HD & DVCAM

[Steve Wargo]

When you say that the footage will be “fed” into Vegas, I for one, am not really sure what your actual meaning is. Are you asking about feeding it in as though you’re playing a tape back or are you talking about transferring files into the system? Have you chacked with the Vegas forum?

Your original question is somewhat vague and there are very few of us here who have purchased any XDCAM HD gear because I don’t think it’s even available yet.

Besides, I don’t know if anyone here has had any advanced hands-on with CineAlta XDCAM.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona

It’s a dry heat!

[Timothy Duncan]

Yes — you will have scene detection capturing in any DV capture program from XDCAM. If you are doing DV recording with the XDCAM, then you can use MXF files directly in Vegas 6.0d. No need to capture, just mount the XDCAM in FAM mode and copy the MXF files to your hard drive. XDCAM HD is not supported in Vegas 6, but it can also be downconverted to DV and captured via 1394.

We’ve had our XDCAM HD camera and deck now for almost a month.

td

[Randall Raymond]

We’ve had our XDCAM HD camera and deck now for almost a month.
————————–
How do you like it? Pros and Cons (if any)

[Steve Wargo]

Thanks for the clarification on those deliveries. Are either of you ready to give us a run down on likes, don’t likes, and a wish list?

I was in an accident and hve been down for three weeks including NAB. Sorry I missed it.

Thanks

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona

It’s a dry heat!

[Timothy Duncan]

We absolutely love it. We will never rent the F900 or the Varicam again. For acquisition, it is in our opinion, cleaner then the F900 especially in the black levels. You can run with gain up to 12 and still have super clean video. If you want the graininess, you’ll have to add it in post.
And — chroma key is definitely cleaner than what we’ve shot on Varicam. We don’t have any chroma key footage to compare with the F900, but comparing very similarly shot footage between the F900 and F350 — you’ll pick the F350.
I’d have never dreamed this camera would look so good and there is NO visible artifacting in the HQ mode. You definitely want to use this for acquisition and not to bounce to and from HD SDI uncompressed many times. The F900R shares the features of slow shutter accumulation which is such a nice thing to have. And — we have used the interval record mode, too. We just shot a music video this week and shot several lip sync scenes at 60fps and 48fps. Our DP and LD are totally sold on it now.

The cons right now are software support. Most support is in beta and not yet released, so for HD work, you have to treat it like video tape for digitizing via RS-422. But — release is imminent. Apples says June for FCP support, and there were PC alternatives being shown at NAB too.

td

[Timothy Duncan]

Steve,

Having been in a few cycle accidents in my past — my heart goes out to you. But nothing I was in compares to your injuries. I can hardly believe you are typing on the computer!

Hope you have a speedy recovery.

I’ll be posting one of the music videos we shot next week and hopefully will have time to follow up with some info. I will probably write an article about our first experiences in real production with this camera for the Creative Cow magazine.

td

[Randall Raymond]

And — chroma key is definitely cleaner than what we’ve shot on Varicam.
——————
Amazing! Do you have any examples up on the net yet? To grab a key like that, are you using cineform or some other codec, or the mpeg file straight up?

[Scottaston]

Tim..could you answer a few quick questions about your XDCAM-HD 350?

First, when shooting frame rates above 30p, Sony states that the vertical rez is reduced. From “YOUR EYE” looking at the monitor, can you see a significant difference in the image quality with the reduced vertical rez from let’s say shooting 30p vs. 60p?

Second, what lens are you shooting with?

Scott Aston
Eyecon Pictures

[Timothy Duncan]

No examples that I have placed for the public. For the key testing, I captured 10bit uncompressed HD-SDI from a Panny studio deck and from the F70 XDCAM HD deck.
I also did a capture HD-SDI uncompressed right off the XDCAM camera (never going to MPEG2) and compared that to the same shot recorded to MPEG2 and then captured HD-SDI uncompressed.
For key testing, I used Primatte and Keylight as well as Boris Continuum. And I also used Matrox Axio (which produced the cleanest key of all with a bonus of being real-time). The key from MPEG2 was just as clean to our naked eyes as the pure uncompressed original. I had more trouble keying the Varicam footage.

The biggest drawback for us of the XDCAM is that it cannot do 720P. It is 1080 only for HD. (24P, 25P, 30P and 50i, 60i). But we have found that 1080P footage downconverts nicely to 720P. And — with the money you save on Varicam or F900, you can buy hardware downconverters that do a good job at 1080i to 720P. 🙂 We do the downconvert in software for now. I looked at several converters at NAB in the event we get a client that needs a lot of 720P.

td

[Timothy Duncan]

We aren’t seeing any visible vertical loss. We just shot quite a bit of footage at 48fps and 60fps that I will be intercutting with 24fps footage this coming week. (Music video). I’ll let you know how it comes out.

We purchased a Fuji 17-7.5 2/3″ cinema lens and use the 2/3″ to 1/2″ adapter. Nice glass makes a big difference on any camera. We rent primes and wide angle as needed based on the production. We have a nice matte box, follow focus, and microforce zoom, as well as small jib and Glidecam. The Fuji is a good lens, but breathes more than I would prefer. We did not purchase an ENG lens. In my initial test of a protype F350, the ENG lens on it was horrible. Fuji overnighted us a new 1/2″ HD lens to test, but we decided to go with a 2/3″ lens.

td