I Hate These...

Our production team has a major problem.

Every SD card on this wall is going to die. And I have no idea when. And the

die. And I have no idea when. And the

most frustrating part is that it didn't have to be this way. See, at one point, premium digital cameras used compact flash, which was faster and more reliable than SD, but it was more

expensive. And while consumers love

expensive. And while consumers love spending money on shiny, fancy new camera, they hate blowing money on expensive storage. So ultimately SD won

expensive storage. So ultimately SD won the format war, which is really bad.

See, when they're empty, SD cards, even the fast premium ones, are among the cheapest solid state storage that you can buy. That was the whole point. But

can buy. That was the whole point. But

as soon as you put a few hours of footage on them, suddenly they're worth the sum total of every hour that every person put into that production. And

when those now very valuable SD cards die, it can be devastating. Now, there

is a way to proactively measure the health of an SD card. It's just that, ironically, it involves writing a whole bunch of data to it, which is kind of like measuring a person's lung health by

having them smoke a carton of cigarettes. There is progress on this

cigarettes. There is progress on this front. The latest SD Express cards can

front. The latest SD Express cards can be equipped with smart monitoring, which tracks health metrics like power on time and total drive rights. But to this day,

nobody has implemented it. And we need a solution now. Now, if you ask around

solution now. Now, if you ask around online, the conventional wisdom is, well, those are consumables. You should

just junk your SD cards every few years and buy new ones, even if they're functioning well. BUT WHEN YOU GOT THIS

functioning well. BUT WHEN YOU GOT THIS MANY CARDS, it seems pretty wasteful, doesn't it? That's where Compact Flash

doesn't it? That's where Compact Flash or CF Express comes in. If you're in the industry, you're probably already familiar with these cards because they are quickly becoming the standard for filmmakers around the world, and for

good reason. But we have actually put

good reason. But we have actually put off transitioning to them because a they've traditionally been very expensive and b as soon as we switch to these we also need to look at every

other part of our footage management chain from card readers to networking.

But I think for a couple of reasons it is finally time just like it's time to check out this message from our sponsor SY. They offer eims for over 200

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Before we start before we before we start reorganizing this, we should probably Okay, before we Sorry. Before we organize this, I do

Sorry. Before we organize this, I do have a few questions. When was the last time we organized this space?

Yep.

Yep. I'm just trying to wrap my brain around the current system. So Shawn is relatively new, so he just has a squiggled spot to put all of his inuse

SD cards. But also Sean's actually been

SD cards. But also Sean's actually been here a while, so he actually has a spot over there.

Yep. Yep. But guess what? Guess how many Shans we have working here.

Yeah, but do they all check out SD cards?

Maybe three of them do.

Three of them do. Okay.

What is PC?

I think that's PL for Peter Lee.

Oh man, do not use Sharpie ever.

Yep. Yep. That was Mark.

That was This is in Sharpie.

Yep. That was Mark.

So, you're saying Mark marked the board.

Mark marked Mark the board.

He marked it all up. Okay. This is

clearly part of the project today.

Yep.

This battery organizer seems well-intentioned.

This actually the best battery charger we've had in a long time.

Dead battery. It sorts it out. Pretty

cool. Well,

oh, really?

Super dead battery now.

Oh, so it just like craps out ones that are like bad.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really cool.

I noticed it's nowhere near the battery charging cage.

Yeah, that also needs love over there.

You guys are aware that we have like headphone budget, right?

That also needs love.

The state of this particular pair of them.

Yeah, pretty rough. You know what? This

I don't even actually mind. This was

kind of the intention, but I couldn't help noticing these are not the workstations we gave you guys. Yeah,

they gave us a standardized workstation, right? You guys had Thread Rippers

right? You guys had Thread Rippers before.

We had Thread Ripper before. What do we have now?

These are just our standard workstations like you said. These are just I did just say sorry.

These are 12 G.

Oh, lordy. We also used to have fiber optic networking over here. Is that

before your time?

It is.

Did you actually not know any of this?

No, I don't.

I mean, if you I mean, it's still there.

Yeah, actually, you can get a shot.

Don't climb it, please. Please don't do this.

Oh, I don't want to.

Okay, he's he's getting a He's getting a fist bump.

I got it. I found it.

I found it. Perfect.

What the hell happened here?

That's wrong.

What happened to this?

That needs some love, too. Don't look at it.

No, don't touch it.

Oh, don't touch it.

This is what it's supposed to look like back when it was Yeah, there we go. This

is why we can't have nice things, but we're going to try anyway as part of our little project today. Reorganizing this

space. Oh, you guys just used double-sided tape. You just like VHB

double-sided tape. You just like VHB this. You know, we sell an entire

this. You know, we sell an entire magnetic cable management line. Bottom

line, as part of the reimagining of this space, there's both some workflow and some ergonomic challenges that I think we could probably address. We also had some issues with the systems themselves.

Well, at least that's what the camera department was telling me. You guys were having issues like Windows Explorer crashing or your ingest station crashing, but you were also complaining about how you'd be the last ones to leave after a shoot because it just took

so dog on long to transfer all the data from your SD cards to the server.

Very true.

So, more card readers, faster card readers, faster networking, better ingredients, better pizza, and just general organization.

Lots of luck and luck. Since we're pulling these

and luck. Since we're pulling these computers out of here, there were a few ideas that we threw around for potential upgrades. like why not move to

upgrades. like why not move to Thunderbolt 5 in particular on something like the Mac Mini. I don't think that there is a better price to IO ratio on

the market at least as far as speed's concerned. But also Apple in their

concerned. But also Apple in their infinite wisdom doesn't make computers with expansion slots anymore. So

high-speed networking was going to be a major bottleneck or it was going to be a major unnecessary expense. How you doing over there?

The dust.

I didn't even see the front of these things.

What the What are you doing, bro? What

is this?

Why not?

He's jetlagged. HE CAN'T THINK TODAY.

Why not?

Wow, what a good cleaning.

Another thought we had was replacing these with like small form factor PC servers, which could help with reliability. But if you're looking for

reliability. But if you're looking for compact, quiet server hardware, it does exist, but it's not common. and not

cheap. And besides, our standardized workstations are already pretty reliable. 12600 K CPU is fine. And if we

reliable. 12600 K CPU is fine. And if we just pull the GPUs out, because it turns out we don't need that for spot-ecking footage at all, then we can just replace those cards with these Connect X6

network cards, which will give us 25 gig networking, which is perfect for faster transfers to the server, which um by the way was totally what we had before. So

time's a flat circle.

Technically, if we really want to, we can twin these.

Yes. We don't really want to, though.

Well, some people want to.

Do they? Who wants to?

I would like to. Why not?

If it's anything like every other network bond we've ever used, then it will be working for like a couple months and then it will not be working for some reason and no one will ever fix it.

Just like our injust stations.

So overbuilt. This is a 5060, right?

It's a 3050.

We've got a lot of those. The

thing is that mine's this big, but it does not get hard anymore.

Glenn, you're so helpful.

Hey, Glenn's just making annoying noises that the editors will have to deal with.

Glenn's the type of guy to leave garbage at the movie theater and be like, "Well, somebody's I'm keeping him employed, you know. Someone's got to do the job."

know. Someone's got to do the job."

I used to be that guy.

There's another time flat circle thing here. I was informed in the leadup to

here. I was informed in the leadup to this that, oh, it'd be great if we could move the ingest stations right next to the server room. That would mean uh shorter cabling runs and it's just so convenient. I was like, you know, that's

convenient. I was like, you know, that's where they used to be, right? And

exactly the reason that that's why they used to be there. Did you guys know that?

I've heard it from you about 10 times.

That's because every time someone brings up moving them back there, I'm like, come on.

Then why'd you let those past idiots make the decision to move them over here?

Yeah, we hate the past idiots.

Yeah.

No, we love past Where are you going?

Uh, I'm seeing if I have a key for the server room. I don't.

server room. I don't.

Yeah, you should have access to like everything.

Oh my god, I have to sign in again. I

don't know if it's our IT team or if it's Ubiquiti, but off with that Yeah, those present idiots.

All right, we're in. Man, I haven't been in here in ages. They completely redid this. That's wild. There's no networking

this. That's wild. There's no networking in the back anymore. Everything's patch

panel. And in order to do that, they had to put couplers on everything. Maybe I

shouldn't have looked. I'm going to need you guys' help to figure out sort of where you want to put all this stuff.

This is going to move to where the old injust station's going to be.

Okay. So, I do I just start moving stuff?

Yeah, let's go.

Okay. All right. I can do that.

God, bro, it hit every expensive thing on the way down.

Who puts this stuff up?

You don't like our art?

I see stuff like that and I go, I paid for someone to take that picture.

Did you see Glenn over there? I paid for someone to print and I paid for someone to put it up.

No, no, it's digital. You didn't pay nobody nothing except for the service that we pay monthly for to keep that out. But

out. But the other part of Lionus that sees it is like, okay, that's that's cool. You

know, we have a culture where even people who don't work anymore, I can't walk around the office for an entire day without finding a dentist sticker somewhere.

And that it actually warms my heart. It

legitimately does.

Yeah, we can. Oh,

hi Linus.

Are we going to have any computers over here anymore?

No.

No.

Okay. So, network cables will go.

At least not for another few years. And

then someone's going to come up with a brilliant idea of moving computers over here again. And I will explain that we

here again. And I will explain that we used to have them there. And they'll go, "Oh, yeah, but this is this is a really good idea. We should definitely do

good idea. We should definitely do this." And I'll go, "Okay." Can totally

this." And I'll go, "Okay." Can totally come on.

Yeah. We're on the desk. ADAM. ADAM.

Here we go. See?

Yeah.

I would got it.

This needs a clean approved.

Why do we need the wood?

We don't. Or it's heat conductive.

Okay. The reason I like the wood is it doesn't bang and creek and stuff like that.

Okay. Well, then let's get the uh white stuff out there.

Nice.

Cuz Yeah, it doesn't creek.

So, my plan is that the computers are going to be behind the monitors.

Where's the keyboard?

Well, that's a great question. Here, let

me show you. Well, Glenn, we got these keyboard wa trays. It's a slide out keyboard

wa trays. It's a slide out keyboard tray. It's going to mount underneath the

tray. It's going to mount underneath the desk.

You're getting a fist bump. Are we going to keep everything to the side or we going to center everything?

We're going to keep everything to the side because this is where we're going to have all of our actual ingest, like our card readers and stuff.

Oh, right.

So, we're going to have a little dock for the tentacles as well as our card readers. So that all is accessible here.

readers. So that all is accessible here.

Basically, you shouldn't have to like interface with the computer.

That's what I that was my next worry was like we use a lot of these cables to put the tentacles or the SD card readers in.

You're not going to believe what we made for you.

Oh.

Does it go in that?

I hope so.

I don't believe it.

That's what it says.

We got a supervisor on the manager. two

guys looking at confusing the instructions while the one guy who understands them is actually just doing the stuff.

I was thinking we needed more managers here. I just want to make sure that I

here. I just want to make sure that I want to be able to track if the keyboard is going to be able to be under here.

Just can we put that in our table?

I I don't like the idea of the keyboard trait at all.

You know what? Get rid of the keyboards actually.

I ran this past you. I sent this I sent this up to Glenn. Did Glenn not send it to you?

Glenn to you.

Who the hell is Glenn?

All right. Who got the drill?

That's right in front of you.

I don't want to do it. Power tools scare me.

Oh my god.

Yeah. Give her strip the out of it.

We're never getting this out.

There we go. Get down.

They couldn't have chosen a a more slippery like material for this.

I mean, well, that was the intent. It is

a mouse pad after all.

Oh my.

Did you break it somehow?

Oh my goodness.

Oh, it rotates.

Is it supposed to do that?

Hey, that's cool.

I That's a feature I did not know it had.

Yes, it's supposed to do that. Okay,

we got extensions, baby. Oh yeah. So,

we've got this huge tray full of USBC extensions through hubs, and it's all for these. These are Tentacle Sync Track

for these. These are Tentacle Sync Track E, and they serve a few purposes for us.

Uh, one is that they make it really easy to synchronize our audio with our video using time code. Another is that they record higher quality audio than what goes straight into our camera. And then

the third, actually you can see it in action right here, is that by daisy chaining through the tentacle sync into our wireless pack, we have redundant recording. So if there's ever some

recording. So if there's ever some interference on the wireless, then we know we have the clean copy on the tentacle. And if a tentacle ever fails

tentacle. And if a tentacle ever fails or a micro SD card ever fails right there, then probably we have the track that was going into the

camera. But getting audio off these and

camera. But getting audio off these and charging them is the hassle. So, we made these 3D printed docks. It's just so

convenient. Data is here. So, this could

convenient. Data is here. So, this could kind of go here without too much work.

Have you seen this bin?

This is nuts. How many CF cards did we buy for this? We bought about 10, but then Lexar heard about what we were doing and they decided to send us over a bunch of extra stuff as well as one of their pro workstation docs. Shout out

Lexar.

There's more SD cards. Damn it.

Yeah, they they didn't realize that we were trying to get away from those.

Oh, they sent the SD cards.

Yeah, we didn't order those. But if we were going to buy SD cards, we may have bought them from Lexar.

All right, let's talk let's talk about the thing that we actually did buy. This

workflow dock. We already had one of these, but it's only usable on one ingestation at a time. And while we did have other multicard reader docks, not all of them do a great job of having the

modules stay in when you try to pull your card out. And we did have some creative solutions for that, like putting tape around them, but then they get really stuck. So, we thought, you know what? We're just going to get

know what? We're just going to get another one of these Lexar Professional Workflow readers. This is the same one I

Workflow readers. This is the same one I actually unboxed on Short Circuit.

The camera guys fell so in love with it that they were begging for a second one.

Really? Yeah, because they know they don't have to beg for things, right?

Like if you guys need something for work, you could just requisition it. No

one told us this.

The different bays operate at different speeds. So you've got four 10 Gbit per

speeds. So you've got four 10 Gbit per second bays and two 40 Gbit per second bays. And it actually supports

bays. And it actually supports Thunderbolt daisy chaining as well. So

in theory, if six bays wasn't enough, we could add more bays in the future. So

we're still going to use SD cards for some stuff. So, we do still have a few

some stuff. So, we do still have a few SD readers, but the more interesting ones are, of course, are CF Express 4.0

typeA modules. That's what I actually

typeA modules. That's what I actually love about these types of Where is it?

Oh, yeah. So, some of them were taken.

Some of them were taken for comp.

So, the interesting thing about these is that they act as their own separate like they're fully self-contained as a module. So, you can use them as just a

module. So, you can use them as just a Thunderbolt module. Oh, those are the

Thunderbolt module. Oh, those are the ones though. I think this one's on my

ones though. I think this one's on my desk.

This is actually a very neat function of these things. Return to camera then.

these things. Return to camera then.

Please, please do.

We're thinking for now. This is going to be approximately our loadout. So, at the end of the day, the shooter can load up all the cards that they shot on the main camera and then while also having up to

five regular SD cards and, you know, maybe a micro SD card if they really need it for, you know, like action cams or, you know, extra cameras. Oh god. Oh

my god, I'm scared. Got it in. Next one.

scared. Got it in. Next one.

Okay, they're being straight, right?

I guess we didn't really think about like any like mouse room here, right?

Just use left-handed.

I don't know how to use my left hand.

Listen, every every guy here is a dude.

I guarantee you, you know how to use a mouse with your left hand.

You know what? You got me there. You got

me there.

All right, I think I figured out why the fiber's not connecting. Instead of doing things the easy way, Infred did things the proper way, which is good. So,

instead of just following this cable and using the old hole in the wall that we used to use, uh, they ran it through this pipe. It goes into this fiber

this pipe. It goes into this fiber breakout box. And then, Adam, you were

breakout box. And then, Adam, you were saying there were four that were hooked up.

Yeah.

I think by hooked up he meant there are four that are ready to be hooked up.

Oh, yeah. Wait, no. One to four are

yeah. Wait, no. One to four are connected. One to four are connected.

connected. One to four are connected.

Never mind. Okay. Well, why aren't they connecting then? We have our fiber

connecting then? We have our fiber cables. We're plugged into the network

cables. We're plugged into the network card. They're not working for either.

card. They're not working for either.

Uh, apparently you have to reverse the polarity.

To catch you guys up, we had to flip the sides around.

All right. So, theoretically, this system should come online.

Do we run Ethernet? And so, they can ingest for today and then we pick this up tomorrow.

I'm so tempted to just harvest back the cables we used last time and then just run them on the path here and then just plug them in. Okay, let's just see how easily we could get this

Oh, the answer is not very easily.

Well, you can just uh run Ethernet through the tiny hole or just get them on Wi-Fi.

Oh my god. While we wait for Infred to double check the switch configuration, why don't we just take a look at the difference in speed ingesting off of CF versus SD?

So, here we're going to copy from our SD card. This is just onto the system, not

card. This is just onto the system, not to the server, right? So, 230

right? So, 230 megabytes a second, which I mean that's a lot of megabytes.

Perfectly. However, when you've been shooting all day and you got a lot of footage across a lot of cards and you're tired and you just want to go home, you want more.

4 480, 520, 540, 550. Let's freaking go.

Wow, we're clearing 600 now. That may

actually be limited by the SSD in here at that point. Freaking awesome. Huge

difference maker. And because it's Thunderbolt 4, we can probably copy two of these cards at almost full speed at the same time. This is actually slower than when the previous tests, and I'm kind of surprised by it. Well, we turned the camera on.

That is always how it goes, isn't it?

Yeah. Way to go, Sean.

Time passing wipe. Oh, man. I know what I'm supposed to do is say, "Wow, this looks great. We've got all the tentacle

looks great. We've got all the tentacle charging in here. We've got our fiber box mounted. We have dual 25 GB

box mounted. We have dual 25 GB connections to each of these systems. That's flipping awesome. We've got our two Lexar docks. But the only thing I can still see is these damn headphones.

You know, you can have better headphones right?

We love them.

You don't.

We don't.

But realistically, they don't use these headphones a ton. And what this upgrade was all about was workflow. So, I mean, walk. Show me.

walk. Show me.

So, this CF card has a week worth of all the stuff we shot. B-rolls, A- rolls, and all the sponsor spots. Let's see how fast it goes. 6 minutes. That's kind of crazy.

I don't know. I was expecting a little faster.

Me, too.

Why is it that every time I walk into set, things work? Well, there's a limit artificially set on the server as well.

Wait, we limited the server?

Yeah, we limit it because otherwise the editors can't edit if we like slam it.

A man has fallen into the river in Lego City.

Camera Dan still need love.

Um Oh, for crying out loud. Okay,

I think there's only one answer then.

You just got to upgrade the server.

Upgrade the server. Upgrade the server.

Upgrade the server.

I mean, this seems pretty good. We're

doing 630. I saw almost as high as 700 megabytes a second. We're supposed to go 1,000.

Theoretically, it could do 2 gigs a second plus, but I think that would be beyond the speed of a CF card anyway, wouldn't it?

Yeah, actually it would be. I think this is rated at 18.

Can we ask infra to turn off the limit temporarily? Okay. I contacted Thomas

temporarily? Okay. I contacted Thomas and he has no idea what we're talking about with any kind of limit. But the

transfer is done, which Yeah, it's great.

I mean, is that faster than before?

Yeah. What I would do was like splitting, right? And it do like 4 minutes. 4

right? And it do like 4 minutes. 4

minutes. So, it's faster. So, one system is faster than splitting it across two systems before.

Yeah, cuz that one was like 6 minutes, right, for the whole thing?

Didn't take long.

Yeah.

So, can can we also split these? Like,

can each of these do 700 megs a second?

I believe so. Yeah.

Well, let's give it a shot. Okay. So,

I'm getting about 700 megabytes a second right now. Let's see if I drop when you

right now. Let's see if I drop when you start transferring. You're getting

start transferring. You're getting definitely the maximum speed that we would expect from that SD card. About

275 megabytes a second. and my speeds didn't drop at all. So, it looks like what Elijah was told about the speed limiter may actually be accurate. So, we

add another 275 megabytes a second. I am

still at 700. So, now we're doing a total of 1.2 GB a second across these two systems. Okay, give me another card.

Let's hit it harder. What else we got?

Here, Sammy. Here, take Sammy's card.

I'm going to start another one in Explorer now. Boom. I'm getting another

Explorer now. Boom. I'm getting another 280. I'm still sitting at around Oh, I'm

280. I'm still sitting at around Oh, I'm falling a little bit. So, I'm a little shy of 800 megabytes a second on this.

What's our CPU usage like, though? Oh,

not much. Yeah, it looks like we can't go much higher than that. But, can we give this one more beans? This one's

doing a comfy 700 750 megabytes a second. So, we are throttled in terms of

second. So, we are throttled in terms of the total throughput from these systems. But across both of them, you guys are able to do about a gigabyte and a half a second. Can you live with that? along

second. Can you live with that? along

with 2 GB.

Well, all right. We'll look at maybe upgrading

all right. We'll look at maybe upgrading the server, but you also have these wonderful keyboard trays.

Yeah, I guess we do.

All right, I'll look into upgrading the server. This is a major ergonomic

server. This is a major ergonomic upgrade. Instead of storing all the

upgrade. Instead of storing all the stuff over there, everything's now like almost following like kitchen rules.

Everything's on the triangle. You've got

all your cameras here. You've got your build table here. You've got your accessories and cables over here. Would

you say this is making things faster already?

Oh, 100%.

100% faster.

100% faster.

You guys spent that much time walking between here and there?

You have no idea.

Oh, really?

You have no idea.

Well, tell me.

No, I said you have no idea.

No, I know. But

No, you still have no idea.

So, I'll never know.

You'll never know.

So, stop asking.

What I will know is that we'll be able to speedily ingest the footage from this segue to our sponsor, Sy. It's time for summer break, which

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