DVCPROHD capture

[Michael Krupnick]

Yes, Gary…I ferreted around and got some info on the math. As you knew off the top of your head, but I needed to be reminded of, HDCAM is1440H EXTRAPOLATED to 1920. It still seems a bit fishy to me, math-wise, that 1280H is not more distorted, but, then when you add the half-sampled chroma, you get 1920. That raises another question (not really important, I s`pose) as to what really counts as a pixel. In NTSC, pixels are luma-only, with the color added on top. Digital sampling is a different story, apparently. According to esteemed colleagues, TRUE 1920X1080 as a displayed picture from the digital chain doesn’t happen anymore – the last time was when HD was analog. To me it’s kinda sad that we’re lowering the quality bar despite the technical capability to raise it. But then, I like Showscan film way over Panavision, which I know is futile because it is prohibitively expensive. And there are alternatives, like Dalsa, that really DO seek to make digital exceptionally fine.
We transcoded the HDCAM footage to DVCProHD to get it to play reliably on the XServ SAN we’re using at my client BMP. You probably already know XServ isn’t yet able to do uncompressed HD multiple streams for large installations. They have many many seats using the fiber net, in mixed resolutions. That’s their interest in that experiment, since they are looking forward to HD delivered to their network clients.
My interest is that I’m looking to expand into more HD on a boutique level. HDV is OK in theory for consumer use, but I worry that the MPEG transport stream won’t hold up to critical professional scrutiny and workflow. I’m looking at the Panny HVX200 as a pretty good way to bridge the gap between HDV and full-on pro-grade HD, both in terms of quality and lower storage overhead. The key to that, in my head, is that DVCProHD codec. It seems to be a reasonable compromise. My colleagues worry about the P2 card storage limits, but I think it’s probably a safe bet that P2 technology will get fatter and cheaper pretty quickly. There are already viable work-arounds like Firestore drives. And the promise is that the 200 will have the widest range of frame/aspect/rate capture options of anything near the price. That’s probably important for tapping the indy film market. I wish I could get a Viper, a D6, a beautiful hunk of glass in front of it all, and a huge pile of Ultra 320 behind it, but…
My eyes tell me to go for the best, but my wallet…well, I’m sure you know. Alas.

Cheers.
m.

MixMasters/PixelLabs
https://mkrupnick.go.cc