DVCPRO HD…best output format

[Walter Biscardi]

[Roberto Lopez] “I just finished a 30min HD short that and want to get the best advice for output to a DVCPRO HD tape and HDCAM that will be my master”

Stay in DVCPro HD to tape and have a post house dub that to HDCAM. We’ve been doing that for four years.

[Roberto Lopez] “i hear that the Kona 3 is a great to upconvert from 720 to 1080…”

This is a cross-convert, not an up-convert. And yes, the Kona 3 does a broadcast quality 720 to 1080 (and vice versa). We’ve been doing that for about three years as well.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Roberto Lopez]

thanks…so either way, still have to go to a posthouse to output to a dvcpro hd tape, this will be my master and a posthouse can dub to hdcam via kona 3 card…regarding sound, my project is in 5.1 (L,C,R,Ls,Rs,Lf) and also in stereo(2mono tracks)…so the post house would be able to make me two dubs, one in stereo and one in 5.1. RL

[Walter Biscardi]

[Roberto Lopez] “thanks…so either way, still have to go to a posthouse to output to a dvcpro hd tape, this will be my master and a posthouse can dub to hdcam via kona 3 card”

Then why go to DVCPro HD tape at all? I thought you had the deck.

If you’re going to a post house anyway, just take a self contained quicktime movie with you and have them cross convert your 720 DVCPro HD file to 1080i HDCAM in realtime during layback.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

Read my Blog!

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[Roberto Lopez]

thanks walter, that’s what i’ll do…i exported my 30 minute timeline with the DVCPRO HD 720p60 codec and it comes out to a 10.25 gig file size…

[Chris Borjis]

if you do an HDCAM master (only 4 channels of audio available)
you can have the facility output your stereo mix to ch 1 & 2
and have them encode your surround mix as Dolby-E to ch 3 & 4

unless you have them do HDCAM SR in which case there are 12
channels available and no need for Dolby-E to encapsulate your
5.1 mix.

[Roberto Lopez]

for film festival circuit, would you say HDCAM SR is the way to go or have HDCAM and HDCAM SR for different exhibit format, thanks for everyone’s advice. RL

[Chris Borjis]

good question.

I know that Sony is pressing hard to have HDCAM decks available to
play films for the bigger/prominent festivals now.

my guess would be they are equipped with the SR decks which
can also play the regular HDCAM tapes. What I don’t know
is if they have dolby-e decoding in these theatres for the festivals.
not likely since its mostly a “broadcast in surround” option for tv shows

SR will definitely cost you more to make a master of.

It’s up to you. Maybe call around and see what they are doing to get
a consensus.

Another less costly option with great results is seeing if they will
accept a blu-ray disc. There you get excellent picture quality and
surround sound in an inexpensive medium. A client of mine had me
build a blu-ray of their 720P master (same format you are using) and
it knocked off everyone else’s presentation because all they brought
were DVD’s in SD upconverting through the projector, while the Blu-Ray
blew them all away in picture quality.

[Roberto Lopez]

so many options…will look into all this, thanks. RL

[Christopher Wright]

I would be very wary of spending all this extra money to output to an HDCAM tape if you are only submitting to a film festival. VERY, VERY few film festivals have the capability of playing back even Blu-Ray disks, much less having HDCAM decks available for festival playback. Most still only have Betacam and DVD playback capabilities. Definitely check out the exhibiting capabilities of the film festival you have been accepted in before making the HDCAM plunge!

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[Roberto Lopez]

thanks chris, it’s good to look at all the alternatives, i think blu-ray is good to go for now. RL