[Alan Okey]

If your boss wanted the very best quality, he should have bought an HDCAM, XDCAM, XDCAM EX or DVCPRO HD camera instead of an HDV camera.

Once the signal gets recorded to tape in the camera, the damage is done. You can’t get back the information that the HDV compression scheme throws out.

Importing via Firewire is a direct digital transfer of the data that was recorded to tape. There’s no higher quality way to transfer the footage than that.

[Alan Okey]

This is pretty incredible news… I guess the true test would be confirmation from the digital cinema system reps that the output from Wraptor is truly compliant with their required specs.

[Alan Okey]

[David Roth Weiss] “If Mac Minis truly did the job there would be loads of Mac Mini render farms all over.”

FYI: A small Mac Mini render farm was used on David Fincher’s Zodiac.

https://www.editorsguild.com/v2/magazine/archives/0307/cover_story.htm

“An X-Serve render node was benchmarked against a Mac Mini and we discovered that the Mini did 50 percent of the work at 10 percent of the cost.”

True enough, a single Mac Mini wouldn’t be of much use. But ten of them? Now you’re talking!

[Alan Okey]

[Bill Dewald] “Have you done color correction already? Its best to do that work after the upres – and will add to the price as well… “

Yes, that’s mainly what I worked on, but I assumed that checking color (using a 3D LUT in mastering, etc.) was part of creating the DCP.

[Bill Dewald] “But, if you _are_ going to spend the money, you should do it right – right?”

Sure! Especially if it’s not my money…

😉

[Alan Okey]

Add a widescreen matte layer to V2. This will keep any transitions on V1 from appearing to move past the letterbox edge.

[Alan Okey]

Control-click (or right-click) on the old footage in the Bin and select Footage Properties>Format. Make sure Anamorphic is checked. Then try dropping the footage in the timeline again. It should now be letterboxed.

[Alan Okey]

[thomas benton] “I need the monitor for Color Correction. “

If you are using NTSC equipment, you really need to know that unless your deck is a high end model you won’t be seeing proper black levels on your monitor.

Read these articles:

https://www.adamwilt.com/DV-FAQ-tech.html#Setup

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

[Alan Okey]

[Ron Davis] “is their some kind of software I can use that if I feed video out from the HVX into the G5, I can preview what I’m shooting live with lets say 50% opacity and have my plate underneath so that way I can make sure that the perspective I’m shooting from will match the perspective of my plate?”

You’re kind of doing things backwards, which is the hard way. Typically, actors are shot first on a greenscreen stage with tracking markers and the background CG is created after the fact to match the perspective. You might have more success by changing your workflow – there’s lots of info and software dedicated to 3D matchmove. Check out SynthEyes and PFHoe Pro for some inexpensive examples.

[Alan Okey]

You need to set up a virtual cluster on your Mac using Qmaster and Qadministrator so that Compressor will make the greatest use of all of your CPU cores. Make sure that Compressor is allotted 8 instances in the Qmaster preferences. Search the Cow forums for details.

[Alan Okey]

[Vincent Strader] “I’ve read a few other posts, but I mean without having to use any 3rd party programs. Is there anything inside FCP 4.5?”

No.

MPEG Streamclip is your friend. And it’s free.