Capturing 1080i 59.94 with 1200A deck – dropped frames on capture

[Joni Church]

For anyone who may be interested in the future, looks like I got a very helpful answer from Shane Ross over in the Apple forum (see below):

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I don’t think your drives, even though they are raided together, are fast enough for 1080i60.

Plus, you will be wasting a lot of space capturing this way. You shot 720p so capture and edit 720p. When your cut is locked, THEN uprez to 1080i60 (dropping it into a 1080i timeline and rendering) and output.

But you will still need faster drives for the output.

That is what I am doing. We shot 720p24, but need to deliver 1080p24 10-bit uncompressed HD. The software uprez looks great.

Shane

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

>>I then tried capturing at 1080i 29.97 and that also worked fine. So it seems there’s a hiccup with the >>combination of 1080i and 59.94, which I can’t figure out.

1080i/29.97 **is** 60i. The 59.94 setting is meant for 720p.

One question, though. I find it hard to believe that your delivery requirement is in the DVCPro HD tape format, especially if it’s 1080/60i. Wouldn’t it be a bit more prudent to either output directly to 720p/60 (as you said you could without problems) and take it to a facility to make the delivery element (I’m guessing that’s probably either HDCam, HDCam SR, or D5), or even to render out your timeline to a 720p/60 Quicktime movie, and take that to a facility on a Firewire drive to accomplish the same thing? In either case, it seems that just getting it to a DVCPro HD tape in 1080i is not accomplishing the creation of your delivery element. Even if you have to take your own 1200 machine to the facility, it will enable them to play back your 720p/60 tape as 1080i directly, provided you have the HDSDI card. In any of these scenarios, it’s not necessary to do what you seem to be having some trouble doing.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Joni Church] ”
That is what I am doing. We shot 720p24, but need to deliver 1080p24 10-bit uncompressed HD. The software uprez looks great.”

With a Kona 3 you don’t need to do this any longer. The K3 performs the cross convert on the way out so you can master directly to HDCAM 1080i from a 720p DVCPro HD timeline. We’re going to start doing that here.

One problem that we have here all the time is the fact that 720p DVCPro HD is Non-Drop Frame both in 59.94 and 23.98 so we have to do some “secret handshakes” on our 720p masters to ensure that the shows start at 01:00:00:02 on the Drop Frame HDCAM masters.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

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

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

>>we have to do some “secret handshakes” on our 720p masters to ensure that the shows start at >>01:00:00:02 on the Drop Frame HDCAM masters.

I don’t know why you would do that. 1:00:00:00 is perfectly valid in drop frame. The scheme for drop frame code is to skip 2 frame numbers every minute EXCEPT for every 10th minute. Minute 00 qualifies as a 10th minute.

Besides, I don’t recall ever having seen drop frame time code specified for an HD delivery master. In fact, I didn’t even know it existed (it doesn’t exist for 23.98).

[Joni Church]

My delivery requirement isn’t actually the DVCPro HD tape, I’m sorry if I was unclear. It’s actually HDCAM, at 1080i/60i. So the plan has actually been to take my finished product to another post house who can output to HDCAM for us. Originally I had planned on giving them a 720p/60 QT for them to convert to 1080i and output to HDCAM, but the Post Coordinator there asked if I could provide it in 1080i instead. I didn’t realize my drives wouldn’t be able to handle capturing the material at 1080i/60, so that’s what has begun the whole questioning process.

I’ve only been working with HD for about 8 months now, and I’ve been sort of hacking my way through it as the only editor where I’m currently working, so the Cow and Apple forums have been extremely helpful. Until this point I’ve been doing strictly 720p stuff so it’s almost like starting over again figuring out my suite’s capabilities with 1080i and what-not.

Thanks a lot for your help, I’m going with the 720p/60 set-up and providing a QT to the other post house, just as I had originally planned, and as many of y’all have suggested. No worse for wear, though, since I learned a few things along the way.

Thanks again,
Joni

[Mike Most] “>>I then tried capturing at 1080i 29.97 and that also worked fine. So it seems there’s a hiccup with the >>combination of 1080i and 59.94, which I can’t figure out.

1080i/29.97 **is** 60i. The 59.94 setting is meant for 720p.

One question, though. I find it hard to believe that your delivery requirement is in the DVCPro HD tape format, especially if it’s 1080/60i. Wouldn’t it be a bit more prudent to either output directly to 720p/60 (as you said you could without problems) and take it to a facility to make the delivery element (I’m guessing that’s probably either HDCam, HDCam SR, or D5), or even to render out your timeline to a 720p/60 Quicktime movie, and take that to a facility on a Firewire drive to accomplish the same thing? In either case, it seems that just getting it to a DVCPro HD tape in 1080i is not accomplishing the creation of your delivery element. Even if you have to take your own 1200 machine to the facility, it will enable them to play back your 720p/60 tape as 1080i directly, provided you have the HDSDI card. In any of these scenarios, it’s not necessary to do what you seem to be having some trouble doing.

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