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DVC Pro HD footage in AE
I have an opportunity to shoot some aerials in a helicopter. I plan on shooting with an HDX900 in 1080i 29.97p. I will be using an “Aerial Exposures” mount. (aerialexposures.com) I don’t have any HD hardware or decks so my plan is to shoot to a firestore drive and then transfer the files to my single SATA 250 gig drive. I know I KNOW! Just hear me out. All I want to be able to do is work with these files in AE. My plan is to down convert to SD some of the Aerials for a few clients who need shots for SD spots. I’m shooting HD now so I’ll have it later when they want it and because I also plan to shoot scenics for myself while I’m up there. So will my plan work? Will I be able to do a render to ram preview of the HD footage on my desktop? Will my downconvert idea work? What are the holes in my logic?
My computer specs are:
Single P4 3.0E 800mhz FSB
2 gigs DDR400 ram
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX400 64 meg video card.Thanks.
Nate
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9 Replies
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Hi,
It seems like a perfectly reasonable way to work. I suppose the only issue is making sure the Firestore drive can handle the bandwidth, but if that’s been tested and known to work, then it should be a good way to work without investing in a lot of hardware.
My feeling is that if you want to make sure the footage is more usable as HD in the future, you may want to shoot at 23.98P instead of 29.97P. It’s easy to add the 3/2 pulldown to make it 29.98, but if you shoot at 29.98, you are pretty much stuck with that frame rate as there is no good way to convert it to 23.97.
To a great extent, this is just a personal preference issue, but you might get more value out of your footage if shot at the frame rate that most HD seems to be moving toward. It will mean, however, that you will have to work with different frame rates when you use it in your current SD work. It’s not a big deal for some, but if it is something you don’t want to deal with, then it needs to be considered.
Hope this helps,
Lars
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Have you made sure that you can get a DVCPROHD codec for Windows?
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you will need a utility or a nle that can convert the p2 (mxf) files to the codec that you will be working in (ae can’t read the mxf files). i’ve heard that raylight from dvfilm is a good utility, but there are several others. avid will work with mxf natively, from there you could export to another format.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Great Advice So far!
According to the rental house the Firestore can handle the throughput but it’s worth asking others. Anyone?
Thanks for the 23.97p tip. I actually initially planned on that frame rate but was a little worried about the pull down going back to SD 29.97. But if people are doing it successfully then I really probably should do it.
Excellent tip on needing the extra utility. I thought AE would read them directly. I’ve looked at Raylight. I’ll have to check it out again. But even if I had this utility would I still need the DVCPROHD codec for windows as Steve mentioned?
Thanks all.
nate
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Ugh,
I may have just answered my own question. Follow the link below. Looks like I may be out of luck with DVCPRO HD. No windows CODEC. I don’t have FCP. I use Premier Pro.
https://www.hdforindies.com/2004/12/more-reader-questions-cross-platform
Is there a different camera out there that can shoot to the firestore or tapeless in some way? I had initially thought of the XDCAM HD but that’s compressed. It’s for exterior stuff on a sunny day. Might be fine, but it will artifact.
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here’s a thread from a few days ago where someone was asking about dvcprohd and windows. the third or so down discussed raylight and pp interaction… from what i gather, raylight will convert to another codec/format.
read up on the firestore, i think that when you shoot 24p to firestore, it will leave the duplicate frame in… that’s not a problem, but you’ll need to be aware of that to deal with it somewhere along the line (conversion, import, etc.). raylight may handle that, i’m not sure.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
you also may want to place a post in adobe labs’ cs3 forum, requesting native support within ae for mxf files… i was requested to do so (and did) a few weeks ago.
p2 files are goin to get more and more common, and it seems that ae should have the capability to at least read them… i’ve always been able to get over not being able to capture with ae, but once you have digital footage as a file, it seems like ae should read them, rather than having to get third party tools to get acces the files.
it sounds like this is gaining support, so its worth letting adobe know how many users would benefit from it.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Nathan,
Christopher here (SF!). I only shoot with the Firestore in 720Pn24fps now. It will work fine on a PC, just get Raylight and your Quicktime files in DVCPROHD will work fine in all your Windows apps. BTW, when using the FS-100, choose the Quicktime Pn option, not the P2 option. You will get double the recording time with no quality loss, and you won’t have to convert the MXF files to the app you want to use them in. If you are using a lot of filters in AE, I would also suggest converting the DVCPROHD files to the Quicktime lossless animation codec for working and rendering. Downconverting to SD is also painless in either AE or PPro.
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Chris!
Awesome! Thanks so much for the tip! Will be in touch on the project. The 24Pn is the “native” 24p format that panasonic uses in the HVX200 correct? Shoots only 24 frames second natively I’ve heard. Anyway great info! Now I know I can use a good 2/3 inch chip cam for this thing! Talk soon.
Nate
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