NAB 2023 is behind us and now that everybody’s totally recovered from the enjoyable, pleasure, and lack of sleep I can inform you all about our expertise with the Camera to Cloud workflow we were using for our coverage and the FUJIFILM X-H2S system. You possibly can try our protection on the ProVideo Coalition YouTube channel here (and remember to subscribe for extra!). Whereas that playlist basically covers our… protection… and there’s been particular person posts about every video right here on PVC, I needed to run down the gear and workflow aspect of issues as a result of I believe it’ll be helpful to these of you who would possibly attempt do do your individual occasion protection, or a minimum of discover this sort of nerdy, weeds-y stuff attention-grabbing.
First off, if you realize something about me you realize I’m a big fan of both the entire line of Fujifilm cameras in addition to the emerging tech behind C2C. Cameraman Adam Greene and I’ve yelled from the rooftops about how helpful C2C could be since we first deployed it at Cinegear 2022 and our pleasure hasn’t modified as new additions to the workflow appear to be added each month. That being mentioned, we did study just a few issues this journey as NAB was a very difficult atmosphere. Whereas the content material is incredible and I’ve gotten nice response from our protection, the execution was rocky at occasions. Hopefully this text will assist you pull off one thing like this, for those who have been planning on it, however even for those who’re not I wager one thing in right here will ring true and be helpful. That being mentioned, we’ll begin with…
THE GOOD STUFF
The Outcomes
Earlier than we get into something, I’ve to say the top product is precisely as we got down to create. Each interview we did was incredible, the individuals we met and the merchandise demoed have been tremendous cool, Cameraman Adam and Editor Alexander Jones completely knocked it out of the park, and I personally suppose we made a beautiful complement to any current protection on the market that I used to be informed a variety of occasions from the oldsters we have been speaking to might really feel a bit stale. I believe we have been in a position to have a extra actual, trustworthy dialogue with our topics that didn’t really feel as “newsy” as another retailers made and that permits you, the viewer, to get a extra nuanced take a look at any given services or products. My objective was to not be combative, clearly, letting the businesses pitch their stuff but additionally to be inquisitive and pleasant, hopefully getting “previous the press launch” and into questions you or I might need that wouldn’t be coated by a easy speaking head sales space presentation. I believe we delivered there.
The Digital camera
One factor I, and most folk, love concerning the Fujifilm collection of cameras is the movie simulations. Not that I do know for certain that they precisely emulate any given movie inventory, but it surely permits you to mainly “colour grade” in-camera. That is superior for pictures, and also you don’t should look far to see the wonderful outcomes persons are attaining there, however for one thing like this it was nice to have the ability to dial within the look as I needed it so Editor Alex didn’t have to fret about correcting something and will simply deal with meeting and add (he did unbelievable by the way in which, go try how polished these movies are, for actual).
For one thing like occasion protection or information gathering or no matter you don’t want log (and positively not the 10bit 4:2:2 6.2K the X-H2S is able to) however for those who’re planning on going to “broadcast” with the C2C proxies, one thing just like the wonderful new Flog2 curve gained’t be correctly served, for my part, by the restricted 45Mbps bitrate. Though ProRes Proxy is 10bit, within the curiosity of velocity we used the Eterna simulation with the shadows and saturation boosted a bit and the highlights introduced down in order to account for the conference heart top-down lighting creating any deep shadows or poppy highlights. We additionally nixed the noise discount and sharpness, setting these to their absolute lowest values, as I’ve discovered I get a cleaner picture that means. They’ve their functions clearly however as a desire I simply flip these off. Worst case I can de-noise in submit however I haven’t discovered that to be mandatory with a correctly uncovered picture. As you possibly can see within the ultimate movies, the top high quality is ok and really YouTube did extra harm to the movies than the Proxies as we have been importing in 1080 (you may get away with up-resing to 4K a whole lot of occasions to get round YouTube’s poor HD encoding).
One other good factor is the X-H2S doesn’t have a clip size restrict so, though it solely occurred as soon as, any interviews over 30m wouldn’t get reduce off. For dwell occasion protection or comparable that’s truly large, and an oft-cited draw back of utilizing DSLR/Mirrorless cameras for sure gigs. Fujifilm cites 240min of runtime at 4K 60p in case your reminiscence card and batteries can deal with it.
The Lens
Not a lot to say right here actually, the Fujinon MKX 18-55mm Cine Lens is a surprisingly light-weight beast that I’ve talked about before and because it opens to a T2.9 we weren’t wanting for extra publicity, taking pictures round 800-1250ISO which gave us a pleasant clear picture. The optical high quality is close to good with no respiratory, vignetting, CA or something to talk of and gave us a tack-sharp picture even large open which additional helped our “proxy” workflow look its greatest. In addition they have a extremely nice falloff and easy bokeh/out of focus space, though these weren’t notably highlighted in these easy interview situations with me up towards a sales space wall as a rule.
Clearly as they’re cinema lenses there’s no OIS, however because the X-H2S has IBIS Cameraman Adam was in a position to hop off the monopod and go handheld and even simply transfer with the monopod connected when mandatory with out having to fret about any shakiness or something. It additionally made the monopod footage rock-solid, which was good.
The File Switch Grip
The primary purpose we went with this method was the brand new File Switch Grip out there to the X-H2 and X-H2S. Whereas earlier than we would have liked a Teradek, Atomos Join, or Much like allow C2C performance, with the grip every part is self-contained. The grip allows each wifi and ethernet connection so that you simply set your web supply within the digicam menu, join it to your Body.IO challenge (which is completed slightly merely with a QR code and your telephone), and also you’re good to go. Other than being a switch machine, it additionally acts like a standard battery grip with all of the buttons you’re used to in addition to the addition of two additional batteries, though these batteries are targeted on holding the grip itself going while you’re utilizing C2C so that you do lose out on a number of the commonplace shooting-longevity advantages there. That being mentioned…
The Battery Life
Though the grip batteries have been doing grip duties, the digicam itself truly ran all day on the one inside battery which we thought was fairly unbelievable. Clearly the digicam was sipping energy from the grip as effectively, however we truly by no means needed to change the principle battery despite the fact that we have been leaving the digicam on all day and taking pictures close to continuous from round 10am to 5pm. The digicam additionally didn’t overheat, even in checks the place we left it going so long as it might, in order that was good.
Ergonomics
Clearly, one benefit to taking pictures with a mirrorless digicam is the scale. Our earlier convention protection was executed with a C500mkII and a Teradek Dice 655 and whereas that’s not an infinite digicam, it actually can get tiresome after 8 hours of working round. The X-H2S coupled with the aforementioned mild weight cine zoom didn’t tire us out and was simple to go between one another if wanted anyway. The X-H2S is extra “standardly mirrorless” in structure, versus one thing just like the X-T5 which has a extra “movie basic” physique with extra dials devoted to issues like ISO and the like, however nonetheless has simply legible and universally customizable buttons permitting you to govern any of the settings with out having to go menu-digging. It’s additionally received a pleasant deep grip which most individuals appear to want (I’ve received tiny arms so the smaller grip on one thing like my X-T3 or X100V isn’t terribly troublesome to wrangle).
One factor I’d wish to see is a waveform, versus the histogram it already has, and Cameraman Adam mentioned he would have favored a bit extra “peak” on the main focus peaking, however hopefully these issues could be added in one among Fujifilm’s fixed Firmware updates. Worst case, particularly for a story sort gig, you possibly can simply make use of an exterior monitor. And that type of dovetails us into…
THE STICKING POINTS
Firstly, and that is on me, I discussed in my announcement article that scheduling was troublesome final NAB and this 12 months I used Calendly to guide everybody. That was an awesome concept and resulted in a full slate of interviews however I didn’t account for any time to handle hangups as we hadn’t actually run into them earlier than and for no matter purpose I used to be feeling notably assured. On this case it was the wifi connection within the conference heart. Apparently everybody from distributors to audio system was having bother getting on-line, not simply us (even with our devoted unit) and that meant the “cloud” a part of C2C was hindered. We have been in a position to get perhaps half of our interviews to Editor Alex, however the different half we needed to edit ourselves once we received again house and this highlighted just a few issues to contemplate when using this method.
In each article or dialogue I’ve had about Digital camera to Cloud, I’ve talked about how fantastic it’s to have as a “third backup” and likewise to have a contemporary set of eyes within the type of your editor or AE to let you realize if one thing’s up together with your footage as quickly as you shoot it. At Cinegear 2022, as an example, our editor and PVC contributor Scott Simmons was in a position to inform us we had an audio concern with our first interview and we have been ready to return and re-do it instantly, saving us the embarrassment of getting house and realizing it too late. Within the case of NAB 2023, I wasn’t contemplating C2C to be a backup however our predominant workflow. I’m an enormous proponent of the “two is one, one is none” philosophy and in my pleasure to get going let that concept slip. In a state of affairs the place you’re not in a wi-fi faraday cage just like the Las Vegas Conference Heart it’s seemingly not a problem, however for us it was. Subsequent 12 months (the place I’ll completely be taking one other crack at it) that is what my plan is:
Scheduling
This was my largest mistake however fortunately has a easy set of options. I naively assumed quarter-hour between interviews was sufficient to get to the following one, however that was banking on the concept we wouldn’t must do any gear upkeep and that each sales space could be able to go once we received there. This was not the case.
We’ll undergo the gear stuff beneath however for everybody’s sanity I simply wanted to schedule one interview an hour versus each half-hour. This could enable us to account for different interviews going over time, topics not being prepared or current, or every other unexpected circumstances (like, as an example, ready for the top of a loud PA-assisted presentation occurring proper subsequent to the sales space we have been making an attempt to speak to). This could additionally imply that if we did get an interview executed on time we might discover one other sales space that wasn’t on the predetermined checklist to talk with and probably discover some hidden gold.
One other scheduling snafu, and once more for no matter purpose I believed quarter-hour was loads of time to do that, was doing back-to-back interviews in several halls. If you happen to’ve by no means been to the Las Vegas Conference Heart there’s truly 4 main sections: South, North, Central, and the dreaded West Corridor. The majority of the convention takes place within the North and Central Halls, that are mainly proper subsequent to one another, but it surely’s like a 5-10 minute stroll to the West Corridor from there and there have been just a few situations the place I had conferences go North, West, North, Central, West, West, Central, West and so forth. That was a HUGE time suck however did internet us about 23,000 steps a day which was a… bonus?
Subsequent 12 months I’m going to schedule one interview an hour and dedicate every day to a single corridor, permitting us to not solely get our slate of interviews in with out having to reschedule or cancel, but additionally giving us time to seek out smaller firms to speak to once we do occur to have spare time. In an ideal world we’d have a second group doing interviews as effectively so we will double-up and get much more protection, however we’ll fear about that once I get this workflow dialed in haha
Greater Reminiscence Playing cards
We had loads of playing cards however they have been all 325GB in dimension. This wouldn’t be a problem typically and really is a good concept for footage safety as if one card will get corrupted you solely lose a handful of clips and never your complete day’s shoot, however when utilizing C2C you’ll want to have the cardboard within the digicam to switch, clearly. Since we have been taking pictures back-to-back interviews basically continuous, the spotty web wasn’t permitting us to get the footage to Editor Alex in time earlier than swapping playing cards. Clearly which means the switch of the footage is canceled and a brand new switch begins with no matter you’re taking pictures on the brand new card. Fortunately this didn’t end in half of an interview getting out or something like that, but it surely actually wasn’t superb. I additionally had us taking pictures in 4K pondering we’d want the footage later for some purpose (and that did assist us determine sure individuals by their badges which can have been illegible in HD) which crammed up the playing cards quicker than mandatory. Clearly the already-wonderful wanting proxies are going to Editor Alex in 1080, however there was no purpose to shoot 4K on a gig like this.
Subsequent time I’m going to convey 1TB or larger playing cards to ensure our transfers can preserve going out as we shoot and we’re going to maintain it at 1080p.
Use the {Hardware}
We truly had two cameras in case one went down for no matter purpose, in addition to to permit us to shoot B-Roll of our protection concurrently, however since I used to be crunched for time I didn’t suppose to make use of the opposite physique for transfers. Had I given us extra time between interviews we might have stopped and ran to the Filmtools sales space and simply type of “set and neglect” a digicam to solely deal with transfers, or simply choose up the opposite physique and go away the primary one to maintain working, however we have been on a prepare that wasn’t stopping.
Answer right here is to easily have me carry across the second physique and swap out if/when a card fills up. Though alternatively we might have used…
A Third Particular person
Cameraman Adam and I have been working this factor solo (duo?) the place he was targeted on the digicam stuff and I used to be targeted on the interview and scheduling stuff. This works in concept however we actually did want a 3rd particular person there to dump duties on to once we wanted divided consideration. For example I used to be always making an attempt to speak with PR groups by way of e-mail/textual content whereas additionally working from sales space to sales space and clearly couldn’t achieve this whereas conducting the interview so any time we hit a snag that wanted each of our energies, or I merely wanted to place my head down and hearth off a bunch of correspondence, we might really feel the absence of a further set of arms. This particular person might have additionally ran off and received us that second digicam whereas we stored recording, or monitored that our bodies switch standing in a pocket of fine wifi, which might have been large.
Subsequent conference I’m going to see if we will’t get an AD/PR particular person to deal with that sort of stuff so Adam and I can merely deal with the manufacturing aspect of issues however even when we will’t, the broader schedule and tighter geographic motion shall be vastly helpful. It’ll even be good to have that particular person be “the unhealthy man” and preserve us on schedule as I could be form of excited and chatty.
Backups/WiFi
This was our predominant snag. The Conference Heart was only a nightmare of wi-fi indicators and useless spots, and that’s not likely something we might management. Our checks at house went flawlessly, footage transferring to our Body.IO challenge good and fast even out at a park and clearly in our respective “workplaces”, however the LVCC was a worst-case situation for this sort of workflow.
We had a Sclera unit (mainly a large wifi tower in a backpack) however that was actually struggling to get by the concrete it appeared. We additionally had a devoted C2C wifi entry level that spanned the vast majority of the Heart and North halls, however that didn’t get dialed in (for us a minimum of) till the second day which had the vast majority of the 65,000 attendees current so the protection was actually getting beat up. We have been additionally doing a ultimate “battle/beta check” of the handgrip to offer notes to Fujifilm about earlier than they went dwell with a brand new replace, so we weren’t on manufacturing firmware which didn’t actually matter aside from the truth that it might solely bear in mind one connection at a time. This meant that making an attempt to modify between the Sclera, C2C wifi, or a special sizzling spot basically concerned a reset and took extra time than I’d allotted (not pondering we’d even must be doing that). Fujifilm already knew about this earlier than giving us the {hardware} and the manufacturing firmware that’s going to exit gained’t have that exact concern so no worries for you there for those who’re planning on getting one, that’s simply how beta testing goes. In any other case the grip labored nice, they usually’re including just a few different notes of ours as effectively so so far as a check issues truly went rather well! I’d be extra nervous if we have been on beta firmware and located nothing (“the place are these bugs hiding!?”).
When it comes to Backups, I principally imply that I used to be relying solely on the C2C workflow and didn’t have another. Have you ever ever been leaving your own home and thought “ooh I ponder if I ought to seize… nah I gained’t want that”? Each. Single. Time. I’ve that thought, I do “want that” and on this case it was a CFexpress reader. Had I simply grabbed my reader we might have simply gone to the resort and even the press room and dumped the footage to a drive and began importing it to Body.IO “manually” which often goes fairly quick. Drawback solved. As an alternative we had one digicam related to resort wifi (slooooow) doing C2C transfers and one other digicam plugged straight into my laptop computer utilizing the unsuitable cable (on this case, a USB-C however USB2.0 velocity cable supposed for charging) dumping the footage to my harddrive so I might then do the aforementioned handbook add to Body. That took means too lengthy.
This actually was a dumb mistake on my half. Subsequent 12 months it’ll be easy sufficient to simply convey a card reader and I’ve already invested in a handful of assured USB-C 3.2 velocity cables as a result of whereas USB-C is a superb commonplace, cables don’t appear to be labeled and also you by no means know what you’re utilizing: Thunderbolt? USB2? 3.x? I want to speak to the USB Consortium… USB-A 3.0+ cables a minimum of have that blue bit that you may visually affirm with. I’ve began going by all my USB-C cables, testing them, and marking them with color-coded tapes simply because, even outdoors of this challenge, I merely can’t inform which is which!
In any case, subsequent 12 months our supply plans, so as, shall be: C2C, Offload on-site, Offload off-site, and “Edit on the resort”. That’ll be loads of various options in case one among them doesn’t pan in and out this particular occasion we might have had all however perhaps the final 5 interviews in Editor Alex’s arms had I simply had my card reader/cables. Ya dwell and ya study, proper?
Wrap-Up
Total, foot ache and complications apart, I believe we did what we got down to do. Certain, we couldn’t account for LVCC’s web state of affairs on the ground, however this expertise jogged my memory to at all times assume Murphy’s Regulation is in full impact and to have a number of backups. If two is one and one is none, then technically you want three minimal contingency plans! Fortunately I made that mistake so that you don’t should ????
When it comes to Digital camera to Cloud and the FUJIFILM X-H2S, I’ll hopefully be using them at subsequent 12 months’s conference (and even Cinegear arising right here quickly!) with my new greatest practices in place and issues going rather a lot smoother. Whereas I’m a comparatively completed DP and really tech-literate, if something this expertise actually simply goes to indicate that irrespective of how up-to-date you’re on the {hardware} and workflows you’re deploying on set, the one that’ll actually save your butt is…
A superb AD.
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