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HD Delivery
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[Walter Biscardi]
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Walter – isn’t it curious that on one hand, so much energy is spent getting footage “down” to DVCPro HD for practical purposes, but the stations desire “masters” on D5? It’s like bumping up DVCam to D-Beta as if a D-Beta master is somehow better, no matter how the project was created.
I have heard the D5 argument from telecine and DI guys for a while now, yet they seem to be the only ones who actually have the decks. I think it’s an engineer thing. remember Ampex’ DCT format? It actually was better than D-1 (same quality, faster and better transport), but no one used it.
I think it’s only a matter of a short time before file delivery, like audio mixes these days, will be the standard delivery and distribution format — from dailies to approval screeners to masters. If anyone is interested, a friend of mine is involved with Broadway Video in NYC in their encoding division. They are developing file based distribution services for video for use in a variety of ways (offline editing, online, versions, distribution, corporate communications and archiving, etc.). Ask to speak to Dirk Van Dall.
https://www.broadwayvideo.com/
steve covello
double wide post -
[Walter Biscardi] “From conversations I’ve had with folks delivering HD, D5 is big standard because it’s true uncompressed HD so many shows seem to be delivered on D5. We were actually surprised when we were told to deliver our series on HDCAM as we were expecting it to be D5. No biggy since we can convert it, but we were hoping to deliver on the D5 format since it’s uncompressed. “
Walter,
You are mistaken. HD D5 is NOT uncompressed. The SD (only) version was uncompressed. HD D5 is about 4:1 or 5:1 compressed. The bitrate is similar to Avid’s DNxHD at the high end. Largely the places that center on film mastering and those who’ve adopted 720p as the house standard use D5. Send a tape to HBO or CBS, for example and I believe the specs are HDCAM at 1080i. Even PBS is perfectly happy with HDCAM. The only way you are going to get uncompressed anywhere is by shipping a drive and few if any places will accept that. Generally there are few local stations around the country that are equipped at this point to deal with HD delivery to them for local shows and commercials.
Sincerely,
OliverOliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I guess it depends on the market. Here in Seattle the NBC and ABC
affiliates are already doing local news in HD, although newsgathering
is still SD, but 16 by 9. They are also producing local shows HD as is
the PBS Station which does their fund drives in HD
and local show production as well. The FOX, CBS, UPN and WB stations
all pass HD but don’t do local HD. Like I said previously, it’s gonna change really fast
from here on out. As far as delivery goes, it’s really going to depend
on the station so you need to ask. D5/HDCAM are probably going
to be the most likely choices. But as we know here, DVCPROHD
looks very good and is cheaper and easier to deal with bandwidth wise.
So I’m sure some stations/networks will go that way as well.File delivery…while it makes a ton of sense to us, broadcasters
will see it as a pain, at least that’s the way I remember my days
at stations. Bring up something that make sense but isn’t the way
they do it now, you are a bad, disruptive person.
Just bring me a tape, they’ll tell you. They’ll start the
sentence with “the only way we….”dan
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Walter D5 is a compressed format for HD and uncompress for SD.
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[MPE] ”
Walter D5 is a compressed format for HD and uncompress for SD.”Interesting as I’ve always heard D5 referred to as the “true” uncompressed HD format. I just looked at the operating manual and they refer to the compression for HD as 1/4 so I guess that’s 4:1. Thanks for the tip.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[Hans Vernhout] “What about delivering your finished story as a file (in uncompressed codec) on some kind of disk? I guess at least some of the HD stations broadcast from servers and not from tape machines, so in stead of capturing your D5 or HD CAM tape to disk for broadcasting they just import your file. “
Nobody that I know of is accepting files. It’s either HDCAM or D5 for the deliverable.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[Robert Hutchings] “Interesting. But back to tape via firewire is a simple file transfer. Correct? How could a firewire file transfer add noise? “
In theory it shouldn’t but that’s not what we’re finding here in the “real world” tests. HD-SDI recorded material looks significantly better than Firewire material so far.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[walter biscardi] “In theory it shouldn’t but that’s not what we’re finding here in the “real world” tests. HD-SDI recorded material looks significantly better than Firewire material so far. “
Walter,
When you copy HD-SDI to HD-SDI between DVCProHD decks you are decompressing and recompressing a very lossy codec. There is no way this can be considered a “clone”. FW transfer should be a file transfer without additional codec cycles, but effects will degrade it quickly. The big variable is what the deck might be doing to clean up the signal when it is decompressing and going out through HD-SDI. I find that this also occurs in regular DV. Decks with SDI out give you a cleaner image than FW out even though, by the numbers, it shouldn’t. Just means that the extra electronics in the deck add a certain amount of error correction and error concealment that the FW transfer doesn’t.
On another note, anyone who thinks that most local market TV stations are going to invest in HDCAM or D5 decks are nuts. Why do you think there’s serious interest in DVCProHD, XDCAM-HD, HDV, P2 HD and other options. I think what you’ll see most folks do is take a network feed in HD, install an HD studio config (switcher and cameras), and an HD master control air server – that’s the most they’ll do. You may see some HD islands in the prod dept using formats like DVCProHD and VariCams, but the reality is that we’re more likely to see ENG in 16×9 SD or maybe HDV. I could easily see the Sony 1080i HDV camera be a hot item for news. If not that, then reality TV. But I doubt that delivery will be in that format. Remember, even with broadcasters, cheap wins over quality these days.
Sincerely,
OliverOliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
That’s very interesting Walter.
I wonder what the story is there.
Certainly isn’t what the marketing would have us believe is it?Dan
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