Advice on capturing HD

[Darren Edwards]

This is puzzling… Why was a top-end HD
camera used on a project with so many
production/post-production holes in it?

Is this a test, of us?

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Lionel Chew]

Actually, no, this isn’t a test at all. The problem was that I was depending on my Asst. Director, a personal friend, who had some film experience, to help with both directing and editing. Unfortunately, as we started to work together both in production and post, I discovered that his knowledge (and resulting advice) was very limited and probably 5 years behind. Obviously, it was too late after starting to undo everything that we did, and in terms of editing, we’ve had to start over. If you can offer any help, that would be appreciated. This is an honest inquiry.

[Steven L. gotz]

director.lionel,

This is a lot of questions. I would recommend breaking these into separate threads in the future. I think you’re more likely to get useful responses if you break up and ask single questions.

I am just venturing into the AJA world, so I pointed out your post to a friend of mine who knows his way around his AJA cards pretty well.

He doesn’t hang out on forums. (What? Someone who doesn’t hang out at the COW? Preposterous!)

In any case, this is his response….

———————

” (The AJA data rate calculator seems to think we will take up 12TBs, so I wanted to see if anyone can come up with a number from actual experience.)”

The AJA data rate calculator is pretty accurate in my experience. PS, if you’re building a RAID that big, be sure to break it into 2TB partitions assuming you’re using a 32bit OS. RAID them using the windows disk manager, rather than using a RAID utility. All this said, 12 TB of storage is like over 20 hours of 10-bit YUV at 1080p24. So if you have less than this to capture, I suspect that you did your calculation wrong. If you actually have more than 20 hours of footage to use, I recommend just batch capturing what you need. Preview it on the tape and make a batch list inside Premiere Pro, then just capture the segments you need.

“I’d like to use PPro to command the capturing, but it seems to only give options of 1080 at 23.98p instead of the true 24p. I’d like to use PPro if it has the true 24p option.”

You can do this inside premiere pro, but be sure you want true 24 before you actually do this. In most cases, 23.98 is what you really want and true 24 is not nearly as common. If you really need true 24, you can create a custom AJA project preset. You’ll have to tweak the playback and capture settings too.

“Also, should I set it to capture at 10 bit or 8 bit YUV?”

This depends on a case by case basis. It depends on the speed of your disk array and on the amount of effects work you need to do. 10 bit is preferred if you have enough space and a fast enough array. But if you don’t, use 8 bit and it will save you many storage headaches. The trade off will be if you are doing any compositing/keying, the rendered images may not look as clean. A good middle ground is to capture everything 8 bit, and then sequences that will have effects or compositing done on them can be recaptured in 10 bit when you need them.

“And should I set it for Quicktime or AVI format? (Or even another?) We are using a PC with XP, 32 bit.”

If you don’t care, I recommend using Quicktime. The files are cross platform so if you end up needing to move them to a mac for any reason, you can do it. With AVI this is not the case. Also, the XENA capture can capture audio and video into the same file in a Quicktime, but with AVI the audio and video are separate. This may or may not matter.

“My recordist picked up the sound on two channels; sometimes, we had lavs on one channel and a boom on the other. But I believe the sounds were captured as stereo on all the channels. My question is, should we capture into one channel or two?”

Probably doesn’t matter. This is going to get remixed anyway right? Or not?

“If we need to delete footage after capturing to make more space, what’s the best way to do this? My impression is that PPro will not allow you to delete actual footage from the master. ”

You can delete clips from the disk inside Premiere Pro. This shouldn’t be a problem unless there is something new in CS3 that has changed this.

“Any thoughts on how to set the time code? It might be pretty messy. We didn’t black out our tapes, and the DP did take out the tape at the end of the day before we turned off the cam and then he re-inserted it the next day if it wasn’t used up. We noted much of the timecode, but then we lost the script which noted all the timecodes! That’s why I’ll need to capture everything, so I can go through and log. Besides, I called “print” on a lot of takes that were really safeties. I’ll be using a lot of takes that aren’t really the “prints,” and I’ll have to go through and find them.) ”

This is a pretty big hassle, and could be a giant time killer. Disregard my comment above about making the batch list. You can still try this, but it may fail sometimes. I would try the batch list on the first couple tapes with broken timecode and the captures may still work. If the timecode is at least all sequential, batch captures might not fail even if its not exactly continuous. Try this on a couple tapes on sections where the timecode is broken, and see if it works. If it does, it could save you a huge amount of time.

“Also, any advice on what to do with the dropped frame option? There is an option to not capture frames that are dropped, but I have no idea what the effect would be if I choose that option or if it would be a good idea at all.”\

I am not totally understanding this question. Can you elaborate?

Steven

https://www.stevengotz.com

[Darren Edwards]

Lionel,
It sounds like you’ve got a lot of hurdles to jump. Get through
this and you’ll probably get through anything, I expect.

Advice: one of the key things Steve mentioned above is
the 24p issue. There are all kinds of issues about why 23.98 is
used instead of ‘true’ 24p. You’re AD/editor should have known this
at least. A great read is Wheeler’s ‘HD and 24p Cinematography’
https://www.amazon.co.uk/High-Definition-Cinematography-Paul-Wheeler/dp/0240516761/ref=sr_1_2/026-3569053-9837241?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184940200&sr=8-2

It’s very Bible-esque but ageing on a daily basis of course
(like us all). Red One, for example, was still embryonic at the time.

Sareen has produced various podcasts about optimisation of batch
capturing in PPro. You might want to investigate F900 forums, too,
incase there’s anyone there with Adobe workflow knowledge. When
Sony were no use to us when we had problems with our XDCAM, it was
Australian XDCAM users in tiny forum tucked away somewhere who
came to the rescue.

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Lionel Chew]

Hi Steven,

Thanks for checking with your friend! These are my responses and questions to your friends comments:

My budget being all the way spent, I want to just rent out the capture deck, the Sony JH3 for just a weekend if I can. That’s why I want to capture everything at once then go back and look at everything and delete what I know for sure I won’t use. So I think batch capturing is out until I’m ready to do a master reel in preparation for actual distribution. Do you know the steps to use PPro to do the deleting? From what I read, it doesn’t actually delete master footage. But maybe you know how…

For PPro, I know I can set a true 24p general setting, which gives me the impression that it will allow me to edit in true 24;however, as I look at the PPro capture settings, it only allows me to capture in 23.98 it seems. Am I missing something?

I don’t have any special effects, but I want to capture in what the F900 shot. I think it was 10 bit YUV, but then there is that parenthetical about 8 bit for compression, so I wasn’t sure.

The reason I hesitate about Quicktime is because it seems it will capture both Audio and Video in one stream (file?) I want to be able to use audio from one take for the video of another, if that audio with that video is bad. Do I have this option from Quicktime if it’s all in one file? That is, to couple an audio clip from a different video with another?

I do plan to remix (refine?) the audio at a post house, should I pick up a distributor, and they front the bill. I’m hoping with the first show reel that I can do a decent job on my own.

I don’t have CS3 yet. I’m thinking about getting it when I’m ready to make actual HD DVD and trailers.

Thanks for all your time and good words.

[Lionel Chew]

Thanks, Darren. I didn’t think of trying F900 forums. I think I will.

[Steven L. gotz]

Premiere Pro will allow you to unlink footage and when you do, you can choose to delete the footage from the drive. So as you review each clip, you can decide to keep or throw it out. I recommend taking the time to do that. Perhaps you could use two PCs to capture. Rent one if necessary. Do an hour or two on one, the switch to the other. That will allow you to capture on one, and throw out clips on the other. That should maximize your productivity over the weekend.

As for special effects, you need to decide. If you are going to color correct your shots, you may want to use 10 bit. If not, then 8 bit is fine. It is really up to the footage and the editor. There is no right answer.

For 24 vs 23.98, I believe that the F900 can shoot either. Which did you shoot?

It is easy enough to separate the audio from the video if you so desire. In fact, I often sweeten the audio in Soundbooth so it ends up a WAV file anyway.

My personal opinion is that you should change to CS3 before you get started.

Steven

https://www.stevengotz.com

[Lionel Chew]

Hi Steven,

My DP chose 24p instead of 23.98. I’m not sure why. Since everyone’s been beating me over the head for that choice, I think I’ll ask him why. I just figured he knew what he was doing.

How do you separate the audio from video in Quicktime?

[Darren Edwards]

Lionel,

I thought of you whilst I was reading this:
https://www.highdef.org/library/faq.htm

Lots of good advice about shooting in 23.98
instead of 24p, 3:2 pulldown, audio pullup,
audio drifting out of sync with 24p, etc.

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Lionel Chew]

Hi Darren,

Thanks for the link.