Uncompressed DV?

[Walter Biscardi]

If you’re mastering back to DV or DVCAM before going to BetaSP there’s no reason to capture uncompressed. The video quality of DV capture and Uncompressed capture are essentially the same from a DV source.

Where you lose quality is on your graphics in a DV timeline. So if you plan to master directly out of your FCP system to Beta SP, then there is an advantage to capturing / working uncompressed.

But mastering back to your DV / DVCAM deck will simply add the compression back to the video, so you lose any advantage of uncompressed.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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

[Bret Williams]

THATs what I tried to tell a company here in Atl. They too shoot DVCam and Beta, (mostly DVCam now), then go in through the AJA IO, then back out to DVCam!

They didn’t believe me when I told them that my DSR-11 system hooked up via firewire was of higher quality output than their big AJA IO system.

They’re actually taking another compression hit when they input component output of the IO into the DVCam, when then runs it through a compressor turning it into a DV25 signal. They also pickup some analog noise when they go from DV to Analog and into the IO on capture. With my simple DVCam only system, the footage doesn’t change one pixel (unless compositing occurs) from camera to edit master.

Sounds like the same situation with tetsaedabo. His final product would be of slightly higher quality if he were firewire only without the AJA. AND he’d have 5 times (yes, five times) as much drive space available. Drives would also cost significantly less and could be internal or FW or FW800.

[Sean Lander]

Im not sure about this. My feelings are if you have the time. Redigitise your footage. Yes going in native firewire from DVCam is fine. But it sounds like you might have a bit of rendering to do? If this is so then uncompressed will give you the best results. Graphics, text and animations always come up better. Redigitising will avoid any problems you might encounter with field dominance as well. I’m assuming your running SDI to the DSR80 so there really should be no difference compared to Firewire.

Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Trainer
R E D N A I L – M E D I A
https://www.rednail.com.au
email: sean@rednail.com.au

[Uli Plank]

If you are doing quite a bit of graphics or text, using Photo-JPEG at 75% as an intermediate codec would be an alternative. It doesn’t take much more space than DV and looks better, very close to uncompressed, while it runs from ordinary drives.

Regards,

Uli

Author of “DVDs gestalten und produzieren”, a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Sean Lander] “Yes going in native firewire from DVCam is fine. But it sounds like you might have a bit of rendering to do? If this is so then uncompressed will give you the best results. Graphics, text and animations always come up better. Redigitising will avoid any problems you might encounter with field dominance as well. I’m assuming your running SDI to the DSR80 so there really should be no difference compared to Firewire.”

If you capture from DV via Uncompressed, then go back to a DV / DVCAM deck via SDI, the deck is going to add another round of DV / DVCAM compression.

Think about it this way. Let’s say you hook up a DigiBeta camera via SDI to a DVCAM deck. That deck is NOT going to record an uncompressed signal from the camera because it can’t. It will record the signal to tape as compressed (5:1) DVCAM footage. So what’s the difference in feeding the signal via SDI from an Final Cut Pro System? You’re taking footage that was compressed 5:1 during original aquisition, capturing it in an Uncompressed codec in FCP, then laying it back to tape with another 5:1 round of compression added to the signal.

On the other hand, if you capture Firewire in the DV codec, edit in the DV codec, then go back to the DVCAM deck, that entire process is lossless with no additional 5:1 compression added on the way out. So from a footage standpoint, the Firewire / DV route will result in a cleaner master.

IF you’re going to master out to an uncompressed format from your FCP system, such as BetaSP, DigiBeta, etc…, THEN capturing / editing in uncompressed makes sense.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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

[Walter Biscardi]

[Bret Williams] ”
THATs what I tried to tell a company here in Atl. They too shoot DVCam and Beta, (mostly DVCam now), then go in through the AJA IO, then back out to DVCam!

They didn’t believe me when I told them that my DSR-11 system hooked up via firewire was of higher quality output than their big AJA IO system.”

Didn’t know you’re also in Atlanta, very cool!

And yes, you’re right, DV to Uncompressed back to DV adds more noise than the Firewire route. All the gains in graphics and color quality are erased when mastering back to DVCAM and they’re actually making the video footage look worse.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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

[Bret Williams]

Thank you. You have no idea how many people I’ve tried to make that point to since 1998. Somehow uncompressed still sounds better to them and then they output to a DV deck.

[Bret Williams]

Yeah, we’ve met. At the FCP meetings a few times when they were still off Piedmont.

You probably know the little company I’m talking about. They operate a small chain of home improvement stores… 🙂

But to be fair they are loading in all sorts of footage like beta, DVCam, vhs, whatever. They also route stuff from other rooms to other decks, to studios, etc. There really isn’t a much better solution than using component across the board, and then therefore the AJA IO for in/out. I just find it fun to mention to them that my little G4 and DSR-11 is all in all better quality since they’re going out to a DVCam deck.

[Sean Lander]

Agree with you Walter except for one thing. Rendering introduces compression if you are working in DV space.
I have done a lot of work with both DV and Uncompressed and from what I’ve seen there is no comparison.

The FIrewire way:
You have your dv footage captured with firewire. (no loss)
You import what would normally be pristine graphics and animations to the DV Codec. COMPRESSION
You render these things together. COMPRESSION
You output back to tape. (No loss)

The SDI way: You capture your DV footage as uncompressed 8 or 10bit video. (No loss)
You import your graphics and animations, (No loss),
You render these things together, (No loss)
You go back out to DV-Cam tape. COMPRESSION

It is one less pass of compression. I have done the tests and it does look much better I can assure you.

Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Trainer
R E D N A I L – M E D I A
https://www.rednail.com.au
email: sean@rednail.com.au