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Ingesting Offline Meda
Basically, I’d really like to ingest media from tape of any size (1080p 23.98, 720p 23.98, 1080i 59.94, NTSC, etc) having it captured to OfflineRT (or some 35% quality Photo JPEG) immediately (no transcoding after capture) edit with it, and online much later in ProRes.
I know there’s 100+ reasons why I wouldn’t want to do it this way but I’m really looking for some ideas/answers/experiences and people who have succeeded or have thoughts on how to succeed at it.
I work at a place that gets hundreds and hundreds of hours of UNfinished feature footage and interviews that we just have to cut with. We VERY RARELY go back to the same footage or even the same tape. So it really wouldn’t be a savings of time for us to cut with ProRes so we can finish quicker with ProRes. We really don’t use the same video. The stuff we ingest on day one has burn-ins and heavy compression whereas the stuff we online with on day 80 is pristine.
We come from HDCAM and DigiBeta. Sometimes even P2 and RED. We’ve got a mixed flow and a TON of media shared between a dozen editors. I’m more concerned with how folks are getting it in at an offline resolution on capture. Is this even possible?
I’ve experimented with the ioHD and the MXO2 and while both are amazing at handling the ProRes side, neither can help me get the capture in at my desired 320×240. The MXO2 will even go as far as letting me capture PhotoJPEG but it will only let me do it at the native dimension of the footage (1080p comes in at 1080p PhotoJPEG). This is nice to an extent but the real benefit would be the scaling too. The MXO2 will also scale within the same cadence (1080i 59.94 to NTSC) but it won’t go smaller than NTSC and definitely won’t let me go 1080p 23.98 to NTSC.
Any thoughts? Ideas? Anything you’ve experienced or hardware you’ve had luck with would be greatly appreciated!
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1 Reply
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Chris,
What you’re describing is EXACTLY our workflow. Has been for years. Our source material is typically Sony XDCAM HD, or DVCPRO HD, or HDCAMsr, or in the past SD. We almost always ingest the material at “Off-line RT” resolution and then do a conform of the locked picture. We use the “off-line RT” setting of 320 x 240. (or anamorphic if appropriate)
Depending on which input device you’re using (AJA, Matrox, etc.) there may also be a setting called “off-line RT HD” which retains the full pixel size. This is very helpful when handling alot of grfx since you don’t have to reposition anything when you get to high rez. I would think that you’d WANT to retain the original pixel size because of this very reason. If, however, you really do want the smaller dimensions, then the basic “off-line RT” setting should do the trick.
By the way, we also work with a large team of editors sharing tons of media. For bandwidth and storage reasons, we’re forced to use the classic “off-line to on-line” workflow. It has it’s advantages and disadvantages, and if you know how to play to it’s strengths, it can be an efficient way to work.
Good luck.
Mark
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