Varicam DVCPro HD Capture Question

[Scott Davis]

Dan, If you capture DVCPRO HD via Firewire into its native codec there is no additional compression. If you capture into an uncompressed codec there is transcoding and from my understanding a minimal loss of image quality. Also the only reason I understand to capture using a different codec is if there will be heavy effects applied and you want to preserve as much of the image as possible. I am not sure (I speculate not) if you capture to another codec if the flaged frames are preserved enabling you to bring the footage to 30 fps.

[Herb Sevush]

Dan –

If you shot the footage at 30fps and want to edit with a 30fps timeline, then the best way to ingest is via firewire. The frame rate converter is for when you want to shoot at one speed (say 30) and edit at another (say 24) for either slow or high speed motion effects. But if you just want to edit at normal speed you don’t need it.

And yes, the camera always shoots at 60 and discards certain frames according to the desired standard speed, but that is not something you will ever have to deal with — it’s invisible to the user.

There is some debate about wether it’s better to ingest Uncompressed 10 bit or in the cameras native DVCPRO HD Codec via Firewire – but it’s the same debate that goes on with DV: The material is already compressed – uncompressing it gains you nothing unless you are going to render the material for compositing reasons, in which case the original DVCPRO Codec gets uncompressed and then recompressed. The general consensus is that if you are doing mostly straight cutting go firewire and save the disk space – if you are doing lots of heavy compositing go uncompressed.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Walter Biscardi]

[dg_air] “We have some footage that was shot at 30p on the Varicam and we want to bring it in with the least compression. From what I understand, footage shot on this camera is automatically 60 fps and one needs to use a frame rate converter, like the one in Final Cut to change to the desired frame rate”

Nope, that’s only if you’re going to do a slow mo or fast speed with the DVCPro HD footage. Simply capture it using either the DVCPro HD 60 or 30 preset via Firewire and you’re set to go.

I edit a broadcast series and we stay in the DVCPro HD codec via Firewire for the entire Post process, including Color Correction. the output is identical to footage captured via 8bit uncompressed and color corrected that way.

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

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

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

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

G5 Dual 2.0, AJA Kona 2, Medea FCR2X

[Dg_air]

We ended up capturing via the Blackmagic 8 bit codec at 29.97 with no problems. Final Cut dropped the appropriate extra frames without the need for the frame rate converter. The footage is all blue screen so going the “uncompressed” route seemed like the better option.

Just for kicks, I captured some of the footage using the Blackmagic 8 bit DVCPro HD codec in hopes of playing with the frame rate converter. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work. Maybe final cut could see it didn’t need to be converted and rejected it…who knows….Anyone have any ideas on this one? I suspected that perhaps one has to capture via firewire, but then why would blackmagic make this codec? The AJ HD150P deck we rented did not have a firewire port, so I couldn’t test this theory anyway.

From what I have gathered, you only need to use the Frame Rate Converter for footage that is shot at a nonstandard frame rate. Final Cut will automatically drop the appropriate frames for footage shot at 59.94, 29.97 and 23.98. Is this correct?

Thanks again for all the info/help. I am just trying to get a handle on all this for future projects….

Dan