Online Edit for Mini-DV Short film: Options for Finishing/Mastering?

[Nick Brenner]

Okay this is what I did with a documentary for ABCTV here in Australia and you can follow the same process and save yourself $. The footage was captured via firewire like you and cut in FCP. I then media managed the footage down to a Firewire HD and carried this to https://www.digitalpictures.com.au who had just set up a FCP online system. They wanted me to use thier Symphony and redigitise it all etc from EDL but I had no interest in this. I took in the HD they copied the files across to their large SCSI raid, opened my project then selected the timeline to be 10 Bit Uncompressed and this then uprezzed all my footage and made titles, compositing at full resolution. This process took about an hour or so (1/2 hour doco. Then we checked the footage by playing the timeline, watched the external scopes etc. Then mastered to Digibeta. The digibeta was then taken across to their DaVinci suite for a beautiful colour grade. Saved heaps of $ and it looked great. The online company was crying at the fact they didn’t get a day or so out of me for online charges (deck hire plus suite charges). How much would this have cost taking an EDL into Symphony and redigesting about 40 tapes – heaps.
Ask here or look for a place in your local area with FCP online, digibeta and whatever else you need. Heck google. I went to one of the biggest post houses in Australia and it went smooth and was master was tech checked. Going into DaVinci was expensive but worth it.
cheers Nick

docofilms PAL 25fps

[Nate]

I just helped a client get her DV (jvc500) and HD (varicam) to the Miami film festival, where it played to a full house to critical aclaim. We have been told that you can’t color correct with FCP, we have been told that you can’t mix HD and Dv footage.. She did. Because of opportunity or circumstances beyond her control, part of her movie ws shot with a Jvc500 and part with a Varicam. Her Varicam footage was sent to people In DC to bump down to DV so she could off line her edit in her den on her dual gig Quicksilver. Whoever did the conversion HD to Dv was not watching their scopes and settings and Both (yes twice) versions of HD to Dv where wacked out, to much saturation, not enough gamma etc. But it still allowed her to finish her edit and bring over her FCP#3 project folder and her hard drives (4 Lacies). And yes we color corrected with FCP#4 HD and onlined her edit with a noncompressed Targa YUV (betacam SP) timeline (festivals require a Betacam SP master for playback). In the Targa YUV time line her DV graphics reset themselves as noncompressed and looked great. Her DV footage was to hot (duh) and her Varicam-DV was to saturated. She had a lot off dark party scenes and outside full sun and full color rose gardens. Both ends of your D-log curve. And yes we made it look good on those Betacam Sp masters, because we used the real time capabilities of the Cinewave RT Pro card. Realtime three way color correcting in FCP 4HD really works great if you got the rest of the hardware. But here is our secret, realtime.. yes realtime YUV Targa timeline out the back of the Cinewave RT Pro card YUV to Betacam SP UVW1800.. The rest of the secret is don’t render. For some reason each time we rendered 2 hours 6 minutes of color correction our black levels (gamma) got smashed/smushed just basically disappeared. Any luminance level between 7.5 IRE and 0 IRE smushed down towaqrds the 0 IRE level. So don’t render it, play it realtime thru a Cinewave RT Pro card using FCP4 HD and it will look georgeous and sell tickets. And this, me thinks, is the dirty little secret that big daddy, Avid, understands. And is why Avid bought Pinnacle and the Cinewave card. The card that knocked 60% of the value out of the Avid Symphony and like who needs a yearly maintenance fee, yuk..

Need more details, look up “Mrs Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing” you will be reading about it sooner or later. or email me, nate@Tvsvpro.com …. http://www.tvsvpro.com

[Pdr]

Hi Nick

I hope this doesn’t sound stupid, but if all of your footage was shot on DV and captured using DV codec, how would remastering at a higher definition format make it look any better? I thought that once something was shot at a certain codec, there was no point in trying to upscale it because the data (ie. colour, light, definition etc.) was never even captured in the first place.

And if you transfer all of your media, which is encoded in DV format, to a higher definition workspace, won’t that workspace still be constrained to working within the limits of DV?

How does it get better? Please describe the improvements.

Regards
Peter

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Peter Dominic Ryan – Freelance Editor
raycity* media – pdr@raycity.com

[Trevor]

Wow, thanks Nick – that idea is brilliant. Never even thought of that. That will save both time and money and makes me feel really good about posting this. Appreciate it much.

-Trevor

[Nick Price]

Hi Trevor,
all these suggestions work fine. The simple fact is that your DV wont look any better than you are looking at it at the moment, (not takign into account telecine of course!), but you are right that the titles will look a bit rubbish. Nicks suggestion is the best for the money.
As for your edl, export edls of all your timelines, then your can renest them in Avid, or just take the sequence for a FCP online. i cant remember why you said you nested, but perhaps just copy and paste the sequences in rather than nest them?
Facilities kind of depends on where you are! Here in london, Digital Heaven in Hammersmith have a good reputation for FCP, and there is one in Vauxhall too.
or if you want to email me we migth be able to fit you in our suite in Twickenham, although you might have to work round us. We use FCP4.5 and an AJA IO (for all your uncompressed needs).
cheers
Nick
nick@evanswoolfe.com

[Nick Price]

….oh and fades and slo-mos should show up in an edl. You can have a look at your edl to check. Open in in text edit or word. it is just a list of numbers and clips, but do duplicate it first in case you alter it in any way. The paragraph formating is important when importing it!

The online computer will need the fonts, but only if they are unusual. I would take them with you just in case.

nick p

[Nick Brenner]

Dear Peter,
As to DV codec question, doing all your titles and graphics in 10 bit space will look much better. With layering of DV clips it is far nicer if these are then rendered to 10 bit than recrushed down to 5-1 DV compression.
cheers Nick

docofilms PAL 25fps

[Pdr]

Hey Nick

I guess when one considers the amount of rendering required as a percentage of the total sequence timeline, with titles, compositing, filters and effects, conversion to 10-bit prior to mastering allows a lot more headroom for the rendered frames ie. a significant amount of the sequence, and also more space for colour correction.

Is this your argument? If so, I can see its merits.

Thanks for elaborating.

Regards
Peter

—
Peter Dominic Ryan – Freelance Editor
raycity* media – pdr@raycity.com