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Final Cut Pro 5 Radically improves Varicam footage renders and overall quality!
Wow!
I have no idea what exactly the folks at Apple and Panasonic have done, perhaps someone here more knowledgeable than I can fill us in on the technical aspects…but for Varicam footage editing, it’s quite radical!I imported some of my previously edited footage from my upcoming feature into Final Cut 5 and was blown away by the improvement in overall image quality.
These were sequences with several layers of detailed colour correction, and previously they were suffering from various artifacts and degradation caused by such severe manipulation of DVCPRO HD. I was planning on going back and fiixing them and re-rendering in 10 bit uncompressed to try and improve the quality, but now in many cases it’s just plain not necessary.
Pleae check it out for yourself and let us know what you think, it really is a stunning improvement in render quality.
All I can say is a big “Thank You” to Apple and Panasonic! for instantly improving the quality of my film.
All the best,
Paul
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3 Replies
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Yes, I’ve noticed the same thing. FCP/DVCPRO HD Native is a very powerful combo at a very attractive price.
However, when rendering a Boris 3D roll I’m getting big red groups of block pixels behind the letters. Very strange. I have not had the time to troubleshoot this in depth.
Dennis Lisonbee.
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But as I understand, and specially for film out, DVCPRO HD is only an offline codec, and you should online your project in uncompressed 1920×1080 at 24 fps.
It would be very nice to hear from a Panasonic guy (Steve mate you there ?) what’s is the best workflow to work with Varicam material for film out using FCP HD or FCP 5 and both the 130DC and the 1200A.
Regards
Rodrigo Lizana
PIXINE
http://www.pixine.cl
rlizana@pixine.cl -
[Rodrigo Lizana] “But as I understand, and specially for film out, DVCPRO HD is only an offline codec, and you should online your project in uncompressed 1920×1080 at 24 fps. It would be very nice to hear from a Panasonic guy (Steve mate you there ?) what’s is the best workflow to work with Varicam material for film out using FCP HD or FCP 5 and both the 130DC and the 1200A. “
Rodrigo, In FCP5 Apple actually recommends NOT to use 1080 24psf as a film out format (and as a technical aside it was left out of the FCP 5 manual as an possible HD broadcast format) and Specifically recommends the 720p24 format for filmout work from FCP 5 / FCP studio.
A couple of reasons NOT to use 1080 24psf for filmouts –720p is a truly progressive format, while the 1080psf format is actually 2 progressive frames that melded back into a single frame (called Progressive Segmented Frames), and in content with high motion that can result with an “interlaced look” even though the content is progressive.
Secondly deliver on HDCAM Tape (NOT SR) which has a 3:1:1 colorspace, can degrade your project in a manner that could effect your project outcome. This is not an issue when delivering via D5 or HDcamSR
Saying all of this I want to point out that these are moot if we are talking about delivering / mastering the Varicam footage on HDCAM SR Tape decks with it’s larger color space and true progressive (instead of PSF) frames. But since there are very few of these decks in the US outside of hollywood most people that talk about DL HD are not actually working on
a 4:4:4 capable SR series deckgary adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
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