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HDCam and the BBC
Hello
I’m trying to piece together a jigsaw based on limited information about whether we can shoot a show for the BBC on HD CAM (not SR) cameras. Please bear with me as I’m new to this.
We haven’t had our contract through from the BBC yet, but point 1.1 on the BBC’s HD guidelines is that delivery has to be HDCAM SR, and that non-SR is no longer accepted.
Non-SR HD CAM is much more compressed than SR, and unless I misunderstand compression entirely, once you’ve compressed your picture, you won’t get that quality back. Or have I missed something?
So in order to deliver a full-quality HDCAM SR master, we have to shoot our footage on SR tapes. No?
Also, the AJA Ki Pro tapeless deck. The Ki Pro’s 4:2:2 recording, plugged into the HD SDI of a Sony HD camera (don’t know which one except that it’s a “900”, that’s all I’ve been told)- would that be better or worse than a (non-SR) HD CAM which is (I think) 3:1:1?
I’m cross-posting this in the HD High-End forum in the hope somebody can enlighten me, as, as you can tell, I haven’t got my head round this yet.
Stuart
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1 Reply
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[Stuart Bruce] “point 1.1 on the BBC’s HD guidelines is that delivery has to be HDCAM SR, and that non-SR is no longer accepted.”
Their spec says “delivery has to be HDCAM SR” NOT acquisition. The MAIN reason they want HDCAM SR is for all the audio tracks. When supplying masters on HDCAM there are only 4 audio channels but SR has 12. HDCAM’s had to be delivered with DA88 digital 8 track tapes with the audio split outs and/or 5.1 discrete channels but that can all be contained on a HDCAM SR.
Sure there is a higher video quality with SR but it is a real pain using it in acquisition due to the need to have camera/deck splits. Also, by the time the BBC has sent their programs to transmission points they have to compress it to fit it in the pipe BUT they still need the extra audio channels regardless of vision.
What I have done in the past was to create my master HDCAM and DA88 and send that off to a large post house to create a self contained HDCAM SR master. My next purchase is an SR deck but not in the near future.
Baz
What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!
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