OT: HD Cam 10bit or DVC HD?

[David Roth weiss]

[Tom Matthies] “I suspect that 10bit uncompressed, while the best in quality, could be overkill in this situation.”

Tom,

Absolutely no issues worth sweating, especially given SD delivery. DVCpro100 for this would be just fine.

DRW

[Mark Maness]

Well, Tom… I use DVCPRo HD all of the time and I haven’t seen any issues with editing. It’s goreous! And the file sizes are much smaller.

I’m sure that if you take this to some engineer to look at… he might just be able to pick it out. But to the average everyday view… not at all. There are lots of programs that air today that were shot and edited in DVCPro HD.

Here’s an idea for you. Take a 10-bit uncompressed clip and drop it into Compressor and convert it to DVCPro HD. Bring that back into FCP on a DVCPro 1080 23.98 timeline and see for yourself. Try adding a title to it and rendering it out.

[Tom Matthies] “I suspect that 10bit uncompressed, while the best in quality, could be overkill in this situation.”

As for this… you’re right. UNLESS you are doing lots of heavy graphics and roto animations throughout, it a little bit of overkill. Your rotoscope that you have to do, render it out using the Animation codec and import it into FCP as such. You’ll have to render, but so what… it will look great.

Maybe Walter and Gary could chime in… I know that they both use this everyday in their work.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Walter Biscardi]

[Tom Matthies] “Is DVCPro HD sufficient quality for this work? Any comments or problems with doing it this way? Color space in DVCPro HD good for color correction?”

In our experience, Color Correction and mastering with DVCPro HD has been outstanding and our clients (the Producers) and the networks love the quality of our work. We’re sort of using Final Touch HD for all our Color Correction, and I say sort of because it’s really not working all that well at the moment because it’s only in beta versions and now that Apple bought them, we’ll have to wait until at least NAB for some updates.

That being said, I would not go into an edit with DVCPro HD without first running some tests and checking with the client to ensure they are happy with the quality. Our workflow is completely built around DVCPro HD at the moment, though we can go uncompressed HD if the client requests.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Tom Matthies]

Thanks guys.
I’ll try the export via Compressor and reimport to FCP to see what it looks like compared to the orignal clip. I still have the clips from the last project in the system and will give it a try with one of them.
I suspect that DVC-100 will look just fine for this and take up MUCH less space on the drives as well.
Thanks again,
Tom

[Tom Matthies]

One more question?
Since the original footage will be shot at 23.98fps 1080i resolution and edited on a 23.98fps timeline, what would be the best DVC-100 Compressor setting for this? It doesn’t look like there is a setting that will match the original footage exactlly. Drop down to 720p at 24fps?
I usually edit on a 23.98 timeline and go out to SD thru the Kona 3 to Digibeta. Would it pay to bring it into a 29.97 timeline and add the pulldown upon ingest?
Again, any comments?
Tom

[Walter Biscardi]

[Tom Matthies] “Thanks guys.
I’ll try the export via Compressor and reimport to FCP to see what it looks like compared to the orignal clip. I still have the clips from the last project in the system and will give it a try with one of them.”

I honestly would not do that. Capture it native to DVCPro HD via the Kona card. The hardware conversion is real time and pristine.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Matt Larson]

Thought I’d share a little trick I learned at NAB a couple years ago to really evaluate compression using FCP:
Make a new sequence. Put your original Uncompressed clip on track 1. Put the DVCProHD file from Compressor on track 2 and make sure the two clips are in sync with each other. control+click the clip on track 2 and change the “composite mode” to “difference”.

Basically what you end up with is the “Difference” between the two clips, pixel for pixel. All of the areas that are true black (it helps to look at it in a scope) are exactly the same between the two files. If you get pixels that are brighter than black, it means the color has shifted somewhat during the compression.

[David Battistella]

Hi,

Just a quick thing here. I know that much of these decisions are job and cost dependant, but the UC solution is always going to look better. Just go over to http://www.onerivermedia.com and look at comparrsions between the DVCPRO and the UC 8 or 10 bit.

This arguement is comparable to the arguements we used to see with DV vs UC 10 bit in SD production. Personally, I think DV can look amazing when output via a card to beta or D-Beta, but it has everthing to do with the amount of processing you are going to do to the image, etc.

Would you deliver DVCPRO HD100 for a filmout? Probably not. You might want that to be uncompressed so that the image would not degrade on the blowup.

This all said, I actually like the esthetic of the DVCPro codecs, they produce a grain structure/artifacting similar to film and I have always liked the look of these codecs. They are beautifully enginered, with amazing picture quality and very miniscule file sizes. This makes sense since Panasonic was trying to get them to fit on P2 media cards and reduce the amount of number crunching before sending tings to tape.

In your workflow I would maybe do this:
Capture DVCPRo HD
edit 23.98 natively
drop it into a DVCPRO50 timline and render the downconvert (test this) or output a real time downconvert via a KONA.

You could always do a recapture of the final spot to 10 bit UC and save that digital file as an ultimate archive. Or just media manage the DVCPro 100 to do that.

These are the best set of production codecs I have seen because they, 1. look great 2. are designed for the real world. 3. Do not compromise look for speed and efficiency.

DVCPro 50 is basically panasonics version of D-beta. It’s a very smart workflow.

my 2 cents.

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[David Battistella]

Hi,

Just a quick thing here. I know that much of these decisions are job and cost dependant, but the UC solution is always going to look better. Just go over to http://www.onerivermedia.com and look at comparrsions between the DVCPRO and the UC 8 or 10 bit.

This arguement is comparable to the arguements we used to see with DV vs UC 10 bit in SD production. Personally, I think DV can look amazing when output via a card to beta or D-Beta, but it has everthing to do with the amount of processing you are going to do to the image, etc.

Would you deliver DVCPRO HD100 for a filmout? Probably not. You might want that to be uncompressed so that the image would not degrade on the blowup.

This all said, I actually like the esthetic of the DVCPro codecs, they produce a grain structure/artifacting similar to film and I have always liked the look of these codecs. They are beautifully enginered, with amazing picture quality and very miniscule file sizes. This makes sense since Panasonic was trying to get them to fit on P2 media cards and reduce the amount of number crunching before sending tings to tape.

In your workflow I would maybe do this:
Capture DVCPRo HD
edit 23.98 natively
drop it into a DVCPRO50 timline and render the downconvert (test this) or output a real time downconvert via a KONA.

You could always do a recapture of the final spot to 10 bit UC and save that digital file as an ultimate archive. Or just media manage the DVCPro 100 to do that.

These are the best set of production codecs I have seen because they, 1. look great 2. are designed for the real world. 3. Do not compromise look for speed and efficiency.

DVCPro 50 is basically panasonics version of D-beta. It’s a very smart workflow.

my 2 cents.

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Tom Matthies]

Walter-a quick question.
Is there a way to capture Sony HDCam footage shot at 23.98psf @1080i for editing on a 23.98 timeline within FCP using the DVCPro-100 format captured thru the Kona 3?
Is there a preset for this or do I need to make a custome setup?
I don’t see a 1080/23.98 DVC100 option for this.
Tom

BTW, the Compressor test was not for actual use, but to simply look at what DVCPro 100 might look like when compared to the original 10bit 1080i footage. I ended up with a kind of funky looking Pulldown/field artifact on the converted footage since I couldn’t find a direct match for the framerate.
Tom