stay with betacam or go digital?

[Charley King]

Just didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea and think that jsut because it was edited in a 10 bit uncompressed that any video shoot would be ok.

Charlie

[Tony]

If you have any concerns about having matching cameras then you need to get another D50. Mixing and matching different brands and models really sucks and will always result in downgrading the better camera to the one that sucks the most.

Tony Salgado

[Brian]

Do you think George Lucas — a longtime advocate of digital cinema AND of cost containment in motion picture production — rush out and get one for green-screen work for his next effects-laden feature?
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not sure i get your point, you’re saying since lucas does NOT use “prosumer” hi def cams that it’s a bad format for greenscreen? or, are you saying that since he shoots in hi dif (pro models) that it is indeed good for green screen?

[Brian]

Perhaps you’re not yet — and I stress the words “not yet” –under the same high-pressure, tight-schedule, microscopic, nit-picking scrutiny as Lucasfilms or a production house whose work is distributed nationally or internationally. If that’s the case, then go for it!

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I wish this were the case unfortunately our production house is attempting to ramp up production and our ads are, gulp, distributed in 80 countries.

About me, i’m basically a writer with advanced hobby level knowledge of the technical side of video. but for now i’m the de facto guru regarding tech issues. i’m in deep water techies, and these water wings i borrowed from my 3 yearold daughter are barely keeping me afloat.

brian

[Brian]

hi todd,

as a fellow santa barbaran, i feel less guilty about hitting you up for info. what dvcpro deck are you using? and once upconverted to 4.2.2 where do you export it? media 100? i like your solution because we could get a digital back for out d-50 and then for our second camera get a high end mini dv camera instead of betacam sp.

[Todd Gillespie]

Hi Brian,
We use a Panasonic 955(d) or something like that. It’s doesn’t realy matter about the deck. It’s where the deck is going & how it get’s there. We have another deck the is a DVCAM deck with an SDI out into a Media 100 HD system. But you could hook up any deck to ANY system as long as the footage was digitized to 4:2:2 color space and uncompressed. (of course the quality and results will depend a lot on the codec that is used) If your only using Component, then there are several choices for both Mac and PC that will do the job.

I have been using our Media 100 844xi for chroma key work, since it has a good keyer and can do it realtime with additional layers. I’ve also taken some more challenging keys into AE and done a 3 Pass key with Keylight. There is plenty of tricks, workflows, apps, etc to do what you want, it all depends on your equipments, $$, time, edit system, etc.

Also, heed what others have suggested about cameras. I don’t think you’d be that happy with a MiniDv camera compared to a betacam.

What Studio in SB? (i’ve worked for a couple of them 🙂

You should fill out your bio, that way I’ll have a better idea of where you’re coming from.

If you want to contact me again, feel free to email me since this thread is getting a little long.

gillespie [at] id [dot] ucsb [dot] edu

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Glenn Chan]

Chroma keying with DV versus betaSP:

From Adam Wilt’s DV FAQ https://www.adamwilt.com/DV-FAQ-tech.html

With some care, DV25 keys at least as well as BetaSP; read on… […]
The single most important factor in good DV chroma-keying is low-pass filtering or interpolating the chroma prior to applying the keyer, so that the

[Brian]

that’s what i was thinking too. if it’s a studio why bother with tape other than to back up.

[Charles Lorch]

I think that there’s alot of good info in all of these threads for your original questions, and here’s my breakdown of them.
If you’re dropping frames at three layers, then get drives. We have a dual 2gig G5 running FCP5 with 1 terabite of internal SATA drives and works great with uncompressed via an AJA IO.
You say “D50 betacam in a studio” but since that’s a two piece camera I’m going to make the assumption that you have an SP back on the camera and are capturing from tape (based on your posts correct me if I’m wrong). That being the case I think the only cameras that I would consider going with are another D50, a BVW series head like the BVW550, or the D50’s predecessor the D35. You could even stretch back to the D30, but I’ve seen it in the studio next to a D35 and a BVW550 and there is a noticable decline.
If you’re not already working with all of your footage in an uncompressed workflo then get the drives and start. Unless you’re just doing cuts you’ll see a huge difference.
Any change in format (firestore aside, and IMHO not really a consideration anyways) would require purchasing another deck and drive the costs right back up.
Someone commented that DigiBeta was the only digital format for consideration, but DVCPro50 is nose to nose from my knowledge and experience. 50meg and 4:2:2 color. I shoot with an SDX900 and love it. We also have a Media100 844x and have had great success with keying and compositing, but once again uncompressed and a 2.5 terabite X-Serve to fit it all.
It isn’t cheap to do things right but it is worth it!

[Brian]

thanks evolution and also everyone else. one thing that’s puzzling is that no one seems to think much of going to a dv25 deck and then match that with another dv camera (Not a digibeta or dv50). is it the limitations in chroma keying?

adam wilt rates dv as slightly superior to betacam.