Compressing 48 min video from avid

[Shane Ross]

[Timothy Cervinsky] “In an effort to provide the students with a comparative workflow to what they will see when entering their chosen career, I need to know what the process is typically for taking a HD project from Avid and broadcasting it. “

Currently, I work on History Channel shows, MSNBC, NatGeo, PBS, Discovery…and recently stuff for Disney. The overwhelming delivery method is tape. Output to HDCAM or HDCAM SR tape. History, NatGeo, PBS, MSNBC all require this method.

Disney would accept a ProRes Quicktime, with 16 channels of mono audio. But also preferred tape.

Discovery is shifting to a tapeless delivery…that happens to be on tape. This is what I mean. They want a digital file delivered to them…in the OP1a MXF format, XDCAM 50Mbit. But they want it on LTO tape…that’s an archive medium.

There are a few networks that take ProRes HQ files…but the majority of networks that take tapeless delivery, want this MXF OP1a type. Although most of the networks want tape.

[Timothy Cervinsky] “our plan is to export a HD project to a Blu-ray disc to play on a JVC SR-HD2500US running HD-SDI out to a TriCaster 860- if I can get the school to pay for all this.”

OK…I can see that as something a school studio would do, or a local TV station. But broadcast TV doesn’t do this. BluRay is not a form they accept.

[Timothy Cervinsky] “Inside of Avid we have a HD project encoded at DNxHD 145, 1080i/59.97. How would we want to export this out to disc? We are using Avid MC 7.0.4 with Sorenson Squeeze 8 (I think).”

You need BluRay authoring software, and a BluRay burner. Toast 11 does this. And you “AUTHOR” the BluRay. meaning you export a full resolution Quicktime from Avid, and take that into Toast 11 for it to be compressed to an H.264 variant that works on BluRay.

[Timothy Cervinsky] “if the OP’s 48 minute project is 50Gb how are they putting a 2 hour HD movie on Bluray disc for consumers?”

That’s what authoring does…it’s compresses the full, uncompressed export into a compressed format that is then burned into a BluRay disc. But that is a medium that broadcasters typically don’t use. Local small market stations have been known to take DVDs, and some BluRays. So if you are training for local markets…I’d ask them what they expect to receive as a final product. But on major networks, it’s HDCAM, HDCAM SR, or MXF OP1a, or ProRes HQ.

[Timothy Cervinsky] “And lastly, what are broadcasters using to play DNxHD footage onair?”

They don’t. They typically take the tapes and capture them into their broadcasting equipment…not sure what format it is captured as. That’s too far downstream for me. Wondering if it’s the MXF OP1a, as more places want that. But if you deliver tapeless, they take the tapeless QT and convert it to the codec and type that their broadcast equipment then plays out.

Shane
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