[Ben Holmes]

Can you explain what you mean by ‘jittery’. Do you mean it looks like field jitter (although I appreciate you are working in 720p) – in which case have you tried deinterlacing on export to eliminate this (somewhat unlikely) explanation, or do you mean you are seeing jitter on motion or dropped frames? A little more info on this would help.

My first suggestion would be to make some of your footage/exports available to people here, to see if they can diagnose the issue.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

Hi Andreas

I think you misunderstand me when I say you need an HD monitor. It’s not a ‘wishlist’ requirement, it’s a necessity for dealing with broadcast HD. Without it, you cannot view the entire raster at full quality of your video/commercial, so will be unable to check it for quality/artifacts or even interlace if required. The canvas view on the computer is unacceptable and unable to show this – and field issues which will turn up broadcast are the biggest single technical issue you may have to deal with.

A couple of thousand dollars for a monitor in a 4 machine setup with XSAN should always be spent. If your boss cannot see the requirement for this, he should not offer to do work he cannot deliver – since you cannot ‘QC’ your work before delivery without one. Using an SD monitor will not show you every line, so can easily hide digital errors in video – this has happen in the past to me when forced to do this in the field.

Appreciate your situation – unfortunately it’s one I come across all too often with companies that move into broadcast and HD.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

Absolutely correct – I am talking about RAID 0 internal arrays created with disk utility – sorry if that wasn’t clear.

Just think it’s a useful and little known benefit of software RAIDS. I’ve never used the Apple RAID card, I hear about endless problems with them. I’d prefer to use an external array, so they can be swapped as required.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

Chris

Obviously a crossed wire somewhere – we are discussing the Multibridge Pro. Neither this nor the Eclipse (the only two current products) support simultaneous SD/HD output. I cannot speak for the Extreme (the older version of the MBP) although I cannot find any mention of simultaneous SD/HD output in the Extreme’s manual. It says the same as the MBP however about the Analogue outputs: “Note: You won’t see any output on the NTSC/PAL outputs if the desktop is set to HD modes”.

BM have confirmed to me there is no simultaneous SD/HD output, and I cannot see any way of specifying a secondary format to SDI output 2 on either the MBP or Multibridge Extreme. A direct quote from BM Europe is: “The only card that we have that does split downconversion is the HD Pro Pci-x. All of the other cards only do one or the other.”

Can you explain how you set it up?

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[Ben Holmes]

Hi John

You would need to put your footage into DVCProHD and DV timelines to achieve this via firewire.

The simplest way is to use the relevant ‘Easy Setups’ in FCP and dropping the completed quicktime into newly created timelines for each setup – assuming you have the same framerate.

If you originated this in HD, you will have to decide if you want to output the DV version letterboxed or anamorphic – set up the new DV sequence accordingly, and change the aspect/scale setttings of the quicktime clip as needed.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

You can remove and replace multiple sets of RAIDed drives with no problems – I’ve frequently swapped 3 drive internal arrays between systems. Very useful…

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[Ben Holmes]

Pete

Interesting point, and one of the reasons why – when I need proper chromakey – I reach for After Effects.

I suspect the issue you refer to could be resolved by nesting the clip before blurring it – have you tried that? I think the ‘premult’ issue is a fundemental limitation in the way FCP deals with multiple effect.

I’ve not tried it, but suspect the premultiplied options in most Sapphire effects could cure this – have you tried this approach?

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

[Chris Borjis] “The multibridge has ALWAYS supported down-conversion on capture
and monitoring simultaneous HD-SDI and down converted SD-SDI. “

Sorry – as far as the multibridge is concerned, that is NOT the case – have a look at the manual. Downconversion on capture? Check. Simultaneous HD/SD playback – NO.

As far as cross-conversion quality, I’ve never had to deal with it, so I can’t comment. As good a format as 720p actually is, no one is interested in it as a format in the UK, and as we move to 1080p as a final format, it’s gone long term for us. I’m sure it will linger elsewhere for a while.

I’ve seen the technical and build shortcomings of both companies products first hand, in the most demanding environments, and am entirely happy with the choice I’ve made for now. I’ll say it again: horses for courses.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

I find no difference now using the new Apple workflow of log+transfer then CC’ing the R3D files in Color, then transcoding back to FCP, using dual HD R3D files.

Before this, I was converting in REDCine before editing.

Working with R3Ds natively in FCP has never appealed to me – so now it makes little difference what video card I am using. I’m sure others have found their own preferred workflows – and I appreciate the work AJA have done with RED to assist working with non-native frame sizes.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

A quick search on this forum for DVD and Mpeg streamclip will reveal a wealth of info on this topic.

Ben

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