HD Doc for NatGeo, advice needed

[Aaron Neitz]

I’d recommend offline at DVCPRO-HD. Small file sizes, the G5 can readily handle it, it will look great for editing.

Then recapturing for your final will be very easy – no transposing of timecodes. Also, depending on the intensity and production level of the project, you might be able to deliver DVCPRO-HD laid back to HDCAM for final. That’s a network quality control question, but a lot of them will accept it.

I don’t think a dual G5 can handle ProRes. It’s very processor intensive. Having said that ProRes HQ is phenomenal – you’d be very hard pressed to tell the difference between it and uncompressed HD.

Personally I wouldn’t sweat the move to FCP6. In many ways 5.1.4 is more stable and less buggy. I did a lot of HD work on my G5 with 5.1.4 and it never let me down.

[Aaron Neitz]

Also… chances are they’ll shoot 1080/24. Which is great for editing. You need to deliver a 1080i/59.94 tape, but all that means is adding standard pulldown to the final layoff.

This is something to confirm with the producers and whoever has delivery specs, but it’s more likely than anything else.

[David Roth weiss]

Rob,

With the addition of a Kona LH your machine is perfectly suited for cutting DVCProHD, but cannot capture Pro Res. So, the best and easiest workflow is to digitize to and cut in DVCProHD, and then output back to HDCAM. One slight enhancement for titles and graphics would be to render the final timeline with the Pro Res HQ codec before outputting to HDCAM, which would be preferable to DVCpro compression. That step would do nothing for the video, but would keep the graphics and test in a close to pristine state, and still be playable on an inexpensive raid or even on firewire 800 hard drives.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

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[Jamie Pickell]

Rob,

I work at Nat Geo as an editor cutting on FCP. They shoot most of their programming on DVCProHD so you can edit in DVCProHD and not have to worry about the autoconform issues. Hold off on the ProRes422 workflow because I don’t know if the client has come to a decision on its acceptability. If you want me to put you in touch with some here who can answer your questions directly, contact me offline.

Jamie
Dual 2.5 G5
10.4.10
FCP 5.1.4
XRaid
Kona 2

jpickell@ngs.org

[Rob Alexander]

Thanks for the posts everyone. DVCPROHD sounds like the way to go assuming that there aren’t any tech issues going from one compressed HD format to another (albeit via HD-SDI). I’m sure I read somewhere that there’s a 1920×1080 setting for DVCPROHD in Final Cut, is that right? or would I just capture using an easy setup to 1280×1080 and let the Kona do all the scaling?

Cheers
Rob

[Walter Biscardi]

[Rob Alexander] “‘m sure I read somewhere that there’s a 1920×1080 setting for DVCPROHD in Final Cut, is that right? or would I just capture using an easy setup to 1280×1080 and let the Kona do all the scaling?”

Nope, that’s ProRes. Let the Kona do the scaling as it does this perfectly.

In PAL, the scale might be 1440×1080 so don’t be surprised if that’s the case.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Jorge Rojo]

Hello Mr. Alexander, I am posting you this message from México, I would like to make contact with you to talk about a document that you and/or your team might be interested in for a documental story. With regards: Jorge Rojo.