VTV / Molinare:
Apple Workflow Enables Fast Turnaround
But the Apple technology was not the only innovation; this sort of production had never been attempted on a non-linear set-up before. Wiggins explains: “Fast turnaround sports is the last bastion of tape editing — other non-linear solutions have not been able to stand up to the pressures of such an operation. Traditionally, the Tour de France has been edited with two tape suites, but this year it was decided to use a combination of Apple’s Final Cut Pro and Xsan storage to improve the coverage. Visitors who came to look at our system couldn’t believe I could play a clip on the timeline to within five seconds of it still recording — I had to show them to prove it!”
Molinare received a daily feed from French television up to eight hours long. There were also multiple daily unilateral feeds from VTV’s own French-based crew, and ISDN audio circuits that could be dialled up at any time. These feeds were then recorded onto an Apple Xsan with four 5.6TB Xserve RAID systems — giving the team over 20TB of storage at DVCPro 50 resolution. Wiggins says: “With over 450 hours of storage on Xsan, we didn’t need to delete anything, ever. Every frame of every part of the race could be accessed instantly by anyone. We also had seven years’ worth of pre-digitised archive for all those Lance Armstrong packages we knew we were going to edit”.
The team used two Power Mac G5s running Final Cut Pro — one for feature material and the other for cutting the more effects- and graphics-intensive top and tails. There was also a tape suite, as well as another Mac OS X-based application from Gallery — Virtual VTR, also running on a Power Mac G5 — which was used to play back QuickTime files from the server into the suite’s digital tape environment via an edit controller. Venner admits: “Moving to non-linear was a leap of faith and we were reluctant to give up tape suites entirely. Virtual VTR allowed the integration”.
Once the editing was complete, the team used FCP to export final cuts to the server either to be laid down to tape or for play-out. “We played the cut story straight from the server to air”, explains Venner. “It was a bit hairy at first, but we became more and more confident. Eventually we were playing out mid-programme packages that were ready as little as 45 seconds before they were due on air.”
Peter Wiggins editing with Final Cut Pro, above. He says: “Other non-linear solutions have not been able to stand up to the pressures of such an operation”.
Wiggins adds: “It was a bit nerve-racking using so much new equipment on such a pressured and prestigious job, but it worked. Being able to export a cut story for play-out quicker than laying it off to tape buys you valuable extra time”.
Other kit included two Xserve G5s for metadata control and backup, two QLogic SANbox Fibre Channel switches and an additional two Power Mac G5s, one running Adobe After Effects and the other for linking the tape suite with Virtual VTR. The entire set-up was connected by optical fibre.
Wiggins says: “Overall, the kit was chosen because no other manufacturer had a solution that would give us instant access to all the feeds over multiple workstations — and for the number of seats needed, it’s a very inexpensive solution”. He adds: “Final Cut Pro allowed us to add polish to the programme, compositing multiple layers for programme openers or using complicated keys and fills”.
Venner is also delighted with how the system performed. He says: “All the systems worked incredibly well. We had a few glitches to begin with but, thanks to the support of Root6, these were fixed very quickly. Reliability wasn’t an issue — we had very few issues with FCP during the three weeks and Xsan performed fantastically”.
