the truth about XDCAM

[Paul Nevison]

so after a bit more online research it seems from an asthetic point of view the XDCAM HD cameras take some pretty nice images and the 35mbs recording explains some of the ‘pop’ behind the pixels.

the questions i still have unanswered have to do with XDCAM in post production.

In several Apple demos, I heard none other than Paul Saconne (FCP product manager), talk about the extra pull that HDV has on the processors as it is a very computational heavy codec resulting in longer render times and final conform.

If XDCAM HD is HDV’s older more attractive brother, what magic are Sony doing under the hood to make this a different experience from cutting with HDV apart from the random access and tapeless aspects of the workflow?

thanks for your thoughts

G5 DP 2.0 (Power PC)
4.0G RAM
OS 10.4.8
QT 7.1.3
FCP 5.1.2
BMD Decklink Extreme 5.7.2
PAL Land

[Andy Taplin]

Hi

It seems XDCAM is the answer to all our prayers (I think!) here’s a really comprehensive article from a tester here in the UK:-

https://www.dvuser.co.uk/content.php?CID=144

At the end of the day I think it comes down to this: P2 is useless for anything but news and is made by Panasonic!; HDCAM is too expensive for most small companies/individuals; HDV is not quite good enough compared to the other HD formats, although probably fine for a lot of non-broadcast work (it would be interesting to see what HDV looks like with a better camera than the Z1); so by a process of elimination that leaves XDCAM which has been approved for full acquisition by Discovery Channel and is cheaper than Digibeta!

Andy

[Mschirad]

Though it’s been awhile since our HD project, I can say that you DO have to conform to Print to Video. On a Quad G5, our 70 minute show, after rendering all FCP effects, required well over 5 hours of “conforming” time before I could start playback out FireWire into a Miranda “HDV-to-HD-SDI” converter, which led to the HD-SDI inp ut on a Sony XDCam HD F70 deck. (We couldn’t get FAM mode to work exporting back to blue ray. Buggy.) If I had made just one edit to the timeline, it would screw up the MPEG GOP structure, and I’d have to wait another 5 hours to conform all over again.

Let me repeat that.

Make one additional edit. Re-Conform the timeline all over again.

Do you have a deadline? Better not.

I do not know if Sony’s 18 and 35 megabit recording modes exact a similar time penality or not. 25 megabit is HDV, which is now the bane of my existance, so I recommend you transcode Sony’s XDCam HD codec to DVCPro HD (or on Avid, maybe DNxHD) as soon as possible. Or have an AJA Kona LHe or Kona 3 for hardware-processing HDV codecs in real time, hopefully removing the “conforming” process from the mix.

It amazes me how little press coverage this conforming task gets. If you’re a news organization you should drop HDV like a plutonium rod. MPEG-2 can look nice, cheap acquisition, but it edits horribly.

mschirad
http://www.wmaeug.net

[David Smith]

[Andy Taplin] ” here’s a really comprehensive article from a tester here in the UK:-

” target=”_blank”>https://www.dvuser.co.uk/content.php?CID=144″

I must say that while this looks like a very interesting format, the tone of this article is just too full of over the top cheerleading. Some examples:

“Using XDCAM HD during the acquisition stage of a production is pure bliss…….. When you first put a blank disc into an XDCAM HD camcorder, there is a short delay whilst the disc is formatted. I found this was over in hardly any time at all; around 15 seconds, it wouldn

[Ron Exalto]

Hi,

I’m shooting with a 350 and edit in Axio 2.5 which should provide a realtime, lightningfast workflow. Yeah….
When editing with DVCAM SD streams Axio can easily build 10 videolayers realtime with all kind of effects, it’s awesome! However when you put in the MXF files from the XDCAM HD recordings your back at 2 videostreams tops and even simple wipes have to be rendered (btw I’m using a HP9300 workstation with 2 Dual Opteron 275 and Axio SD breakoutbox, which can edit in HD). Conforming is not possible on an Axio system yet, since output to MXF XDCAM HD is not implemented yet, and these drivers are 2 days old, so you can wait at least 6 months to get that option up and running (if ever).
So the answer is: yes, in editing the long Gop codec and the fact that you’re working with 5x more info compared to an SD stream WILL slow you down.
On the other hand the advantages of the camera while shooting and importing the files are great. Deleting your last shot when you’re sure you won’t need it ever again can come very in handy in keeping the shotratio of useable shots on a disc down.
The quality of the camera itself is beyond any doubt and worth every penny. Working with a good HD lens is the cream on the pie, although good SD lenses in well lit situations won’t disappoint you either! Using the 2/3 to 1/2 inch adapter gives at least the opportunity to use existing 2/3 SD broadcast lenses, albeit losing a 1.38 factor of your wideangle. But gaining this in your zoom. Birdwatchers be happy!

And with the lastest firmware installed in the camera you can also use a buffer memory of up to 12 seconds so when you push the record button the previous 12 secs (max) are recorded to disc too! Very handy when you’re not quit shure when the man/woman your shooting is starting his/her talk. Or, if you’re in newsgathering, when the jumper decides to changes his position on the roof to that of the pavement below (ouch..)

Anyhow, XDCAM is for me the right path to go and I don’t regret it one minute. If you’re shooting in DVCAM mode you get ALL the benefits of the workflow and fast editing, when working in HD mode the workflow benefits stay, but the editing slow down. But you DO get that futureproof HDTV picture to amaze your clients with.
The Axio system will get faster with newer processors also so in time even that will speed up. Perhaps users of Vegas or Canopus Edius have different experiences. But I guess most people here are editing on FCP or AVID anyway.

ELVIC DVD PRODUCTIONS & HOMECINEMA
Editing on Axio 2.5
Aquisition with Sony PDW-F350 XDCAM HD

[David Smith]

Thanks Ron, very informative post.

Regards,
David

[Bob]

We finally figured out our conforming issue….we added more ram to our G5’s 2.0’s and it changed things significantly. Going from 2 gigs to 4 gigs of ram changed our conform on a half hour show from 2 1/2 hours to 30 minutes and if we need to tweak something it does it even faster maybe 15 minutes, certainly worth the incredible quality and workflow. Now please keep in mind we are printing to tape via an aja Kona 2 card not back to a deck (f30) FAM mode via firewire.

good luck

Bob

[Greg Penetrante]

… mschirad is right.

I’ve completed a two-hour show in 60i 25Mb CBR and now I’ve got to wait 10 HOURS for $!@#$ Compressor 2.3 to finish encoding the self-contained QT. Yikes!! Compressor doesn’t appear to use all 4 processors. What the hell, Apple?!

In hindsight, it would have been faster for me to drag my HD sequence into an anamorphic uncompressed SD sequence and Export to Compressor from the timeline… prolly would have taken 4 hours 😉

[Nigel Cooper]

Paulos, with regard to P2, HDV and HDCAM, they are all different, I don’t think this is a competition. P2 is solid state, HDCAM is tape and HDV is the consumer version of HD. XDCAM HD, that’s a different format too: Sony’s Professional Optical Disc system.

I would not say XDCAM HD is glorified HDV, the only similarity is the MPEG Long GoP; that’s it. The HDV format is strictly 25Mbps constant. XDCAM HD runs up to 35Mbps variable and will be 50Mbps variable in 2007; that and a 50GB dual layer disc to record to!!

Then there is the fact that XDCAM HD is full size using professional 1/2 inch lenses and the on-board circuitry is so much better than the likes of those found in cams like the Z1.

Personally I don’t think there is anything wrong with the Long GoP; it is your friend, not an enemy.

I can’t understand why folk bring HDV or XDCAM HD into programmes such as Final Cut via a Kona and capture into the DVCPROHD codec. The DVCPROHD codec is not only lossey, but it is a different codec to XDCAM or HDV hence all you are doing is transcoding and creating one serious ‘generation loss’. Why do this when you can simply work in native XDCAM HD mode?

I have a dual 2.66 intel Mac Pro and working with native XDCAM HD footage from an F350 feels no different to when I used to work with native DVCAM footage from DSR570; just as quick, just as effeciant etc. But I don’t stack up 20 layers of video and audio so I can’t comment on how that would work. I usually have around 4 layers of video and 4 layers, sometimes 5 of audio and it is fine.

My workflow is to bring in via FAM onto a native XDCAM HD 1080p timeline in FCP, edit natively, then send back master HD version to the F350 onto a Pro Disc.

For my SD DVD I simply create a new sequence in FCP as SD uncompressed 8-bit 16:9, then copy/paste my HD timeline onto it, then render it out and send that to Episode Pro for MPEG encoding for DVDSP. I find re-rendering a 1 hour HD to SD timeline takes about 30 minutes, then the Episode Pro encode of a 1 hour SD timeline is just under real time. No problems here with speed whatsoever. My SD DVDs look pin sharp and any Photoshop graphics suddenly look wonderful again when dropped into a new 8-bit uncompressed timeline. Oh, no raids, just bog-standard internal hard drives.

As for the production workflow not being different to Digibeta. You will find that it is way different, XDCAM HD is in a different production workflow league altogether. For a start you can fit 5 XDCAM discs in your jacket pocket, can’t do that with 5 Digi tapes. You can instantly play back clips to clients, who will be impressed by the way the thumbnails work. You can’t accidently record over a clip like you can with tape if you back it up too far. You don’t have to worry about breaking timecode. Now this one is silly I know, but if you are working near water and drop a disc in, simply dry it off and use it no problem. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

I can’t comment on conforming as I’ve only gone back to XDCAM disc, which needs conforming, but it was fast and I didn’t see any point in sitting there watching it, I went for a coffee and when I got back it was done.

David, interesting comments you make on my long and comprehensive feature over on DVuser. I can understand where you are coming from and I agree that parts of it read like I work for Sony. But the reason it reads like that is because the first time I got my hands on an F350 for a week I was totally blown away with it. I agree it is not the best camcorder in the world and it certainly dosn’t produce the best images in the world. But for the price there is nothing like it. XDCAM HDs Optical Disc format is brilliant for a huge number of reasons and the image quality is far superior to the following cameras, all of which I either own, or have owned and have done side-by-side tests via HD monitor: JVC GY-HD111, Sony Z1, Panasonic HVX200. XDCAM HD simply wipes the floor with these cameras. The overall image is much cleaner with better bite and colour saturation. When I A/B switched between an F350 hooked up via HD/SDI into a HD monitor with HD/SDI board, and the JVC GY-HD111E via Componant, the image quality was far superior coming from F350. Funny thing, I own the JVC and have just completed a 4 month production on ‘how to film wildlife’ see http://www.wildlifefilmmaking.com and I always thought the image quality of it was pretty amazing for a camera costing

[Ron Exalto]

A necessary update to my prior post above:
The Axio (SD) system will handle realtime XDCAM editing thanks to the new 1440×1080 presets now included. My first HD editings were on 1920×1080 presets which slow down realtime processing!
Rendering out from HD timelines to current DVD streams is faster than realtime also.
So the only thing still missing on an Axiosystem is conforming back to MXF format to write that back to XDCAM disc.

BTW I’ve read Nigel’s article some time ago (can’t remember if it was prior to or just after buying my F350) but it’s really the best, most complete, article I’ve read while searching for info on the camera. Takes away any doubt one might have!

Have a great 2007!!!

ELVIC DVD PRODUCTIONS & HOMECINEMA
Editing on Axio 2.5
Aquisition with Sony PDW-F350 XDCAM HD