Workprinter 2 experiences

[Kurt]

Just wanted to pass on my experiences using Roger’s Workprinter 2. I bought the unit some time ago but just recently had the chance to do some longer transfers. For your info, I’m located in Germany and I’m using a heavy duty step down converter (300W) to get the voltage down to 110. Here’s my computer set up:

Asus P4B266 board
P4 2.23 GHz processor
512 MB DDR RAM
20 GB Maxtor 6L020L1 System drive
80 GB Maxtor 6L080J4 Dedicated video drive
Matrox G550 graphics card
PYRO DV firewire card
Windows 2000

You’ll notice that I’m not using a Raid setup as Roger recommends. These drives are fast Ultra-100 IDM drives with a speed of 7200rpm and that seems to be enough.

I’ve tried capturing with Premiere 6.0 but I just don’t like the feel of Premiere. I just spent the whole weekend capturing with DOCAP and I’m very pleased with the program. I initially had some problems with some of the PAL settings, but Jeff quickly solved the problems and got an update out to me within a few days.

I transferred about 30 GB of material on Saturday at full speed (6fps) and had no image smear or speed problems and the drives captured every frame perfectly. I’m very happy with the system, especially with the sharpness. Capturing was done with a CANON XM-1 (GL-1 in NTSC countries) with everything set manually. Shutter speed set at 1/50, Gain at 0dB, F-stop was varied according to the scene. I just used the f-stop setting to adjust brightness and color scene by scene. White balance was taken of the projector bulb without film loaded. I know there have been discussions about the best way to set the white balance but this seemed to work wee for me. Tri-X black and white came out beautiful and its very easy to get a sharp image because you easily focus on the grain. I also transferred some old ORWO East German color stock which came out very nice. Also easy to focus because of the grain structure. Kodachrome looked nice of course, but sometimes it’s hard to make a decision about the best focus setting because of the super tight grain.

I recommend DODCAP for transfers even if you have access to Premiere. I like to support small programs anyway, but this program really does a great job and offers you more options regarding pulldown and video codecs. For PAL users, make sure you check the PAL box under the DirectX advanced settings. If you don’t you’ll get a transfer at 25fps but with NTSC resolution.

If this sounds like I’m plugging the Workprinter and DODCAP, I am. Thanks to Roger and Jeff for allowing me to be totally independent of the transfer labs.

Kurt

[dgs8film]

I also have a Workprinter 2 and a full copy of DODCAP. Both are excellent products, DODCAP is much easier to use for capturing and converting the captured footage to the correct running speed than Premiere 6.5.
I'm using a Dell 800Mhz Plll computer (no RAID) with an 80GB hard drive for capturing. I've had no problem capturing footage at the full 6fps with no dropped frames.
Thanks to Roger and Jeff for their great gear and software!

[mcarter4121]

Yea, and thanks to firewire you don't need Raid, however, my analog setup does require Raid. So what, it works great. Abit Kt7a board, athalon 1100. Win 98se.
Michael

[MovieStuff]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by mcarter4121:
Yea, and thanks to firewire you don't need Raid</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, that's not universally true, though firewire does help. There are many reasons for using a Raid with the WorkPrinter at 6fps. For instance, on a single drive that is freshly defragged, no screen saver, lots of RAM, a P4 processor and no network card, you might be able to capture several hundred frames without any pulldown smears showing up. However, the liklihood that you will ALWAYS be able to do that trick each and every time without ever having a pulldown problem is risky, especially where money is concerned and the unit is being used for commercial efforts. That is to say you might no mind the occasional pulldown frame but a client will most likely have a different opinion on the situation. So while one MIGHT be able to get by with only a single drive and no Raid-0 set up, it would require a constant vigelance of reviewing the transfer to make sure a pulldown frame did not get by. Using a Raid-0 means that you don't have to second guess. You still need 512+ megs of Ram and a P3 or P4 processor but you can capture dependably with a Raid-0 and never have to hawkeye the final results looking for smeared frames.

Now, the other issue involving a Raid is the matter of dropping frames entirely. Unlike smeared frames that are pretty obvious to the viewer, a missing frame will not be noticable unless it comes in mid action or if sound synch is an issue. The way to test for dropped frames is to mark a frame at the beginning and end of a 50 foot roll of film and transfer it three times 1:1 (no speed change) and then stack the three clips on the timeline. Line up the beginning synch frames for all three. If the computer is not dropping frames, then the end synch frames will line up as well. If they do not, even on one roll, then the computer can not be depended on for frame accuracy at 6fps and a Raid-0 configuration is recommened.

Now the other thing that makes a really big difference in performance of the computer with the WorkPrinter at 6fps is what type of defragging program you use and how often you defrag. I have found that the full version of Norton Speed Disk is best to defrag both files and free spaces. While some sort of defragger is better than none, programs like Diskeeper lite do not have the nads to defrag a video drive enough to really make a difference. We use Norton Speed disk at least once a day, generally right before playing the clips off to tape. That means it's freshly defragged prior to the next big capture session. Makes a big difference in performance, especially for stop motion capture.

Roger

[Kurt]

Roger,

You've probably answered this a number of times, but what hardware is needed for Raid 0? Could you explain the setup a bit more?

Thanks!

Kurt

[TA 152]

Some info:

http://peripherals.about.com/library.../aa082300a.htm

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">RAID For Faster, Cheaper Storage

Dateline 08/23/2000

When I was a university student in the early 90s, I remember reading a seminar announcement for a lecture by a Berkeley graduate student about a new concept in computer storage called RAID, Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks. I wish I had attended that seminar!
</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

R