best codec for onlining SD doc with Kona LHe?

[Jeremy Garchow]

If it were me, I’d go 10 bit uncompressed. I have not installed FCS2 yet, so I have no idea about ProRes, but I’d look into that as well.

Specifics:

1) Shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but I don’t really know. A lot has changed internally between FCP3 & 6 so there might be some issues. IF you converted to FCP5, then going to 6 shouldn’t be too bad, but plan on fixing some unforeseen issues.

2) See answer above. 10 bit UC or ProRes (but I don’t know enough about ProRes yet)

3) I always render my AE movies out as an Animation. The color shifts are less apparent when doing it that way.

4) Sounds great and happens all the time. The only problem is that if you are planning on going to 10-bit UC you will need to capture to a drive that’s faster than fw400 or even fw800. What do you have for your scratch drives now?

Jeremy

[David Battistella]

1. Any major problems converting an FCP 3.0.2 sequence to FCP6? (A test to FCP5 a while back seemed to work fine.)

This should open fine, but make sure you have backups in place.

2. Codec choice for video recapture? (uncompressed SD 8-bit, uncompressed SD 10-bit, ProRes422)

Uncompressed 10- bit will look great, provided you have the drive speed, capacity, etc. Theere have been issues with 10-bit codec and AE renders so you might want to test first. 8 bit UC is more than adequate and will stand up to CC renders.

3. Codec for rendering After Effects moves?

Render them to 10 bit uncompressed, 8- bit uncompressed or Annimation (I tend to do annimation and render in teh timeline, it’s a bad habit , I guess)

4. Once I

[Jbwjr22]

[JeremyG] “The only problem is that if you are planning on going to 10-bit UC you will need to capture to a drive that’s faster than fw400 or even fw800. What do you have for your scratch drives now?”

ProMax tells me that the following three drives striped together should be more than adequate for the 28 Mbps needed for 10-bit uncompressed SD:

3 500GB SATA-II 7200rpm 16MB cache Video Drives (striped for speed, Raid 0, no redundancy)

I take them at their word, even though AJA’s site says:

Internal Storage (inside Mac) For DV only; uncompressed SD requires external RAID.

Any firsthand experiences with this?

Thanks again.

J

[Jeremy Garchow]

A 3 drive SATA raid striped together will easily handle UC 10bit SD. Then when you are finished, transferring to a FW drive for the online and have them transfer that to their system will work just fine.

Jeremy

[Jbwjr22]

[David Battistella] “2. Codec choice for video recapture? (uncompressed SD 8-bit, uncompressed SD 10-bit, ProRes422)

Uncompressed 10- bit will look great, provided you have the drive speed, capacity, etc. Theere have been issues with 10-bit codec and AE renders so you might want to test first. 8 bit UC is more than adequate and will stand up to CC renders.”

I’ll definitely do some testing. A couple of people have suggested doing it in DV, saying that uncompressed SD isn’t noticeably better and thus a waste of drive space. I researched this in ’01 prior to onlining another, similar show (BetaSP source footage, plus lots of AE and stills) and ended up buying an Aurora IgniterRT (plus Medea VideoRaidRT) for my FCP3 system because my conclusion was that uncompressed SD was noticeably better.

Has anything changed with the DV codec that would make it compete favorably with uncompressed SD for onlining a show like mine? Any current tests (and reports) comparing the two?

Thank you.

J

[David Roth weiss]

[jbwjr22] “A couple of people have suggested doing it in DV, saying that uncompressed SD isn’t noticeably better and thus a waste of drive space.”

Your video will never be any better than the original, whatever format, so it makes no sense whatsoever to recapture. However, your stills and graphics will be light years better if edited in 8 or 10 bit uncompressed timeline or at least if you render your DV timeline using one of the uncompressed codecs.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

[Jeremy Garchow]

[jbwjr22] “A couple of people have suggested doing it in DV, saying that uncompressed SD isn’t noticeably better and thus a waste of drive space.”

People love that argument, but I love to dispel it. The people that say that aren’t really looking.

[jbwjr22] “Has anything changed with the DV codec that would make it compete favorably with uncompressed SD for onlining a show like mine? Any current tests (and reports) comparing the two?”

Get out of the DV codec as it’s only 4:1:1. 10 bit uncompressed is where you need to be, especially for laying of to digibeta. Your BetaSP stuff will look awesome in 10bit, and as David RW has said, your graphics/text will be light years more clear than sticking with DV as will color correction.

Jeremy

[Jbwjr22]

[David Roth Weiss] “Your video will never be any better than the original, whatever format, so it makes no sense whatsoever to recapture.”

Source video is BetaSP. I captured in DV for the offline (with visible code). I now need to recapture for online, which someone suggested I do in DV. I disagree, and assume you do too?

[David Roth weiss]

[jbwjr22] “I disagree, and assume you do too?”

10-4 on that…

I’d recapture as ProRes 422 — its really a good codec — has all the 10-bit benefits at a fraction of the size. I’ve tinkered with a lot and I’m sold.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

[David Battistella]

I have to say that a DV recapture is a BAD idea. If the source was DV I would agree, HOWEVER, with the source being beta SP, and the final product going to D-Beta I would ahve to say that the most important thing would be to capture at 10-bit. The graphics and everything else will look much nicer in this full color 4:2:2 codec. WHy would you give up half of your color information for the sake of space?

David

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