Workflow – Phantom Cam & 35mm

[Gary Adcock]

OK

first off why are you doing an NTSC offline, with todays HD codecs that can cause more trouble than necessary especially when working with commercial content.

Since you say the Phantom is being shot as 1080, and you are doing a 1080 4:2:2 finish, why not have both the phantom and the 35mm transferred to HDCamSR (which is 10bit as 4:2:2 or 4:4:4) and use the tapes as your masters?

The issues that I see with all of the content from both cameras as DPX files- jumbo storage and desktop needs to handle the files, software down conversions do not always carry correct timecode for relinking.

Let the flame guy do his own conversion from the master tapes-

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Check out
https://www.aja.com/kiprotour/

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[David Jahns]

Hi Gary. Thanks for your suggestions.

We’re doing NTSC-24 offline because the creative team is more comfortable with an offline/online workflow when dealing with 35mm film – they’ll inevitably want to see the entire 4×3 full gate frame, reposition & blow up, etc.

A few projects back, we did the dailies film transfer to SR 16-9, but when we wanted to reframe some shots, we didn’t know what was in the top or bottom of the 35mm frame, and we had to retransfer anyway – and then rent the SR deck again, too.

We still shoot 35mm film and do this off/online workflow quite often, it’s just the Phantom Cam footage that we’re trying to figure out the best plan for.

Since it’s just short format TV, we’ll just get TIFFs, create QTs with frame burn-ins, and manually re-conform later, but if anyone knows why the AJA DPX translator didn’t work with Color’s DPX files, I’d love to hear about it.

[Gary Adcock]

[David Jahns] “Since it’s just short format TV, we’ll just get TIFFs, create QTs with frame burn-ins, and manually re-conform later, but if anyone knows why the AJA DPX translator didn’t work with Color’s DPX files, I’d love to hear about it. “

2 reasons.
not a standard frame size for video playback or
the files are not standardized DPX frame sizes – is Color creating them or some other app?

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Check out
https://www.aja.com/kiprotour/

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[David Jahns]

Ah, yes. Thanks, Gary.

These were DPX files created from Red 4K files. I created some 2k DPX’s from Color, and they work just fine with the KONA Translator. Thanks for your help!

[Gary Adcock]

[David Jahns] “These were DPX files created from Red 4K files.”

AJA’s app was not designed to handle 4K rasters.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Check out
https://www.aja.com/kiprotour/

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Robert Monaghan]

Hi David,

We provide a Phantom Cine Toolkit for FCP. It does a number of things which will make your editorial life better. One of these is adding a Time Code track to the Phantom Clip, which will make it possible to conform with Phantom footage. (We also sell a separate DPX package, which allows FCP to work directly with DPX footage too. But it may not be helpful to you.) Download a demo from our site..

bob.
ww.gluetools.com

Robert Monaghan, CEO
Glue Tools LLC
629 State St. Suite 220
Santa Barbara, CA, 93101
United States

tel: +1 805 456 7997
fax: +1 805 456 7998

http://www.gluetools.com

[David Jahns]

Thanks, Bob.

I did look into Glue Tools, and have downloaded the demos of both packages.

For this project, the Camera Tech will handle everything and deliver us both QTs and DPX’s with matching timecode. I think he’s using Glue Tools, actually… 😉

[Julian Lalinde]

“We provide a Phantom Cine Toolkit for FCP. It does a number of things which will make your editorial life better. One of these is adding a Time Code track to the Phantom Clip, which will make it possible to conform with Phantom footage.”

Hello Robert,

I wanted to ask exactly how are you adding a time code track to the Phantom Clips? I am working in a Rental house, we have two Phantoms and have different types of external recorders like, Nano Flash, Aja KiPros, and CODEX soon the Gemini. We have bee looking at ways to make the post poduccion process easier by providing offline material which they can later reconnect with the original .cine files. The main problem is that we don’t have a time code track for them to be linked with. We find the .cine files count frames from minus zero to a value dependent on the clips size. The Aja recorders dont record a time code either.
We know of the conversion possible from .cine files to quicktime, but this is very time consuming as it takes sometimes a whole extra day of conversion. It would be ideal if the offline clips could be obtained at the end of the day on set.
We and a lot of post production houses already have gluetools, any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Julian Lalinde

Chief External Technician
Congo Films
Bogota, Colombia
congofilms.tv

[Robert Monaghan]

Hi,

I generate a SMPTE TimeCode track using a system that I had developed. Basically it is generated from the time stamps from within the Cine itself. In the licensed version, this timecode track is always there. You don’t need to do anything.

In a future release of my software (which should be soon) I will be creating a TimeCode track using the same mathematics that the Phantom Flex uses. So, if you set up your Flex to playback at 1080psf24, for instance, you will get a valid SMPTE timecode out of the TC port. This timecode will match the Timecode my software generates.

I have extended this compatibility to other cameras, too, under some circumstances.

In a nutshell:

SMPTE Timecode is always there, in the licensed versions. If you are conforming in FCP, the TCs of a proxy rendered using my software, will match the Cine file.

Proxies created from the Flex’s HD-SDI Out, will match a Cine played back in my software, in an upcoming update. (This week?)

bob

Robert Monaghan, CEO
Glue Tools LLC
POBox 24124
Santa Barbara, CA, 93121
United States

tel: +1 805 456 7997
fax: +1 805 456 7998

http://www.gluetools.com

[Julian Lalinde]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick response. That means that at the moment there is no way of getting the time code from the time code port in the back of the Phanomt Flex?
The method you are currently using is still with the original .cine files, importing them via gluetools info FCP, right?
With the update you mention, would it be possible to do the workflow I mentioned?
eg.

Flex-playback- Aja Ki Pro connected via SDI capturing 422 proxies. Time code cable connected to TC port on camera to TC port on KiPro.
Resulting in having easy to manage 422(PX) files for editing, which have SMPTE time code, so that an edl is made to conform with the original raw .cine clips.

Let me know if this is already possible, or we have to wait for your update.

Regards,

Julian Lalinde

Chief External Technician
Congo Films
Bogota, Colombia
congofilms.tv