BetaSP component into FCP 10-bit – any reason to do it?

[Chris Poisson]

10 bit only buys you perhaps a little help with banding in gradients, not much else. I do everything 8bit, saves space like you said. If I get banding I jsut add a little noise.

[Bryce Whiteside]

On a straight edited project 8-bit should do just fine.

If I were going to do a heavily layer composited project or VFX project I would lean toward 10-bit, but I would also lean toward Digibeta as a minimum in a standard definition video format for that.

My 2

[Martin Baker]

A BVW machine has an 8 bit timebase corrector so there’s no benefit at all in capturing to 10 bit. The extra resolution just isn’t there in the first place.

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
________________________________________
Ten Final Cut Plug-ins for just $10 each

[Bryce Whiteside]

Thanks!

I love it when technical information trumps common knowledge, general wisdom and opinion even though they all came to the same conclusion here.

Thanks again Martin!!!
Bryce

Don’t worry Mr. B. I have a cunning plan…

PowerBook 1.67 Ghz ATI 9700 128 MB 2 GB
Final Cut Pro HD
DVD Studio Pro 3
Motion

[Christopher Wright]

Wrong again! Always capture at 10 bit if you are doing color correction, SFX, compositing or even titling. If you can’t see the difference in your composites you either need a new monitor or glasses. You can even easily see the difference doing a frame by frame look at straight dissolves. I get a lot of work away from the DV and 8 bit “post boutiques” by showing clients the very noticeable DV and 8 bit artifacts versus 10 bit color space.

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

“8 Bit Boutique” What a great name! Can I please have it? But seriously, is there any hardware vendor selling 8 bit capture cards anymore? Certainly not Decklink, AJA or the likes.

Christopher: I’m afraid you’re probably confusing the benefits of 10 bit capture with those of 10 bit processing, which wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t for the slighly arrogant wording 🙂
For color correction, motion graphics and effects you will get a wider color space by processing in 10 bits, or even 16 bits and HDR. Like Martin said, capturing in 10 bits an 8 bit source is just a waste of space for information that simply is not there. But maybe that allows you to be a “10 bit boutique”, right? 🙂

It was demonstrated with scopes that there’s no 10 bit information by capturing Beta SP with a 10 bit codec. 10 bit processing is another story. And 10 bit capture is a great idea when the source does have the extra information, like DigiBeta (it was widely discussed and technically demonstrated in the Cow that Digibeta truly is 10 bit).
All the best

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com

[Brad Steiner]

OK, Beta 8bit.
But process in 10bit.
Forgive the ignorance, but if I’ve got my setups all set to 8bit, where is the 10 bit processing. Am I just confusing the issue?

BrAd

[Christopher Wright]

Adolpho,

I am not confusing anything. If you capture in 8 bit, you have,in essence, an 8 bit “capture card.” Just because a card can even do up to 12 bit capture, if you select 8 bit, you are capturing 8-bit. Pixels is pixels, and more is betta’. Capturing in 10 bit from betacam, and even S-VHS, has its distinct advantages in that anyone can use Easy set-ups in FCP to ensure that you have a 10 bit PROCESSING work flow and sequence set-up from the outset, and can proceed immediately without worrying about “upconverting” your clip in AE, Combustion, Motion, Shake or any other compositing app. With the cheap prices of todays storage drives, capturing 10 bit uncompressed SDI should be painless and a no-brainer.

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

“Pixels is pixels, and more is betta”.
Sorry, there are no more “pixels” in 10 bit vs 8 bit. It’s about the depth of the color space (256 colors per channel against 1024 colors per channel). If you capture in 10 bit, you’re filling that extra bandwidth with empty information. It’s that simple.

Those bits are useful, however, when you process the image for compositing, graphics, etc. And then, it’s not about the source’s bit depth (unless the source is 10 bit). If you set FCP’s rendering options to HDR processing you should get a much, much wider space than 10 bpc processing. If you set the timeline to a 10 bit codec, then you truncate less of that extra information (but HDR benefits are there also if the timeline is 8bpc). Usually the kind of thing that benefits more from this is rarely done on an editing application and more in a compositing/graphics package, where sources frequently are 10/16/32 bits (things coming from graphics, compositing or 3D packages, for instance) and are also processed at those wide color spaces. Moving a 10 bit file from those to FCP will allow you to mantain as much as possible that color information.

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com

[Christopher Wright]

“Those bits are useful, however, when you process the image for compositing, graphics, etc.”
“If you set the timeline to a 10 bit codec, then you truncate less of that extra information”
“Usually the kind of thing that benefits more from this is rarely done on an editing application and more in a compositing/graphics package, where sources frequently are 10/16/32 bits (things coming from graphics, compositing or 3D packages, for instance) and are also processed at those wide color spaces. Moving a 10 bit file from those to FCP will allow you to mantain as much as possible that color information.”

Adolfo,

Much more succintly stated, but my points exactly. When you are working with various input sources in one project, from HDV component, Digibeta, Beta and even S-VHS, it is better to always work in a uncompressed 10 bit workspace. Why not simplify things by capturing everything that way as well. Very noticeable banding issues on gradients, text/graphics degradation/artifacts, and lack of color information for keying, filtering and color correction when dealing in an 8 bit environment are well known by any high end post house. As I stated before, these are so noticeable on a decent monitor, that I do a good portion of work fixing and “onlining” many clients projects that have been started and “finished” in 8 bit and DV only captures by smaller boutiques. The disk space used should not be a major consideration today, especially considering the amount needed for true HD work. Since I am always going out to compositing programs to tweak clips, this is the only way I will work. I have taught compositing at the graduate level for six years now, so am well aware of the issues you are trying to clarify. I actually am doing mostly HD and film scan work now and am using the higher 16 bit and floating point color spaces in my compositing work.
So I’ll let gladly let you attach the “8 bit Boutique” moniker to your business model, I’ll stick with the “floating point boutique” for mine! ;>)