The Advantage to capturing vs. rendering 10bit

[Walter Biscardi]

[Eli Mavros] “Is there any difference between capturing DVCPro HD shot footage 10 bit and capturing it at DVCPro HD codec and then when you have your selects rendering them out on an uncompressed 10bit timeline?”

I capture and edit all DVCPro HD material via the DVCPro HD codec. There’s no reason to switch to an uncompressed timeline using this codec.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[David Battistella]

The DVCpro HD codec is very clean. It is also about 120th the data rate of uncompressed HD. Walter has a good workflow. When people make to 10bit arguement it is not to make 8-bit DVCPRO HD orginals any better but it is to make sure it does not get any worse (through render artifacting, etc.

It is what it is. If you have an FX intensive show you might gain a bit by recapturing uncompressed but more than anything you are popping up the files size and pushing FCP , drives and codecs to the max.

Thanks,

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Eli Mavros]

I understand that it doesn’t really make any difference if I am just doing regular show/film work, but I work for a motion graphics boutique (www.brandnewschool.com) and we often really push our footage to it’s limits, and I need it to hold together as long as possible. If I were just doing some light color correcting it would be one thing, but as far as I understand it, I do want to work in 10bit for the kind of fx work that we do…I am just wondering if there is any difference in capturing 10bit vs rendering at 10bit (or exporting from FCP as 10bit for AE artists to work with the footage). Because if there isn’t, then we could both save time and money for sure.

Best,
Eli

Eli Mavros

[David Battistella]

Eli,

I would say that in your case the smart thing to do would be to render then file out to a 10 bit annimation codec file after it has been captured. This will up the file size but it will put the footage into a 4;4;4 color space and it will hold up best. You can’t actually put anything back (DVCPRO HD is a low data rate, severely compressed, 8-bit codec)

The best you can do is ensure that it is rendered in 10 bit space witht the most precision possible. WIll you gain a ton of quality recapturing 10 bit UC via HDSDI, well it’s like capturing DV va fire wire or 10 bit, it is not goingto look better but it will hold up. I am not sure capturing will get you more than rendering it out as annimation or PNG codec (both 4:4:4). I’d do a test but I think you will find the render as good (or cleaner) than the capture. I certainly know this is the case with HDV. The software render looks sharper.

Thanks,

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Jeremy Garchow]

If you can afford it, I’d capture 10 bit. It’ll help in AE a lot. I twon’t make your footage look any better, but like David says, it’ll hold up better in AE. Then, render out 10bit out of AE (or animation, but then you have to render again in FCP).

[Eli Mavros]

Yeah, this is pretty much the method that I have been following for a long time now (except used to use BMD 10bit codecs, cuz we had an old AJA SD card. We have always captured stuff at 10bit for SD, cuz we only do short commercial stuff and have tons of harddrive space…Only since we recently got our LH cards can we capture 10bit HD. Unlike SD, where we own 2 digibeta decks, we have to rent an HD deck when we do HD work. When we actually do shoots (keep in mind we do mostly GFX) we usually have tons of footage, so it doesn’t make sense for me to capture all the footage at 10bit HD. But if it makes no difference whether I capture DVCPro HD then export the clips at 10bit or if I actually rent the deck again and recapture the footage used for the project, then I will obviously opt for the former option. This would save me the cost of renting the deck again and the pain of recapturing (and headache of recapturing stuff that was shot at 60 to play at 24 after using the TFC). If this is the case, then in the future i will only capture once via firewire and then when it comes time to send the footage to the fx guys, I will just export them 10bit and call it a day.

Best,
Eli

Eli Mavros

[Walter Biscardi]

FWIW, I create animations & composites for broadcast all the time using AE and always render them out to the DVCPro HD codec if they’re going into a DVCPro HD project. They’re incredibly clean.

Again, if you’re delivering a final product to the DVCPro HD, I really don’t see the need to render / deliver a 10bit HD file.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Christopher S. johnson]

David,

What is your HDV workflow? I’m not clear about it.

Thanks,

Christopher

[David Battistella]

I haven’t been using a lot of HDV but I would work it this way depending on budgets etc. (let’s face it, the budgets will dictate the approach)

1. Capture and edit HDV natively
2. Media Manage the HDV timeline to an Uncompressed 10 bit sequence
3. Color Correct and FX
4. Output to HDCAM

People will insist on recapturing to Uncompressed but I think it is cleaner to recompress than to capture via the component OP’ of the HDV deck (sony or Canon footage)

The JVC still only works with lumiere, so that is a different story.

Unlimted Budget

Shoot HDV Transfer to D5 or SR.
Capture to DVCPRO HD for offline
Recapture online to Uncompressed 10 bti
CC with Final Touch HD and Pro Colorist
Ouput Dual link from Kona to SR Deck

David

Peace and Love 🙂

[Christopher S. johnson]

David,

So no re-capture. Hmm. Thanks man.

And what if it was a “quick turn-around” show, like an EPK or puff promotional piece? What about transcoding to DVCPRO HD upon capture and doing both the edit and final render there? Then I could even do it on a system without a RAID. All of that would still be superior to rendering in an HDV timeline, right?

-Christopher