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Documentary and short film online using only FCS2???
Hi, there is a possibility for us to try to make an online for a documentary and a short film in the coming months. Some time ago I would have thought to send these projects to an online facility (Avid DS, Flame, Smoke…) now I am wondering if we could make those projects in-house using FCS2 (thinking here about Color).
Can we manage well if we buy a good decklink card for monitoring and a good Panasonic Broadcast monitor?… can we be getting close to results achieved before only with much more expensive equipment?
For the documentary we would be given a mix of SD DV Pal and HDV Pal. All of it 4:3 that needs to be converted to 16:9, color corrected and graded. The end exhibition format will be for Digital cinema (2K projector as far as we know). Can we upres with good enough quality using only FCS2? Do the scaling algorithms used by FCS2 for scaling are good enough, in comparison with those like Teragen (4 tap scaling, 16 tap scaling, etc etc)
For the short film we will be given source footage from the Panasonic AJ-HDX900, shot with a 35mm adapter. Footage ingested through firewire to DVCPRO HD. Would FCS2 give us the possibility of making a color grade using Color that would be good enough to make an online and rendering a Digital Cinema compliant 2K (maybe 4K?). Are the upres capabilities of FCS2 sophisticated enough?
Many questions, I know, but looking forward for a good debate 😉
Paulo
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3 Replies
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You could probably get away with doing all of this in FCP Studio2, but I would figure out first exactly what your delivery requirements are. I just did a similar online where we had DV 24P footage from a DVX100, upresed to HD1080P and did the online finishing on HDCAM SR. The only problem was the delivery format the distributor required for digital projection couldn’t be done in FCP, it was a weird MXF based XYZ color space file that efilm had to make for us. Also for your upres stuff I would get a copy of combustion, it does a much better software upres than Final Cut.
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Paulo,
It’s not the tools, it’s the talent.
FCP Studio 2 in conjunction with some outboard stuff like a Kona three, good monitors, and a mastering deck (HDCAMsr) is entirely capable of creating a theater quality master for your project. The quesiton you’ve got to ask is, “Do you know how to do it?” or can you hire someone who does. If not, you’re in over your head and you’re only gonna screw it up and pay twice: once to try it yourself and once to have someone who know’s what they’re doing do it right.
Mark
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I have been reading and researching for some time know trying to understand the many variables involved here, and what I am interested now is knowing the experience from others. For instance, the upres process using software makes me very nervous as I have not found a good explanation on how FCS2 or After Effects or Compressor can be a good match for a hardware, more sophisticated upres. Any help on this matter?
I have also found some info suggesting that after the edit is locked and you move to Color, then you are doing 32bit floating point correction. BUT when you go back to FC, and is you have dissolves and other optical transitions, those will be rendered in 8 bits anyhow. People suggest then to move from Color to Final Cut and then use an XML to send the project to After Effects and render all those transitions in 32 bit there. It sounds time consuming. Thoughts?
When it comes down to monitoring, I would also appreciate some suggestion in different price ranges, if anyone has done some research. We are being offered a Panasonic BT-LH1700W. But I do not have enough info yet to decide if it is enough.
Paulo
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