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Lord of the Rings Data Storage Media Movies

Rings Digital Dailies Circled Globe via iPod 274

Posted by michael from the rip-and-mix dept.
KD writes "During the making of the 'Rings' trilogy, Jackson and his crew upped the ante on Apple's innovative iPod storage technology, using it for filmmaking sessions during production on The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Media was transferred from Weta to Pinewood Studios in London. There Jackson then viewed the QuickTime files on an Apple Cinema Display, tied to his G4 laptop, which drew directly from his iPod. The director's setup was mirrored in New Zealand, and crew could step through shots with the help of their iPods, with Jackson's guidance piped in over a videoconferencing system. During the course of two movies and four months, 'Rings' iPods stored and served up nearly one-half terabyte of digitized footage from 'Towers' and 'King.'"
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Rings Digital Dailies Circled Globe via iPod More

Rings Digital Dailies Circled Globe via iPod

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  • Versatile (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pb_boi ( 748247 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:45AM (#8157219)
    Which goes to show how rediculously versatile the iPods are in relation to almost anything. A task that important, for which they weren't designed, and STILL they're used, and STILL they perform amazingly well. Impressive. pb_boi

    • Re:Versatile (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pldms ( 136522 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:59AM (#8157276)
      Versatile indeed.

      "Jackson then viewed those 1K-resolution QuickTime files on an Apple Cinema Display, tied to his G4 laptop, which drew directly from his iPod."

      I've been warned against using the iPod in this way. It was designed (I was told) for brief disk access, i.e. pulling the next x minutes of compressed music into ram. Sustained access, however, will invite disk problems due to cooling problems. (Indeed I find mine heats up noticeably when copying large amounts).

      Perhaps this quote is misleading. OTOH I guess their budget could cope with a few failures (unlike mine :-).

      • Re:Versatile (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Liselle ( 684663 ) *
        Well, that's why it has the heat-conducting metal back. Take it out of the case, maybe point a fan at it.

      • Re:Versatile (Score:5, Insightful)

        by vandel405 ( 609163 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:10AM (#8157319) Homepage Journal
        Um, what about the first time you plug it into your computer and it syncs 20gigs?

        I use mine in this fashion regulary.

      • Re:Versatile (Score:5, Informative)

        by mj_1903 ( 570130 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:14AM (#8157326)
        As someone who writes software for the iPod all day, I can say without reservation that iPod's can stand up to this usage pattern. My iPod 5gb has been running basically non stop for 16 months in this mode with no adverse affects.

        My tips for cooling:
        - Keep the metal side up (the dock is fine)
        - Never cover your iPod while connected to your computer
        - Never place it metal side down while connected to your computer on a blanket/pillow or something similar
        - Place a small fan on it if you are very concerned

        I have not had my iPod go above touchable temperature (any of my iPod's, 5gb, 15gb, 40gb). Touchable from memory is around ~55C and hard drives can usually handle 60C quite fine.

        • News for Nerds (Score:5, Funny)

          by kinnell ( 607819 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:37AM (#8157440)
          My tips for cooling:

          you forgot:

          • Put a cup of liquid nitrogen on it
          • Modify the case to incorporate an overly expensive liquid cooling rig
          • Drill a hole for a firewire cable into your USB mini refrigerator

      • Re:Versatile (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Eraser_ ( 101354 )
        I bet what the poster is thinking is the battery is made for this kind of use. Editing movies on my ipod w/o wall-power would drain the battery very very quickly (Use a 6-to-4 pin firewire cable). However with juice, the ipod runs just like a laptop.

        I leave my ipod plugged into my windows computer all day long charging when the battery dies, and windows doesn't know how to spin down the disk. I come back and sure it's warm, but as another poster said, just flip it over and it cools right off. My mac does s
    • Which goes to show how rediculously versatile the iPods are in relation to almost anything

      I can see it now:

      Jack Valenti: A gang of pirates, let by this Jackson fellow (whoever he is) copied footage of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and delivered it halfway around the world, thanks to Apple's technology. Think of the poor directors and film crews who would be put out of business if pirates like Peter Jackson continued to steal footage. Rest assured, we will prosecute Mr. Jackson for pirating footage of

  • Slow news day? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:47AM (#8157227)
    not meaning to troll or anything, but surely anyone who cares about this kind of trivia (like me) would have known about it months ago when watching the TT DVD documentaries?

    are the slashdot editors trying to have a competition of who can post the oldest story?
    • Who the hell modded parent as "Troll"? It's a legitimate comment. What next, Slashdot stories on the AI agents in the Battle of Helm's Deep? Sheesh, is there a Slashdot reader out there who hasn't seen the TTT DVD extras?
      • Me?

        I'm waiting for the complete Trilogy super-ultra-mega-platinum-special Edition boxset before I invest any more money in Sir Jackson's retirement fund...

        GTRacer
        - Saw all three theatrically on opening weekends

        • Then you're not a true slashdotter. If you were, you would have bought the original DVD release, then the extended edition, and then whine about how you're going to be "forced" to buy the boxed set.
    • You're not trolling - the whole time I read the article (all few seconds of it) I was thinking "wow, someone put the documentary stuff from that DVD set onto the *web*! This is news!"

      Honestly, I think the char AI they developed for the batle scenes (mentioned in another post) was *far* more interesting than the use of expensive Apple-brand portable hard drives and teleconferencing software. *I* have used portable hard drives and teleconferencing software (much like many here have), but I've never develop

  • Odd irony (Score:5, Funny)

    by donscarletti ( 569232 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:47AM (#8157229)
    This could have well been the first time that scores of nerds would have wanted to copy something _off_ an ipod and onto the internet for their own entertainment.

  • Not exactly exciting news. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MountainMan101 ( 714389 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:47AM (#8157231)
    Someone uses a portable large (10-20GB) USB harddrive to transfer data. Okay, so it was non-Microsoft. This would have been news if it had been new hardware/software/protocols, but honestly. Is this worthy of Slashdot?
    • Just one thing.... its a FireWire mp3 player!
      • So? It's the same as any USB mass storage device, it just uses FW as a hookup. Virtually any USB flash based MP3 player can be used as a storage device for non-audio data. Colour me unimpressed.
    • In other "news," the mighty Peter Jackson reportedly uses a telephone to transmit voice data in real-time to his mom. Rumors also suggest that he and other key players in the production of the widely acclaimed LotR trilogy purge their bodily waste into a toilet.

    • Re:Not exactly exciting news. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:32AM (#8157405)
      There is a tendency these days for even the technologists to look at a core technology wrapped up in a shiney new shell and view it as something essentially new and more technologically advanced.

      This tendency is "good" for the industry but financially draining for the customer. The entire software industry rests upon this tendency and the recent recession in the purchasing of software by business represents a crack in this point of view. Office 97 works.

      In point of fact the core technologies of all office software have been in place since the release of Visiscalc. Database, spreadsheet, text editor. Everything else is just variations on these and the latest new feature of Word is nothing more than a text editor macro attached to a button.

      It's akin to painting a disposable razor pink instead of orange and calling it "for women," a technique that works distressingly well.

      A Perl script wrapped up in Royal robes isn't "new technology" and a portable HD is just a portable HD.

      Maybe I need to make an iPod clone, put it in a titanium case and call it the "Movie Meister" or something.

      KFG

      • Re:Not exactly exciting news. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Gumber ( 17306 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @01:05PM (#8159691) Homepage
        On the other hand, there is a tendancy for technologists to look at new applications of technology and say: Thats no big deal, its just a perl script, or, thats no big deal, its just a portable hard disk. Bittorrent is nothing, its just a python script. This jaded attitude can blind them to the implications of technology change.

        Perhaps there is nothing new about this, but I'd suggest that it is an extreme illustration of a change that may have real implications.

        With the rise of the iPod, and similar devices, people are now in the habit of carrying around a significant amount of storage, in many cases, a 10 GB iPod is already enough to carry their entire corpus of personal files and settings, along with a decent sized collection of music.

        One thing to consider, is that this effectively gives people dramatically more effective bandwidth out of their homes. How might we, as technologists, make use of that fact to do cool and useful things?

    • Seems to me pretty stupid too (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:45AM (#8157484) Journal
      If you compare the price of an IPod to a 200 GB hard drive, it seems to me that for storing video footage it's the most stupid solution ever. An exteral USB or Firewire case and a couple of 200 GB drives would have been:

      - cheaper

      - faster (I don't think the IPod comes even close to a 7200 RPM drive)

      - able to store a lot more data

      Or here's another random thought: if they're sending data all the way across the globe, exactly what's the unprecedented advantage of sending an iPod instead of a DVD-R? No, seriously.

      Of course, seein' the usual "even a fart smells sweet if it's got the Apple logo" crowd on Slashdot, maybe it's worthy of Slashdot after all.

      • Re:Seems to me pretty stupid too (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        An exteral USB or Firewire case and a couple of 200 GB drives would have been: cheaper, faster, able to store a lot more data

        You left out "larger, more fragile, unable to multitask as an audio player and PDA."

        Or here's another random thought: if they're sending data all the way across the globe, exactly what's the unprecedented advantage of sending an iPod instead of a DVD-R?

        You're kidding, right? DVD's are far too small and take far too long to burn to be useful for something like this. Besides, afte
        • "You're kidding, right? DVD's are far too small and take far too long to burn to be useful for something like this. Besides, after you're done with one, you have to throw it away. After you're done using your iPod for this, you've got... an iPod! A singularly useful device in and of itself."
          • Something tells me that Jackson could probably afford an external hard drive AND an iPod without breaking the bank.
      • As far as firewire harddrives go, is there anything that doesnt need a whole computer to sit between it and a DV cam?

        A while ago, I was looking for a portable hard disk recorder that I could simply plug a DV cam into via firewire, and push record. And later, plug it into a PC and push play to transfer it to the PC.

        It seems I was able to find firewire drives that connect to a PC like a normal external hard drive, and I was able to find some consumer dvd recorders with hard drive and firewire connectors, bu
      • And, if you put that 200 gig drive in your pocket, it's much more impressive to the ladies.

      • Re:Seems to me pretty stupid too (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kalidasa ( 577403 ) * on Monday February 02, 2004 @11:40AM (#8158900) Journal

        Size. It's a hell of a lot easier to carry an iPod as carryon than a 200 GB harddrive (which will get banged about in the overhead bin), or heaven forbid in checked baggage (where it will be delayed by 2-3 days every 10th flight or so). And if 200 GB is preferable for size to the iPod, how can you logically argue in favor of the DVD-R which is only 4.7 GB? You can't have it both ways.

        Fact is, it's a nice formfactor and a good size/capacity compromise.

        • Size matters? How about this [lacie.com] or this? [lacie.com] An iPod, while nice, and a small size, these drives from LaCie also fit the bill and are much cheaper and possibly faster as well. Lesseee.....40 GB for 499 or 139....what do I want? I could see if these iPods were capable of showing the video as well, but since they can't...YET...it's just stupid.

          • Both of the drives you point out are larger than an iPod - enough so to make carrying them in a pocket uncomfortable. The mobile drive (your first link) is 0.59 x 2.99 x 5.35 in. and .396 lbs. The pocket drive is 1 x 3.5 x 5.75 in. and 0.78 lbs. The iPod is 0.73 x 2.4 x 4.1 inches and 0.35 lbs. For size comparison, a "slim" jewel case is 0.13 x 4.86 x 5.63 in. I don't know about you, but I find a jewel case too wide to put in my pocket: but the only drive with both its "height" and "width" smaller than

      • I bet the physical size was an issue for them as far as transporting the devices was concerned. Plus, the iPod is probably (I'm guessing here) more resistant to shock than your standard 200GB external FireWire hard drive.
      • There is no advantage, in fact according to the DVD documentary they only used an ipod because they couldn't get a network link to Jackson's house from the studio. (too far away or something)
    • Firewire. If they were doing this with USB, TTT wouldn't have even come out yet.
    • Ah, but seing as how this was an iPod hooked to a mac, this was surely a FireWire disk , so it is news
      !
    • What exactly defines being "worthy of Slashdot?"

      After the ridiculous "Microsoft Violates Human Rights In China" article, in which Microsoft is blamed for bad people using their software even though China has its own custom Linux distribution (!), and KDE removed the Taiwan flag so they could sell in China, there isn't much for standards around here, not that there ever was.

      Here's the part where people chime in about how this is just a "hobby site" for the editors and that they post what they like, because

  • Also (Score:5, Informative)

    by sfraggle ( 212671 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:48AM (#8157233)
    If you watch The Two Towers Extended Edition commentary, you'll find that one of the crew was chased through the streets of London in the early hours of the morning one day by people who wanted to rob him. Fortunately he managed to get away and the iPod in his pocket with the entire film on didnt get leaked :)
    • They could have put the files into an encrypted disk image to prevent that from happening.

  • One big ad for Apple (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fruey ( 563914 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:49AM (#8157240) Homepage Journal
    And not in the Apple section (even as a subsection?)

    Kudos to the fact it was indeed the iPod, but it would be cheaper to use a generic portable hard drive, since this is movie footage and not soundtrack data. The iPod wasn't used for what it was designed for.

    The laptop needn't have been a G4 either, and they stuck in iSight as well. What they SHOULD be telling us is whether these things were purchased at RRP, at big discount, or given away for free by Apple...

    • Absolutely. Sounds like a waste of money to me when all you're doing is moving data around. Then again, one of the main criticisms of the iPod is that it is style over substance (short battery life, poor sound quality, overpriced), rather like certain films I could think of...

    • Re:One big ad for Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mononoke ( 88668 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:30AM (#8157394) Homepage Journal
      Kudos to the fact it was indeed the iPod, but it would be cheaper to use a generic portable hard drive, since this is movie footage and not soundtrack data. The iPod wasn't used for what it was designed for.
      The iPod was designed from the very beginning as a data storage device.

      Where else are you going to find something that small, with that much storage and speed, that also looks (to the general public) like nothing more than an mp3 player? For that price?

      The laptop needn't have been a G4 either, and they stuck in iSight as well.
      Professionals in the movie business use Macs because Macs can reliably do the job.

      If you want to get mired in the "needn't have been" excuses, well, they needn't have bothered to with digital dailies at all. In fact, why bother even making the movie.

      • Where else are you going to find something that small, with that much storage and speed, that also looks (to the general public) like nothing more than an mp3 player? For that price?

        Oh dear. How many times must we go through this? There are several HDD based mp3 players out there which are just as small as an iPod, hold just as much (or more) data as an iPod, look like mp3 players (although I have no idea why that matters) and COST SIGNIFICANTLY LESS THAN AN IPOD. What people choose to listen to their t

    • Re:One big ad for Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Saven Marek ( 739395 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:38AM (#8157444)
      Exactly. It's a bit of an apple fanboy story, something I doubt the veracity of. It didn't have to be an iPod , didn't have to be a G4 laptop, and didn't have to be a cinema display. Telling us the equipment used for the film is quite irrelevant.

      Would it have been the same story if it was a Dell DJ, on a Dell laptop, with a Dell monitor? No it wouldn't. I don't see what the fuss is about

      • Re:One big ad for Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gobbo ( 567674 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @10:13AM (#8157975) Journal
        The fuss is about this: a trendy consumer appliance is being used as a mission-critical device. It's a nerdy change in consumer behaviour that heralds something significant about the way technology is crossing professional/consumer boundaries.

        I have a co-worker who is directing/producing film and video and uses his iPod for just this purpose, both sneakernet and as a presentation external hard drive. Of course, he also loads it up with his music collection, and does the standard iPod-snob-ish "here, listen to this" sort of thing.

        Another interesting thing in this story is how these things are damn reliable, damn fast, damn flexible, and very well integrated into mac users' lives. They're being trusted with more important tasks than consumer devices typically get, and at the end of the day it's just something to put on your head and bop around with.

        No, I don't own one, but if I had to play large video files off an external portable drive, I wouldn't use a Dell, dude! Especially on a deadline. iPod + mac pc = time (and face) saved.
        • The fuss is about this: a trendy consumer appliance is being used as a mission-critical device.


          Call me silly, but what's so mission-critical about making a movie? Someone gonna die if LOTR could not be made on time?

          • spake the void*: "what's so mission-critical about making a movie?"

            OK, that's stretching it a bit, I'll admit...

            But there's so much money involved in a project this scale, the deadlines can pucker your nether orifice. It's mission-critical if you love your job. With millions at stake, your technology had better work right.
          • Um, it would be called, making the scheduled, advertised, contractually obligated release date.

            This is the movie industry, not software development. Product slippage is NOT tolerated.

    • Re:One big ad for Apple (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jo_ham ( 604554 ) <joham999 AT gmail DOT com> on Monday February 02, 2004 @12:22PM (#8159306)
      Apple never gives stuff away because of fame - you have to buy it like everyone else.

      There was an article in (printed) MacWorld a while ago about a bloke employed by Apple to go round to professional musicians and demo Apple kit to them.

      People like Paul McCartney and a few other big names have tried to blag Apple stuff for free, but they're always turned down.

  • Batteries (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Davak ( 526912 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:50AM (#8157243) Homepage
    If the ipods were really going to have battery problems, [ipodsdirtysecret.com] surely somebody would have noticed during all these transfers.

    Anyway, chalk up one more iPod award...

    Assisted in obtaining The Return of the King 11 Oscar nominations

    All of that data transfer... and none of it got released to the public by "accident?" We should be ashamed at ourselves.

    Davak
    • If the ipods were really going to have battery problems, surely somebody would have noticed during all these transfers.

      Ipods don't use the battery when they are connected to a computer.

      If you ipod had a dead battery, this is the ONLY thing it would still be good for.

  • Quite frankly... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DiscoOnTheSide ( 544139 ) <ajfili&eden,rutgers,edu> on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:50AM (#8157244) Homepage
    I think this is absolutely amazing. Yes, we all knew you could do stuff like this, but you'd never think of it until you read stuff like this. Not only is it a great MP3 player (I've owned three as well as MiniDisc players, it's hands down the best I've used), it's an amazingly fast firewire drive (although I find that formated for windows it's not as fast, perhaps HFS+ is a better file system then most think?) and I've noticed that while I use my iPod for storing papers, projects and movies to watch at friends houses, it screams. I think after hearing this those 40GB iPods are going to be the new pro-video clip bin. Sure, you won't fit an entire three hour epic movie's worth of footage in DV format on it, but it's good for fleshing out whole scenes. Plus it's widely supported for Windows and Mac so no worries (and Linux can mount them as a simple firewire drive if I stand correct...) Neat stuff. Hopefully we'll get video iPods this year, to combat those foreboding MS portable media players...
    • Not only is it a great MP3 player (I've owned three as well as MiniDisc players, it's hands down the best I've used), it's an amazingly fast firewire drive

      Thanks, but I'll stick to my 250GB Maxtor firewire/USB disk if I wan to transfer data. Seems like it'd be incredibly silly to use a small iPod to transfer video. They could've just burned DVD-RW copies of the video.

      • From the You aren't getting it department.

        They ALREADY have the iPod to listen to music/relax. They can ALSO use it to transfer previews for review by PJ. They don't HAVE to carry a BIG, CLUMSY, BULKY external hard drive. They can use the music player THEY ALREADY HAVE.

        Get it, yet? They didn't buy the iPod to transfer the files. They used the iPods they bought for music to do this extra chore as well, SAVING them from having to use ANOTHER external hard drive.
        • Geesh! LOOK AT http://www.lacie.com and TELL me the slim 40 GB and the bigger, yet still portable drive they have on their and tell me they are BULKY! Yes, they ARE bigger then a iPod, but they are not that much bigger. BOTH are very easy to stuff in a pocket on your laptop bag. The portable HD's are just cheaper then the iPods by many factors. They are also alot of times much faster then a iPod. The fact that Jackson used thes for ROTK is just saying "Hi....I'm Peter Jackson, director of ROTK and hav

  • Dailies almost got stolen, too (Score:5, Informative)

    by jokkebk ( 175614 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:51AM (#8157252) Homepage
    I watched Two Towers extras where the fellow who was doing the transportation of iPods to Jackson's hotel told that he was almost robbed by two thugs following him one day.

    Thankfully the guy was pretty quick sprinter, so the dailies (and I even seem to recall that they exceptionally had the whole version on iPod that day) narrowly escaped the London underworld.

    As a funny sidenote, I don't think any beautiful women offered to plug their earpiece into iPod while waiting traffic lights, too bad for them. :)

  • Apple's next ad campaign? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darnok ( 650458 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:52AM (#8157256)
    I wonder why Apple hasn't made more of this in their advertising. It seems that having possibly the highest-profile series of movies in many years put together using your gear would be worth telling people about.

    If the article is accurate, it's a great example of working globally that a lot of Apple's potential customers might want to hear about.

    It'd certainly attract more positive interest than those ridiculous "HP Invent" advertisements - they're just laughable. Every time I see a new one, I think "What the hell am I looking at?" which I suspect isn't the message HP wants to be getting across.

    • Re:Apple's next ad campaign? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Although iPod makes a useful and convenient portable hard drive, there are some real drawbacks to putting this into an ad.

      The main problem is that it would confuse some less computer-savvy people. They would watch a 30 second ad (only halfway paying attention to it) and wind up unsure about what iPod is for, and how they are supposed to use it.
    • I wonder why Apple hasn't made more of this in their advertising

      You mean like having the guy who plays Frodo appear in the iLife '04 video [apple.com.au], for example? Or were you thinking of golum dancing in silhouette with an ipod?

  • During the course of two movies and four months, 'Rings' iPods stored and served up nearly one-half terabyte of digitized footage from 'Towers' and 'King.'"

    What's a half terabyte? 500 gig. 75 days. Sounds like a college student with a heavy download habit.

  • funny quote during the article... (Score:5, Funny)

    by derekb ( 262726 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:04AM (#8157297) Journal
    After spending time frustrated at the battery life of my ipod, I read this bit of sentence...

    Just as Frodo exists basically to transport that precious ring to where it needs to go, ..

    and thought about how many times I've wanted to send my ipod to the same firey doom..

    ahh but I couldn't do that to the little guy..
    • Here's an SAT question for you...

      Frodo : Ring :: iPod : ____

      A) some wrong answer
      B) Jackson's PRECIOUS video data.
      C) some other wrong answer.
      D) yet another wrong answer

      Yes, the answer is B.
      Now, the analogy to the RING's fiery doom
      would therefore be a fiery doom of some
      iPod-borne data you're trying to get rid of
      (let's not speculate on what that might be).

      Joke REJECTED!

  • One big advertisement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Pi-Guy ( 529892 ) <joshua+slashdot AT joshuawise DOT com> on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:08AM (#8157309) Homepage
    This article seems to read like one big advertisement. It mentions no less than four specific Apple technologies that are really nothing special and could be replaced by other cheaper technologies. I understand that it may be cool because it's on an iPod, but honestly, do you need to mention the Apple Cinema Display??

    *sighs as his karma falls*

    joshua
    • I think they forgot to mention that Mr Jackson was using a Apple(tm) Wireless Keyboard and Apple(tm) Wireless Mouse both using Bluetooth(tm) technology to enhance the editing experience. Naturally all mobile devices used Duracell(tm) bateries to go the extra mile. Mr Jackson transported the iPod (tm) in his Lee (tm) jeans.

    • Re:One big advertisement (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mbbac ( 568880 )
      How are they going to replace the iSight and iChat with cheaper technology?

      While you're at it, explain the other three too. I bet it is much harder that just saying they could replace them with cheaper technologies.

  • what we do (Score:5, Informative)

    by snatchitup ( 466222 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:18AM (#8157337) Homepage Journal
    We actually use broadband to transfer our digital daily "rough-cuts" as they're known in the industry.

    We use these guys' to [artesia.com] software to help us manage it.

    It's amazing how many TBytes flow back and forth. And admittingly in the current reality, it's not a smooth process. Funny thing is, the hard-drive sizes change so rapidly, but the system planning isn't based on this. No one has gone said... You know, this system will be so cheap to build because in about a year, you'll be able to walk across the street and buy a Terabyte hard-drive at Best buy for about $400. Why not just plan on a cheap server farm of about 20 pc's each with about 3x1TB of disk space.

    Throughput hasn't been too big an issue, it's dealing with all the anomalies of the formats and simple things such as. MPEg vs. JPEG vs. PAL
  • I don't know exactly which iPod models they usedm but I assume at least 10GB. The article mentions that they all have one, so that's at least 100GB. conclusion : they used their pods 5 times. Not all that spectacular,

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:27AM (#8157384)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Never Underestimate... (Score:5, Funny)

    by erpbridge ( 64037 ) <steve@erpbr[ ]e.com ['idg' in gap]> on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:30AM (#8157392) Journal
    the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with iPods.

  • Enforced DRM (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:59AM (#8157546) Journal
    Just goes to show you what enforced DRM and EULA's will do. Hardware and software manufacturers should always let us utilize their products the way we need to, not the way they want us to. You start throwing DRM into the mix and that limits the usefulness of the product. Go iPod!

  • Apple and the movie industry (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CdBee ( 742846 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:11AM (#8157601)
    Recent industry comment on some sites sees now-distributor-free Pixar Inc teaming up with Apple to offer digital video distribution.

    While this may not be the case, its small stories like this that make me suspect that apple does have a future in the movie industry that goes beyond Final Cut and iMovie

    Apple is getting in with the consumer of media products as well as the producer, and that has to be a good thing for them.

  • Apple leads the way in the digital creative arts (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SPYDER Web ( 717344 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:36AM (#8157699)
    They really know what the artist needs. Apple has become the art supply store for the world. Being able to take any work no matter what medium and help with its creation is truly a wonderful thing. I am not a big apple supporter but its hard to argue with the impact apple has from Pixar animation to Lord of the rings. Every musician, film maker, and digital artist has an apple for a reason.
    • I work professionally with both platforms, and I think Apple appeals to creative types for stylistic and emotional reasons, not because it's always the best/cheapest product or technology for the job. Most of our creative types have weak computer skills and little technology "confidence" and tend to seek Apple solutions because the tiny computer skill they do have is with Macs. Since "everyone else" does this same thing, you get a herd mentality, coupled with fear and willful ignorance.

      It's not that ther
      • Spoken like a true elitist snob. But even in your snobbery, you hit the truth. You just screw up the conclusion.

        "Most of our creative types have weak computer skills and little technology confidence."

        They seek Apple solutions precisely because Apple doesn't require heavy computer skills or tons of computer confidence.
        • No, it's not elitist, these people can't keep track of files ("Where did I save this?"), they have trouble with running programs, lots of things. It's a big problem, as they feed the pipeline for production and it drives the production people batshit because they'll get print jobs from them that are broken and the creative people can't find the files, the CDs they burned are empty, it would be funny if it wasn't such a pain in the ass.

          And I'm not sure Apple's solutions are any easier than Microsofts. I'v

  • Only for LOTR... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's not like many other films can do this. Who else could get a budget big enough to buy that many Apple products!
  • During the course of two movies and four months, 'Rings' iPods stored and served up nearly one-half terabyte of digitized footage

    ... while the ipod given to me list past Christmas died two weeks ago, a mere three weeks into owning it. I'm pretty sure I had only 'served up' about 2 gigabytes of data at the time.

  • What advantage did an iPod give him? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Experiment 626 ( 698257 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @12:33PM (#8159417)

    So, while I can certainly appreciate portable mass storage, what was the benefit of using an iPod instead of a regular USB or FireWire drive? It was plugged into a computer so the battery isn't a factor, he was using it for movies so it wasn't the MP3/AAC playback. Basically he paid twice as much for half the storage (compared to a 2.5" 80GB USB drive), but gets a lot of points from the Apple crowd for using one of their products.

    As for the thing about him being chased around afraid robbers would get his draft copy of the movie, it sounds like the real story here is not the technology he used, but the technology he didn't use: encryption.

  • Why using an iPod vs external HD makes sense: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02, 2004 @12:40PM (#8159479)
    Physical security. Half the planet would have loved to steal the dailies from LoTR and more than a few were possibly actively looking to get their hands on them.

    - The iPod is smaller than most dedicated external drives and thus easier to conceal and transport.
    - The iPod looks like, well, an iPod and might not raise suspicions that they are actually storing the dailies, if word does not get out.

    While an iPod in itself is a huge thief magnate, it inspires more casual theft from lax owners than attracting the eye of a more determined, professional thief.

    I mean, who would get suspicious of a bunch of movie types walking around with iPods?

    Anonymous Joe
  • Am I missing something but this story basically boils down to the fact that the crew of LOTR used a portal hard drive to transport content, which, just so happened to be an iPod?

    I mean, you could do that with almost any portable hard drive or hard drive based MP3 player.

  • So, instead of paying $70 for a 40GB firewire drive, they spent $500. Talk about news! Or maybe the news is that the 614% more expensive device didn't fail?

    Apple sure is amazing and superior and stuff.

    Heck, for $500, all a lowly PC user could afford is half a terrabyte in firewire drives, and still have money left over to buy some pizza and beer, and catch a movie, and buy a CD. Not nearly as cool as a 40GB iPod.

    But I admit, if I could convince my boss to transfer terrabytes of data on iPods that I co
  • Imagine a beowulf clus... oh, wait, they were using one. Kinda. Never mind!

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