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Need advice, editing in 1080p
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This is all very true.
BUT if you read her post carefully they want to keep this round “affordable.” You can’t go back and recapture uncompressed HD without spending a fat chunk of $$ on an ultra fast RAID. In the practical world, DVCPRO-HD from HDCAM will look stunning and be completely acceptable.
If you’re not going back to film, doing effects work, doing crazy color correction, or are otherwise working with clients who can’t afford a full blown HD finish to being with – you can make this tradeoff in codec and get results that will make you pleasantly surprised. Like Walter Biscadi is always saying – they work in DV-HD all day long and their clients and the networks are extremely happy with the finished product. If we could all afford it, we’d do 10 bit 1080 4:4:4 on a daily basis…
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I have now delivered TWO shows that were shot DVCPRO HD 720p24 and delivered 1080p 23.98 HDCAM. And a third is on the horizon. This is a very viable workflow and garners great results.
And I don’t have a too terribly expensive RAID. Started out as 4 drives installed internally on my G5 with the aid of popsicle sticks, but now I have moved them to an external case. 2.5TB for under $2000 and I can get transfer speeds up to 300MB/s.
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
Our client wants the master program final output to go back to HDCAM 1080p 23.98. So, after all this, we’ve decided to request the film transfer house to create a digital clone from the HDCAM tapes to DVCAM. Then I will do the offline in SD –do a pulldown to 23.98 fps–and then online it at a facility that has HDCAM capabilities. Do you, or anyone have recommendations of what software would be best to pulldown the DVCAM 29.97 to 23.98? Will Cinema Tools be sufficient? Are there any loop holes I might be missing with this plan of action?
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I would consider capturing in Photo-JPEG. Blackmagic cards come with Easy Setups for this, including 1080psf 24. You maintain the full 1920×1080 (DVCPro cuts it down to 1280×1080), and the compression quality is better. Practically lossless. And the datarate is about the same as DVCPro HD so it should work on your FW800 drive.
The downside is you won’t have RT effects (there is a hack but I won’t get into that here). So this is a good onlining solution but not for offline editing that requires effects and/or multiple video layers. But if you want maximum RT performence you should be doing your offline editing in SD anyways.
The only reason to do your online edit in DVCPro HD is if your source tapes are that format (which they are not), or if you intend to master to that format (which normally you wouldn’t). For an HDCam/D5 -> HDCam/D5 project, DVCproHD doesn’t really fit in that equation unless you need to be able to show your offline work to the client in HD.
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Affordable is a relative term, especially with regards to HD. If the client is shooting 35mm, doing a telecine to HDCAM or D5, and wants the best deliverable that will hold up for a few years, then spending some $$ at the end to recapture from the HDCAM/D5 masters might be worth it and covered by their budget. We actually don’t know a lot about the actual project – is it a 2 hour feature or a 30 second commercial? What are the potential downstream deliverables? These all would factor into what is reasonable and affordable. We don’t know even know what their actual budget is.
[CharlieX2] “In the practical world, DVCPRO-HD from HDCAM will look stunning and be completely acceptable. “
I agree with this statement. And as you mentioned in your previous post, if $$ are an issue, with telecine to HDCAM or D5 (heck they have the 35mm negatives), they can always go back to a much higher quality master if necessary.
My point was that DVCProHD is not the same as uncompressed HD, which is separate from whether it’s “good enough” or “completely acceptable”. The purpose of the information I posted was to provide additional data for the OP to use in making her decision. They should probably do a test of some footage between DVCProHD vs. HDCAM and view it on a high-end HD monitor before making their decision.
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Hi Krisi,
check out http://www.nattress.com, he has a Standards Conversion plug-in that might meet your needs. You could also to a search here on the Cow. From a quick search I found this interesting thread – it outlines a couple of ways of doing it:
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Cinema Tools will be all you need. I used this same HDCAM to DVCAM offline workflow for a HDCam feature I edited. No problems at the online.
CHL
Chi-Ho Lee
Film & Video Editor
Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Trainer
http://www.chiholee.com
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