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Offline SD to Online HD workflow question:
Hello there,
I’m still quite new to the HD world, and am wondering if I can get some preliminary advice from those of you who’ve been offlining and onlining with different formats.
I’ve got a 13-episode half-hour documentary TV series coming up, which our company MAY be shooting on HD. In the past we’ve always done it on SD, so doing it on HD will be opening a whole new can of bean-worms.
For the series, there will be several different freelance editors, none of which are equipped to capture or store HD, so we’re thinking about doing the offlines from DVCAM dubs of the HD tapes in several other suites with other editors, and then onlining here in my suite.
Details:
– The show will be shot with the Panasonic Varicam at 720p, on the 24 fps setting
– I’ll be capturing the footage for the offline at 720p 23.98 DVCPro HD
– Kona2 capture card
– Dual 2 GHz G5
– FCP 5.0.4
– 5.5 GB DDR SDRAM
– 4 Medea 500 GB G-RAID’s (2 striped together into a pair, and the other 2 independent.)I’ve been working on a few projects recently shot the same way, but they’re much smaller- 5 to 10 minutes each- so I have been able to take them in at full-res and don’t have to worry about offline/online.
My tentative plan is to:
1. Make dubs of the raw HD shoot tapes to DVCAM from the Panasonic 1200A deck to my DSR-1800 DVCAM deck
2. Give them to the other editors to offline
3. Get the FCP project files from the other editors when they’re finished the offlines
4. Re-capture from the original HD tapes and onlineQuestions:
1. Can I downconvert on the fly from the 1200A straight to the DSR-1800 and keep some sort of timecode reference for when we go back to the HD tapes for the online?
2. If so…is that done with one or several menu settings wihtin the 1200A deck?
3. Will I have to set some sort of offset for the online re-capture in order to make up for the timecode difference because of the dubs from HD to SD?
4. How will the 23.98 vs. 29.97 frame rate come into play to bring my inevitable demise (a bit pessimistic, maybe…but I’m a bit nervous)or finally…
5. Is there a simpler way to go about the whole thing that I haven’t yet considered?
Thanks a lot for any tips, advice, suggestions,
Joni -
3 Replies
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What is your requirement for a delivery master? D5?
It really works great to capture your footage at the DVCPRO HD resolution…it doesn’t take up all that much room. Then when you are done, you can output uncompressed HD thru the Kona…unconverting on the fly.
That is what I am doing.
Shane Ross
Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net -
Like Shane says, you should really consider capturing to the 720p24 DVCPro HD codec. The data rate is just less than twice of DV, it calculates out to be about 6 MB/sec.
The timecode on Varicam is still based on 30fps timecode, not 24fps timecode, so you’re fine there. Is this piece graphics intensive? If it is then you can consider at the very end, to redig at uncompressed 8 or 10 bit HD to help out your graphics.
Do you have an HD monitor?
What’s bean worm? 🙂
Here’s a handy and free data calculator so you can figure out or at least get a sense how much space you’ll consume:
https://www.aja.com/ajashare/AJA_Data_Rate_Calculator_v1.1.1.app.zip
You can figure out how much it’ll be in dv and how much it’ll be in DVCPROHD and uncompressed HD and then compare/contrast/discuss/noodle on the differences.
If you want to do an SD offline, then you can capture in the DV codec out of the SD-SDI of the 1200a.
Jeremy
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G5 Dual 2Ghz <> 4GB RAM <> FCP 5.04 <> Kona 2
ATTO 42XS <> Huge Systems 4105 Fibre
OS 10.4.2 <> QT 7.0.3 -
Thanks Shane, Jeremy,
I’ll be capturing all my footage at DCVPro HD, the only problem is the other editors don’t have HD decks, and my suite is in use pretty much around the clock so I can’t lend them my 1200A or have them capture here to external drives. I really don’t want to do an SD offline, but should it come down to that I need to figure out a way for the other guys to get the footage into their machines. Maybe we’ll rent a second 1200A and work out a sharing system. Seems the easiest method.
Thanks for the clarification about the Varicam timecode being based on 30, not 24. I think I should have realized that…ug.
The show isn’t really graphics intensive so I’m not too worried about having to redig at uncompressed 8 or 10-bit.
[JeremyG] “Do you have an HD monitor?”
Currently I’m working with an Apple Cinema HD Display, and viewing on an external 42 inch Panasonic plasma screen, and doing my color-correcting on a standard Sony 14 inch NTSC CRT monitor. I’ve got a Panasonic external HD monitor on order which I’ve heard is pretty good.
Bean-worms: An undesireable can to open up.
Thanks again,
Joni
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