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Topic: Have the plastic Pelican boxes disappeared?

Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 08-11-2017 12:24 PM

Have the plastic Pelican boxes disappeared completely? I haven't seen one in the past year or so. Everything comes in the gray cardboard boxes, some of which are getting pretty well beat to pieces at this point. Not that the Pelican boxes were in perfect condition either, but they did seem to last a bit longer.

I remember having to open some film cans with a crowbar, though, so that won't be an issue with a cardboard box. [Smile]

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 08-11-2017 01:24 PM

I bought some 1010s with foam inserts to ship some DCPs on USB flash sticks to the end user on Amazon a couple of weeks ago. No problem getting hold of them. Amazon wasn't the cheapest vendor out there, but they were the quickest and easiest.

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 08-11-2017 02:34 PM

We still get the Pelicans, but there are more shipping variants now. Some cardboard, some smaller plastic cases.

- Carsten

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 08-11-2017 07:02 PM

Now, it's 3lbs for shipment, where the Pelican's and the foam boxes were 8lbs.

Freight charges are hitting the ceiling both ways...

Need to look into the satellite DCDC system to cut your shipment charges in half.

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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006

posted 08-13-2017 05:28 PM

Now that you mention it, I can't recall getting one of the Pelican boxes
for a major release from Deluxe in almost a year.

However, in my work at a number of film festivals, I still get a lot of
them, especially from foreign (outside of USA) distributors and from
independent distributors that can afford them.

Smaller foam-lined Pelican cases with LaCie mini-drives inside seem
to be the second most common shipping combination I see from
independent filmmakers & foreign distributors, if they don't use CRU.

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Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 08-14-2017 11:01 AM

We've reached the point where most features could fit on a thumb drive. The downside would be that ingesting via USB would take a lot longer and also the speed would prohibit emergency playback directly from the transport medium.

But what about USB 3? You could have a dock of some sort networked to your LMS/TMS or server but what if CRU created a dummy version of their DX115 that can plug in any CRU drive bay and had a USB3 connection on the outer face? They could start shipping movies in padded envelopes.

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 08-14-2017 12:16 PM

That already exists, the CRU DCmini.

https://www.cru-inc.com/products/digital-cinema/digital-cinema-dcmini/

They introduced it here in germany, but it never saw the widespread use that was intended, only one or two service companies use it. And indeed, they ship in very slim plastic boxes, the size of a padded envelope.

Initially, they shipped a DCmini to CRU adaptor to all cinemas, that would allow to use the SATA interface by sliding the adaptor into your CRU slot, then the DCmini into the adaptor. These mini drives always ship with a USB2.0/3.0 cable as well, so you have the choice. On our system, ingest speed over CRU/SATA was more or less the same as over USB - given that our Sony 515 has a real USB 3.0 interface.

- Carsten

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 08-21-2017 08:27 AM

quote: Frank Cox
I remember having to open some film cans with a crowbar, though, so that won't be an issue with a cardboard box.

You've never ordered anything from AliExpress? [Wink]

One of the last packages that came in via one of their sellers was not just wrapped in ordinary packaging tape, it was wrapped in duct tape. A nice way to demotivate customs though.

quote: Steve Kraus
But what about USB 3? You could have a dock of some sort networked to your LMS/TMS or server but what if CRU created a dummy version of their DX115 that can plug in any CRU drive bay and had a USB3 connection on the outer face? They could start shipping movies in padded envelopes.

Most simple off-the-shelf NAS-in-a-box systems would do as most of them offer USB 3.0 support nowadays.

Yet, you simply cannot expect everybody to have USB 3.0 transfer capabilities and transferring an entire feature over USB 2.0 is really unbearably slow. The CRU DCmini Carsten mentioned could be a nice workaround, but it would require an additional investment in some adapter. Cardboard boxes and the occasionally lost drive seem to be the cheaper alternative for now.

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