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Acceptable workflow for DVD reel?
I am helping a friend who is a DP re-cut his reel. He’s been shooting dramatic Television on both 35mm film and uncompressed HD (not sure what format). Along the way they’ve given him miniDV (DV NTSC) tape of all his shows and he’d like to use this as his source material because he has easy access to everything. The reel will be shown on SD DVD.
My thought is to transfer the DV material (via Firewire) into ProRes 422, edit in that and then do the best quality multi-pass compression to DVD. Assuming we start with the miniDV tapes is this the right workflow? And will this yield acceptable results, or do we really need to get the raw material in a better/different format? And if so what?
Graphics and image manipulation are not going to be important, fidelity to the original image, especially color, detail and motion, is. I am editing on a low power iMac but with the latest FCS (FCP7). I have a Firewire Raid 0 hard drive but some storage limitations, however, my gear is not the most important consideration as this needs to look professional and could be taken to another studio if necessary.
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2 Replies
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If your editing on an iMac, I’d definitely stay with DV. However, miniDV is not the best quality to begin with. It might be a large project to undertake, but I’d much rather start with the HD footage and cut with it. However, your iMac might not be able to keep up plus storage is an issue.
If you want to stay with miniDV, your workflow sounds pretty good. Capturing to ProRes or even an uncompressed codec probably won’t make much difference. You already have generation loss with minDV. However, ProRes or uncompressed with help to minimize future degradation of the footage. Export your master, use compressor to create high quality mpeg 2 and ac3 files. layout and burn your DVD.
Hope this helps.
OS 10.5.5, Mac Pro 2 x 3 ghz quad-core intel xenon, 9 gb ram, with BM Intensity Pro card
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Thanks, this is good information. The iMac and my G-Raid seem to handle ProRes 422 material fine, I just have to watch total storage capacity. I know I can’t do uncompressed stuff because the Firewire speed to the scratch disk won’t support it. I tried (by accident) and the image freezes.
It sounds like if I could get the material transferred to ProRes 422 from some master source that would be best. If I have to go with the miniDV though there might be some benefit in moving to ProRes? Bear in mind that it’s straight cuts (mostly), is there a generational loss when you make those, or is it just when it get’s run through compressor at the end?
Thanks again.
Jeff Mueller
http://www.ApertureVideos.com
Santa Barbara, CA
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