Att: Graeme, Walter, et al – HDV/DVCPRO Workflow, etc

[Boyd Mccollum]

[walter biscardi] “I just completed the first episode of “Assignment Earth” which was shot on HDV, but captured in DVCPro HD througth the Kona. Network told me it’s the best looking HD they’ve ever seen.”

Hi Walter, did you do anything special with the footage after you captured it? I will be shooting some HDV in the near future and it’s good to hear that the quality holds up through editing. I’m sure that having an excellent cinematographer/production crew helps as well!

Thanks, Boyd

[Walter Biscardi]

[boydmcc] “Hi Walter, did you do anything special with the footage after you captured it?”

Did extensive color correction using the 3 Way CC, Levels and Broadcast safe filters. Was planning to use Final Touch HD but that’s not working right now.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[E Laine]

Hi – this thread has been very interesting as I’m gearing up to edit a doc (200 hours) that is to be shot on Varicam. We’re not yet sure about deliverables, but it will likely be 720p or 1080p and will broadcast in the US as well as Europe. I’m going to offline it on my system and take it elsewhere for the conform and cc.

Can anyone share their successful Varicam workflows with me? I had originally planned to offline it on AVID Xpress Pro and, after some research, am leaning towards my FCP station. Only, I have never worked with Varicam nor have I cut any HD projects on FCP. DVCPro HD seems like the way to go for the offline. With FCP, can we easily shoot – edit – conform all in 720p/24? Can I do this with my system (see below)? With FCP can I hook 2+ terabytes up via firewire, work in DVCProHD and still have the system run smoothly (not to mention a smooth online)? That would be a dream. As an alternative, has anyone downconverted their masters and offlined from SD submasters?

Most of the footage will be 720p/24 but I’ll also have a couple of minutes of archival and possibly some P2 media. Any insights would be super helpful.

G4 Powerbook – OSX 10.4.7
1 gig memory
1 terabyte (will likely upgrade)

thanks,
elaine

[Graeme Nattress]

If you’re shooting DVCproHD, I’d do an online-quality offline by taking in the DVCProHD media over firewire as normal, and it’s only 40mbps for 24p, which is nothing these days. Then, you’d not conform at the end as you’d already have everything in at online quality. You’d just take your FCP project to a place that does FCP online, colour correct, and out.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP

[Walter Biscardi]

[e laine] “Can anyone share their successful Varicam workflows with me?”

The latest Creative Cow magazine has an article on our Good Eats HD workflow.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Gary Adcock]

Both Avid and FCP can do a fine job the problems I see are with avid editors not understanding the 720p format and the ease with which FCP handles the variable frame rates the Varicam shoots.

Walter finishes his entire projects in DVCPROHD and they look great, I fall into Graeme’s camp of using DVCPROHD for the offline / SD delivery as it offers the highest quality compressed content in FCP that allows for use of the RT engine.

My HD finishes are almost always posted and color corrected in the uncompressed space because of client specs, but HD content being delivered as SD usually stays in DVCPROHD.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[Graeme Nattress]

Because the DVCproHD capture is as best as it can be, for colour correction online, if you’re mastering to a higher format than DVCproHD Tape, doing final render in uncompressed is probably best. If you’re going back to DVCproHD tape, it’s probably of no benefit. Either way, capture a DVCproHD online quality offline!

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP

[E Laine]

Thanks guys for responding to my post and the CC magazine tip. Great issue. I definitely fall in the camp of AVID editors who are new to HD and 24p. I cut with SONY HD on avid (at a facility), but it is an entirely dift workflow. Also, the last doc I cut on FCP – aside from small side projects – was version 1.2. And finally, I have not worked within a film workflow for many years. So, I really want to research a smart work flow that – once we get to post – i can focus on my edit and not a barrage of avoidable tech issues.

As to your feedback – I’m still concerned about “offlining” online quality as my project will likely have upwards of 200 hours of footage. Will my laptop (G4 Powerbook – OSX 10.4.7; 1 gig memory; FCP 5.02) be able to handle all of this HD footage? Another issue is storage space – I’d prefer not to work off of a RAID as I may need to travel with my system. Can I really get by with firewire drives? I’m considering G-Tech drives…. any thoughts? recommendations? Should I be concerned about loading from a deck connected by Firewire and saving to an external drive simultaneously? I’ve heard, from AVID at least, that this could be a problem on a laptop with one bus. Of course, people do it all the time… And last, what is the most affordable deck to rent that can load via firewire (not record) from DVCProHD tape recorded with Varicam?

If we were to conform uncompressed, what systems would you recommend to avoid sych issues and EDL nightmares?

With your VariCam projects, do you stay in 24p the whole time? What is the best HD format/frame rate to master that will give me the best quality and flexibility when I do my European (textless) dubs and SD (textless) downconverts. We will not have a broadcaster until after post begins.

Thanks again for your insights. As you may have guesssed, we also don’t have a DP locked in.

Thanks for helping out someone who is pretty green when it comes to FCP and 24p.

Best,
-e.

[Gary Adcock]

First off this is not the kind of project that is well suited to a laptop.
200 hrs of 720p24 is about 5T of data and on your a laptop that is going to be pretty tedious.

While you can do a DV downconversion in the deck. this is best handled with a 3rd party card like the Kona’s that walter and I use, that would allow you to do a frame accurate capture of the content as SD.

I use multiple G-Tech products and am quite happy with them, however this much content really requires backup/ redundancy and that is really only fibre at this point in time.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[Graeme Nattress]

Even downconverting to DV is going to make terrabytes (25mbps v 40mbps) of data though. Way too much to put on a laptop! Could you take the DVCproHD down to an offlineRT and still have it watchable enough to edit on a laptop, Gary?

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP