November 4, 2009
Creative companies share their experience on devising unique NLE solutions. Profiles by James Careless Nonlinear editing systems have been a standard element of video postproduction for more than a decade. But just as there are stock Fords and chopped hot rods in the automotive realm, today’s post scene features both stock edit suites and one-of-a-kind custom NLE solutions. Here are five of the latter, as found by DV magazine.
 Digital Jungle: Mastering Many Formats
Hollywood-based Digital Jungle Post Production works in many video formats these days. A case in point: “We posted a David Miller film called My Suicide, which has won countless awards,” says Digital Jungle president Dennis Ho. “As for formats? This movie was shot in everything from Hi8 and DVCAM to Mini DV, and in HD using a Panasonic AG-HVX200,” Ho continues. “Our challenge was to edit all these formats together in a single digital realm while incorporating the unique looks of each camera to enhance the film’s narrative.”
To do this, Digital Jungle has created an NLE workflow that functions with virtually all current formats and has the ability to add more as they come along. “We have various platforms running in-house, ranging from Quantel Pablo 4K and iQ, Final Cut Pro SD/HD and Avid DS Nitris to Avid Symphony and Adrenaline,” Ho says. “We can also plug a range of tape-based formats into our system and ingest them directly to our RAID array storage. In addition, we can work with 16mm and 35mm film footage by scanning or transferring to digital video.”
How does Digital Jungle manage to deal in so many formats? The answer is by bringing them all into a common file format. “Whatever the video starts out as, we convert it to DPX,” says Ho. “This allows us to work with everything in a data environment — even film, which is scanned to 4K or 2K DPX. So no matter what our clients bring in, we can handle it.”
This said, Ho would be happy if someone out there could get everyone to agree on a few common video formats. “It seems that a new digital format comes along every day,” he sighs. “It’s enough to make you nostalgic for the days of analog videotape, when 3⁄4", 1" and 2" were the only formats available!”
MBS Tackles the Big RED One
MBS Productions of New York City is a big believer in RED Digital Cinema — so much so that the company got in early and purchased its own RED One cameras and added the necessary equipment to their existing postproduction offerings.
Using this equipment, MBS executive produced and provided their “cameras-to-completion” services to the all-RED feature The Exploding Girl. It was screened at the Berlin Film Festival and competed at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, where the film’s Zoe Kazan won the Best Actress award. MBS provided the same attention to an all-RED Haitian-American feature Ayiti, Ayiti. 
Why has MBS committed so completely to RED? “We make it our business to be on the forefront of what’s happening in the industry, as it applies to new technology,” replies Jason Diamond, who owns and operates MBS Productions with his twin brother, Josh Diamond (both seen above). “We see the potential of RED, with its incredible resolution, options and entry-level price point. So does Hollywood, which is why features such as [portions of] Angels and Demons, Knowing and [portions of] District 9 were shot on RED.”
This said, adapting MBS to become a RED-centric post house came with its own challenges. “For us, the biggest hurdle in dealing with new formats is figuring out how to get that footage into a format that our clients are used to working in,” Jason Diamond says. “Once you get there, working with the media is the same as working with any familiar format. All you’ve had to do is add an extra step to the process to handle the format transfer. We consider it a Digital Lab.”
Converting REDCODE .R3D files into Avid-compatible DNX or SD files is part of MBS Productions’ workflow for dealing with RED material. It does this using the company’s complete RED One post software suite running on Mac, including RED Rushes and RED Alert. This approach converts the RED .R3D files into Avid media that can be edited on Mac or PC. “We are doing this on Mac Pros and the new MacBook Pro,” Jason explains. “RED’s format and tools are designed to work with Intel chips, but once these files are transcoded, the platform becomes irrelevant.
“In our facility, we also have an Assimilate SCRATCH system that supports the native RED .R3D media,” Jason adds. “We just load the REDCODE RAW .R3D files into SCRATCH. Then our colorists can go through the footage, correct it and then output it to any format we choose. Since we are an Avid shop, we choose Avid.”
Moving into RED has been a major leap for MBS Productions, but one Diamond says was well worth the expense. “Our post facility is keeping up with the times,” he observes. “Working with RED is vital for any post house that wants to stay current.”
 CBC’s Hybrid NLE In the past, Canada’s CBC-TV would cover major sporting events such as the Olympics by sending complete production teams to remote locations. But times have changed and ongoing budget cuts at the government-funded broadcaster require a different approach. “Rather than sending complete teams, we decided to build a multi-format editing facility at CBC’s Toronto headquarters,” says Gregg Antworth, CBC’s manager of postproduction and graphic design. “In this new model, a small group of producers, camera people and talent is sent to remote locations such as Beijing. All of their content comes back to us by satellite or fiber for editing and playout from Toronto.”
Central to this consolidated approach are what Antworth calls “hybrid NLE suites.” Essentially, these are a mix of four conventional editing suites with the ability to edit in Avid and EVS, for instance, plus two dedicated control rooms with multi-vendor NLE suites. Because they all draw from the same base of servers, these NLE positions can access the material simultaneously, edit using different systems, then put it back onto the common storage platform for playout to air or the Web.
“Each of our four NLE suites are based on Avid Media Composer but are equipped with EVS control surfaces,” says Antworth. “For basic edits, we use EVS, but if more complex work is required, then the video files are pulled up in Avid, worked on and then saved. We then can play directly from Avid to air.”
CBC’s two control rooms are named “Red” and “White” in tribute to the colors of the Canadian flag. Both are equipped with Avid Media Composer and EVS control systems for multi-system editing. “The White control also has a Grass Valley hybrid NLE suite that is older than the hills, linked to a new HD switcher and audio board that can be automated,” Antworth says. “Meanwhile, the Red control room has some of our last VTRs — Sony DigiBeta and Sony Betacam SX — for ingesting taped video into our servers. We have cable connections as well for linking to Sony HDCAM, HDCAM SR and XDCAMs, but our goal is to go entirely tapeless in the near future.”
Collectively, CBC’s cross-platform NLE systems have not only cut travel costs for the network, but allowed it to reduce staff through the use of automation. “Today, one editor can do the job that used to be done by many people, without compromising the quality of our product,” Antworth says. “This has allowed us to live within tighter budgets, while remaining a major event broadcaster.”
Editing in Overdrive at KTBU-TV
Every Saturday at 6 p.m., Houston’s KTBU-TV (channel 55) airs High School Sports Live. For a small independent channel that doesn’t even have its own local newscasts, HSSL is a mammoth production. 
The goal is for six station shooters armed with Sony PDW-F355 XDCAMs to blanket the community, shooting all manner of high school sports, including football, volleyball and baseball. They then need to rush back to the station and produce video highlights of the events they’ve just covered for HSSL — sometimes while the show is live on air!
“High-school sports are central to our local identity,” says Erik Peterson, KTBU’s director of engineering. “So our shooters need access to a plant where they can edit and upload stories to our server fast, for immediate editing and playback.” 
To do the job, KTBU has configured a high-end production plant. “We have five Mac Pro edit suites and six MacBooks, all running Final Cut Pro,” says Peterson. “We have a 12TB SAN for file sharing, and all projects are mastered back to our Omneon server in HD or SD, depending on the client. We have figured out all the proper codecs for file transfers, thus enabling direct file transfers for production, editing or on-air playout in both HD and SD. We can then archive projects to the SAN, XDCAM or Blu-ray for future use.”
Because KTBU’s five Mac Pro edit suites are usually busy on other projects, HSSL shooters rely on the six MacBooks to do their editing. Each is equipped with an XDCAM drive to speed up file transfers. “The cameraperson just puts the XDCAM disk into the drive, fires up Final Cut Pro, and then edits their highlight package,” Peterson says. “Because they have already marked the shots they want while at the game, pulling the clips is very fast and easy. Once in the system, the package is cut together, then saved and sent to the Omneon at record speed.”
To ensure fast file transfers, the Mac Pros are linked to the SAN by fiber optic cables running at 4Gb/s. This is faster than the GigE network that the MacBooks utilize, Peterson admits, but the initial headaches of trying to bridge the two makes him wonder if a single GigE network might have been a better idea. As well, “Editors have a hard time letting go of their video files. File/media management is of the utmost importance when dealing with this kind of volume. Our 12TB SAN crashed recently because it was more than 90 percent full!”
There is no doubt that KTBU’s NLE architecture allows the station to make HSSL as current and well rounded as possible. “This is our flagship program; what people in Houston know us for,” says Peterson. “It’s vital that we do it as well as we can, and our editing system makes that possible.”
Theatre D Takes NLE Editing to Big Screen
Increasingly, HD video is ending up on movie screens. So it makes sense to install an NLE editing system close to a big screen and digital projector, so the editor can see his work as the audience will see it.
That’s the logic behind Toronto’s Theatre D Digital post house. It has opened video/audio post facilities in two historic movie theaters: the Regent (built in 1927) and the Royal (built in 1939). The post facility at the Regent is located on the balcony of this 600-seat venue, with a clear view of the theater’s main screen. Since the Royal lacks a balcony, the post facility here is at the back of the 400-seat hall. 
The Regent has five Avid Media Composer v11 NLE suites, all linked to a central 400GB server, with access to 125,000 SFX. Serial audio/video output from any of these suites can be sent directly to the Regent’s Christie Roadster S6 projector, which uses the 45' movie screen. “We were the first company in Canada to acquire the Christie HD DLP projector,” says John Hazen, Theatre D’s co-founder and senior audio engineer. “This equipment made it possible for us to pioneer our ‘direct to theater’ editing concept.”
The Royal also has four Avid Media Composers, which can be used with Symphony or Final Cut Pro suites, connected to a Christie CP2000 DCI-compliant digital cinema projector. Both facilities have full Dolby 5.1 audio facilities, plus ADR stages for voiceovers and redubbing. As well, the stage on the Royal has been restored so that it can be used for recording musical acts in 32 channels.
“The main idea behind these post houses is to give Canadian filmmakers access to the kind of facilities found in Los Angeles,” says Hazen. “Being able to edit and then see your work on the big screen makes a real difference, as compared to watching the edits on a computer monitor. Sometimes fast cuts that work in the NLE suite are too fast for feature films. With our direct-to-theater system, editors can catch these problems early.”
Intriguingly, Theatre D’s post facilities have not stopped the Regent and Royal from showing feature films in the evenings. In fact, since the facilities were built here, both theaters have enjoyed a renaissance, becoming hubs for independent and foreign films not usually seen on Toronto’s main screens.
In addition, adding post facilities has actually helped restore these neglected theaters to their former glory. The Regent, which started life as the silent film/vaudeville house Belsize in 1927, then spent some years as the Crest, presenting both talkies and rep theater, had decayed significantly over the years. But after Theatre D leased space in 2002, the movie house was spruced up considerably. Meanwhile, the Depression-era Royal was in sad shape until Theatre D bought the facility in 2006. The purchase resulted in a thorough modernization, plus restoration of the Royal’s lobby.
“It is great working in such historic theaters,” Hazen says. “But what is really great is being able to edit a film digitally, then see the results immediately on the big screen. It’s not only extremely helpful, it’s magic.”
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