Workflow w/ Teranex Question

[Sean Oneil]

One clarification. I couldn’t just online the whole project to Digibeta and then have them convert it. The reason is because only some of the footage needed an upconversion. The rest of it was shot on HD, so laying back the whole thing to D-beta wasn’t an option.

Sean

[Gary Adcock]

[Sean ONeil] “Two places I talked to said they couldn’t do it because the source (digibeta) and the output (1080psf 23.98) were different framerates.”

Sorry bit they are both correct – terranex will not do this –you need a UKON or Alchemist to do an up-rez at the same time as a frame rate conversion.

Sean think about it- it is interlace to Progressive also. it is not just a frame conversion it is also a de-interlace.

and you really really do not want to do this much in software it will be terribly soft if you do not use hardware for this problem.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Chicago, IL

[Bob Flood]

sean

hey man, are you the same sean who was beta testing edit 6.0 when i was? there was sherwood, susch, and various other playas, and a guy named dan at discreet?

anyway, as far as your post. in scenario 2, whereby the post house dubs everything to a clip reel to be upconverted, you can do it without having to eye match the shots in.

the easiset way is to take all your shots you need to upconvert, sort them by source tc, media manage them to a new bin so as to add handle, put them in a new sequence and print out or make an edl. Or you could make a batch list of just the SD clips.

Then, either auto assemble your clip reel (provided the post house has 2 digibetas and an edit controller) OR dub all the shots manually BUT make sure you carry over the timecode from the original source tapes ie:
if you can auto assemble the clip reel, dub the tc to track 4 of the clip reel, if your going to manually dub each shot onto a clip reel, just jam the tc over. When you run the clip reel through the upconverter, make sure to carry over the tc to your d5 or hdcam, either from track 4 or the tc track. Now change your reel names on all your previous sd clips in FCP to the one reel, and recapture.

there is another way to do this as well. it involves making an “archive” video tape from fcp. you need a program called XMLtoTXT by spherico, In essence you make a sequence of the SD clips and lay off to tape but by crunching the XML data FCP thinks the layoff tape is your source tapes. Larry Jordan has been able to do this so as to archive footage for a project and still be able to return all the source tapes to client. go to his website for the exact how to.

when i first started editing we would get client 3/4 inch tapes that our CMX did not like (oh but the place she was conming froms paltex handled fine) so we used to have to do select bump ups in source tc order so we could auto
assemble.

Its also the same drill as when you have to do 2 passes on a film job, a dailies pass of all takes, then a select pass in source tc order of the keepers.

hope this helps

bee eph

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Sean Oneil]

[gary adcock] “Sorry bit they are both correct – terranex will not do this –you need a UKON or Alchemist to do an up-rez at the same time as a frame rate conversion.

Sean think about it- it is interlace to Progressive also. it is not just a frame conversion it is also a de-interlace.

and you really really do not want to do this much in software it will be terribly soft if you do not use hardware for this problem.”

Gary, I really appreciate the reply. But I think you misunderstood my post by a thousand percent.

First off you’re wrong about the Teranex’s capabilities. It does do the conversion just fine. The Teranex (which is hardware based) can indeed convert framerate and resolution at the same time. Even with mixed cadence film that is totally whacked. It can even convert video based NTSC to 23.98 1080p on the fly. I know this because I just had it done yesterday at one of the facilities I was complaining about. And it looks great.

But that wasn’t my question. What I was asking is if this can be done during the batch re-capture process in FCP – not just as a tape to tape operation. I know you CAN do it if you set the proper offset in the device control. But supposedly FCP doesn’t allow it if there is a framerate change taking place. I want to know if this has been confirmed by someone firsthand, because I feel that there actually is a way to do it based on my experience with DVCProHD footage.

Sean

[Sean Oneil]

Thanks Bob. Sorry, I’m a different Sean :).

[Bob Flood] “Then, either auto assemble your clip reel (provided the post house has 2 digibetas and an edit controller) OR dub all the shots manually BUT make sure you carry over the timecode from the original source tapes ie:
if you can auto assemble the clip reel, dub the tc to track 4 of the clip reel, if your going to manually dub each shot onto a clip reel, just jam the tc over. When you run the clip reel through the upconverter, make sure to carry over the tc to your d5 or hdcam, either from track 4 or the tc track. Now change your reel names on all your previous sd clips in FCP to the one reel, and recapture.”

Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to layoff TC to an audio track from FCP. I know there’s a device that you can buy that converts TC from RS422 into audio. So with it, yes that step would work. The only other problem I see in that is the delay which the Teranex introduces. I’m not sure there’s a way to work around that. If I were allowed to operate in their machine room, I could figure out a way to do a delay to the D5 deck or something. But that ain’t happening, and trying to explain this to an op without him wanting to murder you would be tough.

[Bob Flood] “there is another way to do this as well. it involves making an “archive” video tape from fcp. you need a program called XMLtoTXT by spherico, In essence you make a sequence of the SD clips and lay off to tape but by crunching the XML data FCP thinks the layoff tape is your source tapes. Larry Jordan has been able to do this so as to archive footage for a project and still be able to return all the source tapes to client. go to his website for the exact how to.”

That sounds very interesting. Definately going to research that. Thanks! Still have a hunch that there’s a simpler solution though.

Sean

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

The time code comes in via the 9 pin cable. The time code must be in the format you’re capturing in, so if you’re capturing as 23.98, the time code must be 23.98. There is no way to control a capture using the wrong frame rate.

What the facility told you is basically true, assuming that the material on your Digital Betacam is standard, interlaced video footage – in which case, I really don’t know how you got it into a 23.98 project to begin with, unless your project is actually 29.97 and now you’re trying to create a 23.98 master as an online process. If this is the case, you really should do a “pre-conversion” of all the video based sources, because the time codes on the original will be irrelevant once the conversion is done. Unless you really must deliver a 23.98 HD master, I would suggest that a better way to handle this type of project is to create a 1080i HD master. In that case, the “live” upconversion can be captured directly, as the base time code rate will be the same. If you need to project this in a progressive format, I would then suggest you take the 1080i master and convert it to 720p/60 for projection.

[Gary Adcock]

[Sean ONeil] “First off you’re wrong about the Teranex’s capabilities. It does do the conversion just fine.”

Well Sean,
I only got some of it wrong, I have a Mini unit from Terranex and it does not handle 1080 23.98 material- I have been told by them only the full size unit has the ability to handle 1080 23.98 content.

I agree with Mike Most’s comments- your stand a better chance for success following his guide line. FCP will not have an issue if the TC is identical but remember that you will have to convert your 29.97 edl to a 23.98 timeline ( in Cinema Tools)

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Chicago, IL

[Sean Oneil]

[Mike Most] ”
The time code comes in via the 9 pin cable. The time code must be in the format you’re capturing in, so if you’re capturing as 23.98, the time code must be 23.98. There is no way to control a capture using the wrong frame rate.”

That’s what I keep hearing, yet it’s not true (at least not always). What you described actually does work with a Panasonic AJ-HD1200A using 9-pin serial control. Video output is 23.98, but the offline clips are 29.97. Deck control and the TC from the deck is also 29.97. And it batch captures just fine and captures it as 23.98 clips w/ 29.97 TC. I’ve done it numerous times and I rely on it as part of my offline to online Varicam workflow. It works fine.

So FCP 5.1 is capable of transcoding TC in this situation. It has the ability to assign TC of any framerate to video of any framerate. You can quickly check yourself using the “Modify -> Timecode” option. You can assign different timebase TC formats to any clip you like. And it translates it accurately. For example take an NTSC clip with 29.97 TC, drop or non-drop. Assign it 23.98 TC. It will work and it will translate it accordingly. The actual framerate of the video never changes. Just the source TC numbers. The numbers will skip or duplicate in order to make up the difference of the actual frame count of the video within one second. So FCP does have the inherent capability to translate between different TC framerates.

Whehter or not it will work on a batch capture from a digibeta through a Teranex converting the framerate may or may not work. But I want to find out from someone who has tried it. Not from someone basing it on what they believe to be common sense.

Sean

[Sean Oneil]

Wait a minute. I just realized something. Kona and Blackmagic cards allow you to capture 23.98 from an NTSC 29.97 source. It’s their remove 3:2 pulldown feature.

How is what I want to do any different? Isn’t it essentially the same exact concept?

Sean

[Jeremy Garchow]

The timecode is based on 29.97, not 23.98. When using the Bm or AJA cards to capture they simply skip frames in the 29.97 cadence.