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DVCproHD to ProRes-New Post
After reading Richard Herd’s post down the page… I am curious.
The majority response to Richard’s question seems to be that he should render his DVCproHD source footage as ProRes from color.
Why? Will rendering to DVCproHD cause banding or other recompression artifacts? What advantages does ProRes have over DVCproHD?
Thanks.
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14 Replies
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search the cow posts, thats where your answer lies.
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ProRes is 10-bit….DVCPRO HD is 8-bit. Colors render smoother. I recall that smoke from a canon firing rendered with a visible banding…meaning that I could visibly see the different steps between shades of grey. I rendered the same thing in uncompressed 10 bit (no pro res at that time) and it was fine. But I only saw it in the smoke….everything else was fine.
Personally when working with DVCPRO HD I send to Color and back out as DVCPRO HD…because we output to HDCAM, which is an 8-bit format. If we went to HDCAM SR, then I’d do ProRes as the SR deck is 10-bit.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Here’s what the American Cinematographer reported:
“A friend of mine once observed that when DVCPro-HD footage is being color-corrected, it’s about as fragile as wet tissue paper. To thicken it up a little, Aaron Peak (from Hollywood-DI) suggested we convert our original DVCPro-HD clips to Apple ProRes 422 HQ, bringing us from 8-bit to 10-bit color space” (Stephanie Argy, p. 75).
Here’s what I’m going to do: Send my timeline to Color. Render it to APR422HQ, and then send that time line to Color again, correcting that one in APR422HQ, back to FCP then to Compressor for final out.
From a film point of view, I’m thinking of this as an interpositive to an answerprint to an internegative. (Obviously, this is a metaphor.)
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[Richard Herd] “Here’s what I’m going to do: Send my timeline to Color. Render it to APR422HQ, and then send that time line to Color again, correcting that one in APR422HQ, back to FCP then to Compressor for final out.
“That’s a lot of recompressing. Just send your DVCPro HD timeline to Color. then correct (COlor processes in Float if you want) and then render out ProRes. No reason to go HQ and no reason to render to ProRes in Color, then send that back again. Cut that middle step out.
FCP/DVCpro HD > Color > Render ProRes
Jeremy
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Thanks. I haven’t worked with DVCproHD since ProRes came out. I appreciate the update.
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If you have the option to capture straight to ProRes, do it. Only use the proposed workflow if you are using DVCPro HD P2.
Jeremy
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[Richard Herd] “Here’s what I’m going to do: Send my timeline to Color. Render it to APR422HQ, and then send that time line to Color again, correcting that one in APR422HQ, back to FCP then to Compressor for final out. “
That’s double compression, you don’t want to do this. AND you don’t need to go to HQ for 10bit as has already been covered in the original thread.
As I have already pointed out, as have others, send your DVCPro HD timeline Color.
Grade.
Render out to ProRes.
All our HD Broadcast masters are done this way and it works flawlessly.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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The cut and paste omitted what I think is the most important part of the post: “when DVCPro-HD footage is being color-corrected, it’s about as fragile as wet tissue paper.” The point is to avoid color-correcting DVCPro-HD footage.
I’m testing 4 minutes, and I’ll report back.
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[Richard Herd] “The point is to avoid color-correcting DVCPro-HD footage. “
I’ve been color correcting DVCPro HD for four going on five years now.
My original workflow was to capture DVCPro HD, Color Grade DVCPro HD using the 3Way CC tool in FCP.
Then I got Final Touch HD and my workflow was to capture DVCPro HD, Color Grade DVCPro HD and Master to DVCPro HD.
Then Apple purchased Final Touch HD and my workflow was capture DVCPro HD, Color Grade DVCPro HD and render to ProRes.
I have delivered over 100 broadcast HD masters using the above techniques. About equal amounts using all of those. All work perfectly fine. The last one works the best. There is absolutely no reason to convert all your DVCPro HD material to ProRes and THEN color grade. Just color grade the DVCPro HD material and render to ProRes in Color.
Our current method is to just capture everything to ProRes during ingest when we are using Tape based material. If it’s P2 material, then it stays in DVCPro HD or AVC-I right through to color grade where it’s rendered out to ProRes from Color.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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[Richard Herd] “The point is to avoid color-correcting DVCPro-HD footage. “
The point is not not render BACK to DVCPro HD. You can use the DVCPo HD footage (DVCPro HD is a decent camera acquisition codec) but in Color, you render out to ProRes.
Jeremy
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