External Recorders- ProRes

[Kelly Griffin]

Hey Gary–

Not to evade your question, but why not just rent a camera that resolves your concerns?

–Kelly

[Stephen Mann]

“… so I need to record to an external recorder to boost the bit rate and color space to meet the cable companies requirements.”

This won’t change what the camera records. Just because HDV is 4:2:0 colorspace and ProRes and Avid DNxHD are 4:4:4, your video is still 4:2:0.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Gary Badgley]

Hi, thanks for the thought, but there are no rentals available where I live, besides I am shooting on the AF100 and with all my lenses etc, I would really like to shoot with my camera.

Thanks.

[Gary Badgley]

Hi,
my camera records at 21 mbps. The color sampling is 4.2.0. I need a minimum 25 mbps and 4.2.2. As I understand it, when recording to an external recorder you bypass the cameras codec, in this case AVCHD AVC/H.264 and records using the recorders codec with a higher bit rate and improved color sampling. Am I misunderstanding this process?

[Stephen Mann]

You never said what camera you have, but if it had an HDMI output port, then it is likely in 4:4:4 colorspace. You can use an HDMI recorder like the Atmos Ninja, but other than transcoding, I don’t know how to increase the bitrate. Also, note that ProRes is specific to FCP and you won’t find ProRes in the “Render As”templates. There is a tool that I have not tried that may help: FFmpeg customized for broadcast and professional usage

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[John Rofrano]

[Gary Badgley] “my camera records at 21 mbps. The color sampling is 4.2.0. I need a minimum 25 mbps and 4.2.2.”

My advice is to shoot with what you have, render to 25Mbps 4:2:2 and don’t worry about it. Cable companies will ask for the world, it doesn’t mean they are going to get it. I know of one broadcaster that demands 1920×1080 50 Mpbs 4:2:2. We shoot the show on a Sony Z1U HDV 1140×1080 25 Mbps at 4:2:0, render to 1920×1080 50 Mpbps 4:2:2 and the show is in it’s 4th season and the broadcaster has no complaints. Don’t get hung up over what you shoot. They just want to make sure you are not giving them inferior footage. Shoot as you normally do. I wouldn’t worry about it as long as your footage looks good.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Dave Osbun]

Not all cameras pass uncompressed via HDMI out to an external recorder. For example, my Sony prosumer camera records 24mb/s to an internal SDHC card. If I hook up an external recorder via the HDMI output, i’ll still only get 24mb/s. My camera doesn’t offer clean HDMI out.

Make sure your camera does offer clean HDMI out, because if it doesn’t you’re just wasting your time & money.

Dave

[Gary Badgley]

Okay, the cable company does want it in 720 x 480 anamorphic 29.97 and they broadcast in SD.

So, I imported and set up my project as NSTC DV(720×480 29.97? That letterboxed it, so I went down to the FX and matched output to aspect and that full framed it.

Then when I tried to render it, I only got one choice it seems, and that is to render in NSTC DV and my .H264 gets wrapped in a .mxf file. Then I went to custom template and I could see where it gives me the 25 mbps, but I could not see where to get the 4.2.2 color sampling. How do I get 4.2.2.?

[Scott Francis]

I agree with John, shot as normal, deliver what they ask…they should not know the difference…

Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions

[Stephen Mann]

“they should not know the difference”

Actually, the video is probably assigned to an intern who looks at the file properties and checks a box that it meets the specs.

In the days of tape, your video has to be evaluated on a scope by a real video engineer.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com