Is this new workflow better than our existing?

At the moment, we record AVCHD on 4 cams and import them into FCPX afterwards, transcoding to Prores 422.

We've been looking at Prores recorders like Black Magic Hyperdeck to record straight into Prores 422 directly from our cameras as we GUESS that our workflow will be much faster because:

1. Importing from SSD is faster than SD cards on USB
2. We can then skip the transcoding part because files are already Prores 422
3. Encoding final output will be faster when all files are Prores

Can someone please confirm or comment on #2, because that's the one we're the least sure about?

Thank you for any input

1. Depends, and it will only be as fast as the USB 3.0 connection. Be sure your Mac supports USB 3.0.

2. Yes, this will make things really nice. Will use up more drive space, but will perform and hold up to effects and transcodes much better.

3. Correct, because there will be no Long-GOP mess of reordering frames, decoding super compressed data, etc. Much nicer.

Oh, should have been more clear about #1:

We're would then use a thunderbolt-dock for the SSDs and we're talking about the new MacPro.

For recording your 4 camera's you can use JustIn from ToolsOnair.
I'm doing this way of ingest for several years, it is possible to record 4 streams of Proress on a single harddisk
when I'm using a fast storage disk.
So after recording you can start right away with editing even better you can edit when your are ingesting.

This is perfect for editing on location and get the edit very quick on air.

I tested the new beta version of JustIn, which will be at NAB, you can record 2 differt codecs per channel,
so for instant Proress and MPEG4

Yes, SSD via a T'bolt dock with be infinity faster than a SD card via adapter to USB.

just: in multi is great, if you are a broadcaster.

Depending on what you're doing, also look at the Ninja and Samuri from Atomos.
www.atomos.com/field-recorders/

Beeldcomponist wrote: For recording your 4 camera's you can use JustIn from ToolsOnair.
I'm doing this way of ingest for several years, it is possible to record 4 streams of Proress on a single harddisk
when I'm using a fast storage disk.
So after recording you can start right away with editing even better you can edit when your are ingesting.

This is perfect for editing on location and get the edit very quick on air.

I tested the new beta version of JustIn, which will be at NAB, you can record 2 differt codecs per channel,
so for instant Proress and MPEG4

Sure, but itsn't JustIn 10-15 times more expensive than 4xHyperdeck Shuttle + 1xSSD dock + 4x240gb SSDs?

I think the software is about €2000 for 4 channels.
But how are gone a use it and how long is your recording?

You need a Blackmagic Decklink Quad and with the new MacPro a thunderbolt PCIe expansion chassis,
Sonnet has a thunderbolt 2 chassis, and a BM Decklink Quad.

So you need to invest but the question is how are you gonna use it?

You can record 4 channels almost endless!
It is very easy to record 8 hours and when a disk is full the recording continues on the second failback disk.
The files you are recording are directly accessible for editing.
So the question is what is your workflow?

For me it is very easy to record 4 streams, use the internal computer clock timecode so all streams are sync
(or external if more streams are recorded on EVS) and have 1 stream per channel, the BM Hyperdeck will make more files in an hour.
I don't need to copy my files and when you make a RAID 1 disk you also have a backup of all your streams.

I never transcode to ProRes. But then I mainly do high shoot ratio work. proxy is my preferred workflow.
Gives you best bang for buck IMHO..

When client comes in just switch to original and hit render.

I very much like the original Hyperdeck solution. Will give a very fast, very efficient, very economical solution. Plus nothing is teathered, which means you can go anywhere and shoot multicam.

Beeldcomponist wrote: So the question is what is your workflow?

In this case, it's our daily 20 minute tech news show at www.livingsmarttv.dk

We record 3 cameraes on SD-card => import to FCPX => multicam edit => encode

In this case, I think it's much too expensive to use 2.000 Euros on just this software. For half the price, we can get 3 Hyperdeck recorders and an SSD thunderbolt dock from Blackmagic. This will then also need to be imported, I know, but 2.000 Euros for just softwarelicense...... I'm not happy with that in THIS case

Hyperdeck in ProRes, SSD via T'bolt to the Mac, FCPX's editing speed, will all help speed up your workflow a great deal. Again, I think this is a wise choice. I predict that once you get used to the workflow, you'll see turnaround times that amaze you.

I just checked the prices here in Denmark and compared to the "hardware-solution" (hyperdeck/SSD), the "software-solution" is much too expensive in my eyes.

The licenses for the software costs around 8-10 times as much an being software, it also requires hardware which has to be taking into account somewhere, even though we might have it anyway.

Last, but not least, the hyperdeck/ssd solution will make us superfast "on the road" as well.

I think we will go for that solution and try it out - thanks for you inputs - we will, of course, share our experience here with you

Okay, just a quick follow up here to share my experience:

We took your advice - thanks a lot! - and it REALLY saved us a lot of time.

Instead of the hyperdeck, we bought a Ninja2 and a 840 Evo 500gb SSD.

Here's the data before (recording AVCHD on SD-card):
Import / transcode = 24 minutes
Export / encode 1080p = 40 minutes

And after (Prores 422 on SSD):
Import / transcode = 0 (as we edit straight off the SSD)
Export / encode 1080p = 11 minutes

So we shaved of 53 minutes on our daily production just by this!!!

Thanks a lot !

Do that Mon - Fri and you just cut 5 hours off your week, almost 3/4 of a work day.

BenB wrote: Do that Mon - Fri and you just cut 5 hours off your week, almost 3/4 of a work day.

Exactly - and that's partly also why I wrote www.fcp.co/forum/new-mac-pro/19637-i-m-g...hile-waiting-for-nmp

It really wasn't my intention to "trash" all the work you and other people do in terms of benchmarking.

It's just that I really need to make sure that we get the extra speed in the investment.

Like here, where we saved 45 minutes for 15% of what the MacPro we've got in order, costs...... ? I'm trying to find out how much a difference the nMP will make in our workflow