Online edit – worth the extra time?

[Chris Bové]

I think 2:1 would be fine. We deliver it to PBS national all the time.

I’m in your same boat – 6 year old Media Composer and a fresh new Adrenaline in the next room. I haven’t however, seen a difference with the naked eye between 1:1 and 2:1 when it comes to broadcasting a show. Since the signal is compressed a bit anyway, it muddies them both up equally. Where I’ve seen the most dramatic difference is when tape duplication and backups come into play. 1:1 holds its integrity a bit better.

Engineering-wise, some people are actually sacrificing their system’s capability to do 1:1 because of its inflexibility where Avid media drives are concerned. Drives can be striped a certain way that eliminates 1:1 as an option, so it allows you to replace a dead media drive mid-project. If a drive dies on a 1:1 project, you have to replace the drive and restripe them all, thus losing everything.

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[Ryan]

The quality difference would be negligible as already stated. As for the CBC, I work for them and can tell you that that difference won’t be an issue.

Ryan

[Charley King]

One of the most popular digital recordings today is Digi-Beta, and it records 2:1. Anyone should accept a 2:1 compression if everything else is correct.
Worry more about video and audio levels than compression ratios.

Charlie

[Nina]

Thanks guys. Good to get the perspective. One of our senior editors told me to do it, but I think he was thinking effects capability – and I doubt I’ll use too many fx. Cheers!

[Dennis Kutchera]

You guys are missing an important point of online that has been vastly improved with Adrenaline – colour grading. Online is all about quality control. The bar has been raised since 1999 with the colour correction that is now readily available in most editors. Even if you never throw one effect on the show, without the more recent Avid software, you will not be able to remove colour casts, match cameras or re-balance the image, never mind make it more beautiful. CBC does QC the tapes for colour balance and quality. Compression, unless artifacting is not relevant, but video levels and colour is important. Your senior editor is senior for a reason – EXPERIENCE. He is right. All you guys telling her to not do an online are dead wrong. There is more to an online than 1:1.

If you ever need a good colourist to sweeten your images, give me a call.

Best Regards,

Dennis Kutchera
Avid COW

[Chris Bové]

Nina,
Dennis is right. Sorry, I completely glossed over your colour correction statement. The Adrenaline’s CC capabilities are terrific. Make sure that you have your engineers set up the Adrenaline’s Client Monitor as best as possible before you eyeball anything. Also, while the buttons for automatic adjustments (auto-contrast, etc) are great for when you’re in a pinch, nothing beats the manual operation of scopes and a good eye… and absolutely nothing beats hiring a pro.

Definitely push for the online time.

Question for Dennis:
Is the colour correction on Media Composer’s version 12 now the same as the Adrenaline’s? If Nina’s system could handle it physically, perhaps she could just upgrade.

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[Charley King]

Nina,
Dennis said whjat I said, he just said it better. More important than compression is quality of color, video, and audio levels.

Charlie

[Dennis Kutchera]

Version 12 is the same, but only 8 bit. But it is more complicated than software. It requires Meridien III boards and she likely has Meridien I. It also requires a new CPU – Compaq EVO W8000 if you have a Genie DVE board. Good luck finding one. If you are prepared to buy the Mercedes DVE board, then you can use an HP XW8000, which is also out of production. And there is a danger that the system will work very poorly after the upgrade. Mine did and I sent it all back.

Also, colour correction is not learned overnight. Forget about the “one step” auto correction. If a picture is bad, it makes it worse. It already has to be near perfect for auto correction to work.

Best Regards,

Dennis Kutchera
Avid COW

[Ryan]

If cost is not an issue then it is worth your time. CBC doesn’t check for colour balance. We line to bars and unless it looks like absolute garbage. We don’t adjust. The main things we look for are white balance and black balance. And just for your info, CBC black is 0 IRE not 7.5.

Ryan

[Nina]

This is funny. Once again, thanks for the input – on the other side of the argument today!

I think in the end I will decide once I see the footage and see how much colour correction it needs. The majority of the footage is archival, except for an on-camera host who’s been shot in front of a green screen. There will be no matching cameras, and the old stuff is probably OK to look a little ugly.

However, I’m leaving the door open to do an online – I’ve mentioned it to the producers and put an email in to our engineering company to see how much it would be to rent drives and re-calibrate our craptastic monitors with no manual controls (grrr.) If it’s expensive, I won’t be allowed to do an online anyway. I’m OK to read scopes and colour correct – I learned from a cinematographer on a Final Cut suite, and the Adrenaline controls look pretty similar.

Thanks for the heads-up on 0 IRE – it didn’t say anything about that in the tech specs packet they sent. I’m going to call Documentary Specials on Monday and try to get somebody technical on the line.