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Need advice on 4.4.4
Hello,
I edit using a Z800 workstation by HP with 12Gb of ram and 2 Intel QC 2.4Ghz processors. There is an AJA Xena LHi installed on the system and Cineform Prospect HD as well. I am somewhat new to the Premiere suite as I recently switched over from the Newtek product line. I am in the process of working on a new childrens television series that is based around a soon to come feature length animated film. The movie will be in theaters in April and the show will release at the same time.
My question: I just got the master tape of the movie which is on a HDCAM SR tape in 1080p 24fps with RGB444 and 5.1 surround. This is much different than my HDV footage of the rest of the program you can imagine. In addition, I’m sure you guessed that I don’t have an HDCAM SR deck (safe to guess since I am shooting in HDV). I am taking it to a company to get the footage from the tape to harddrive. I want to maintain the highest quality that I can. However, I am slightly concerned that I will bog down my system with the 444. I was going to have them digitize it to an uncompressed mov file because they are telling me that is the best way. WHAT DO I DO? Would it be in my interest to have them convert it to 442? Should I have them go to a different codec than uncompressed mov?
I had also asked if they could give me an HDV tape version (I understand this is a far lesser quality but it would be wise for me to have some sort of hard copy to go back to that I can actually use) and/or a blueray disc. Not too sure what happens to the surround sound in this scenario.
I need to get the tape back to the owner and I need to get the right stuff from it while I have it. PLEASE give me your advice.
Josh
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4 Replies
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Can your disk system handle uncompressed HD? (this requires an array). Otherwise you should pick out a compressed codec that you can edit with that has high quality (Cineform, DVCPRO HD, I-frame MPEG2, etc.). You could get the uncompressed file from the outside production facility and convert to the more editable format in Premiere. I wouldn’t worry about losing 4:4:4 quality unless you are printing to film. Any type of broadcast or DVD (available to consumers) will only utilize 4:2:2.
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CineForm has a 4:4:4 RGB codec that actually tests out slightly batter than HDcamSR…
The question is what the material is destined for… RGB 4:4:4 is not television color space (the material was likely shot for theatrical release?), and you will have some illegal colors for Rec 709.
I would opt for CineForm Y’CbCr 4:2:2 myself…
As Eric stated, you’re in array territory…BIG array territory with 4:4:4 RGB uncompressed (8 bit RGBA or 10 bit RGB). You’ll need to make about 260 MegaBYTES (over 2 Gigabits/s…HDV is 25 Megabits/s) per second throughput with no effects or color correction…that’s one stream.
An hour will take about 900 GBytes of storage…and with data this huge and drive speed being this critical, you’ll need an array you can keep under 2/3rds full to ensure that fragmentation doesn’t torpedo your data rate.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
OK, So if I convert the 444 file down to 422, are we still talking about the same file size issues and array needs or would an external esata drive suffice? This is just going to television.
Also, is uncompressed .mov the file type that I am wanting or would an avi be better for adobe?
Joshua Weiss
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I assume you’re having enough issues with CineForm that you don’t want that?
I’ve also had good luck with ProRes files…You can’t encode a master to ProRes, but you can edit it on a PC without much fuss.
…it would run better than uncompressed…even Y’CbCr.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,
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