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ProsRes capture hdv & workflow
I did a test on a 48 sec. clip and learned that, yes I can capture ProRess 422 Std. (8 bit) via firewire. Not real time, but that’s ok.
BTW, I don’t see any quality difference with just this one short clipped compared to the same clip captured as hdv.
My reason for contemplating using ProRes at one or more steps of my workflow, is to cut down on rendering time, especially during editing. I like (if at all possible) to evaluate the full rendered look as I proceed in editing.
I think I’ll settle for just “rending” in ProRes, but not using capture or sequence ProRes setting. Chime in with any advice on this please.
I’d welcome comments pro and con my workflow. Of course I want the best quality image at the end of the line, but not if I have to buy a faster computer or larger hard drives.
Shot hdv and delivering std def. DVD 16.9, for viewing on both 4.3 and HD t.v.s
I’m editing a 3 camera dance concert. Project will be 1.5 hours on the timeline, muli-cam (3 cam) edit with opening title.
So, I’ll have 4.5 hours of footage, plus render files.
Because the file size of ProRes 422 8 bit is about 5 times larger than hdv, I guess it just won’t be a workflow my system can handle.
My biggest drives are 500. I can set up a RAID 0 using two of the 500GBs if that would help, but I have my doubts I’d have enough space, and maybe? not enough throughput. I’m using the Sonnet Fusion Serial ATA box and card – maybe? fast enough?
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17 Replies
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First, what are you waiting for when it comes to striping at least two drives together as Raid-0? You’re missing out on a whole lot of throughput and convenience, and two striped drives can easily handle ProRes. ProRes (non HD) is 100gb per hour, so you would be able to do your job with now sweat.
In addition, the advantage to capuring ProRes in advance in your case is that multiclip editing is much easier with iFrame video than with long GOP video.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[chris gorman] “BTW, I don’t see any quality difference”
It can not be any quality difference capturing by FW. You are just transcoding. Probably you will see quality difference if you capture through a video card that introduce some chroma filtering (you go fro 420 to 422).Mac OX 10.5.2-FC 6.02-QT 7.4.1
G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM-BlackMagic Extreme
PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM-AJA ioHD
JVC DTV-17″
SONY EX-1 . SONY PD170
..and always a big mess on top of the table. -
[chris gorman] “BTW, I don’t see any quality difference with just this one short clipped compared to the same clip captured as hdv.”
You won’t. You can’t “magically add quality” to HDV or any other format. It is what it is. Where you see a quality difference in some cases is when you start applying filters and in color correction. Especially with HDV. That format falls apart very quickly in post.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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[walter biscardi] “Where you see a quality difference in some cases is when you start applying filters and in color correction.”
Yes. Remember, your footage is going to look the way it’s going to look. There’s not too much you can do to magically add more resolution. But where you can add or maintain quality is working in a 10bit codec that is way less compressed than HDV. Think not only of your footage, but what the final product is going to be after the rigors of editing.
Jeremy
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Yes, I agree, one of the best reasons of going right to ProRes from HDV is for the heavy lifting you may do in the way of transitions, compositing and effects. Much better workflow than HDV. Worth every bit of the needed extra drive space and speed.
Have a wonderful day.
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I believe that the ProRes 422 Std. is 8 bit. I think it was Phil Hodgetts post on kenstone.net that said for hdv which is 8 bit, there’s no advantage to using the HQ version of ProRes . . .instead just stay with ProRes 422 Std. 8 bit.
The amount of hard drive space I’d need for this project (4.5 hrs.hdv footage) if I stayed in hdv, would be at least 72GB. If my calculations are correct, I should multiply that x5 to calculate ProRes 8 bit disk space.
So that would be 360 GB, plus need to leave some headroom. On a 500GB drive you start with about 440 GB available space. Seems like that’s risking HD too full.
Again, since I haven’t used a RAID setup before, I’m not sure about this, but I thought that it only increases speed, not disk space.
If I could get my newly purchased MXO working (recognized), maybe that would let me work in hdv and view real time preview playback more speedily. . . just guessing because I’m not sure what advantage it will actually give me.
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[chris gorman] “So that would be 360 GB, plus need to leave some headroom. On a 500GB drive you start with about 440 GB available space. Seems like that’s risking HD too full.
Again, since I haven’t used a RAID setup before, I’m not sure about this, but I thought that it only increases speed, not disk space.”
Chris,
What??? In your first post you said “I can set up a RAID 0 using two of the 500GBs if that would help.” And I answered you as follows, “You’re missing out on a whole lot of throughput and convenience, and two striped drives can easily handle ProRes. ProRes (non HD) is 100gb per hour, so you would be able to do your job with no sweat.” Now after six people have responded to that initial post its suddenly not what you meant? I don’t get it.
According to your profile you have a four bay SATA enclosure and a Sonnet card, and you say you’ve been working with FCP since ver. 1 and you’ve never striped any drives together? What were you doing in the days when SCSI drives were in use and they were only 36gb?
If you stripe two drives together you get a single virtual drive that is twice the size of a single drive and nearly double the throughput and you get with a single drive. That throughput equals vast a increase in RT performance. Your 4-bay SATA enclosure is capable of nearly 250gb/sec and you’ve been getting like 65mb/sec. That’s like using a Ferrari to take the kids to school and using your Volkswagon to race at Indy.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[chris gorman] “I believe that the ProRes 422 Std. is 8 bit.”
No sir. All ProRes is 10bit. HQ runs @ 220Mb/sec, SQ runs at 145 Mb/sec (or less).
That’s all.
https://images.apple.com/finalcutstudio/resources/white_papers/L342568A_ProRes_WP.pdf
Jeremy
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BTW, it’s a 5 bay Fusion. I did not have this way back in fcp v. 1 (it did not exist). Since I got the Fusion my greatest need was to use it as jbod because of the types of projects I was editing.
Also, I didn’t have the extra hard drives available, and only recently got the 2 new 500GB drives for this project. So this is the first time I think I’d could actually benefit from a RAID and have a couple extra drives to do it.
Just to clarify though, would that mean I can calculate my drive space based on a terabyte? I thought I’d still calculate disk space as 500GB and that the RAID just allowed faster read/write speeds.
Please confirm this – you’re really saying the RAID0 would double my drive “space”, not just increase speed?
I also notice that Hitachi says their SATA II hds are set at the slower default setting of 1.5 in case someone doesn’t have a controller to handle 3.0. I don’t know how to re-set this, and never heard anyone else talk about it.
Hmmmm, although my test capture of a 48 sec. clip worked fine captured as ProRes over fw, (about 18% lag i think) I wonder how it would work trying capture 45 minute tapes. I’d except it if it just meant a long lag and no other problems. I have to capture the full tapes so I can sync them up for the multi-cam edit.
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In fcp 6 capture settings it lists a choice for ProRes 1080i 1440 x 1080 as 8 bit. With my test capture at this setting, the “item properties” in fcp showed the clip as ProRes 8 bit.
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