4K TV production advice

ONeill2013

This area seems like my best bet for an answer.

One of my university assignments is about a TV + cinema post-production house switching over to 4K. part of it is writing about what hardware/software they would need.

I have included

colour grading system
4K projection system
editing software
storage solution - archion canvas
84 inch 4K monitor(s)
30 inch 4K monitors
Apple mac pros
4K portable video player
Graphics card

This isn't my strong point and i have a more important assignment to do after so have little time to worry about this one.

Am I missing any important hardware or software?

Another thing I have to mention is how the network infrastructure of the company will be impacted as the company wants uncompressed recording, editing and transfer.
I was told that there would need to be 10-gig connections to each edit suite, what does this mean?

BloodBath

Scratch the first part, mac pros are fine.

As for the network I couldn't tell you. Most standard home/office networks are 1gb. If you were running a central data storage server for this type of video then I'd imagine you need something a lot beefier alright.

frozenfrozen

What about the compositing software? i.e. after effects, smoke, etc?

Also the appropriate hardware to route all of those video signals, blackmagic do a number of switchers and interfaces, if you need to give named items?


Basically there's import > cut > colour > composite > delivery. so go through each of those steps and see if you've accounted for all of the tools needed.

Will the 4k footage be coming from a RED camera? If so then look at the need for red rockets.

The network is a fairly easy step to mention, basically there's just going to be a massive throughput of information, like hundreds of MB/s of information moving along the workflow so there needs to be a pipe big enough to transfer all of that information, the 10 gigs connection is just referring to this more beefy network solution...

ONeill2013

frozenfrozen wrote: »

What about the compositing software? i.e. after effects, smoke, etc?

Also the appropriate hardware to route all of those video signals, blackmagic do a number of switchers and interfaces, if you need to give named items?


Basically there's import > cut > colour > composite > delivery. so go through each of those steps and see if you've accounted for all of the tools needed.

Will the 4k footage be coming from a RED camera? If so then look at the need for red rockets.

The network is a fairly easy step to mention, basically there's just going to be a massive throughput of information, like hundreds of MB/s of information moving along the workflow so there needs to be a pipe big enough to transfer all of that information, the 10 gigs connection is just referring to this more beefy network solution...

would i need to mention about the 10 gig connections?

We were advised that the post-production house have to be equipped for any of the top 4K cameras, I included the RED One and EPIC in that.

Would just one compositing software package be enough?

also, Sony Vegas Pro 12 is the NLE I recommended, Final Cut Pro didn't natively support the format of one of the cameras from what I remember

Overheal

would i need to mention about the 10 gig connections?

Why buy a HDTV if you aren't going to purchase the appropriate HDMI cable?

I would think it pertinent to mention all the required cables and accessories.

frozenfrozen

ONeill2013 wrote: »

would i need to mention about the 10 gig connections?

We were advised that the post-production house have to be equipped for any of the top 4K cameras, I included the RED One and EPIC in that.

Would just one compositing software package be enough?

also, Sony Vegas Pro 12 is the NLE I recommended, Final Cut Pro didn't natively support the format of one of the cameras from what I remember

Sony vegas isn't available on Mac OSX, The Adobe suite contains pretty much all of the tools required to work in 4K. Premiere for cutting and titling, speedgrade for colouring, after effects for compositing, photoshop for the design of graphics for use when compositing. Final cut is a bit pants unless you have a solid streamlined prores workflow, which you won't in 4K.
Red cameras need a red rocket to really work with the footage. Alexa would require maybe an Nvidia Quadro 6000 for rendering out raw to all of those monitors in real time, with all of the compositing and such.
You would need to include the network cards capable of 10 gig.

ONeill2013

frozenfrozen wrote: »

Sony vegas isn't available on Mac OSX, The Adobe suite contains pretty much all of the tools required to work in 4K. Premiere for cutting and titling, speedgrade for colouring, after effects for compositing, photoshop for the design of graphics for use when compositing. Final cut is a bit pants unless you have a solid streamlined prores workflow, which you won't in 4K.
Red cameras need a red rocket to really work with the footage. Alexa would require maybe an Nvidia Quadro 6000 for rendering out raw to all of those monitors in real time, with all of the compositing and such.
You would need to include the network cards capable of 10 gig.

so does that mean you wouldn't need the colour grading system (baseline eight) since you have speedgrade?

frozenfrozen

ONeill2013 wrote: »

so does that mean you wouldn't need the colour grading system (baseline eight) since you have speedgrade?

Definitely use baselight instead of speedgrade, I was thinking more along the lines of a small art house (wherein I would still opt for basslight or resolve before speedgrade). But yes baselight is a much better option!

Snowbat

ONeill2013 wrote: »

Am I missing any important hardware or software?

You will be missing Mac Pros if you need to buy new ones:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/01/apple-to-stop-shipping-mac-pro-in-europe-on-march-1/

I was told that there would need to be 10-gig connections to each edit suite, what does this mean?

1 gigabit switch with 10 gigabit uplink port in each edit suite, 10 gigabit backbone? You might consider running 10 gig to each workstation if budget allows.

storage solution - archion canvas

Multiple storage devices may prove less of a bottleneck, depending on the workflow and network traffic.

ONeill2013

I have another question regarding a different assignment, we have to design a studio complex with signal flows, etc. there needs to be 5.1 surround sound. we have to decide what type of signal a piece of equipment sends to another specific piece of equipment, e.g. HD-SDI. What type of audio signal would i use from the microphones to the audio mixer? is it called a 5.1 digital signal?

Cuddlesworth

4K data transfer rates at 24fps, around 340MB's. So at least 4 bonded 1gig links with a huge backbone or 10gig links. Would be far more easy to drop everything in the same area on the same enterprise switch. Your going to need huge storage requirements, fast too. Hours of footage will scale into the petabytes stage. Your talking about some serious enterprise SAN systems. The SAN you reference scales to 14TB's, not nearly enough for hours of footage and multiple editing suites.

Dravokivich

ONeill2013 wrote: »

I have another question regarding a different assignment, we have to design a studio complex with signal flows, etc. there needs to be 5.1 surround sound. we have to decide what type of signal a piece of equipment sends to another specific piece of equipment, e.g. HD-SDI. What type of audio signal would i use from the microphones to the audio mixer? is it called a 5.1 digital signal?

5.1 just refers to panning and a bass bin.

Signal could likely be referring to analogue -> digital. analogue being the microphone and digital being the pre-amp/daw controller/mixer being recorded into.

frozenfrozen

Make sure you're looking at broadcast 4k standards when working out the transfer throughput speeds also!

snugburger

you could choose blackmagic cinema camera avialable from the camera kit the whole kit costs 3,000 the package includes color grading software before you buy your hardware have a look at the nikon d7100 also have alook at this video it was filmed using this camera and for 1,600 euro you couldnt go wrong watch the youtube link below,best of look with your video production

http://youtu.be/YqhcqqL9Ph8

frozenfrozen

snugburger wrote: »

you could choose blackmagic cinema camera avialable from the camera kit the whole kit costs 3,000 the package includes color grading software before you buy your hardware have a look at the nikon d7100 also have alook at this video it was filmed using this camera and for 1,600 euro you couldnt go wrong watch the youtube link below,best of look with your video production

http://youtu.be/YqhcqqL9Ph8

The OP was looking for a fictitious optimal setup for a 4k tv production suite, and a d7100 won't shoot 4k anyway :P

ONeill2013

it's been submitted now, all the research was useful as I intend on becoming a Camera Operator but writing about it is always difficult. thanks

Overheal

I dont make a habit of handing out "homework" help, but that was pretty innocent. good luck with it