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Which firewire compression should I use?
Hello,
I have a client coming in with several mini-DV tapes and I do have a Sony VX-2000 camera and firewire cable. I’ve never used it as an output device for FCP, though, so I’m wondering what compression setting to use? Of course, the highest video quality possible would keep this client coming back – however, I have no idea why he shot in mini-DV in the first place and then expect high quality! He knows better! I smell the need for some 3-Way Color Correction filters coming up.
In “Easy” Setup, the setups that appear to apply would be DV-NTSC, DV-NTSC Firewire Basic and DV50-NTSC. Which one of these would be best in this case, or is there an even better setup to use? I have all of the AJA LA setups, but they don’t appear to apply here.
Also, I’m assuming capturing via Firewire for mini-DV is the best video quality bet, but I’m used to capturing Uncompressed 8- or 10-Bit with my UVW-1800 Beta-SP. If I can get a mini-DV / DV deck with analog component outputs, would that actually be a better video quality than capturing digitally via firewire?
Thanks in advance for your help with this!
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4 Replies
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If you are coming in firewire from Dv25, DV NTSC is as good as it gets.
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1) DV-NTSC and DV-NTSC Firewire Basic are really the same thing. The “Basic” one has more to do with deck control…it’s kind of a generic setting and should work with cameras that Final Cut doesn’t know about. It knows what a VX-2000 is, so plain old DV-NTSC will be just fine for you.
2) DV50-NTSC is for DVCPRO50. That’s got nothing to do with this, ignore it.
3) And finally, what is this project going to be mastered to in the end? IF you’re putting this back to BetaSP then I would suggest capturing this video over an S-Video cable to an uncompressed format. The video ITSELF won’t look any better, but all of your titles, effects, transitions, and color correction WILL come out a little better.
If you’re going to go back to DV in the end then all that extra quality will be for nothing. In that case, use firewire in, edit in a DV timeline, and go firewire out. That’s the best quality you can get in that situation. But if you’re going to master to some other format, capture it uncompressed and from then on work like you usually do.
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DV-NTSC, Firewire basic.
You will edit in DV and output DV – there is no loss of quality using firewire and DV.
You can color correct to your hearts content, though the effect won’t be as nice as working in 10bit uncompressed, but then, that’s not what you client shot….so, oh well.
You may be surprised, though, how good it does look considering it’s DV.
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Thank you JeremyG, Jeff Carpenter and dndobson!
Good point about what will be the final output! Usually, this client wants Beta-SP masters, but then again he usually only has Beta-SP source tapes! He’s never come in with mini-DV before. I’ll have to ask him right off the bat.
I might be able to borrow a DV/mini-DV deck which has component I/O, so I might be able to capture that way in order to get an even better video quality than the S-Video. If not, though, thanks for the tip on going in S-Video from the VX-2000 via Uncompressed instead of Firewire for a better output with graphics & etc. down the line.
I’ve never input mini-DV from the camera before, so thanks for the education!
Have a great weekend,
-Pat
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