[Alan Okey]

[Dave LaRonde] “Good point. Does the Blu-Ray specification then support a H&V resolution like 1920×1018? “

I seriously doubt it. I don’t know for certain, but I would assume that 1920×1080 is required.

[Alan Okey]

[Dave LaRonde] “If you’re making an MPEG2 file, you’re probably making a DVD, not Blu-Ray. “

Not necessarily. The Blu-Ray spec supports both MPEG2 and h.264. In fact, the majority of commercial Bu-Ray releases are still MPEG2.

[Alan Okey]

[Jake Deeds] “That’s it, just change the compression of the sequence to ProRes 422? I wont run into any problems being that the footage was captured using DV/DVC Pro NTSC?

Awesome, almost sounds too simple. “

It really is that easy. Enjoy!

[Alan Okey]

I think it needs more crane shots.

Seriously, not only is there a lot of aliasing, but the motion is choppy in playback. Not sure what’s causing that unless there’s a mismatch between the source frame rate and output frame rate.

A couple of things to check:

Since your source video is progressive, make sure Episode isn’t doing any deinterlacing on output.

Make sure that both the source and output frame rate is 24fps (or more specifically, 23.98 in, 24 out)

What is your source footage codec and frame rate? Is it true 24p, or 24p over 60i with 3:2 pulldown?

Lead us through your workflow. What camera did you shoot on? What were the camera settings? What were your sequence settings in FCP? What did you output from FCP? What settings did you use in Episode?

[Alan Okey]

[Jake Deeds] “So are you saying going to a ProRes sequence would be pointless, I should just work in a DVCPRO sequence?
“

No, quite the opposite. The chroma smoothing filters won’t be of any use unless you edit in a sequence that uses a 4:2:2 codec like ProRes.

The simplest thing to do is just open the sequence settings of your DV sequence and change the compressor setting to ProRes 422. There is no need to transcode the footage prior to editing.

[Alan Okey]

1. Duplicate your sequence

2. Open the duplicated sequence

3. Select all of the clips on the video tracks

4. Right-click and choose remove attributes, then check the box for filters

5. Enjoy

[Alan Okey]

You’re correct in that importing directly from memory cards is much faster and easier than using a capture card.

Capture cards become more useful when you have to deal with multiple formats and format conversion. Cards like the AJA Kona 3 can upconvert, downconvert and cross-convert footage in realtime, and with better quality than software conversion. They can also add 3:2 pulldown to 24p video that’s being output to interlaced formats (NTSC-SD, HD 1080i60), and they have the ability to do a live key over video – useful for adding bugs (logos) and such. If you don’t foresee the need for those capabilities, then a capture card really just becomes a way to monitor your video.

If you’re monitoring video over a deck via Firewire, be aware that you are probably not seeing correct black level, unless you have a fairly expensive deck. Lower end decks (Sony DSR-45, DSR-11, etc.) output a 0 IRE black level, not the 7.5 IRE level required by US-NTSC. This results in blacks being too dark. If you are using an NTSC monitor and you don’t correct the 0 IRE signal with a proc amp, you aren’t getting an accurate preview of your video. This often results in people being perplexed as to why their DVDs appear lighter than what they see in their NLE.

Details here:

https://www.signvideo.com/dv-black-levels-dvd-authoring-mpeg-2-part-1.htm

Also keep in mind that you won’t be able to monitor HD over Firewire through a deck unless it’s an HDV deck. Even then, format support won’t be as broad as though a capture card. Additionally, Apple Color does not support video preview via Firewire, only through approved capture cards (AJA Kona, Blackmagic Decklink, etc.).

[Alan Okey]

Is there any particular reason you shot in SP mode? HQ mode records native 1080p24, while SP mode records 24p over 1080i60 with 3:2 pulldown. If you’re planning on editing in a native 24p sequence, shooting in HQ is the way to go.

Since you have to deal with what you’ve already shot, you’ll have to remove the 3:2 pulldown that’s present on your footage if you want to cut in a native 24p sequence. There are many advantages to using a native 24p workflow, including the ability to make native 24p DVDs that will look better than the alternative.

If you haven’t had success using Compressor to do the reverse telecine, try this instead:

First transcode your footage to ProRes 1080i60 in Compressor, then use Cinema Tools to perform reverse telecine on the ProRes clips. You’ll have to manually guide the process by selecting the the A frame in each clip to be processed, as the EX1’s SP mode doesn’t use Advanced Pulldown.

[Alan Okey]

Some options for 4:2:2 recording using the SDI output of the EX1:

1. Capture to an editing system that has a video I/O card with SDI (AJA Kona, Blackmagic Decklink, etc.). Make sure to capture to a 4:2:2 codec like Apple ProRes 422. Do not capture to the DV or HDV codecs.

2. AJA Ki Pro

3. Convergent Design nanoFlash

[Alan Okey]

[Thomas Morter-Laing] “Why then is the (albeit very good) SD camera a higher bitrate than the HDV Z1? “

You neglected to mention the codec that the SD camera is using.

Resolution and compression are two separate and unrelated specifications. Within each SD and HD format (SD, HD 720 and HD 1080), there exist many different compression schemes for recording. Panasonic’s DVCPRO 50 is an SD format that records at 50 megabits per second vs. standard DV, which is 25 megabits per second, even though both are the same resolution. DVCPRO 50 has double the chroma sampling of standard NTSC-DV – 4:2:2 vs. 4:1:1.

HDV is a highly compressed HD format. So compressed, in fact, that it has the same bitrate as standard definition DV. This is possible via long-GOP MPEG-2 based compression, 4:2:0 chroma sampling and thin raster recording, which uses 1440×1080 anamorphic pixels vs. the square 1920×1080 pixels of uncompressed HD.