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Yesterday’s Emmys & FCP X.
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[Bill Davis] “I thought that on the OJ Speaks project Patrick worked on for Chuck Braverman they tested the beejesus out of the Terrenex verses just doing direct digitizations into FCP X -letting it do the scaling internally – without any intervening transcode boxes AT ALL – and came to the conclusion that the results were indistinguishable.
Are you saying a Terrenex workflow is measurbly superior?”
I thought it was just the opposite. I thought Shane said the Hardware (Terrenex) was better than using a generic IEEE Fire Wire convert for capturing.
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[Bill Davis] “they tested the beejesus out of the Terrenex verses just doing direct digitizations into FCP X”
The only formats you can capture into FCX are DV and HDV, correct? Or did that change with recent updates? If you capture DV into FCX, and then scale internally, vs capture via Terranex scaling…sorry, there is a BIG difference. Even if you compared DV and ProRes SD, you’d see a difference.
Where did they talk about these tests? Forum or in a presentation? I’d like do know how they captured directly into FCX.
[Bill Davis] ” without any intervening transcode boxes AT ALL – and came to the conclusion that the results were indistinguishable. “
And who determined this? Engineers? On the last doc we did (Tom/David and I) we did Resolve scaling vs AJA vs Terranex vs Alchemist tests (we had a standards conversion to deal with) and the network engineers, and even myself, noticed a difference between software upconvert and hardware…and AJA/Terranex vs Alchemist. Alchemist did the frame rate conversion better.
[Bill Davis] “Are you saying a Terrenex workflow is measurbly superior?”
I myself have done tests of software in-app upconversions vs hardware and note a big difference. We did tests recently with FCX and Resolve vs Hardware when we did THE LOST TAPES: PEARL HARBOR, because we had to also see how things held up in 4K, which we could only do via software scaling. Hardware won out, so I had to do a lot of machine to machine Terranex conversions.
[Bill Davis] “Can you check on that?”
Sure…what would you like me to do? Take an SD clip (digital file already captured) and scale it in FCX, and then Resolve, and then AJA Kona 3, and then Terranex and provide all of you with a few seconds of each for you to see for yourselves? What about tape? I can capture tape as SD ProRes, and as HD ProRes too, and POSSIBLY as DV…but I don’t have a Canopus box, I’d have to try to route it thru my DV deck…and use that to capture in FCX.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
This is an excellent thread due to the fact that real world usage is being compared instead of opinions. thanks for sharing the info.
I Hate Television. I Hate It As Much As Peanuts. But I Can’t Stop Eating Peanuts.
– Orson Welles -
I’m currently working on a doc that’s passed through a number of editors and unfortunately most of the recorded interviews were done on DV. I did a conversion through Teranex and compared that with software conversion and there was a noticeable difference. As far as software up-conversions, Resolve will give you the best results of the various software options. You get best results if the material is progressive or film. Worst results with interlaced material, which Teranex handles quite well.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Oliver Peters] “As far as software up-conversions, Resolve will give you the best results of the various software options.”
Better than After Effects? That would be great news because Resolve is lightning fast compared to AE.
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Michael Hancock
Editor -
I might have to compare this to AE. Because I still think AE is the best software conversion, but it doesn’t retain the source TC, so I only use that when pressed. Resolve would retain the TC. I know I use Resolve to bump 1080p to 4K…and that looks pretty good.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Michael Hancock] “Better than After Effects? “
I think yes, but it’s highly subjective. In Resolve, you can choose from smoother to sharper, which will vary depending on the nature of the video. Even multiples also help. For example, 1080p to 2160p (UHD). So on some shots AE may be better and in others, Resolve.
Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Michael Hancock] “Better than After Effects? That would be great news because Resolve is lightning fast compared to AE.”
I’m surprised at the love Ae gets for scaling; it used a naive scaling algorithm (bilinear scaling) until relatively recently. But now Ae has three high-quality scaling options:
1) Normal bilinear layer scaling
2) Bicubic layer scaling (new in After Effects CC v12.0)
3) The Detail-Preserving Upscale effect (new in After Effects CC v12.1)Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Shane Ross] “Where did they talk about these tests? Forum or in a presentation? I’d like do know how they captured directly into FCX.”
Patrick did this.
We had a LONG thread somewhere a year or two back when I was looking for info on digitizing some old VHS and Hi-8 content. Basically anything stored as 640×480 or even 720×480 non square into ANY digital medium.
We had people who pushed back, but IIRC, Chuck Braverman who produced the OJ Speaks project for A&E had them test various transcoding chains – and in the end – they rolled the SD stuff off DIRECTLY into FCP X via either S-Video or even Composite cables – or maybe what I use to do – directly into a basic DV deck like a DSR-20.
A straight dub rolloff always did fine for me, and the only issue was that you could’nt do timecode preroll control of the source deck directly into X. So you just hooked it up – put X in Record mode – rolled the tape – and you got a surprisingly good transfer.
When we were talking about it, I had a conversation with Adam Wilt about the engineering stuff behind the decision – and he said that when you start with that course a raster – there’s simply not enough originating signal resolution to stress the encoding. So a Terranex wouldn’t have enough pixels to mathematically improve to do much good. Basically, it’s like taking a higher rez photo of a 65 line newspaper screen. You can interpolate to add lines, but the original course image stays course. Just a higher rez version of course.
Chuck is overseas right now teaching a class in producing somewhere. So I’ll check and see if Patrick can help unravel what they discovered about SD transfers.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “We had a LONG thread somewhere a year or two back when I was looking for info on digitizing some old VHS and Hi-8 content. Basically anything stored as 640×480 or even 720×480 non square into ANY digital medium.”
Here it is:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/85274Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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