Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Do we own our own equipment or do we hire it in?

A. We own all the required standard and high definition edit suites, video machines and converters. We also own all our own audio post equipment including the major mastering machines.

Q. Do we rent our equipment out?

A. No. Renting out equipment can render it damaged or faulty on return. Our equipment is our livelihood and our 'tools', which we have a high respect for; and we need to know its operational condition at all times.

Q. Can you provide origination services besides post production?

A. Yes we can do location shooting in high definition using our own cameras, lights and location audio equipment. We can also provide location editing and playout services.

Q. Do you have a rate card?

A. Not as such. We prefer to quote on individual jobs that consider the whole requirement. We also provide price lockdowns so there are no surprise invoices at the end of the job. Of course this is based on a 'job requirement' specification, and if extra work is required it is negotiated first. Also, we are quite approachable when it comes to budget limitations, although we find it hard to 'half do a job' because of a small budget.

Q. How are your costs calculated?

A. Duplication and transfers are generally a 'per minute' basis. Edit suites are 'per half hour' and location production 'per half day'. Obviously stock costs are extra with generally a 10% to 20% markup for carrying the stock.

Q. Do you provide quality control services?

A. Yes we can do quality control based on individual requirements. These requirements are normally based on the individual 'deliverables' specifications'.

Q. What is the job turnaround status?

A. We try to do duplication and transfers within a 24 hour period as we carry most media blanks (tapes and disks). As for more involved work such as editing and audio post we offer an estimate on time based on the complexity.

Q. Do you 'dry hire' your edit and audio suites?

A. Yes. Prices are negotiable and are based on the level of skill the operator has. In the past we have had freelancers come in that were not fully knowledgable on our software which required us to also get involved. That equated to extra 'man hours' on our behalf which we had to convert to dollars.

Q. What are your operating hours?

A. We are able to operate 24/7 but try to run in normal business hours. We generally open about 9.30am and close at about 7.00pm. We are also open weekends although that is generally used for maintenance.

Q. What videotape formats can you handle?

A. Starting from the highest to the lowest - HDCAM SR, HDCAM, DIGIAL BETACAM, HDV, IMX, DVCam, DVC Pro, SP BETACAM, 1" C Format, MiniDV, BVU SP, Digital 8, Hi8, Umatic, Betamax, VHS as well as Blu-Ray, DVD, CD and Laserdisc (playback only).

Q. What audiotape formats can you handle?

A. We have DA98 8 track digital, ADAT 8 track digital, DAT 2 track digital, 1/4" 2 track analog, and cassette.

Q. What High definition equipment do you have?

A. We have a Sony HDW1800 HDCAM mastering deck, A Sony JH3 HDCAM player with built in Firewire out and a Sony HVR-M15 HDV deck with a Convergent Design HDV to HD-SDI converter (for mastering HDV to HDCAM). We also have a Sony EX 1 XDCAM camera, a Sony FX1 camera and a Sony HC9 camera. Our edit 1 has a Decklink Multibridge Eclipse and an Avid Mojo SDI, Edit 2, Edit 3 and Edit 4 each have their own Decklink Multibridge Extremes and our location unit has a Matrox MXO2. We also have an assortment of HD monitors in all our edit suites including HDCAM converters.

Q. What technical monitoring facilities do you have?

A. Each of our fixed edit suites have waveform and vectorscope, Sony grade 1 SD CRT component monitors (in addition to the HD LCD screens) and 4 channel outboard 'analog' VU meters PLUS 'in picture' 4 channel digital audio meters. Obviously the edit systems have on screen digital VU monitoring as part of the software packages.
Our main equipment room has an analog viewing rack with a Techtronix waveform and vectorscope, 20" grade 1 CRT monitor and digital stereo VU and phase meters. The equipment room also has a digital viewing rack with an in picture waveform and vectorscope and audio level and phase metering.

Q. What software do you use?

A. For video we have Final Cut Studio v3 (Mac), Adobe CS4 which includes Premiere, Encore, After Effects and Photoshop (Mac and PC) and we also have Avid Media Composer V3.1.2 (Mac and PC). For Audio we have Steinberg Nuendo 4 (Mac and PC) as well as Soundforge (PC).

Q. What are the technical details of your audio post suite?

A. We have 2 computers in our audio post including a massive amount of outboard gear.
The main computer is a MacPro which interfaces to a Motu 2408 (24 digital inputs/outputs and 8 analog inputs/outputs). Also interfaced is a Motu 308 (24 digital inputs/outputs). Timecode lock/chase is achieved via a Motu Timepiece. This computer has Nuendo 4 and Final Cut Pro installed and uses an Decklink HD interface for video monitoring connected to a Sony grade 1 20" CRT via SDI. High definition monitoring is also available.
The second computer is a Pentium 4 3gig PC with a RME sound card supporting 8 digital input/outputs into a TDIF converter, 2 SPDIF channels and 2 analog. This computer also has a Decklink Pro video card with SDI i/o and 2 x AES (4 channels) of digital output. It uses a Unitor 8 for timecode reading and it has a software video chaser to serve as a video player to the main Nuendo system when doing mixdowns.
We have as outboard gear a Skotel timecode reader/generator, an Ensoniq DP/4 effects processor, a stereo ESS compressor/limiter, a Tascam TMD 1000 16 input digital audio desk, Tascam IFAE8 8 channel SPDIF to TDIF converter, a Yamaha 16x2 analog talkback mixer, Sony Minidisk MDS-JE5120, 100W Per Channel SPDIF amplifier with 5.1 surround, Tascam 848 machine controller with a 24 channel audio monitoring bridge connected to 2 x Tascam DA98 digital 8 channel audio decks, 2 x Behringer BCF2000 control surfaces (16 channels in total), a Fostex DA20 timecode DAT machine, a Panasonic SV3900 DAT machine, Alesis ADAT digital 8 track machine with a JLCooper timecode chaser, a Behringer 16x2 analog monitoring unit for the digital 8 track decks, Akai dual cassette deck, a Revox PR99 1/4" reel to reel and a 4 x analog VU meter bridge. For audio monitoring we have 2 x EV MS802 as main speakers (2 x Auratone for TV mix) and 2 x JBL rear, JBL centre speaker and a Zeus powered subwoofer, all connected to a 6 channel 200w surround amplifier via a digital input. Other support gear includes a Panasonic 7750 SuperVHS deck and a high end professional turntable with ultra low noise preamp.
All video, audio, SPDIF, SDI, TDIF and word clocks are available on patchbays within the room.
The whole system is locked together using a video to wordclock generator/DA which is locked to the main equipment room's Techtronix Digital Sync Pulse Generator.

Q. Do you have internet servers for media previewing?

A. Yes we have password protected internet servers for upload and download of media.

Q. Can you do Blu-Ray authoring and encoding.

A. Yes we use Adobe Encore and while this is a powerful tool it does not do the 'Hollywood Style' menus that the $100k software packages do. There just isn't enough of that type of work for us to warrant it. We can also do 'small run' Blu-ray duplication and respect copyright where applicable.

Q. Do you have client viewing facilities

A. We have a Blackmagic HDLink Pro that connects to a 50" 1920x1080 Plasma via HDMI and also connects to a 6 channel surround sound system via discrete cables, all situated in our 'open plan' office area. This viewing setup is fed from our main HD router allowing monitoring from all edit and audio rooms. We also have a Blu-ray player (Playstation 3) digitally connected to this system for QC'ing of Blu-ray.