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

One big ad for Apple

[fruey]

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...

Re:Versatile

[pldms]

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 :-).