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Proper Workflow for outputting to cable TV
I just landed my first cable TV commercial job (produce/direct/edit a :30 piece) and I need to know the best workflow for importing assets and the best medium in which to output the edited piece.
Right now I plan to shoot principal video with my Sony HDR-FX1, but I’m not sure if its worthwhile to shoot in HDV or not since the cable stations don’t broadcast in 1080i. I.e., is there a benefit to the look of the finished product if I edit in HDV and then output to DV-NTSC (which would involve me having to redo the aspect ratio to 4:3, which sounds tricky to me)?
I also plan to use some graphics work I am making in Motion (which I was told in the Motion forum that I should import the actual Motion file in to FCP, which I wasn’t aware I could do, and I’ll check to see that my Motion res/frame rate matches my FCP settings, which I hope to learn from someone here on the best settings to maintain).
Basically, my question is what is the best way to work with the materials I have so that my finished product is in the highest quality for either Printing to Tape (in my case, mini-DV and then off to the copy-house to put on to Beta since I don’t have a Beta deck) or burning to DVD so that it can be shown on cable TV?
Any help is much appreciated!
G5 QuadCore
FCP Studio HD -
20 Replies
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[Jon B745435] “Basically, my question is what is the best way to work with the materials I have so that my finished product is in the highest quality for either Printing to Tape (in my case, mini-DV and then off to the copy-house to put on to Beta since I don’t have a Beta deck) or burning to DVD so that it can be shown on cable TV?”
Just work in the DV workflow all the way around. If you have no ability to output directly to Beta or DigiBeta from your FCP system do not upconvert anything to uncompressed on your system. It will only get re-compressed when you master to DV giving you something that looks worse than when you started.
If you’re going to work in broadcast / cable, you need the ability to capture in uncompressed and output to uncompressed. DV is just not a great workflow for any sort of broadcast.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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It seems that I need to invest in hardware that will allow me to capture / export uncompressed. With my current configuration (see below), what in your opinion is the most cost-effective route to take?
G5/2.5GHz/QC/4GB/250GB-SATA/16xSuperDrive/
Hitachi Deskstar 250GB SATA150 7200rpm 8mb cache Drive
ProMax 500GB External Array SATAMAXe G5/PC (PCIe)
NVIDIA GeForce 6600LE w/256MB SDRAM
Apple Final Cut Studio
Sony PVM14L1 14″ Studio Monitor
Apple Aluminum Cinema HD Display 23″ Flat Panel -
Just add the AJA Io LA which gives you analog I/O unless you need digital I/O. This is an external box that will move to a new compauter when you upgrade. If you purchase an internal card, then you’ll need a PCI-X card which is end of the line with the new Mac Pro’s now released.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Walter,
What did you mean by “you purchase an internal card, then you’ll need a PCI-X card which is end of the line with the new Mac Pro’s now released” I’m not totally up to speed on the new Macs and what will work in the future and what won’t.
Thanks,
PHIL
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[PEYIII] “What did you mean by “you purchase an internal card, then you’ll need a PCI-X card which is end of the line with the new Mac Pro’s now released” I’m not totally up to speed on the new Macs and what will work in the future and what won’t.”
Starting with the last G5, the Quad, all Mac Desktops are now PCIe architecture. Just about every G5 up to that point was PCI-X architecture. If you have a Pre-Quad machine, you need an PCI-X card, unless you’re one of the unlucky few who have a G5 Dual 2.0 that’s just a PCI version.
A PCI-X card will NOT work in the G5 Quad and the new Mac Pros. So if you purchase one for an older machine, you’ll need to purchase a new one when you upgrade to a Mac Pro. So if you just need SD I/O right now, stick with an external box like the AJA Io line so it will move to your new machine when you upgrade.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[walter biscardi] “unless you’re one of the unlucky few who have a G5 Dual 2.0 that’s just a PCI version.”
Just to clarify, only ONE version of the G5 Dual 2.0 was PCI. The rest were all PCI-X.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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if i am not wrong,
you could also shoot everything minidv,
bring your timeline to an online broadcast suite ($$$)
then have everything up-rezed and re-imported back into fcp and thrown onto a tape…
-ben
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Here’s an alternative workflow you may consider, though what everyone above this post has suggested is equally viable, it just depends on what you want to do.
I would shoot it all in 1080i on the FX-1. Since the final output is going to be 4:3, allow for that during shooting. Don’t leave anything important near the edge of the frame. Keep all your action in the middle. You’ll get a sharper looking image shooting 1080i than DV, even after the 1080i is downconverted to DV.
Bring it in to FCP via firewire with your project setting being the Easy Setup for HDV 1080 60i. Edit the HDV natively in the sequence. When your commercial is complete, export it as a Quicktime movie using Current Settings. Don’t yield to the temptation to export it as DV-NTSC.**
Import the new file into your browser. Create a new sequence and change the sequence settings so that they are identical to a regular DV-NTSC sequence. Drag the new file into your DV timeline and make sure your Canvas is set to image + wireframe (one of the drop down boxes at the top of the Canvas window). The video will be letterboxed at this point. You may have to change the viewing option in the Canvas from Fit to Window to a smaller % to see the draggable edges of the video. Now, put your cursor on one of the corners of the video and enlarge it so it fills the screen. Now you have your full-frame 4:3 video. Before you render, go through each shot and make sure your main action falls within the action safe boudary. If it doesn’t for a particular shot, you can cut (razor tool) it at the first and last frame of the shot, put your cursor over it, and move that particular shot a little left or right so you can see the correct action taking place.
When you’re satisfied with everything, render it out and output it to your DV tape.
***The reason you don’t want to export it as DV-NTSC at this point is that your are going to be enlarging it in the DV sequence, since it is going to come in letterboxed and you’ll lose resolution by enlarging it.
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I’m sorry, I forgot to add that my above post would be a good alternative if you don’t get a AJA IO LA or similar.
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Thanks for all the tips/tricks.
I just got a quote for a breakout box / Aja setup (w/ 500gb addt’l to my 1tb setup) and it’s around $4200… Under the circumstances, I may have to do the HDV to NTSC DV process.
Being my first cable commercial, I just hope it doesn’t scream low-budg… The Motion stuff I’m working with (which unfortunately consists of Motion-stock video and client-provided .jpg logos) doesn’t look all that great once I export from Motion. I’ve done in numerous formats to find the best result, but haven’t tried actually bringing in the Motion file into FCP yet… will try tonight.
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