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calling all HD gurus … offlineRT to Uncompressed HD and all kinds of nightmares
Hi everyone,
i’ve been lumped with bit of a headache, and i’m hoping to pick the cow’s collective brain once again … here’s the deal:
original sources ….
….. HDCAM 1080i60 transferred (w/ TC) to Digibeta (4:3, letterboxed)
….. DV NTSC transferred (w/ TC) to Digibeta
….. HighRes stillsthe final target sequence is to be 1280×1080 60i 10 bit Uncompressed HD (for layback to HDCAM master)
for the offline cut, sources were ingested from Digibeta (using Decklink Extreme) at Offline RT
so anyway, the offline has been beaten into submission, and the rough cut has been approved ……
ok, this is where i come in … until this point, i’ve not been involved with the project. now i’ve been asked to help with the technical aspects of moving the project forward.
here’s the main issue as i see it … the relative dimensions of the DV and HD sources as offlineRT do not match their relative dimensions in full resolution, and the aspect ratio and resolution of the current offline cut does not match the target output …. so all the 4:3 DV material will have to be reframed (and likely, as a consequence, the cut retimed). similarly, the high res stills, will have to be reframed, as will the ‘ken burns’ style pans and zooms and of course that’ll also mean retiming all those moves. …. yikes, it all sounds like a nightmare (or am i missing something?)
hardware-wise, we are being loaned the HD equipment we need for the upres/online (HDCAM deck, HD monitor, HD scope and HD capture card) – due to arrive mid-September.
so, heres what i’m thinking, options wise:
1) recapture from original HDCAM source at Uncompressed HD and from the DV digibeta transfer at Uncompressed NTSC. copy and paste the offline sequence to an new compressed HD sequence. reconnect the sequence media to the new upres’d media. then get on with the considerable amount of grunt work required for the resize/reframe/retiming. [ what worries me is that this amount of re-cutting, in an uncompressed HD timeline, is going to introduce serious performance issues and very long render times ] finally the colour correction completed on the Uncompressed HD timeline. on fnal approval then layback to an HDCAM master.
2) do an interim upgrade using a compressed HD timeline, essentially an ‘offlineHD’ cut, using DVCPRO HD (at 1080i60 as per the final target). recapture the HDCAM source as DVCProHD and the DV source as DV. copy the offline cut into a DVCProHD timeline and reconnect to the new media. now do all the resize/reframe/retiming as required but hopefully with better timeline performance and shorter render times. first level colour correction completed in the DVCProHD timeline. on approval, upres media to Uncompressed HD and Uncompressed NTSC, as in 1). [ but now the uncompressed media should match back to the offlineHD cut without resizing/reframing ] do final colour correction on the Uncompressed HD timeline and layback to an HDCAM master as in 1).
3) work with the existing OfflineRT cut but introduce a HDCAM aspect letterbox matte to an upper layer, and reframe/retime the cut using the guide matte. [ but then what worries me is that the offlineRT ‘DV’ clips and offlineRT ‘HD’ clips do not represent their their true relative dimensional relationship, so any work resizing and framing in the offlineRT timeline simply will not translate in the upres ?? ]
HD resolutions and 16:9 are pretty new territory for me, not to mention mixed resolution timelines and offline to online upres thrown in!
so i’m wondering what suggestions you “HD ready” guys might have in dealing with this scenario? can you offer any insights, warnings, tips or outright answers to all my problems ??
as usual any and all advice is much appreciated.
cheers
Andy -
4 Replies
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Andy,
Consider the following option.
If you final output will be 1280×720 60i you will be going out to dvcproHD not HDCAM which is 1080i.
So why not edit in the dvcproHD codec and recapture all the dv material via a kona 2 or use one of panasonic’s decks to uprez the footage on the fly to HD.
Then capture the HDCAM material while capturing to dvcpro HD codec. If you don’t want use the dvcproHD codec then use the same workflow but capture to HD uncompressed.
I am not sure if the Kona 2 or panasonic decks will do any aspect ratio conversion for the SD 4×3 to HD 16×9 upconvert. IF not you may need to get a aspect ratio converter in the loop to do the aspect conversion on the fly.
Tony Salgado
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[Andy Mees] “HDCAM 1080i60 transferred (w/ TC) to Digibeta (4:3, letterboxed)”
[Andy Mees] “DV NTSC transferred (w/ TC) to Digibeta”Was the offline RT sequence created in 16X9? If so, your concerns about reframing etc are unfounded. We did a a whole series that contained all of these formats and more! However, knowing that we had to deliver a 16 X 9 master, we cut off-line RT in 16X 9 mode. The DV material was reframed as necessary in the off-line stage. By the way, we were stunned with how well the DV “blew up” to fill the HD frame. It actually looked pretty good playing next to the HDCAM original.
Basically, we did your “option #3” during the off-line sequence. Resizing and reframing was NOT really a problem since only the DV or still material was changed.
I know that HD can be confusing, but didn’t anyone think about this BEFORE you got involved??? If not, these are the clients that deserve to be charged the FULL RETAIL RATE for your services. Clearly, they know not what they’re in for! Good luck.
Mark
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hey Tony,
thanks so much for your reply … and for pointing out the glaring error in my post!
of course . i should have said that the final output will be 1920 x 1080 (HDCAM) not 1280 x 1080 (DVCPro HD)and thankyou for the idea of throwing an aspect ratio converter into the loop. good thinking.
we’ll be using an Sony HDCAM deck … i’ll try and dig out some model details, see if it can do any aspect ratio conversion. if not, i’ll look into getting a converter (either repurpose one or get Sony to throw one in with the other loan equipment).
but i’m still concerned with the lack of correct dimesional relationship between the different formats in the offline cut. every which way i look at it, it means having to completely resize, reframe and retime the entire edit when we upres. i guess i was just hoping to be able to better use the work thats already gone into the offline cut. particularly regarding the motion effects on the stills.
all i can think of is to export the offlineRT dv sourced clips and the highres images, and shrink them down relative to their true dimensional relationship with the HD footage ie shrink the dv based offlineRT clips to 37.5% (of OfflineRT’s 320 x 240 ) … then when we reimport these, and use them in the offlineRT timeline, any and all resizing, framing and timing, will directly translate to the resizing that will be needed in the online cut (same again for the highres stills) and so will happen automagically in th timeline (sure, it’ll still need tweaking, but it’ll already be in the right ballpark)
thing is that we don’t have acces to the actual HD equipment needed for the upres for a few weeks yet.
and my concern is the time available … it seems like we could be using these few weeks to tackle, in advance, some of the issues of the upres.and yet deep down i can’t help feeling i might be complicating things unnecessarily
cheers
Andy -
thanks for your post Mark
you hit the nail right on the head!
No. the offlineRT sequence was not created anamorphic.
and No. no one did consider any of this before I got involved!however, all these comments help to prompt new ideas of how to work with what i’ve got ….
i could certainly look into converting the timeline to OfflineRT anamorphic, then, we could make the adjustments as necessary knowing that the upres will not have resizing problems
anyway, clearly theres work needed to get this offline cut ready for the upres … its just figuring out the most efficient and effective path to take
thanks again for the input
Andy
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