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Mixxed formats in the imeline
OK.
So there has been a big discussion about wanting to mix formats in the same timeline. how could FCP accomplish this. Would it have to be a RT effect or something?
Secondly, If I could mix formats in the same timeline, what would I be eeing on the output. Am I watch the lowest of thethree resolutions (probably) or am I watching a 10-bit uncompressed picture.
TO me this seems like a hardware issue. This was supposed to be a major selling point of CInewave systems but people complain that they are tied to the hardware ( a la AVID)
I can sacrifice mixing resolutions if it means I can update my software, hardware and OS to the most current and fastest available as project and budget permits. I am not sure this would be my biggest request as a long time FCP user (and AVID USER) . I would have liked to see the killer media manager before seeing mulitcam support. (not that many avids had multicam back in the day). I liked that FCP did “under the hood” things like scaling etc. But did we really get a lot more from the FCP 5.0 release. (it is much more stable)
Anyhow. just thought, i’d get a little action started so fire away.
David
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17 Replies
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It is a hardware issue. Cinewave could do it by offloading the conversion in RT to the card itself, the CPU’s arent’ fast enough yet don’t think… maybe a G6 quad pentium? dunno…
I think that future superfast CPU’s will be able to do it, but no doubt what you’d monitor is whatever the sequence setting is… so it would be upconverting or down converting in RT to the setting that the sequence is… just like CineWave systems do…
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer
Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here
Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D
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Thanks Gerry.
I don’t see the big avantage to mixxing in the timeline anyway. Why not capture all of the various formats in the codec in which you want to edit them? This is what has always made complete sense to me. You take beta, d-beta, DV and you capture it all 10-bit uncompressed or all at DVC PRO 50 or what ever you want to edit natively in.
This to me makes the most sense. I know that DV at uncompressed 10-bit data rates is a waste of space, but to me these are workflow/planning questions more than anything else. I can not see the huge advantage to mixing timeline resolutions.
David
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being able to do graphics with the animation codec w/alpha channel, in any timeline in RT, that is the big advantage for shows say that need a bug all the way across every frame…..I would sell my….well you get the idea…
Paul
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But couldn’t you render it from AE to what ever native codec you are working in?
Annimation is also a 4:4:4 codec so it would be all that much harder to do in RT.
But this should be doable now with 10 bit uncompressed, DVCPRO50 or DV.
Nest and drop on top.
David
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The big advantage is speed. I work with uncompressed betacam footage, DV via firewire and animations with alpha and it all mixes & plays in real time in a Cinewave timeline without conversion, rendering or 3rd party programs. My customers really appreciate this.
Chris Paul
POV -
[Post Office Video] “I work with uncompressed betacam footage, DV via firewire and animations with alpha and it all mixes & plays in real time in a Cinewave timeline without conversion, rendering or 3rd party programs. My customers really appreciate this.”
That’s the one thing I miss from my old CineWave system. If AJA could add that to the Kona 2 I’d have the best of all worlds.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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What was the Cinewave outputting?
Was it the best of the three or the worst.
IE was the DV being converted to uncompressed and the annimation being downgraded to uncompressed?
Could this be set from within some sort of control panel. I could see the advantage with annimations but not with footage as it needs to be captured anyway. (but it does save you because you would not need an SDI card on your DV deck)
David
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[Post Office Video] ” I work with uncompressed betacam footage, DV via firewire and animations with alpha and it all mixes & plays in real time in a Cinewave timeline without conversion,”
I’m sorry guys but I do not understand why you would add DV25 captured footage to 10bit UC when you are given the tapes to digitize. I believe that less than 25% of you are using shared storage so you are not sharing content amongst multiple users. This is a bad workflow, and it will cost you something some time.
and I am able to playout animation codec files w/ alpha on my G5 in an FCP 8bit timeline in RT — but I still render everything before lay to tape.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation -
[gary adcock] “I’m sorry guys but I do not understand why you would add DV25 captured footage to 10bit UC when you are given the tapes to digitize.”
When I had the CineWave system, I used this very workflow for the Lamborghini 40th Anniversary project we did a few years back. The Producer shot it all on mini DV and we had something like 40 hours of material to digitize. All of this would be edited down to about 3 hours of finished material. I simply captured it all DV-NTSC, but edited the entire project in a 10bit timeline so all the graphics and animations would be clean. With CineWave this was all done in realtime and it worked beautifully.
So when you’re working with extremely large projects, being able to work with DV footage in an uncompressed timeline is a wonderful thing. I don’t need a ton of storage, yet I still get the quality of uncompressed. Again, this is the only feature of CineWave that I really miss and would love to see the Kona 2 get this capability.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Walter,
This makes me wonder.
Here is what I know about my Aurora product. If I am sending a DV timeline out the Pipe Studio, I can tell you that the Pipe studio only outputs 10-bit uncompressed, even if I am sending a DV timeline that DV timeline comes out the PIPE at 10-bit uncompressed. The DV is being “upconverted” to 10 bit uncompressed on the output. I can often cut in DV timelines knowing that the output is 10-bit uncompressed.
On the graphics side, this is what I would love to know. If FCP is giving you an RT in a DV timeline (of a title for example) is it degrading that picture to DV and then upconverting it to 10-bit on output (I am assuming the RT title is NEVER RENDERED) in the the DV timeline.
Do you see where I am going with this one?
I have found that RT titles in DV timelines look good until they are force rendered into the timelines native DV codec so FCP is probably giving you the best quality until you tell it to render in the native DV codec.
I am not suggesting that the graphics will look as good as a 10-bit uncompressed sequence, but I think the DV tests that I have done (with Pipe) the Firewire IN/10-bit out looks better than if the DV is captured at 10-bit uncompressed. (I have seen and read the extensive NATRESS tests) I am assuming that the KONA 2 works the same way. (althouhg I have noticed that only the 8 bit playback works with DV footage and the ten bit falls apart with RT set to dynamic)
I think that with the CINEWAVE all this compresseing and decompressing of the DV codec, takes place on seperate daughtercard processing. Although there is a higher data rate (27mb/sec) you get more RT out of uncompressed (vs photojpeg for example ) because the card does not have to do any compressing and decompressing. This is why stacking RT is so easy in uncompressed (drive speed has something to do with it too) because there is no processing being done by the card, it is just an uncompressed PIPELINE.
I think that a card manufacturer would have to have the card decompress the DV and convert it to uncompressed 10-bit. The KONA 2 offeres this type of hardware acceleration for the DVCPROHD codecs. It might be cool if you could use that same “on the card” processing and have it selectable through the KONA 2 control panel selectable.
So maybe a future driver release could have the user select the processsing it wants the card to do. So if I am working in SD with DV fotage, I can use that card power to upconvert the DV while I work in 10-bit uncompressed.
Maybe we are not as far away from that as we think.
David
WHEW! I hope this makes sense!
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