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P2 – Mastering question
Just a thought here, but if I make an edit say using HDV, I can always finish my short film or documentary and then lay this off back to the camera or a HDV deck. Then if I want to show this to friends I could take the camera round and plug it into their plasma (until we get HDDVD).
If the output always stays on the computer with P2 then that limits how and where I could show my work – unless I downsize to a SD codec and output to DV tape/beta everyone will have to come into my edit suite to see anything I’ve done.
With HDV, for confrence work I could just take my final edit and play it direct from the camera to the projector. But I guess you’d need big P2 cards to do this.
And yes, a DVCPROHD deck would be too expensive for me right now 🙂
any good ideas on delivery formats?
Karl
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14 Replies
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Problem with going back to HDV is that after that double MPEG2 compression, things start to look a little ropey. The demo footage that Sony were showing was edited footage, and it didn’t look anywere near as good as the untouched stuff direct from the camera.
As for display, I don’t know. Perhaps you can put a firewire cable between your laptop and the camera. BMD were demonstrating DVCProHD playing off the hard drive of an iPod….
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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It be cool if Panasonic’s AJ-PCS060 StoreDrive, the forthcoming small harddrive-based “P2 data collector” could be used as walk-around DVCPRO-50 and DVCPRO-HD playback device with a video-out port? Assuming you could get video into from your NLE via its USB-2 connection. But perhaps this unit is designed as a “single-purpose” device for P2 data collection w. P2 & USB-2 connectivity only? (Sorry if this was already discussed.)
Also, I suppose there’s a chance some type of HD-DVD will be available not too long after the HDX200 cam actually ships, if it turns out this cam doesn’t ship until late 2005. Just guesses on my part.
In the meantime, several alternatives exist: There’s at least one relatively inexpensive 3rd party WindowsMedia9-HD data playback DVD player, or your nice DVCPRO-50 & HD can be downconverted to current DVD-Video, or (as you mention) you can layback to a HDV deck, or you can rent/buy a DVCPRO-HD deck (the Panny 1200), and so forth.
Of course, except for the 1200 videotape deck (and perhaps the forthcoming hard drive unit???), these delivery methods add significant additional compression @ loss of quality.
Fortunately/unfortunately, we live in interesting times! 😉
All the best,
– Peter
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1200A deck is a $300/day rental. Surely that’s not unattainable for a full rez HD master if you need one on tape.
Noah
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[Noah Kadner] “1200A deck is a $300/day rental. Surely that’s not unattainable for a full rez HD master if you need one on tape.”
I agree, Noah, the 1200a is awesome if you’re creating a formal master for final output and so forth, but I’m not sure it makes sense in the context of Karl’s original post (if I understand him correctly), where he says:
“… if I make an edit say using HDV, I can always finish my short film or documentary and then lay this off back to the camera or a HDV deck. Then if I want to show this to friends I could take the camera round and plug it into their plasma …”
In this kind of almost “casual” (or draft?) context, renting a deck — cost & convenience-wise — can’t compare to outputting a copy of an hour or two length documentary onto a cheap HDV/DV tape using the cam or deck, and walking that around to show colleagues, clients, or family on a big HDTV.
Perhaps one P2/DVCPROHD “moral equivalent” would be to instead put a copy of the final edit onto a laptop’s internal hard drive and carry that around for playback via its LCD or S-video output on a big HDTV?
As I mentioned elsewhere, this would be a great use for the new Panasonic P2 StoreDrive _if_ it had an analog video output connector, but I don’t believe it has one, or if this has been announced?
All the best,
– Peter
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[Peter DeCrescenzo] “Perhaps one P2/DVCPROHD “moral equivalent” would be to instead put a copy of the final edit onto a laptop’s internal hard drive and carry that around for playback via its LCD or S-video output on a big HDTV? As I mentioned elsewhere, this would be a great use for the new Panasonic P2 StoreDrive _if_ it had an analog video output connector, but I don’t believe it has one, or if this has been announced?”
Duh! Sorry, what I said won’t quite work as described, because S-Video isn’t for HD.
I suppose a laptop’s VGA output can be shown on a big computer monitor, but not most big HDTVs. There are some exceptions, but it’s not a universal solution. Do many laptops include DVI connectors these days?
I guess a device similar to the StoreDrive could work in this context if it had HDTV analog _component_ outputs?
Hmm …
All the best,
– Peter
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Latest Apple Powerbooks have dual-link DVI outputs (ie greater-than-HD)
VRD Media
Hastings UK -
Noah, please point me in the direction where you can rent a 1200A for $300. I can’t find it for less than $650 or $700.
Also, a big (and quite possibly misunderstood) caveat of the 1200A, is that there is no deck control through the RS-422, which means you can lay the whole thing off through firewire and have extremely limited deck control that is not frame accurate, you can try and lay off HD-SDI and have firewire as deck control, or you can crash record. Whichever way is chosen, it’s far from ideal when you have to make timecode accurate masters. Looks like you will have to rent a D5 (for true 24p), a 1700 (720p24 over 60), or the HD CAM which does true 24p@1080. All of those decks are very expensive to rent, let alone buy.
We might need decks to edit with P2, but we are sure going to need something to master to. I work on a lot of live shows where tape is still very much in existence, be it HD or SD. I am preparing for a show in June with a 12 x 25 foot screen all running HD. It’s not like I am going to hand over a wad of P2 cards and tell the tape ops (or media ops in this case) to have at it. That situation might be a reality in the future, but I would expect not in the coming months or even years. My local renter said he won’t even be taking delivery of the 200s until December.
Maybe the long standing tradition will be reversed now. Instead of paying a bunch of dough for a camera and paying less (albeit still a “bunch”) for a deck, maybe Panasonic wants to have us pay less for the camera, and throw all of our assets in a D5 deck. I would imagine this would alienate just about everyone in this forum. I know I couldn’t swing a D5 rental on every edit, we are just too small. I need that money to “pay rent”, know what I mean?
It’ll be nice when this speculation is over. Who knows what Panasonic has planned. Whatever it is, I’m sure they have given it at least a little thought, or perhaps they haven’t. Maybe they want to release this camera in conjunction with P2, and sort out all the deficiencies/shortcomings later. Maybe we are all the guinea pigs they are looking for. I’ve only been in the ‘biz’ for 8 or so years, and I sure haven’t seen anyone as excited about a piece of new technology, ever. Maybe (just maybe) Panasonic has something sorted that we haven’t even thought of yet.
It’ll be fun to watch all of this story unravel as long as we can all afford to buy the tickets to the theatre.
Peace, love, and happiness.
JeremyG
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AJA Kona2>HD10C2>D10ADecklink Extreme
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Surely by the time we all get to use an HDX200, we’ll just be able to FTP our finished programme to the broadcaster’s server. They don’t really want tape any more than we do. They don’t want to buy expensive decks when they have that lovely big media server. Surely, the answer will be just to stick it on a hard drive and ship the drive to them until internet connections become fast enough. Or burn it on multiple DVDs, or blur rays.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP
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Well, but of course. It’s good for the broadcast gigs, but not so good for the non broadcast gigs.
Still, that is years to come until that is a true and reliable reality.
Technology moves quite fast. Old habits and expensive gear die hard.
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AJA Kona2>HD10C2>D10ADecklink Extreme
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Trying to bring clarity to the conversation, Jeremy…
> Also, a big (and quite possibly misunderstood) caveat of the 1200A, is that
> there is no deck control through the RS-422…Whoops, I am happy to tell you the 1200a comes with 422 interface as standard.
Good ol’ serial deck control on every version of this deck.> We might need decks to edit with P2, but we are sure going to need something
> to master to.You could master to HDV because it exists on tape and is affordable, but you can only record to it via firewire 4:2:0 colorspace. You are re-compressing your edit to become a MPEG2 Long-GOP master. Not a method I would chose, but many will accept it.
> I work on a lot of live shows where tape is still very much in
> existence, be it HD or SD. I am preparing for a show in June with a 12 x 25
> foot screen all running HD. It’s not like I am going to hand over a wad of P2
> cards and tell the tape ops (or media ops in this case) to have at it.Some of the more progressive facilities I work with are eliminating tape at the door, and choosing to manage their media in a purely digital format. A bit “out-there” for many, but it points the way to where the industry is trending. P2 is a part of this trend, and many will appreciate the flexibility of tapeless formats.
As H.264 (WMV HD) becomes known as a great HD presentation format, and more DVD players adopt it, I expect this will gain acceptance as the affordable presentation tool for approval and entertainment. After all, DVD player units with H.264 will be a helluva lot cheaper than the blu-ray players for at least a year, and you can export HD into this format from most edit systems for a much cheaper price than using your HDV camera or deck to show your project to friends.
David
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