DVCPRO HD – Workflow Help..

[Russell Lasson]

I would probably capture at DVCPROHD 24P. If you have a blackmagic card with HDSDI, it should remove the flags from the Varicam footage so you’ll end up with 24P footage.

DVCPROHD and DVCPRO50 are very similar file sizes, DVCPROHD is only slightly bigger.

When you’re done, you can down convert your footage to either crop the image to 4×3 or letterbox it. From there, your web file can be 24P and your broadcast master can be 29.97 by letting the card add the pulldown when you lay it off to tape.

I would tend to go this way to avoid the DVCPRO50 interlaced footage.

-Russ

Russell Lasson
Universal Post
Ridgeline Digital Cinema Mastering
Salt Lake City, UT

[Jaron Gold]

Regarding the capture, my blackmagic card does not have a setting for 720p/24 – DVCPROHD- I know there is no difference between 24p and 23.98 unless going out to film, so 720p/23.98 DVCPROHD will work, correct?

Also, when I capture at 23.98 and playback in quicktime, the format is 720p/60 and says the frame rate is 23.91 –

I appreciate the help…

JG

[Michael Sacci]

DVCPro50 is 1/2 the size of DVCProHD. (I was wrong here, sorry)

DVCPro50 can also be captured as 24P so no interlace needs to be added until you go to tape and your Decklink card will do that on the fly when you go to tape.

If you want to do back up to HD you just recapture the footage you actually use in the final edit.

The one thing you do need to decide up front is whether you want to edit 16:9 or 4:3 once it is in SD to change aspect ratio causes a quality hit.

[Michael Sacci]

Varicams always records 60 fps second, so when you have the camera at 24p (23.98) it records 60 fps by recording 2 of the same frame and then 3 of the next frame, and so on. These extra frames needs to be removed as you capture the footage.

And Russell, I correct myself, when you take the removal of the reductant frames into account on DVCProHD you do come out about the same as DVCPro50. I spoke too soon.

[Russell Lasson]

[Michael Sacci] “And Russell, I correct myself, when you take the removal of the reductant frames into account on DVCProHD you do come out about the same as DVCPro50. I spoke too soon.”

At about 6MB/sec, that’s why DVCPROHD 720P24 is one of my favorite editing codecs.

-Russ

Russell Lasson
Universal Post
Ridgeline Digital Cinema Mastering
Salt Lake City, UT

[Russell Lasson]

[Jaron Gold] “Regarding the capture, my blackmagic card does not have a setting for 720p/24 – DVCPROHD- I know there is no difference between 24p and 23.98 unless going out to film, so 720p/23.98 DVCPROHD will work, correct? “

23.98 is what you’re looking for.

[Jaron Gold] “Also, when I capture at 23.98 and playback in quicktime, the format is 720p/60 and says the frame rate is 23.91 -“

QuickTime is always messy with frame rates. Don’t trust what it says. Just make sure FCP has the right frame rate and that there aren’t any duplicate frames (frames that repeat). You only need to check five frames to make sure each is unique.

And yes, the codec or compressor will be 720p/60, but that doesn’t mean that your frame rate really is 60p.

-Russ

Russell Lasson
Universal Post
Ridgeline Digital Cinema Mastering
Salt Lake City, UT

[Jaron Gold]

you guys are very helpful but I’m not sure what you mean by removing the extra frames?

[Jaron Gold]

Ok, one last question – when dealing with 60p, I understand that is not 60 fps, but doesn’t the vericam inherently record at 59.98? If so, is there a distinctable difference between the two?