Kona LHe -which codec for HDCAM?

[Ron Humer]

Jeremy,
Like I said the project is complicated…. It seems that I need to explain the whole project… I plan to offline the project on a macbook pro with firewire 800 drive on the set of the shoot for 3 days, get client sign off and then fly back to the studio to do the online. We are shooting 50 minutes of green screen that I plan to go to an online room to pull the key and composite with an animated background and then re master to tape. I’m going to take that tape (timecoded selects) back to FCP hi rez and intercut with animation files from after effects.
So I’m trying to be efficient and make the online as stable as possible. I will work in dvcpro HD as long as I can master back to HDCAM tape for delivery.

If you see anything that could be more efficient in my process, please let me know.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Ron

[Ron Humer]

[editology] “The specs for sending the dv cam tape to cine media digital solutions is that it is 1920 square.”

This is a total mismatch of information. DV Cam is no way 1920×1080 square. DVcam is 720×480. SO, I assume you mean HD Cam.

MY BAD. THAT’S WHAT I MEANT… HDCAM TAPE. Just stressed out trying to understand this by tomorrow.

Ron

[Ron Humer]

Please don’t give up on me…. Just need to understand it….

thanks…
Ron

[Jeremy Garchow]

Alright, now we are getting somewhere.

You aren’t planning to pull the key on set are you? Why go to an online room to pull the key? Can you afford that? Do you have any experience pulling a key?

First big question, how are you planning on capturing HD-Cam to a laptop?

I’ll make some assumptions here. I assume that you will not pull the key on set and that you will be cutting strictly for content.

You can do that on a fw800 drive and DVCPro HD (a raid0 sata would be more ideal) as long as you are going to have the deck and FW800 drive on separate busses. You will need to FW800 express34 card. (again sata would be better/faster).

Cut your content on set and fly home to your studio to recapture the HDCam green screen as uncompressed. Then take that cut into AE for green screen (or pull the key using Boris Continuum COmplete and no I’m not kidding) and do your compositing.

If you go the route of the online room, then I guess your budget is large. You can do that too. In that case, you can still cut for content in DVCPRo HD, and then simply export an xml or EDL for the online room and away you go. I would not try to pull the key using DVCPro HD, but nothing short of 10bit uncompressed.

Jeremy

[Ron Humer]

Thanks for responding….

So many details…
I am bringing a dsr 45 to record to dv cam out of the Sony 900 Cinealta camera via composite to cut an offline. Unfortunately we are not shooting in a studio set but on location in a ballroom.

I didn’t plan to do HD on the labtop. I want to make sure that I can be stable in front of the client. They don’t need to approve the cut in HD…

I am taking an edl to the online room for 2 hours for only a grand to finish the green screen work–rather than spending a day rendering and tweeking the chroma keys over 2 days time. (estimated in AE)
–don’t know Boris Continuum…

So I will actually concentrate on the 80 pages of Powerpoint that needs to be converted to full screen and overlays in HD….

catch my drift now.
thanks,
Ron

[Jeremy Garchow]

Wow. Yeah, explaining this totally upfront would have helped a lot. Workflow is ALL about the details.

So you are going to do your offline in DV with a DSR45. You are going to need to jam sync tc from the camera to the deck. You get how to do that, correct?

2 hours of green screen work for a 50 minute timeline? Hmm, hope that goes as planned.

This will all depend on if you can jam sync your HdCam source tapes to the DVCam offline tapes. If you can’t do this, it will make the online pretty tough.

[editology] “So I will actually concentrate on the 80 pages of Powerpoint that needs to be converted to full screen and overlays in HD…. “

Sounds like fun. I would still suggest once you get your composited HDCam tapes from the online session, to capture to the DVCPRo HD codec. Edit, render, edit, render, tweak , edit edit edit, then when you are done, recapture everything uncompressed for your final graphics render and any cc you might need to. You are shooting @ 29.97 correct?

[Ron Humer]

Timecode. Yes. of coarse. bnc to bnc. easy. As a backup, I can also sync them to time of day.

Yes. Shooting 29.97.

It seems a waste to edit in dvcpro when all that I need to do is dig the selects and edit with other hi rez animations….

So I am to summize that everybody that works with HDCAM, onlines with 8 or 10 bit uncompressed?

thanks for your help… done for tonight … pickup tomorrow.

Ron

[Jeremy Garchow]

[editology] “Timecode. Yes. of coarse. bnc to bnc. easy. As a backup, I can also sync them to time of day.”

Cool, just making sure, some people don’t understand.

[editology] “It seems a waste to edit in dvcpro when all that I need to do is dig the selects and edit with other hi rez animations….”

How so?

[editology] “So I am to summize that everybody that works with HDCAM, onlines with 8 or 10 bit uncompressed?”

I am sure there are people that stick with DVCPro HD because it is good enough for them. I always try to move to 10 bit uncompressed (some jobs I don’t, but they are rare). THere has been many discussions (and arguments) about whether or not 10 bit is necessary. I find it that it makes better pictures and graphics so I stick with it. It is not easy, it causes some problems, the work takes longer and you need the bandwidth to do it (most importantly a fast Fibre channel raid). If you are doing heavy green screen and compositing, I don’t see any other option than 10 bit uncompressed, but perhaps DVC Pro HD is good enough for you, it’s up to you and your budget, client, equipment and patience.