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P2 SD Down Conversion Retry
I
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7 Replies
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Shoot in DV50 SD.
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Obviously, one could shoot SD. The director for the project I am currently involved in insists on acquiring HD footage for the extra resolution it offers even after downconverting to SD. I cannot argue that the resulting SD image will be slightly better than it would be if shot natively in SD.
I would like to downconvert the footage prior to editing primarily to save disk space and to eliminate the need for a RAID during the editing process. Since this project will result in 10 hours of final, edited program material, the storage requirements at HD resolution for all of the raw takes is substantial- even if the shooting ratio stays low- on the order of 3 to 1, etc.
We are also interested in the workflow others are using to create “safeties” of footage acquired onto P2 cards. Our current thought is that we will need to copy all of the raw files from the P2 cards onto multiple external drives for archival purposes.
At this point in time it appears that there is no simple workflow to downconvert HD 720p captured on P2 cards to SD prior to editing. Is this correct?
Any help or ideas are greatly appreciated.
Bill
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Well, you won’t need some fancy big ole raid, you’ll need a fw800 setup, or better yet, a cheap SATA solution. DVCPRO HD bandwidth is low. 720p24 material in not that much bigger than DV. I would edit in 720p and then use a Kona 2 to watch the downconvert and color correct in the downconverted color space. If you do need to downconvert before editing, you need to run all of your clips through compressor to whatever codec you are working in, but here’s the rub on that one. Now, not only do you have to archive the original MXF files and the resulting imported DVCPRO HD files, but now you have to worry about gobs and gobs of uncompressed SD material that will fill up your drives faster then you can say terabytes, especially with the amount of material that it sounds like you are going to have.
make sense? If you are shooting HD, edit HD. Worry about the downconvert later.
Jeremy
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Jeremy,
That makes sense to me. I guess that I didn’t realize that the data rate of 720p was low enough to edit via FW800.
Thanks for your help.
Bill
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No problem. I don’t know you or your situation with your director and I don’t mean to butt in and offend, but you are the one that has to edit this thing and manage the post production variables. If your director insists on capturing in HD for a better looking SD master, I would do some tests to show them the difference they are getting (or not getting). Shoot in DV 50 and show them what it looks like. Shoot in HD and show them what a downconverted HD signal looks like. Then do a blind taste test if you will, for both you and the director to see if the hassle of shooting HD and editing in SD is worth it. DV 50 looks awesome for SD, and since you are delivering in SD shouldn’t awesome be enough? I’m just looking out for you, as a fellow editor, and managing the workflow is a major concern with tapeless. it’s going to be enough to make sure you have solid backups of all of your media, let alone trying to manage format conversions before you even start editing just for the simple purpose of delivering a theoretical cleaner looking SD downconvert. Also, does your suite have HD monitors and Hd capture/monitor cards? These are other costs and infrastructure you have to take into consideration when editing in HD.
Jeremy
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I have suggested a blind test of SD vs. HD downconverted but it really appears almost as easy to go ahead and simply cut in 720p so I think that is the direction we are going to take. We are going to shoot some tests next week. I’ll post if we find any anomalies or complications.
Thanks again for your help!
Bill
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I’d go 720p- that way you have a nice master should two years from now they require it in HD. Much cheaper to simply shoot and edit in 720p now and then master the final in SD rather than reshoot or uprez later. That’s what this camera is designed for.
Noah
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