Please help!! DVC pro 720p30 is acting STRANGE!

[Jeremy Garchow]

[walter biscardi] ” If you’re going back to DVCPro HD, I would stay in that format all the way around. “

Hey Walter. Hate to say it, and don’t want to make a big deal about it, but I disagree. That noise you are seeing is by doing everything in DVCPro HD and rendering BACK to DVCPro HD. In my experience, it doesn’t hold up as well as other codecs.

I take everything I do OUT of DVCPro HD during editing/finishing/compositing, then use the deck to compress back to DVCPro HD from an Uncompressed 10bit or ProResHQ source. Graphics (of which our stuff has a lot of) text and everything holds up best this way. Producing graphics in DVCPro HD has always been a thorn in my side and keying in DVCPro HD is much more difficult than taking the footage to another less compressed codec.

But hey, this is just what I have found in my practice and I am not doubting anyone else’s workflow. What works for some doesn’t work for others. That’s one of the things I enjoy so much about video is the diversity.

Jeremy

[Walter Biscardi]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Hey Walter. Hate to say it, and don’t want to make a big deal about it, but I disagree. That noise you are seeing is by doing everything in DVCPro HD and rendering BACK to DVCPro HD. In my experience, it doesn’t hold up as well as other codecs.”

No, I’m talking about going to ProRes, or even Uncompressed and back to a DVCPro HD VTR. That’s where I see the added noise. Not staying in the DVCPro HD codec all the way around.

The deck is adding another layer of compression to the signal since it’s a full raster 1280×720 image and it’s compressing it back down to 960×720 DVCPro HD codec.

Again, it’s minimal, but that’s where I can see a minimal change from my original timeline to the tape playback. If I stay in DVCPro HD all around, I don’t see any additional changes being made to my master.

It’s just like folks who bring their DVCAM material into an Uncompressed timeline and then send it back to DVCAM, it’s going to add another layer of 5:1 compression, pretty much negating everything they did to bring the quality up.

If you’re going to go ProRes or Uncompressed, I think it’s best to go directly to HDCAM or D5 instead of back to DVCPro HD.

[Jeremy Garchow] “But hey, this is just what I have found in my practice and I am not doubting anyone else’s workflow. What works for some doesn’t work for others. That’s one of the things I enjoy so much about video is the diversity.”

Absolutely, and I’ll agree with you on the Graphics. You can sometimes see artifacting in some areas of a graphic in DVCPro HD, especially if you have a lot of black lines like in a animation.

But honestly, if you look closely at your tape playback after lay off to DVCPro HD tape from a ProRes timeline, you’re going to see some artifacting in your graphics due to the recompression back to that codec.

ProRes definitely works for a lot of folks here and obviously Gary Adcock is really liking that codec too, so perhaps we should consider it again in the near future as he’s always offered our facility and this community great advice. But I would want to invest in an HDCAM deck for mastering if I did that, quite honestly.

Good discussion though, different workflows for different folks depending on your needs.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Herb Sevush]

Jeremy –

I’m actually away from the studio for a few days. This all came up because my assistant was digitizing my tapes and reporting these problems to me. I’ll go back in on Saturday and look into it, armed with the good advice you gave me. You might here from me again if I’m still confused. Thanks for the help.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Herb Sevush] “You might here from me again if I’m still confused. Thanks for the help.”

No worries. Let us know how it goes.