a Mac on-set for heavy duty processing.
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