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Activity Forums AJA Video Systems Downconvert XDCAM to BetaSP question with Kona Lhe.

  • Downconvert XDCAM to BetaSP question with Kona Lhe.

    Posted by Jamie Thorne on February 25, 2008 at 10:42 pm

    Ive got a program that I’m laying back to BetaSP.

    It’s cut in FCP and is in XD and would like to just simply let the board down-convert it.
    The program will be letterboxed and I’m wanting just to use the HD colorbars from
    the timeline and let the board do the down-conversion to the BetaSP.

    What I’m wondering about is possible shifts in color space screwing up the levels
    of the bars+program this way causing problems on the broadcast side.

    I could create a SD version of the program in FCP and let the software do the down
    conversion and then switch the board to SD and layback to tape, but think the board
    will do a better job.

    In my ideal world I could just use the same timeline HD timeline for both SD and HD
    changing only the board.

    Any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated.

    Jamie Thorne replied 18 years, 2 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Jeremy Garchow

    February 25, 2008 at 11:06 pm

    For the most part, you should be good.

    Ideally what you would do is duplicate your HD timeline and call it Yourtimeline_SD_CC or whatever and then color correct while watching the SD downconvert.

    If you don’t have time, just watch your scopes and make sure that your SD downconvert is up to snuff.

    Jeremy

  • Ken Hon

    February 26, 2008 at 7:05 am

    Jamie,

    Jeremy is right that for the most part it is good. But we have noticed doing down converts via a Kona 3 to tape that some of the conversions produce illegal whites. The white level in the HD 709 color space is higher than the 601 SD color space and it can cause problems. We are going out via SDI, so downconvert and lay to tape and then recapture and correct the SD version. Going to Beta SP via analog I would do the timeline conversion Jeremy recommends, then play it out via an external scope (though the FCP scope seems pretty good too) and tag your trouble spots if you have any before recording to tape. The broadcast safe filter works pretty well, but you may need to adjust colors too. It’s a pain, but we usually find a couple of trouble spots.

    Aloha,

    Ken

  • Jamie Thorne

    February 26, 2008 at 5:54 pm

    Thanks for the feedback.

    I’ve done the CC with a SD monitor and checked with the scopes in fcp from the
    timeline to legalize everything. Mainly I was just concerned about the possible effects
    in using the color bars for the HD color space generated by FCP and down converting
    them. Although I suppose that they should work as the board should be doing a correct
    color space conversion from one to the other. Just making sure…

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