Ingesting HDCam to ProRes – Ques

[Walter Biscardi]

[Adrian Scherger] “Can anyone suggest an article that explains how to set the capture settings in FCP?”

You want a Capture Card such as the AJA Kona series to do this. They convert HD-SDI material to ProRes in realtime during ingest. I would not suggest the Firewire port for this.

[Adrian Scherger] “Ques #2: All the footage is shot in front of Chroma Key Blue background. Is Apple ProRes a good format to key out this blue. (Besides uncompressed 8 bit)
“

Uncompressed will always yield the cleanest keys over any compressed format. If it’s shot in HDCAM I would capture 8bit Uncompressed and key that.

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

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[Gary Adcock]

[Adrian Scherger] “however never with an HDCam Deck. Can I use a Sony J-H3 deck via firewire? “

The FW port is only SD on the JH3. Sony does not support capture over FW with the pro formats with there tools. You will need to capture via HDSDI. All of the leaders here use Kona Cards.

[Adrian Scherger] “Is Apple ProRes a good format to key out this blue”

I have had no issues Keying with FCP, My only concern is the if this was shot on Video- Blue is the worst color to have used to key since it carries all of the compression noise.
Video is traditionally shot greenscreen for that reason.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
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[Adrian Scherger]

Sweet! Thanks for the advice. This is the first time I’ve used these forum and this is great.

I got hooked up with a edit bay with an AJA interface, so that’s good. With regards to the blue, the past shoot was shot in front of green and there was alot of spill onto the white skin of the talent so the producer went with blue this time. I’ll be keying in AE and there are alot of light shadows but hopefully it will be alright.

Thanks again!

Adrian

[Adrian Scherger]

Thanks Walter.

Got a hold of an AJA Kona interface. Since I’m digitizing part of about 30 HDCam tapes, I’ll half to use ProRes for disk space. Hopefully that will provide a good key.

Thanks!

Adrian