OT: HD Cam 10bit or DVC HD?

[Walter Biscardi]

[Tom Matthies] ”
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.”

Yeah, that’s why I didn’t recommend you even trying that. Best to capture the same test clip 1080i uncompressed and 1080i DVCPro HD via the hardware for a good comparison.

[Tom Matthies] “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.”

Yeah, it’s there. AJA Kona 3 – 1080psf 23.98 DVCPro HD. Be sure to select “Show All” in the Easy Setup menu. it might be hidden.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
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“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Tom Matthies]

Thanks Walter. I see it now.
Tom

[Eli Mavros]

I have dealt with this issue several times. The place that I normally edit does not have HD decks either, so we generallly rent a deck for a day or two and then return it. I would recommend, if you have the space, to rent the deck and log the media, then capture it both DVCPRO100 and Uncompressed, work at the DVCPRO100 level, and then if it isn’t up to snuff for you, you can use an edl or xml file to reconnect to the 10bit media (as long as you don’t rename anything), and then you have it for back up. I find DVCPRO100 much faster and easier to work with, but I work on gfx intensive spots most often, and to be honest I have had nothing but complaints from rotoscopers when I give them shots in this format to key/roto. The compression is similar to that of DV, so if you shot on green screen then you often have a lot of noise that makes it difficult to key. If you don’t have the room to capture uncompressed, but you know which shots are going to be rotoed, I would stronly recommend that you at least capture those particular shots uncompressed, I think it will save you some trouble on the roto end of things. The last project that I worked on, some of the stuff was shot on DVCPRO HD and some of it on HDCAM, I brought in the DVCPRO stuff native, and I captured the HDCAM stuff uncompressed. Now different DPs did shoot the stuff, and the actual shooting formats were different, so those are two variables to consider, but he rotoers had a much much better time keying and doing cleanup roto on the HDCAM stuff.

Best,
Eli

[Jason Dutcher]

This may be a dumb question.
What if I capture in DVCpro HD and then export as uncompressed 1080i 10bit 4.2.2, am I just asking for trouble there? My client has asked for an uncompressed QT movie, but we would like to edit in DVCproHD. Can we do this and still have an acceptable result? I will run some tests and show the client a sample, but was wondering if you all had some insight? Or suggestions on workflow?
Thanks!