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Yesterday’s Emmys & FCP X.
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[Oliver Peters] “When it comes to pure scaling from progressive to progressive, you’d think that would be pretty well equal, but it’s not. I just did a test today with some drone footage. UHD 29.97p down to 1080 29.97p. I tested Edit Ready, Compressor and Adobe Media Encoder. Of the 3, AME did the best job. ER had a lot of visible aliasing on fine detail, which is something I hadn’t expected at all. I had also expected Compressor to be better than AME, since AME was using OpenCL and not a software conversion. But, in fact, AME looked better.”
That is good to know.
[Oliver Peters] “Then in these conversions, you have other factors that are often something one can’t really predict. This ties us into the discussion of DV and FCPX capture. So, first the DV part. With FCP “legacy” and a Mac tower you could do a direct DV capture over Firewire. This was a data transfer and, therefore, shouldn’t have induced any extra loss. However, back in those days you had professional DV decks and the AJA Io. If you took a DV tape, played out through a pro decks’ component analog or SDI connections into the AJA Io, you got a better-looking image. This was not because of compression, but because the DV deck had extra electronics to actually process the output video. A lot better image from a Sony pro DV/DVCAM deck versus tapping the DV output from a cheap deck or a camcorder. Typically this would clean up tape drop-outs and other tape artifacts, which were usually passed through on the DV stream.”
Interesting? I am not doubting you but I hope to a get a client with a DV deck (I doubt it will happen) so I can test it out for myself.
[Oliver Peters] “Now as far as FCPX is concerned, it can capture these signals, but only as a live stream. Essentially the software is “mounting” the tape deck like a camera card, so you have no deck control or mark in/out of segments with batch capture. So yes, you can capture into X, but it’s a “dumb” process (not intellect, but interactiveness).”
You are saying FCPX can capture using the BMD, AJA and Matrox products? Can it output back to a Sony HDCAM SR deck or just to a monitor? This thread may have went off course but it has been very interesting. It is good to hear about real world situations when using FCPX, Premiere Pro, AME, Compressor, AJA, BMD, Matrox etc.
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[Oliver Peters] “However, back in those days you had professional DV decks and the AJA Io. If you took a DV tape, played out through a pro deck’s component analog or SDI connections into the AJA Io, you got a better-looking image.”
I agree, we used to do this all the time when I was an online Editor and there was a visible difference
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[Oliver Peters] “If you took a DV tape, played out through a pro deck’s component analog or SDI connections into the AJA Io, you got a better-looking image. This was not because of compression, but because the DV deck had extra electronics to actually process the output video and add error correction. A lot better image from a Sony pro DV/DVCAM deck versus tapping the DV output from a cheap deck or a camcorder. Typically this would clean up tape drop-outs and other tape artifacts, which were usually passed through on the DV stream.”
I would just add that different implementations of the DV codec (or any codec, really) can yield different results, and this is true in both hardware and software implementations.
The standards define how the data is stored, but different developers will interpret the standard differently, use different math to compress or decompress the data, and give different results. The same exact bitstream may be visualized differently by the Apple DV codec, Avid DV codec, Canon DV codec, Canopus DV codec, Microsoft DV codec, Panasonic DV codec, Sony DV codec, etc.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[andy patterson] “You are saying FCPX can capture using the BMD, AJA and Matrox products?”
Nope. Didn’t say that. FCPX wants to see something that looks like a connected camera. Therefore it has to be a DV/HDV stream over Firewire of something else via adapter. This eliminates all standard i/o products. From the FCPX manual:
Import from tape-based cameras
You can import media from a tape-based camcorder or device. To determine which clips you want to import (rather than importing all of them), you can view them using Final Cut Pro before you import them.
Final Cut Pro supports tape-based import of the DV (including DVCAM, DVCPRO, and DVCPRO50), DVCPRO HD, and HDV formats.
To check whether your camera is compatible with Final Cut Pro, see the Apple Support article Cameras supported by Final Cut Pro X.
1. Connect the camcorder to your Mac using the cable that came with the camcorder, and configure your device for remote control over FireWire, if necessary.
If your computer does not have a FireWire port but does have a Thunderbolt port, you can connect the FireWire cable using an Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter or an Apple ThunderBolt Display (which also has a FireWire port).
Note: For best results when importing from a tape-based camcorder, it’s recommended that you import the video using the same camcorder that you used to record it.
It goes on from there.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Oliver Peters] “[andy patterson] “You are saying FCPX can capture using the BMD, AJA and Matrox products?”
Nope. Didn’t say that. FCPX wants to see something that looks like a connected camera. Therefore it has to be a DV/HDV stream over Firewire of something else via adapter. This eliminates all standard i/o products. From the FCPX manual:”
Thanks for clarifying. So as it stands FCPX will only work with cameras and devices that use the IEEE Fire Wire based protocol.
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Andy –
You stepped into a thread about research and winning an Emmy, and what role FCPX may or may not have played, with this nonsense:
“And everyone says FCPX allows you to edit in ways not possible in any other NLE : )”
As the thread became more about hardware vs. software methods to upscale SD to 4k, and threatened to derail over confused terminology, you added nothing to the discussion except to call out FCPX for its inability to do things it wasn’t designed to do.
You presented no new information, solved no problem, provided no insights, cleared up no confusion, saved no new or potential users from hours of confusion or frustration.
Your incessant trolling is tiresome. Please stop. Please contribute meaningfully to the conversation and the community.
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Oliver-
Sorry about the misspelling. Haven’t used a Teranex in years (last used one to convert SD PAL to SD NTSC).
Do you know if Teranex’s basic technology has changed since Black Magic bought the company? Any change to their “secret sauce” algorithms?
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[Jeff Markgraf] “Sorry about the misspelling.”
I wasn’t pointing any fingers ☺ Quite a few different posts had various wrong spellings. No big deal.
[Jeff Markgraf] “Do you know if Teranex’s basic technology has changed since Black Magic bought the company?”
It’s my understanding that the full-sized units have the same Teranex processing. I don’t know if they still have every feature, though, since I’ve never done a side-by-side feature comparison between BMD versions and pre-BMD versions. Naturally the older units were a lot more expensive. However, I believe the small Mini units are Teranex in name only.
There are other image restoration products that used to be in the Teranex line-up that I don’t think BMD has brought back to market. Those did excellent processing for things like scratch and dirt removal/repair.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[andy patterson] “So as it stands FCPX will only work with cameras and devices that use the IEEE Fire Wire based protocol”
Correct. I would point out that there was an SD i/o product that converted to DV. That’s the Canopus ADVC-110, which would take in and/or put out composite SD, s-video and DV. Great for capturing things like VHS. I haven’t specifically tested this with X – at least recently – but I believe that type of i/o box would work, since it creates a DV signal stream and connects over FireWire.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Oliver Peters] ” I would point out that there was an SD i/o product that converted to DV. That’s the Canopus ADVC-110, which would take in and/or put out composite SD, s-video and DV.”
I believe this is something in which Andy is very aware of, as he has one and talks about it a lot…even has videos about it.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
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