Moving from Tandem DVDs to Tandem USBs

[tkhayes 124]

Video editing question(s). Trying to move from DVD to USB.

Are people shooting HD? 720p? 1080? have a lot of questions.

Sony Vegas Pro seems to do it well but still want to select the best options.
However one video guy is running Premier Elements 11 on a blistering fast Mac. However rendering anything in 720p seems to take 15+ minutes.

However he is shooting the video on a Sony camera, widescreen NTSB format, which is low res since we only burn to DVD, (also low res). Premier only takes 4 minutes to cut a DVD.

Suggestions on:
- Formatting new USB drives? XFAT? NTFS? something that will work on any machine? And do we usually have that option when you order USB drives?
- suggested resolutions for shooting the videos? Sony and GoPro setups?
- suggested output formats for Premier and Vegas Pro? (Mpeg, Mpeg3, Mpeg4, does it matter?
- suggested output resolutions? 720p? we see 720-24 720-25, 720-29.9, have no idea if there is any difference.

[DSE 3]

Forget tandem editing on a Mac. It's a waste of time for any mpeg format on a mac, it's just that simple. Without going into the several technical reasons why...It shouldn't be taking more than 10 mins on the slow side from ingest to output to thumbdrive.

I don't really feel up to writing a novella, but since we're friends in real life and online life, I'm happy to do a consult with you.

I'd start by recommending you skip 720p and go to 1080p, since people are generally expecting "full hd" these days.

The slowness is the Mac.

No, you don't have a lot of options when ordering thumbs.

[skydiveoc 0]

Seems like when 5g hits...the need for removable media will go the way of the need for horseshoes for you mode of transportation.

[dirtbox 0]

Currently editing for a DZ that uses a business card usb. Using a mac and premiere pro with encoder. I do all my edits, cue them all up in encoder (output both 1080 HD and a 480sd version for use with social media and images - files range between 1.1Gb and 1.9Gb). The renders can take up to 30 minutes and transfere to USB takes 2-3 minutes. Works for me, once all the editing is done for the day I wander off, have dinner, go to bed or what ever and when it is done rendering I come back and put all the products onto their USB keys and into envelopes. Real time sitting there doing the work isn't too long and I have plenty of other things to do during the rendering.

Another option would be to buy 10TB of cloud space from dropbox or Google drive, which would host 5500 media packages that averaged 1.8Gb each, and only post USB to customers that specifically requested it. Host videos for ~12 months on the cloud and send each person a link same day as the edit is done.

[Hellis 0]

Re: formatting USB.

I would suggest FAT32 if it's possible.
Newer types might not work on other devices as DVDs and mediaplayers.
I have my 64 GB card to my GoPro formated FAT32 so that I can look at the videos on a mediaplayer.

[DSE 3]

dirtbox

Currently editing for a DZ that uses a business card usb. Using a mac and premiere pro with encoder. I do all my edits, cue them all up in encoder (output both 1080 HD and a 480sd version for use with social media and images - files range between 1.1Gb and 1.9Gb). The renders can take up to 30 minutes and transfere to USB takes 2-3 minutes. Works for me, once all the editing is done for the day I wander off, have dinner, go to bed or what ever and when it is done rendering I come back and put all the products onto their USB keys and into envelopes. Real time sitting there doing the work isn't too long and I have plenty of other things to do during the rendering.

Another option would be to buy 10TB of cloud space from dropbox or Google drive, which would host 5500 media packages that averaged 1.8Gb each, and only post USB to customers that specifically requested it. Host videos for ~12 months on the cloud and send each person a link same day as the edit is done.

Unfortunately, most large DZ customers want to walk away from their experience with a thumbdrive (or DVD) in hand.

Many DZ's are well off the beaten path and internet access is damned expensive if not impossible at any rational speed. The DZ I'm working at for this season can't even deliver 512K, and it's too expensive for them to put in a "real" connection. This seems to be the case at many DZ's around the world, but it will indeed be the norm in a very short while.

4K works nicely on a thumbdrive as well, but won't work in the short term for stream/download until HEVC encoders become standard.

[dthames 0]

TK,

I can't answer all of your questions but I can post some information and a video as reference. Not professional in any way.

I have the $100 version of Sony Vegas HD Platinum 11.0 running on a 4 year old HP "home" type desktop, right off the Walmart shelf with an upgraded ram total of 10gig.

My typical project settings Vegas settings are shown attached.

Video example is length is 3:45. File size is 190 meg. Render time was 9:15.

You can see the video here, if you want to look at the visual quality. It has clips from various GoPros with various settings. I think all were 1080 with either 30 or 60 FPS

Right click and Save Target As to download and save locally for review.
http://pyrodan.privatedata.com/skydive/wingsuit/BurningThroughTheSky.mp4

Some performance tips that might be useful.
https://youtu.be/_Rn2kXjlv84

[inline sony1.jpg]

Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

[Zlew 0]

I haven't used it for dropzone work yet, but I just finished building a PC for photo/video editing, and I'm getting just about 1 min render time per 1 min of footage (so far using 1080P GoPro and Sony CX footage). Rendering to 1080 mp4

I use the $100 vegas (home studio plat. 13?).

I put the 5820K (6core) intel chip in there, along with really fast storage, and a strong graphics card. I was very surprised to find in my testing that renders were faster with CPU only, compared to using GPU as well. On my last rig, same software was much faster with GPU. Guessing with better software able to use GPU and the 6 cores you might be able to get even better times.

Not to get too geeky, with the right gear you can render HD pretty quickly now.

specs- 5820k (overclocked just a touch to 4ghz), 32 gigs of ddr4, gtx970 graphics card, SSD scratch disk, intel 750 primary HD (fast enough render times were just as fast reading and writing to the 750, and reading from the other ssd and writing to the 750...or vice versa). Big ass RAID 1 array for long term storage. w

[Pablo.Moreno 0]

Handcam I shoot at 720 30fps,
render for a 720 30fps and this would be a 7 mins long video with a 45 sec intro, With Swoopware Tandem Vids and the render time is about 10 mins to set everything up with the tranference of files to the usb port plus the 1 minute .
If I would be doing outside video I would shoot at 1080 60p and I still haven't done any this year so I will letyou know once I do, but the 720 wide angle for Hand cam makes the video look really nice

[hackish 8]

TK,

We're running peregrine - which uses vegas. We shoot all 1080p with mostly gopro and a few CX sony. I've used video footage from my Canon DSLR as well. The stills are either gopro or DSLR and we include both.

The biggest advantage of USB is nearly 0 comebacks. We switched from DVD about 4 years ago and never looked back. The latest USB keys are also pretty fast so writing an average of 4gb of data is a couple of minutes. Since the DZ runs about a 60-70% video rate the throughput has to be high.

That means a complete video has to be edited and sent to render in 5 minutes or less. We spent some money on a decent video machine with a good card to use hardware accel during rendering. SSDs, lots of CPU and lots of RAM. Also worth mentioning is a lot of USB3 channels so USB can be written and the next video imported at the same time without bogging it down. I we output in H.264.

Someone good running the machine can churn out 50 videos in a day.

[Dutton 0]

If you could find a way to host the video and give the student a link you'd be golden. I'd bet that most students who walk away from the DZ with a DVD/Thumb drive/VHS tape watch it once then throw it in a pile behind the TV/Computer.
If you made it FaceBook friendly, they'd watch it multiple times daily at work and spread it like a virus to all their buddies. Keep it short and simple with some subtle advertising.

[tkhayes 124]

I am leaning towards uploading videos. We already have Google drive, whether we use that or Dropbox, whatever....it only makes sense these day to do it that way and change $5 more if they want a DVD.

And I have practically unlimited internet bandwidth and a 12TB network storage box so we can hold onto thousands of videos for some period of time anyway, I may as well use it.

[hackish 8]

tkhayes

I am leaning towards uploading videos. We already have Google drive, whether we use that or Dropbox, whatever....it only makes sense these day to do it that way and change $5 more if they want a DVD.

We considered that, but in fact a good proportion of people did not have/want to download several gigs of data. Some even do all of their surfing with a tablet/cell stick so the average 4-6gb of material would eat their monthly limit in 1 shot. On the average non-geek connection you're still thinking of spending an hour or more to download all the data.

From a customer point of view they felt better when they got a shiny keychain bottle opener type USB drive than an intangible digital link. Finally, my mom would not have any idea what to do with a download link but she can figure out how to use a USB key.

If you ask Dan or Martin I'm sure they could share the source and cost of the drives we get. They come with the logo on it and in a nice little felt drawstring type bag.

[DSE 3]

I would avoid Dropbox, as that exposes your customers to spam targeting. Google Drive is less costly, greater security, and more customer-friendly. Drive is easier to share on YouTube as well (although that will soon change), and YouTube is a terrific advertising vehicle.

Ultimately, uploading is the best (and most future-looking) way to go. However, some customers will want a thumb drive, as they want the tangible "thing" when they walk away from the DZ.

Most importantly

[tkhayes 124]

that is true, the USB could be the option as well, or the DVD, with the upload being the baseline.

I think I would still stick to 720P and not full HD, it would save download and upload and processing times on all the platforms, although if your plan is to upload, there is not real time crunch like a 20 minute call presents.

[DSE 3]

Bear in mind that 720p is long dead, 1080p has at best 30 months of life.

HEVC codecs reduce load time, and are entirely mobile/set top player compatible.

[Hellis 0]

If you have unlimited bandwith why not just use a NAS and place the video there.
The customer can download it as if it was on internet, your 'upload' time is most likely 1 or 2 min because everything is within you own network.

Uploading to any service means you are in their lap, and anytime they want to charge (or raise the price) your margin gets thiner or you have to adjust your price.
If their site is down it will cause extra work for you later.

[tkhayes 124]

have not figured out how to (safely) put our NAS out there for the world to see and still feel safe about its access and controls.

But I could look into that, it is not new but is a Buffalo rack mount so I and sure it probably has a way to access it and some protocols to use.

[Hellis 0]

A new one cost not much more than a hard drive.
A 500 GB will probably give the customers a few weeks to download the files?


The way I use mine is I have three "partitions" (not really).
One is accessible when you enter correct IP:port#.
One is used as a upload partition, where users that I create as admin are able to upload to my NAS.
Files stay in this patition and can only be accessed if you log in there.
And one is a backup for my personal files and stuff.

All three are seperated from eachother and only the admin computer can access all three.

I use a old Netgear. Don't know how newer versions work.
But each time I place a file in a backup folder it copies it to the correct location of the NAS.
So a videofile placed in my videodisk is beeing copied to my internet accessible folder.
A file placed in documents folder for example goes to my personal backup part of the NAS.

[parachutist 1]

Hellis

A new one cost not much more than a hard drive.

An affordable one like that performs fine on a home network where one or two people access it. Bur when it gets attacked by 10+ users at once on a Saturday evening, after the new skydivers have gone home and start downloading, it's going to choke.

For that sort of use you need a raid 10 setup with a minimum of 4 drives. raid 10 instead of 5 because you'll be uploading all day long while some are downloading, and 5 is slow for uploads.

Even this higher end setup will get bogged down when more users from previous days' jumping are dl'ing their videos for the first or third time while today's customers are accessing theirs. Then you'd need multiple raid 10 arrays with load management splitting up requests between them.

Cloud service is sounding better to me after imagining all the power use, hardware expense, and maintrnance involved.

[Laszloimage 0]

Finally here at the Ranch we started to hand out USB drives instead of DVDs (actually the costumer can choose either option).
I can make the 1080 HD video in 5 minutes from transferring the files from my camera (Sony CX-100) to outputting onto a USB drive either in MP4 or MOV format (for "Mac people" I hand out h.264 in MOV wrap).
sample video: http://youtu.be/eZ02XeC_TUY
The slowest and most limiting part of the process is the slow 3MB/s write and 8MB/s read speed of the USB drives.
I use Corel's Video Studio X8 Ultimate for the editing. This software is cheap, easy to use and has handy tools like audio ducking, and supports all file formats we have to deal with in skydiving. When I render the video I select the "Mpeg Optimizer" option which basically will output the video in the same exact format as the camera used for recording, so no re-encoding slows down the rendering process. The 5min long tandem video (1080 HD) renders in 30-40sec. Instead of drag and drop the edited AVCHD (m2t) file directly onto the USB drive I drop it into Movavi file converter. If the costumer has a PC I select MP4, if the costumer has a Mac I select MOV as an output format while keeping the original structure of the video (data rate, frame rate, resolution, and etc...) and convert it onto the USB drive. The conversion process doesn't require any extra time, the software works lot faster than the write speed of the USB stick.
...and here's my question. Where can I order fast USB drives in 1,000+ quantities? The ones we have now have 3MB/s write and 7-8MB/s read speed only. This limits us give out higher data rate videos because they freeze up when they directly played from the USB stick on a media player.
The ideal USB drive would be 2GB storage 30MB/s read speed (would not freeze playing 1080 60p video at 28MB/s) and 15-20MB/s write speed, around $2.50 each price. Faster of course would be even better...
Does any one have a source for $2.50 with the mentioned specs above? DSE?
Thanks!

[jtiflyer 0]

+1 for this. Been looking for this for a while

[coticj 0]

Why not just host the files online for some time and give the customer a private link from where they can download videos/photos?

http://www.prostipad.si

[Laszloimage 0]

It was discussed already in this thread...
Simply we just don't have the internet service available which would be capable to deliver such a large amount of data. Most Drop Zones located at country side... Instant gratification is also the most. The costumer can watch the video literary 10minutes after they landed. When I started to shoot tandem videos in 1999 we handed out VHS tapes and a roll of films. Now we give them a USB sticks have both the video and stills on them. Either way whether its a VCR, DVD player or a media player they watch their skydive 10 minutes after.

[DSE 3]

Quote

Instant gratification is also the most. The costumer can watch the video literary 10minutes after they landed.

This can't be reiterated enough. I've gone from a DZ where I designed and ran the video program, delivering jumps less than 10 minutes later, to a place that delivers them by DVD, using copyrighted music, 10 DAYS later. No one seems to be happy at the result.

People expect instant gratification, and in this particular case, it's not just a good customer service gesture, it's also good business, because the longer it takes to deliver, the greater the likelihood the video will be lost, damaged, eaten by the DZ dog, whatever.