I have finally assembled the components required to make better use of the Canon 5D Mk11 video capture. This set up should allow greater stability, better focus action and view and a way better solution than just mounting on my stills tripod. I am looking forward to testing on some unsuspecting children.
What I am hoping to achieve is a shallow focus, Cinema style look in High Definition primarly for web.
After much research and a few fitting trials I have started with:

• Manfrotto Pro Tripod ART 535 with 501HDV head
• Canon 5D Mk11 body
• Canon 17-40mm wide zoom
• Canon 70-200mm tele zoom
• Zacuto Z-Finder
• D-Focus follow focus
• indiRAILSpro DSLR
• Lee Filter hood and ND grad set
• Also around but not in shot, Delkin Fat Gecko Dual Suction Cup Camera/Mount

The job is a display of news and coming events on 3 big screens for The West Footscray Neighborhood House. The screens run separate keynote presentations containing HD video and slideshows all with audio in 3 different locations within the center complex. Three Mac mini’s run the program files in full HD resolution and they could not be more happy with the quality of the presentations.

There were a number of hurdles to overcome however and in the interests of others trying to achieve the same result we will list solutions to some of the problems we encountered.

Firstly because there are no keyboards or mice we needed control over the screens from another Mac on the network. A 22.5 inch iMac in the locked admin office could be used via screen sharing in house but we also wanted remote access. Once all the right bits of network apparatus were in place we could gain control over the 3 Mac mini’s using Back to My Mac over the internet from our office. We can transfer updated Keynote files, check the system for failures or launch an application. With high end bandwidth at both ends it runs perfectly. On reboot however the Bluetooth equipped Mac mini’s went looking for a keyboard and mouse. Not a very pleasant screen image to greet me on the first morning of trials. This was sorted by turning off all Bluetooth services. Open system prefs/Bluetooth and advanced. Uncheck “Open Bluetooth Assistant…” box and the system will stop trying on reboot to connect.

Now to get a file to run on reboot simply add it as a login item. Normally you would have an Application as a login item, like Mail or the persistent Skype… To make a file like a Keynote slide show a login item use the login items window in System Prefs/Accounts and select and add using the + or for big files we found it was necessary to drag and drop the file into the login window.

Finally the big hurdle, getting Keynote to close to allow automated shutdown. The screens need to shutdown overnight and reboot in the morning. This keeps the noise down overnight for the neighbors. A simple task made complicated by some new code requirement that Keynote check first if a file has been saved before allowing shutdown to proceed. A good idea for those editing presentations but a pain in the butt for our purposes.

The trick was to use Automator and create an iCal alarm that simply put shuts down Keynote without saving 5 min or so prior to the scheduled Mac Mini’s shut down. Open Automater, choose iCal Alarm, select quit application from the menu and drag it into the script window. Choose Keynote from the dropdown ( here you will need to say “other” and get Keynote from within the iWork folder), UNCHECK “Ask to save changes”, then save entering Keynote Shutdown as the iCal alarm name. iCal will open with editable parameters for the alarm in a new iCal Calendar called “Automator”. Set the repeat to every day, end never, and the timing of the event and click done.

If anyone has any other questions relating to the placement setup for function of a presentation kiosk using the Mac, drop us a line and we hope we can be of assistance. Our thanks also to Rod Langham Electrical for his great work with the physical installation and heavy lifting.

Well that proved to be an overstatement.

Whilst straight forward to understand in a network sense, not much information was available online or in the hardware documentation to sort out the relevant settings for both devices. Much of the information suggests forgetting the Airport Extreme as a DHCP device, bridging it and allowing the Modem to allocate IP addresses on the network. Whilst that is fine for most networks a guest network supplied by the Airport Extreme requires that it allocate IP addresses becoming the DHCP server for the two networks and isolating them from each other over WIFI. Simple, what about the Linksys modem? Bridge it and the PPPoE settings disappear and the Airport seems unable to to do this for the system, thus rendering the network operable but unable to connect to the internet.

The answer was stumbled upon after trying everything else that seemed logical.

Start with both devices in default settings, if necessary the paper clip in the reset hole with power on of course.

With an Ethernet cable plugged into the Linksys and the phone line connected, plug the Ethernet cable into a laptop or other computer that is not connected to a network. In Firefox (Safari seems to be unable to edit settings on the Linksys) type the default IP address for the modem into the URL field 192.168.1.1, hit return. Enter the default username password (admin/admin) and when the interface appears scroll down to PPPoE Settings and enter your ADSL username and password (supplied by your ISP). Scroll to the bottom and Save Settings. After the screen comes back you should get a connection to the internet. Test in another Tab.

Now on the default screen next to Internet connection type choose RFC 1483 Bridged

Now next to Network Address Server Settings (DHCP), select Disable for Local DHCP server. Beneath that set Auto Detect LAN DHCP Server to Enable. The IP address of the Router should not stay at 192.168.1.1. Choose something like 192.168.1.20 or other address not currently used by another device or within the 100 to 200 range.

Open Airport Utility (you will need software installer for the newer version of this device) and with WIFI turned on the Mac you should see the default screen with a new basestation to the left. Hit Continue to set up using the wizard.

Setup for network is fairly self explanatory from there although internet connection is through PPPoE using the username password provided by your ISP. Also it seems to make sense that you may wish to stick with 192.168.1 addressing for the network as the router has this as default. Either way it seems to work.

After all this messing around if the Airport restarts with a green light but you are still not connected try restarting the Modem and when the Airport goes green after that you should be fine.

Let me know how you go and also if you find any solutions similar, you may have a suggestion or perhaps I left out a step.

For our live streaming event for Louie Prez next week the uplink for video will be satisfactory if that speed is sustained.

TPG ADSL2+

Tesltra TURBO 3G

iPhone 3G

This is great news for those with plenty of room on their ReadyNAS and a small number of Macs to backup.

To use the system simply reboot your ReadyNAS and it will have the firmware upgrade done with a page available with set up instructions.

Read more here.

Back to my Mac requires a .mac or mobile@me account. All Macs you wish to access should be configured using the same account. Secure connection data is stored and configured via the connection to this service. Since we use mobile@me to access common data for address books and iCal info across all Macs and iPhones, taking advantage of Back to my Mac seemed obvious. Despite having access to other services like Hamachi and Real VNC for over the internet sharing and control we have concentrated on Back to my Mac given that it requires little user knowledge once set.

Importantly there should only be one device acting as a router and for most home and small office networks we take a look at, there are two at times both acting as a DHCP server. This is mainly due to a later inclusion of a wireless access point, a network retrofit very common these days. In the case of Back to my Mac and other more complex network access applications, one of these routers should be bridged or configured so that does not assign IP addresses for the network.
Importantly when all else fails a quick flick off and on of Back to my Mac in System Prefs is all that was required to get the 5200 working correctly. Given the fact that the Billion 5200 is a domestic grade modem we were surprised by this result and also a little disappointed. The quality of the router is not quite up to spec for our requirements generally as it is a little less than stable in a network of 5 to 10 computers, printers and phones. Generally we would advise an industrial grade Billion router for this task. It is relevant to address the fact that enabling UPnP is not advisable under some circumstances and is not encouraged by the Windows security fraternity. It may also be argued that a more advanced system be used on Macintosh networks also and indeed there is a solution.
Back to my Mac can also employ NAT-PMP, a possibly more secure method of network manipulation. None of the routers we used had this capacity however. Apple Airport devices have the ability to use this technology in a network but we were hard pressed to get any ADSL modem router we tested to bridge successfully and allow the Apple device complete control of the network.
Testing will continue with hardware available in Australia to find the best means of making Back to my Mac usable under all circumstances but in the meantime there seems to be some hope for a small investment.

A customer rang last week saying their MacBook Pro had been damaged in a “drinking” accident and along with screen damage the hard drive may have been rendered unbootable. Some fluid damage to the internal electronics may also have occurred. A new MacBook Pro was ordered and whilst setting up the new Mac we connected the external hard drive that contained the Time Machine back up. The client had done what we instructed and dutifully connected the back up drive every week or so in order to let Time Machine do it’s thing. It keeps a complete backup of everything, even keeps copies of deleted files.

Still unaware of the value of Time Machine when the check box appeared “set up new Mac from Time Machine archive”, the box was ticked and it ran for 45 min. It sucked back from the external drive all the users files, configurations, accounts, applications, preferences, in fact everything so that the result was a perfect copy of the Mac just as it had been prior to the accident. All applications worked and remained registered.

Not only that but Time Machine made available all files deleted going back to the beginning of time for the old Mac.

Now while a new MacBook Pro cost a reasonable amount, the additional cost saved by not losing files and time taken to rebuild amounted to a whole heap more.

It also looks like a great way to get from one model to the next when upgrading hardware. The new Mac will not only have everything appear the same but all deleted files are there as well. It also saves the hassle of that import folder in Mail. At Big Trousers we will be recommending a Time Machine backup for all Macs from now on.