Advice on documentary workflow?

[Shane Ross]

The best solution would be to work with all these formats at the same resolution.

Get a capture card to capture everything (and the hard drives capable of playing uncompressed 8-bit…FW800 drives are good for this, as well as external SATA Arrays). Offline use Offline RT, when you online, online 8-bit uncompressed.

Get all your PAL tapes transferred to NTSC tapes before you capture them. Or, if you lack the funds, get the STANDARDS converter, capture all the PAL tapes, convert them to NTSC, output them to new tapes then use those new NTSC tapes as masters. Mind you, this is a TIME CONSUMING venture…be the least expensive option.

[Uli Kunkel]

Thanks for the advice. I have a KONA 2 card and a 2TB RAID array. I can convert the PAL to NTSC using a program called DV Atlantis. However, we are finishing to 35mm film. So, wouldn’t it be beneficial to keep the PAL in PAL format and convert the NTSC to PAL?

Also, consider that film is 24fps, so if I’m editing with PAL, should I 24@1 or conform to 25p doing 24@25?

Converting everything to 8-bit uncompressed won’t be hard with the KONA.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks.

[Gary Adcock]

[Incendiary Bishop] “Thanks for the advice. I have a KONA 2 card and a 2TB RAID array. I can convert the PAL to NTSC using a program called DV Atlantis. However, we are finishing to 35mm film. So, wouldn’t it be beneficial to keep the PAL in PAL format and convert the NTSC to PAL?
Converting everything to 8-bit uncompressed won’t be hard with the KONA. “

if you are finishing to a film master you need to work from the beginning to that end or it will cost you.
Film is 24 frames, NTSC is 59.94 fields. PAL is 50 fields. Convert everything to 24p to save you the grief later on. (and the Nattress Standards Filters are better than the DV Atlantis –IMHO)

If you know you are going to film –treat it all your content like film and it will save what hair you have

gary adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation