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Wiretap Central - Background tools you may not know about!

Posted: Nov 18, 2009
Category: Autodesk Flame, Autodesk Smoke, Tips and Tricks, Usefultools

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Hi All,

I hope that everyone has had a productive week.

For this session we are going to focus on Wiretap Central.

WIRETAP CENTRAL

Wiretap Central is a background tool which allows you access to the Smoke and Flame projects through any web browser on any workstation that has the ability to see your system through the network. This is made possible by designing wiretap Central as a Flash based interface.

Wiretap Central can perform 3 types of functions.

1. Browsing and basic job management
- You are able to browse through projects of your machine or machines within your infrastructure. This means you can go into clip libraries, view reels and even create reels for future incoming media.

2. Importing RED and OpenEXR
- The import options in Wiretap Central allow you to import R3D media (See my red workflow blog!) as well as all the multi-channel passes embedded in an OpenEXR file for 3D compositing into the database.

3. Exporting media
- This exporting facility allows you to encode different types of media from within wiretap central without having to disturb the Smoke and Flame system if they are being used in a creative session. This exporting toolset also gives you different format support compared to the export options within Smoke and Flame. For example you can export H264, Mpeg1, Mpeg2, Mpeg4, FLV, IPOD compatible files and a few other formats.

This video will concentrate mainly on the 3rd function - Exporting

For best viewing results, switch to the full screen option with the 1:1 viewing setting

The features shown are current with the Smoke and Flame 2010 ext1 SP1 releases

Remember that Wiretap Central is bundled free with your smoke and flame installation so you already have these features if you didn't realise it. If you are running a previous version of our software, please consult your manuals to see what facilities are available to you.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog and I look forward to the next time.

As always, feedback is welcome!

Signing off!

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Newest users comments View All 4 Comments

Posted by dan on Dec 10, 2009 at 10:08 PM

Hey Ton,

Nice little demo. There were a large number of changes that went into WTC when it was taken over from Ontap. The decision to go with the Web 0.1 look was to resolve the unintuitiveness of having to right-click on the link to download the file. In Ontap, the look of this page was indeed similar to the Ontap UI ... where right-clicking would give you the Adobe Flash menu, hence creating confusion. By going back to the 'ugly' default look, the confusion was gone. There was a plan to deliver a much slicker UX to download the clips/packages ... but it was pushed so as to implement the Red/EXR workflow.

BTW, the 'package' option is useful for several clips, and it doesn't compress.

Cheers,

Dan

Posted by cpcortez on Nov 26, 2009 at 04:12 AM

Hey Ton! Thanks for the info!

I would second the motion with discreetuk. In addition, one consequence of this wiretap process is that the local disk where the export folder was configured might get filled up in time. So there should be a schedule for purging or archiving the wiretap exported materials.

Another way to prevent the local drive from getting full is to redirect the export folder to a shared drive mounted in the autodesk IFFS machine.

Posted by Ultimate_Smoker* on Nov 19, 2009 at 06:10 PM

Hey Ton!!! I had a think about that as well after reading your comment.

The reason that occurred to me for the strange path was that if I was browsing wiretap central from any system in the facility, the specific given file path is actually a web server path that you could browse to from your web browser just like any internet address. You would not have to directly log into your Linux system to get to the file. You would just browse to the link via wiretap central, right-click on the file and choose "save as...".

If the file was on a typical local path, you would have to share the system disc of the linux machine to the network. I would not want to do that. If you want to explore this further then give me a buzz in a private message.

Hope this helps!!!

	Posted by _Ton_ on Nov 18, 2009 at 05:59 PM
You're busy dude :-) WTC's pretty cool.. but what I don't get is why browsing to the results looks like web 0.1 ;-) I've seen a much prettier solution in Ontap.. Keep up the good work!!!