2024 - A "No Gear" Year

[MrSMW]

10 hours ago, QuickHitRecord said:

I'm two weeks in and still holding strong!

Where exactly do you live in the World where it’s 2024 already?

Must be one of those remote Pacific islands? 🤔

[QuickHitRecord]

32 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

Where exactly do you live in the World where it’s 2024 already?

Must be one of those remote Pacific islands? 🤔

I'm offsetting my timetable by a month. I allowed myself to take advantage of Cyber deals through the end of November. If all goes according to plan, I'll be able to hold off on purchases until Cyber Week 2024 -- I wouldn't deny myself that opportunity!

[kye]

1 hour ago, QuickHitRecord said:

I'm offsetting my timetable by a month. I allowed myself to take advantage of Cyber deals through the end of November. If all goes according to plan, I'll be able to hold off on purchases until Cyber Week 2024 -- I wouldn't deny myself that opportunity!

A realist...  I like it!

[kye]

1 hour ago, MrSMW said:

Where exactly do you live in the World where it’s 2024 already?

Must be one of those remote Pacific islands? 🤔

Time is more relative than you think.

For example, there are lots of political parties that still think it's the 1950s!

[MrSMW]

1 hour ago, kye said:

Time is more relative than you think.

For example, there are lots of political parties that still think it's the 1950s!

My parents still believe Great Britain has colonies and rules the world…

[John Matthews]

7 hours ago, MrSMW said:

My parents still believe Great Britain has colonies and rules the world…

Many in France believe that too.

[Thpriest]

I’d like to call a halt to buying gear but I’m seriously thinking about selling my Lumix S5 and getting an S5X to go with my S5Mk2. The user experience with the Mk2 is so much better than the Mk1. It would only mean spending 1000€. That and a Sigma 16-28 f2.8 and the Rode Wireless Pro. 
Oh, and sell my Macbook Pro 16” M1 Pro with 16gb ram as I made a big mistake there. 16gb ram is totally inadequate. I need 32gb at least. Expensive mistake.

So…fuck. That’s a lot of money😵‍💫

[John Matthews]

8 hours ago, Thpriest said:

Oh, and sell my Macbook Pro 16” M1 Pro with 16gb ram as I made a big mistake there. 16gb ram is totally inadequate. I need 32gb at least. Expensive mistake.

I'm confused. I've got a M1 iMac with only 8, seems fine (granted, my timelines are that complicated); quite happy I save some cash. What software do you edit with and how are you concluding that it's RAM?

[kye]

14 hours ago, Thpriest said:

I’d like to call a halt to buying gear but I’m seriously thinking about selling my Lumix S5 and getting an S5X to go with my S5Mk2. The user experience with the Mk2 is so much better than the Mk1. It would only mean spending 1000€. That and a Sigma 16-28 f2.8 and the Rode Wireless Pro. 
Oh, and sell my Macbook Pro 16” M1 Pro with 16gb ram as I made a big mistake there. 16gb ram is totally inadequate. I need 32gb at least. Expensive mistake.

So…fuck. That’s a lot of money😵‍💫

I'd suggest an alternative approach.

You should really be buying 2 x S5iiX cameras, Angenieux EZ-2 15-40mm T2.0 lens, and an Apple Studio with M2 Ultra 24-Core CPU, 64GB Unified RAM, 1TB SSD, which totals USD$21,500 so if you ONLY buy the things you've listed above then you're SAVING a ton of money!

I've been watching fashion influencers on TikTok and I'm pretty sure that's how financial management is done these days.

If you do enough of these deals, the reward seems to be a big house with sports cars in the driveway.

[Thpriest]

17 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I'm confused. I've got a M1 iMac with only 8, seems fine (granted, my timelines are that complicated); quite happy I save some cash. What software do you edit with and how are you concluding that it's RAM?

Fcpx. I know it’s ram as the computer tells me I’m out of ram! It’s true that I mainly edit 4K and 6K 10bit Movs. I can’t run Chrome or anything else if I want to edit with no hiccups. I’m finding this to be very tedious. If you are doing serious editing I’d go for 32gb minimum 

[Emanuel]

2 hours ago, Thpriest said:

If you are doing serious editing I’d go for 32gb minimum 

True, RAM is never enough.

- EAG :- )

[eatstoomuchjam]

If buying a newer Mac, before buying it, load up the maximum number of things that you expect to be doing at a time and actually use the computer with all of them running for a bit.  Then you can go into Activity Monitor and see how much RAM is in use.  But at least that much and if possible, buy the next step up.  With how fast processors are these days, there's a good chance that with the extra RAM, you will have a computer that you'll still be happily using in a few years.  That and avoid the smallest SSD, as it usually has half the performance of all of the others.

[kye]

3 hours ago, Thpriest said:

Fcpx. I know it’s ram as the computer tells me I’m out of ram! It’s true that I mainly edit 4K and 6K 10bit Movs. I can’t run Chrome or anything else if I want to edit with no hiccups. I’m finding this to be very tedious. If you are doing serious editing I’d go for 32gb minimum 

Since computers transitioned to SSDs, the memory swapping mechanisms (where they put a chunk of memory onto the drive and load another one into RAM when needed) have become very useful and quite high performance.

If FCPX is running out of RAM, I wonder if your SSD is running out of swap space somehow.  I'm not exactly sure how you'd check these things, but that's worth looking into.

A few suggestions..  if your SSD is close to being full, try clearing some extra space and seeing if that helps performance.  I'd suggest reviewing FCPX settings to see if there's a setting that limits how much swap space it is allowed to use.  Do a google on FCPX RAM usage - I just did a search and there's lots of threads of people talking about it, so there might be good tips in there that might help.

Also, some folks report that having files (like source media, proxies, etc) on an external drive rather than the internal drive can improve performance too.  I'm not sure of your current setup but that's something to check.

11 minutes ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

If buying a newer Mac, before buying it, load up the maximum number of things that you expect to be doing at a time and actually use the computer with all of them running for a bit.  Then you can go into Activity Monitor and see how much RAM is in use.  But at least that much and if possible, buy the next step up.  With how fast processors are these days, there's a good chance that with the extra RAM, you will have a computer that you'll still be happily using in a few years.  That and avoid the smallest SSD, as it usually has half the performance of all of the others.

Good test, but it might not be enough.  With all these companies building in AI to their software now I suspect that RAM requirements might gradually balloon over the next years as they integrate this stuff.  

This is likely to be the same with CPU/GPU as well.  Resolve has quietly introduced a number of AI functions for things like NR and frame interpolation and audio processing etc, and I can tell you these things absolutely KILL your computer.  I'm talking where you have it on "Faster" and you can do 24fps, on "Better" and it can do 20fps, and then "Enhanced" (which is the AI one) and it can only manage a frame every few seconds, and will crash 8 times out of 10 trying to export the project.

If you can, I suggest giving yourself some head room in the specs, especially as you can't upgrade them later!

[John Matthews]

5 hours ago, Thpriest said:

Fcpx. I know it’s ram as the computer tells me I’m out of ram! It’s true that I mainly edit 4K and 6K 10bit Movs. I can’t run Chrome or anything else if I want to edit with no hiccups. I’m finding this to be very tedious. If you are doing serious editing I’d go for 32gb minimum 

What I've learned about Apple Silicon is that RAM on MacOS doesn't behave like OSX, Linux or Windows. MacOS always wants to use the maximum amount of RAM, regardless how much you have at your disposal. If you have 64gb, it wants to use it with nothing left over. IMO, this is the correct way to deal with RAM, but it'll give you misleading results when you open Activity Monitor with MacOS appearing to have taken all/most of the RAM and your thinking you don't have enough. Performance is the key.

As I stated before, I don't do serious editing. Most of my stuff is very simple in terms of timelines. I'd also recommend more RAM if you're a pro (making money with edits) or if you have any sort of virtual machine.

It could also be said that SSD's have become so fast in recent years that swap memory needs to be rethought. At some point, SSD's will be so fast that RAM doesn't matter; we are near that point, especially on Apple.

[Thpriest]

I have the 1tb model with about 4-500gb free and work on external SSDs. I’m going to clean up the internal SSD and try and get about 2/3rds free. I’ll see if that helps and so avoid spending more money on gear! (Although if work in 2024 is like 2023 then the S5x will be coming my way! 🤞🏼)

[ghostwind]

I'm finishing up my transition from 7-year-old Canon DSLRs and lenses to the Nikon Z9 bodies, lenses, etc., and I should be done by 2024, so yeah, 2024 will be a "no-gear year" for me as well, unless I forgot some small items. Also, it's a good thing for business tax purposes to get it done by EOY.

[IronFilm]

On 12/14/2023 at 6:31 AM, Marcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

@IronFilm, can you give me a quick advise?

Made some recordings on a music festival with a Panasonic FZ1000 with an Andycine mic (a Rode VideoMic copycat), and looks like that the FZ1000 input is too hot - even bringing down the mic adjustment level in camera to the lowest possible, the sound still clipped.

Starting to look for some signal attenuators, found some passive ones, but saw that adjustable one from Sound Professionals:

https://soundprofessionals.com/product/SP-ATEN-1/

But it is like a headphone volume control, isn't it? Do you know if it can degrades the sound by a large margin?

@Marcio Kabke Pinheiro, yeah you're just chucking a variable resistor inside a cable. 

You could get a similar thing for a dollar on Aliexpress:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004085294844.html 

  

On 12/14/2023 at 6:23 PM, MrSMW said:

Where exactly do you live in the World where it’s 2024 already?

Must be one of those remote Pacific islands? 🤔

Yup, some of us living in these very remote pacific islands like me are already living in the future by the time you read this 😉

2024 is great!

  

On 12/16/2023 at 1:39 AM, kye said:

I've been watching fashion influencers on TikTok and I'm pretty sure that's how financial management is done these days.

Girl Math. 
(also "filmmaker math")
 

[kye]

30 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Girl Math. 
(also "filmmaker math")

I've tried film-maker math, but I discovered my bank wasn't film-maker compatible and the translation was corrupted, with none of the savings arriving in my bank account.

[IronFilm]

I tried to make this year be a year of "not spending money". 

Yet somehow in the final months I got:

Lectrosonics SR dual receiver 

Lectrosonics UCR411 receiver 

Lectrosonics PF25 filters (two of them!)

Lectrosonics IFB T1 transmitter (this was a mistake... I thought it could do other modes than other just IFB, such as Digital Hybrid and Modes 6 & 3, but nope, I was wrong. Oops!)

7artisans 12mm F2.8 lens 

2x Sony ECM-77BC Lavs

And various other little random cables / adapters / consumables. 

I also purchased a Sony DWT-B01 that got stolen in the mail 😞 It breaks my heart!

[kye]

1 minute ago, IronFilm said:

I tried to make this year be a year of "not spending money". 

Yet somehow in the final months I got:

Lectrosonics SR dual receiver 

Lectrosonics UCR411 receiver 

Lectrosonics PF25 filters (two of them!)

Lectrosonics IFB T1 transmitter (this was a mistake... I thought it could do other modes than other just IFB, such as Digital Hybrid and Modes 6 & 3, but nope, I was wrong. Oops!)

7artisans 12mm F2.8 lens 

2x Sony ECM-77BC Lavs

And various other little random cables / adapters / consumables. 

Do you have a cat?  They walk on the keyboard and can accidentally buy things.  My wife tells me that is quite common.