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8 bit uncompressed looks soft on Direct TV
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A lot of commercials are delivered to stations via ip or a satellite so the quality could be better than Beta SP. Direct TV and Dish pull local stations off air and then bounce it off a satellite a couple of times which causes the 5 or 6 second delay and in most cases there is a lot of A to D and D to A conversions going on. I would pick DVCam over Beta SP just from a dropout standpoint.
Jim Calahan
KVIE, Sacramento -
Wow you guys,
this is a great thread.
As well as being interesting and lucid it’s an eye-popping education in
delivery processes.It is also Creative Cow at it’s best and greatly appreciated.
David
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I don’t often participate on this forum, but read this thread with great interest. I feel for Delano, but having built a cable head end system, you guys just have no idea. I am sure that Delano’s Beta master is just fine.
Let’s take a nice Beta SX master (for example). You take the COMPOSITE VIDEO out of the Beta SX VTR (this could be Digi Beta, this could be Beta, etc.), you send it into a COMPOSITE ROUTER. The output of the router goes into an ANALOG COMPOSITE Frame Sync TBC (let’s degrade it further, so we can make sure those video levels are not illegal), and THEN we send it into the COMPOSITE input of a Harmonic MPEG Encoder, so it can be sent to the on air server. “Your kidding me”, you are saying right now – NO I WISH I WAS KIDDING. This is typical of what your multi million dollar cable system does with your pristine master tape. AND THEN it may get routed to a satellite (if it’s not a wired cable system).
I am about to do (next month) an SDI head end, but it’s now 2008, and it’s been YEARS since anyone even considered this.
And STANDARD BETA VTR’s will be continued to be used (along with an AJA HD10AVA to convert to SDI). So much for a pure digital path.Welcome to real life. Stop driving yourself crazy.
Bob Zelin
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This is a real eye-opener to me! I can’t believe that there are still broadcasters out there who don’t have Digibeta Decks! I mean a J-30 is only £6000! We haven’t delivered on an SP for years…
-Simmie
1 MacPro – Kona 3
2 G5 – Kona LH
2 G4s – Cinewave
xbox360, Wii, PSP, PS2
https://www.speak.co.uk -
The problem is digital (FCP) to Analog (BetaSP) to Re-encode (Network) to (Digital) (Direct TV)
The conversion to Beta then back to digital is actually a huge knockdown to your original edit, then when it hits the re-encode you wind up with more problems.( To see this process yourself,just keep hitting the “re-compress” switch on your NLE)
Sometimes it’s as goofy as someone using composite outs on the beta machine. And you can’t always check this.
The real solution to this problem we are all experiencing is to find out what the final “Transport” streams are going to be. Transport streams are muxed audio versions of Program Streams. (what’s on a DVD) Meaning the Audio is embedded not running separate Tracks. Try to cut out the intermediate transfers as much as possible.
One way to do this: Find out what the transport streams settings are, and make it for them. On a MAC use Compressor to create the transport stream. You will see these settings in the inspector box. We have done this several times for companies, because I was so fed up with having the projects look like crap when they hit air. Burn the stream to a disc and give it to them….”drag and drop”.
Sometimes you have to really push to bypass the intermediary (the “bread” as we have always baked it) But once people see the results and the loss of extra labor, they get it.
Hope this helps a little!
Tracy Smith
Black Hawk Entertainment Inc. -
[Bob Zelin] “Let’s take a nice Beta SX master (for example). You take the COMPOSITE VIDEO out of the Beta SX VTR (this could be Digi Beta, this could be Beta, etc.), you send it into a COMPOSITE ROUTER. The output of the router goes into an ANALOG COMPOSITE Frame Sync TBC (let’s degrade it further, so we can make sure those video levels are not illegal), and THEN we send it into the COMPOSITE input of a Harmonic MPEG Encoder, so it can be sent to the on air server. “Your kidding me”, you are saying right now – NO I WISH I WAS KIDDING. This is typical of what your multi million dollar cable system does with your pristine master tape. AND THEN it may get routed to a satellite (if it’s not a wired cable system).”
Sadly, this doesn’t shock me one bit. This is exactly why I think DVCam would be a better choice in this scenario. A digital tape format will be hurt less by this (even if only a little) than an analog one.
Sean
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[Sean ONeil] “Sadly, this doesn’t shock me one bit. This is exactly why I think DVCam would be a better choice in this scenario. A digital tape format will be hurt less by this (even if only a little) than an analog one.”
Except your graphics will be compressed 5:1 and take an ugly artifacts hit. The BetaSP will retain clean edges to the graphics. I would supply BetaSP over DVCAM every time given this option and we do that very thing here with one of our network shows. We could deliver DVCAM, but choose to take the BetaSP route to keep all the graphics clean.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow!
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