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HDV, ProRes, and others
Hello Everyone,
I’m new here and this is my first post!
My story:
I have been editing my project for some time and is close to the finishing of it (will do sound mixing and color correction after this).
This project is shot with Sony HDV Z1 and was captured with HDV camcorder and edit with FCP 5.0.4 and 2.5GHz Power PC G5. (So that means I edited it natively??) And this is my first time working with HDV.
While I was editing my film, I found my images sometimes were not satisfactory (when moving frame by frame, squares like mosaic appeared in high-speed footages or dark footages) and sometimes when i stacked several video tracks, the quality declined… My project involves some compositing effects too…
Well anyway all this pushed me to be eager to know more about the quality of HDV and how my film will look like. So I did some search and found some info about HDV’s weakness like GOP and 4:2:0… And I guess maybe the issues I had has to do with GOP….
And then, all of a sudden, I found the info on the possible improvement about FCP 6 and ProRes…. It seems it’s been discussed a lot but there are things I’d like still to make sure..
So my questions are like:
1) If I get myself FCP 6 (I can urge school), and from what I have read, I only need to copy my finished editing to a new sequence set to be rendered in ProRes, and I’ll get improvement on the quality of the images, as well as the compositing effects, subtitles, color, etc… Am I right?? Are the differences big?
2) But I have rendered everything already, so does that mean FCP will render it again? (So there’ll be 2 sets of rendering files and I have to free up more disc space?)
3) I’ve read some people capture HDV in ProRes codec before editing. But you need a capture card which we don’t have at school. Also in terms of my situation (I nearly finish my editing), it does not seem feasible to do. But does this really further improve anything (as opposed to editing natively and just set a ProRes rendered sequence)??
4) Since HDV handle badly with color, so after I finished editing and all the effects handling, I render the sequence in ProRes. And next I go color correction. is this order right?? If my present condition only allows me to correct color with built-in filters that FCP offers, is the order still the same? Or I do everything with FCP first (effectss, subtitles, colors) and render them in ProRes?? (or are there any other good and economical choices in color correction?)
5) After all this, what’re the best output choices for me? This film might get a film print. But it’s not sure yet. Before that, what’re the best possible outputs? (especially if the ProRes workflow works, also considering a possibility of film print, could be considered seperately of course) Digital Betacam maybe? (This project is aimed to be screened in theatres in film festivals)
Thanks for anyone who reads this post. Just found out some solutions and hoping I assume it right and that this would work out! Sorry for so many questions in a row… Any thoughts are apprieciated!! Thank you!!!
bryan
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3 Replies
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First, let me say…. Its great that you are learning this in school.
[vallier] “While I was editing my film, I found my images sometimes were not satisfactory (when moving frame by frame, squares like mosaic appeared in high-speed footages or dark footages) and sometimes when i stacked several video tracks, the quality declined… My project involves some compositing effects too… “
This is a product of the HDV codec. Its great for acquisition but NOT for editing and compositing. Sony techs will be the first to say that HDV is a transport format, not an editable format. Sony didn’t intend on this from the start. It just ended up that way later.
[vallier] “1) If I get myself FCP 6 (I can urge school), and from what I have read, I only need to copy my finished editing to a new sequence set to be rendered in ProRes, and I’ll get improvement on the quality of the images, as well as the compositing effects, subtitles, color, etc… Am I right?? Are the differences big?
“FCP6 and PreRes422 will help with these issues since its close to uncompressed as you can get.
[vallier] “3) I’ve read some people capture HDV in ProRes codec before editing. But you need a capture card which we don’t have at school. Also in terms of my situation (I nearly finish my editing), it does not seem feasible to do. But does this really further improve anything (as opposed to editing natively and just set a ProRes rendered sequence)?? “
This is the ONLY way to avoid your issue with the mosaic pattern that you are seeing
.[vallier] “5) After all this, what’re the best output choices for me? This film might get a film print. But it’s not sure yet. Before that, what’re the best possible outputs? (especially if the ProRes workflow works, also considering a possibility of film print, could be considered seperately of course) Digital Betacam maybe? (This project is aimed to be screened in theatres in film festivals)
“This all depends…. Did you shoot 60i? or did you use the Cineframe30? Hopefully, you didn’t shoot Cineframe24 becasue this will give you your mosaic pattern that you speak of, and if you did, nothing can be done about this except reshoot those scenes in 60i and convert to 24p with something like the Nattress Film Filters.
If you don’t have a capture card, your only avenue for output would be HDV or DVCProHD if you have a deck to use (which will introduce a whole new set of problems for you).
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey -
Hello
Thank you Wayne for answering my questions!
First of all, the webmaster moved my thread to basic forum. So I don’t know why we have it here too. Anyone who is interested please visit https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/200/875464 to add comment, thank you!!!
I just replied to that thread. My main question now is if re-capture really helps anything. Now 3 users replying to my thread all suggested so. But I saw people urge to capture and edit natively and then render in ProRes, either in other threads here or in other forums. So I was very curious.
And we shot in 60i.
Please visit https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/200/875464 to add comment or reply. Thanks!!!!
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sorry
it should be https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/200/875463
thank you!
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