recap DV through SDI

[Dylan Reeve]

I’m not 100% on this in FCP, but in Avid I’d capture DV as DV25 via Firewire. I’d set the rendering options to create 1:1 (Uncompressed) renders.

In FCP the equivalent would be, I guess, having an Uncompressed (or ProRes perhaps) timeline.

I guess there’s no harm in recapturing as Uncompressed with SDI if you can, but it might not be necessary.

[Dan Dennis]

You can recapture DV through SDI, as long as your deck supports it. Capture using the Uncompressed 10-bit setting. Then create an Uncompressed 10-bit sequence. Uncompressed 10-bit is essentially lossless. Your color effects should also be lossless. Then you can output whatever format you want.

“Like the fella once said, ain’t that a kick in the head?” – Dean Martin

[Julia Barreto]

I know that I can recapture it through SDI, but is it worth?

That is the real question.

Thanks!

[Steve Eisen]

Keep in mind that if you are capturing Uncompressed (I would recommend 8 bit), you need a very fast RAID. ProRes is an alternative.

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[David Roth weiss]

[Julia Barreto] “I know that I can recapture it through SDI, but is it worth?”

Ah ha!!! That’s the question I was thnking when you posted initially.

The answer is, not really. You’d do best editing DV captured via firewire, and once you’re finished with the edit, simply change the QT video compressor in the Sequence Settings to ProRes and re-render. That will preserve the best quality for all your text and graphics — capturing to another codec will not make your DV any better.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Bill Dewald]

[David Roth Weiss] “The answer is, not really. You’d do best editing DV captured via firewire, and once you’re finished with the edit, simply change the QT video compressor in the Sequence Settings to ProRes and re-render.”

I’m glad this came up again – I’ve found conflicting information on the COW regarding the DV firewire vs. SDI issue. Here’s what Gary Adcock had to say about it last time – he insists that if you’re going to a non-camera codec, that you should let the hardware in your deck do the work, rather than the FCP software:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/8/994808

I’ve tested reingesting DV with my AJA-IO and my SONY DSR-40, and there was a huge difference in the image between the firewire signal and the compotent signal into the AJA.

I’m not trying to discredit David Roth Weiss’ advice – I was trained to treat DV footage in the way he suggested, and I’ve gotten great results doing it that way. Just wanted to put a different point of view out here…

[David Roth weiss]

[Bill Dewald] “I’ve tested reingesting DV with my AJA-IO and my SONY DSR-40, and there was a huge difference in the image between the firewire signal and the compotent signal into the AJA.”

Bill,

I love to be discredited any time I can learn something new or find a better way of doing something. But, in this case I’m not convinced that the difference is really “huge,” or at least huge enough to discount the convenience of capturing via firewire.

I wanna know, what qualifies as “a huge difference” your opinion?

Gary, if you’re paying attention, is there really a “huge” difference?

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Bill Dewald]

[David Roth Weiss] “I wanna know, what qualifies as “a huge difference” your opinion?”

Take a look at these (the 1st is DV, 2nd is component in):

https://picasaweb.google.com/bill.dewald/UntitledAlbum

The first was ingested via firewire from a DSR-40. The second was captured thru a AJA-IO via component ins.

Note the pixelation in the DV image (esp. around the man’s nose and forehead), and the difference in saturation.

I’ve been reading up on this issue because of the problems that I had with the pixelation that you can see. Its not so apparent on a CRT monitor, but we took the image thru a Teranex to HDCAM-SR, and the upres made the problem much worse.

I tried to use the component in footage to fix the problem, but the difference in colors gave me pause.

I ended up using the 4:1:1 chroma smoother filter on the ‘DV-firewire’ footage, and that got rid of the jaggies.

Hope this helps… – Bill

ps – what’s the best way to embed images in posts? I tried for about 5 mins before I gave up….

[David Roth weiss]

Bill,

All I can say is, if I were having noticeable pixelation issues such as the ones you posted I’d be looking for a solution too. Completely understandable…

Thankfully, I haven’t ever seen anything like that in the DV footage I’ve cut. I guess the bottom line is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, if it is broke, looks like you found a good fix.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Gary Adcock]

[David Roth Weiss] “Gary, if you’re paying attention, is there really a “huge” difference? “

Always lurking….

OK to clarify capturing content via baseband (component or HD/SDI) is allowing each manufacturers decompressions to be done at the very best quality- proprietary hardware will always do this better than software, which can choose to playback the image at lesser quality. RT Extreme will soften and desaturate an image to allow it to playback in realtime, hardware either does it or fails horribly.

Secondly – capture from the 8bit camera codecs into say ProRes or UC offers the users access to the full 10bit color space – and since it was acquired from the “optimally decompressed image” you are going to have better picture quality.
Unlike a Firewire Transfer – which is very highly compressed in the Mfg’s customized version of compression. Working in these compressed codecs can and do limit what can be done to the image.
Camera codecs are limited in colorspace and converting from one 8bit codec to another 8bit codec can create artifacts, compression errors so the results are really, really nasty < do a search for DV to Mpeg conversion>

I am a hardware geek, I found out a long time ago that the right hardware can solve any number of the minor issues that we run into in day to day production, yet there are price vs need, cost vs. payback.
I always look at the bottom line, if it is faster in hardware and me save time and frustration- I am there.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD