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Half-rez captures
OK – here’s a strange one.
Footage is being ingested to an Editshare in 1080i50 ProRes. It’s being captured in reels manually, with the correct capture presets by an assistant. Ingest is via a Kona LHe.
Randomly (note there are captures done before or after without changing settings) some reels are being captured at half-resolution. Still ProRes, still 25fps etc. – just 960×540. BIzarre side-note: the footage is the same bitrate as the full-size clips, but I can confirm from the inspector in QTP that the “actual” size is 960×540.
Following a bad capture, other reels, or parts of reels, have been captured normally.The bad reels are not spotted until the material is imported to the edit suite requiring it.
The facility is running FCP 7.0 – I plan to do some updating to 7.0.1 soon. Other than this, we have 5 suites running with no problems.
Whilst I have not overseen the captures, I cannot see how the above is down to operator error – as they are simply hitting capture now, and capturing before/after without changing settings.
Anyone ever seen this? It’s becoming a regular issue – probably happens to one reel a day (not the first or last either, as far as I know).
Baffled…
Edit Out Ltd
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FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producerhttps://www.blackmagic-design.com/casestudies/detail.asp?case=therydercup
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6 Replies
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We see this from time to time with our captures and have notified AJA of this. We used to see it quite a bit in ProRes HQ and that’s one of the reasons we stopped using HQ. Then of course we came to find out that HQ was not really designed for 1080 or smaller.
With regular ProRes, we’ll get maybe 1 out of 200 captures come in at half resolution.
This past weekend I had all sorts of half resolution issues with DVCPro HD for which I started a thread on the AJA Kona forum.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
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Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
Thanks Walter – I should have looked on the Kona forum. I’ll make sure I check that.
For what it’s worth, we are capturing ProRes (not HQ) as I had the luxury of advising this facility on their setup – and use plain ProRes exclusively for 1080 after the discussions on the Cow.
I would estimate that this issue is occurring on at least 1 in 20 captures, so far more frequently than you have seen it. I’m working at home today (with one of the bad files on a G-Raid) so when I go in tomorrow I’ll post the software versions on the Kona forum for FCP and Kona drivers – maybe I’ve got a killer combo here.
Thanks for your response – I’ll make sure I add to the noise with Kona about the issue.
Edit Out Ltd
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FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producerhttps://www.blackmagic-design.com/casestudies/detail.asp?case=therydercup
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I’ve just noticed that in the video properties for the ‘bad’ clip, the ‘normal’ size was listed as 1080×1920. Setting the scaled size back to 1920×1080 seems to have resulted in a full resolution clip again – if this is true, should get rid of the need to recapture.
Is this your experience as well Walter – have you tried this on your DVCProHD footage?
Ben
Edit Out Ltd
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FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producerhttps://www.blackmagic-design.com/casestudies/detail.asp?case=therydercup
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[Ben Holmes] “Setting the scaled size back to 1920×1080 seems to have resulted in a full resolution clip again – if this is true, should get rid of the need to recapture.”
I would not trust that. Our clips are definitely degraded when it happens, especially if you put up a split screen of a correctly captured clip and a half rez capture.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
Fortunately, as there was a one-shot overlap on the capture with a ‘good’ clip, I’ve been able to compare a split-screen of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ footage. See below: ‘bad’ clip (with corrected QT scaling) on the right:
Although the image is slightly degraded from the jpeg, I can say that on a full HD broadcast monitor, there is no discernible difference – especially not to detail or edges.
Ben
Edit Out Ltd
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FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producerhttps://www.blackmagic-design.com/casestudies/detail.asp?case=therydercup
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Note to above – this is a full-res crop, not a scaled image. Any softness is down to the jpeg or camerawork….
Edit Out Ltd
—————————-
FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producerhttps://www.blackmagic-design.com/casestudies/detail.asp?case=therydercup
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