Rings Digital Dailies Circled Globe via iPod

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.'"

Comments

Versatile

[pb_boi]

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

Slow news day?

[rokzy]

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?

Not exactly exciting news.

[MountainMan101]

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?

Re:Not exactly exciting news.

[kfg]

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

Apple leads the way in the digital creative arts

[SPYDER Web]

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.

Why using an iPod vs external HD makes sense:

[Anonymous Coward]

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