Ideal equipment need to do Offline and get to Online a Varicam project

[Gary Adcock]

[Shane Dillon] “Final Cut Pro or Avid? any special cards? any Framerate convertors? A Panasonic 1200 deck or a 1700, or both?”

FCP seems to be the Offline tool of choice for Varicam users,
an FCP system with a Kona 2 card allow you to handle all of the frame rates available to the varicam at what ever compression you choose to use with out the need for the Panasonic Hardware FRC, which is pretty much required when working on Avid to access the Variable Frame Rate data correctly.

The 1200a deck is not a mastering deck and only supports 4 tracks of audio, the 1700 does vastly more (8 tracks audio – 1080|24 P output from a DVCProHD and access to longer tape stock)

If you do not need some of the bells and whistles on the 1700 – the 1200 is a fine deck.

Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA

[Shane Dillon]

Does the 1700 deck have a Firewire option for capturing to the FCP system?

And am I right in assuming that if I go down the FCP route I don’t need a Panasonic FRC?

And would I be working in SD for offlining on FCP, or am I forced to work in HD if I have variable frame rates?

Thanks again,

Shane

[Jeff Merritt]

Shane and all,

The AJ-HD1700 DVCPRO HD Studio VTR does not have firewire capability. If you want that you will need the AJ-HD1200A with the IEEE 1394 option board. Otherwise you’ll need the HD-SDI option board for the HD1200A and I’d suggest one of the HD Video cards for the MAC such as the KONA II.

As for frame rate conversion, if you “go the FCP route” you will not need the AJ-FRC27 Frame Rate Converter. Instead, down load the FRC software free from the Panasonic Web Site for the AJ-HD1200A into your MAC and you should be good to go. Also be sure you have the latest software version of FCP HD on your MAC.

I’m not quite sure why you need to do an offline in SD when the MAC is quite capable of doing that plus the online in HD. That’s one of the great things about the marriage of the DVCPRO HD and Final Cut Pro HD. Just be sure you ingest only the “flagged frames” so you don’t overload the drive memory. There are plenty of other posts on this site that addresses that issue.

Good luck on your project and we’d be happy to hear how it comes out.

Regards

Jeff Merritt
Product Line Business Manager
High Definition Products
Panasonic Broadcast
323-436-3676

[Gary Adcock]

[Shane Dillon] “Does the 1700 deck have a Firewire option for capturing to the FCP system?”
No, but the Kona 2 board can capture via SDI to the DVCProHD codec.

[Shane Dillon] “And would I be working in SD for offlining on FCP, or am I forced to work in HD if I have variable frame rates?”

Why? at 720p|24 the data rate for DVCProHD is is only 20% more than DV25. why bother dealing with TC slippage or poor quality.
I thought you said money was not an option. there is no reason to work “offline” in SD in when shooting 720p from the varicam, it is really just a waste of time and money.

Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA

[Gary Adcock]

[Shane Dillon] “Does the 1700 deck have a Firewire option for capturing to the FCP system?”
No, but the Kona 2 board can capture via SDI to the DVCProHD codec.

[Shane Dillon] “And would I be working in SD for offlining on FCP, or am I forced to work in HD if I have variable frame rates?”

Why? at 720p|24 the data rate for DVCProHD is is only 20% more than DV25. why bother dealing with TC slippage or poor quality.
I thought you said money was not an option. there is no reason to work “offline” in SD in when shooting 720p from the varicam, it is really just a waste of time and money.

Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA

[Shane Dillon]

So let me get this straight, you are saying always work in full HD, even for longform? and that it is only 20% bigger than DV25?

I know the format is heavily compressed, but can’t see how it is only 20% more. I know one uncompressed frame of 1280×720 should be around 2.7MB, so not only do you start to eat up storage quickly with alot of footage, the system can’t be as responsive.

I am not saying you are wrong, I just wanted to clarify things before making a new suite.

Shane

[John Sharaf]

Shane,

The “dirty little secret” of the Vaicam is that at 24p (when brought into a 24p FCP project by firewire) the origional bandwidth of 100mb (DVPRO100!) is reduced to 40% (or 40Mb) because only the flagged frames are brought in (40% of 60fps=24fps). This is 20% less than DVPRO50 (50Mb) and less than half of DigiBeta! The marvel is that it looks so good!

JS

[Gary Adcock]

[john sharaf] “he “dirty little secret” of the Vaicam is that at 24p (when brought into a 24p FCP project by firewire) the origional bandwidth of 100mb (DVPRO100!) is reduced to 40% (or 40Mb) because only the flagged frames are brought in (40% of 60fps=24fps). “

John – your not supposed to let the cat out of the bag.,.

Shane the other thing to consider is that the size of the files and amount of compression of the DVCProHD content is also dependent on the 960×720 frame size that is laid to tape for 720p material.
Even people like Walter Murch are saying that the 720p|24 compression is the best offline format for film he has ever worked in. < apple.com/pro/film/murch2/index.html>
Granted it was acquired as 35mm >1080p24 (D5 Master) > 720p24 and all of Jarhead was cut this manner.

Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA

[Shane Dillon]

Thanks for all the info!

Sounds that FCP is the only way to go for offline. But what about getting it to an online system with more/better tools? Is it best to output a file (like a quicktime) or playout the whole timeline to D5, use that as the source, and a cut list edl to provide edit marks for color grading?

[Gary Adcock]

[Shane Dillon] ” But what about getting it to an online system with more/better tools? Is it best to output a file (like a quicktime) or playout the whole timeline to D5, use that as the source, and a cut list edl to provide edit marks for color grading?”

The Quantel products are great and they accept FCP via Automatic Duck OMF export, Discreet products use XML direct from FCP.

Products like Silicon Color also allow for color grading on your Mac workstation via Kona, the XML files are sent direct to the grading then FCP reimports the data file and relinks the footage.

Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA