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ioHD…a few feature wishes
Hello
I’ve owned an ‘ioHD’ unit since they first came on the market here in the UK back in November 2007. Each update has enabled extra control and useful additions and as I based my whole post production workflow in SD and HD on Apple ProRes422 (HQ) it has worked very well for me.
Inevitably a personal wish list has developed of features I would like the ‘ioHD” to offer and I am also curious about the wish lists others may have for this piece of hardware.
Top of my own wish list is I would love a vertical scrolling control when up-converting 4:3 video to 16:9 HD video (or even aspect ratio correcting to 16:9 SD). I really find the current options very useful but it would be nice, say for example on a 4:3 interview shot to be able to vertically move up and down the areas that are being cropped off to reframe the shot so for example the top part of the interviewees head is not cropped. (I have reframed 4:3 shots previously before owning an ‘ioHD’ using a Snell & Wilcox ARC unit). Just a bit of vertical scrolling would be a nice and very useful feature.
My second big wish would to be able to output a video preview from Adobe Photoshop through the ‘ioHD’ unit. At present only an SD Firewire output is available for video preview from Photoshop (on my system). When I used to use a ‘Bluefish444 SD Envy’ capture card on my old edit system I could get video previews in full quality (better than DV) from Photoshop and I now miss being able to view images I’m working on for video on a video monitor (Previously I was able see how the colours looked on video and any aliasing issues immediately). I’ve just started doing some work on video images in Photoshop CS4 extended and a live video preview through the ‘ioHD’ would be a great feature for this work.
For me those two additions would enhance an already useful piece of equipment but maybe my wishes are too complex or costly to implement or may show up in some future piece of equipment.
Ged Yeates (Scotland)
Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman
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4 Replies
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[Ged Yeates] “I really find the current options very useful but it would be nice, say for example on a 4:3 interview shot to be able to vertically move up and down the areas that are being cropped off to reframe the shot so for example the top part of the interviewees head is not cropped. “
Why wouldn’t you just do this in the timeline?
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Hello Jeremy
I have attempted to do the aspect ratio changes in the timeline but the resulting video is always poorer quality than doing it using hardware.
Also, the BBc and other UK broadcasters have now specified that up-converted SD video or aspect ratio converted in SD is not acceptable from software and should be converted using a broadcast quality hardware solution.
I’ll admit I got into all of this in a rather involved way on a recent edit involving a lot of archive material shot on Beta SP and I have tried out just about every way of converting I had on my system from timeline renders through various software solutions the best of which was ‘Resizer’ from Digital Anarchy. However the up-conversions and aspect ratio changes from the ‘ioHD’ always looked better.
The other reason I prefer to do it using the ‘ioHD’ is it can be done in real time whilst digitising video saving quite a bit of time later.
But the bottom line is the BBC’s demands for hardware conversions when up-converting from SD to HD
Ged Yeates (Scotland)
Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman
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[Ged Yeates] “The other reason I prefer to do it using the ‘ioHD’ is it can be done in real time whilst digitising video saving quite a bit of time later. “
I hear that, but you can capture an upconverted pillarboxed version and do the ARC in the timeline. Pretty easy.
Jeremy
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Hello jeremy
You wrote: ‘I hear that, but you can capture an upconverted pillarboxed version and do the ARC in the timeline. Pretty easy. ‘
I must be honest and admit I’ve never tried it that way. I’ll definitely give that method a go.
Thanks – Ged Yeates (Scotland)
Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman
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