[Boyd Mccollum]

Hi Krisi,

check out http://www.nattress.com, he has a Standards Conversion plug-in that might meet your needs. You could also to a search here on the Cow. From a quick search I found this interesting thread – it outlines a couple of ways of doing it:

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?univpostid=904657&forumid=8&postid=904657&pview=t

[Boyd Mccollum]

Affordable is a relative term, especially with regards to HD. If the client is shooting 35mm, doing a telecine to HDCAM or D5, and wants the best deliverable that will hold up for a few years, then spending some $$ at the end to recapture from the HDCAM/D5 masters might be worth it and covered by their budget. We actually don’t know a lot about the actual project – is it a 2 hour feature or a 30 second commercial? What are the potential downstream deliverables? These all would factor into what is reasonable and affordable. We don’t know even know what their actual budget is.

[CharlieX2] “In the practical world, DVCPRO-HD from HDCAM will look stunning and be completely acceptable. “

I agree with this statement. And as you mentioned in your previous post, if $$ are an issue, with telecine to HDCAM or D5 (heck they have the 35mm negatives), they can always go back to a much higher quality master if necessary.

My point was that DVCProHD is not the same as uncompressed HD, which is separate from whether it’s “good enough” or “completely acceptable”. The purpose of the information I posted was to provide additional data for the OP to use in making her decision. They should probably do a test of some footage between DVCProHD vs. HDCAM and view it on a high-end HD monitor before making their decision.

[Boyd Mccollum]

I also did a quick search over at the Apple Discussion boards – I believe the information is correct (I just worry because my old 4.5 manuals are at another location, and I’d hate for someone to drop $$ based on this information without double checking.:-) If you are purchasing the computer for this, you might want to install 4.5 and run it first to make sure it works.

BTW, don’t forget to do the crossgrade (you don’t have to upgrade at this time and you can make copies of your 4.5 disks before you send them in case you need to reinstall 4.5 on this computer). But at $199, moving from FCP 4.5 to the full studio bundle is a great deal and is good only through Dec 20. The bundle might come in handy for the filmmaker down the line, especially DVDSP for distributing DVDs.

[Boyd Mccollum]

[CharlieX2] “For instance, load something from Digibeta uncompressed. Now load that same clip at DV-50. It’s pretty much the same quality you’re going to see in HD. Unless you crank the color corrector – DV50 looks really sweet. “

I may be missing something here, but Digibeta is SD, not HD, and DV50 is DVCPro, not DVCProHD, which is DV100. So Digibeta/DV50 is not the same quality you’d see in uncompressed HD or even DVCProHD, though most folks, including the audience, probaby wouldn’t tell the difference.

[Boyd Mccollum]

I did a quick search on the Cow regarding system requirements for FCP 4.5. Here’s an answer:

_________
Note: copied from apple Web site.
System Requirements
_ Macintosh computer with 350MHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor and AGP graphics card
_ Mac OS X v10.3.2 or later

_________

Looks like you’d squeeze it. Check to see what graphics card it has. (I hope performance isn’t a major requiement 🙂 As for FCP 5, it wants at least 867MHz.

Here’s a link to the current specs:https://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs.html

[Boyd Mccollum]

[Krisi] “Okay, so let’s say I go HDCAM SDI through the black magic card, captured at the DVCPRO HD codec….and then when it’s all finished and time to put the master back to tape, I’d have to put it out to the Panasonic 1400 FW/SDI deck right?

do your offline in DVCProHD, then at picture lock recapture HDCAM and finish up color correction and delivery. Do the math on the amount of footage you’ll have and the disk space you’ll need.

As for the DVCProHD format, there was an excellent thread a couple weeks ago on a somewhat related topic and Graeme Nattress made some excellent comments that speak pretty much to your clients concern regarding picture quality. Also numbers 2 & 3 below should factor into your decision:

[Graeme Nattress] “It might be a consensus, but it doesn’t make it right from a picture quality POV. If you’ve got mixed sources, and want to edit them “all as one” in HD, go uncompressed – no quality loss at all, and you can just not worry about it.

People use DVCproHD as an “intermediate” codec, usualy because it’s fast to decode and is very well supported by FCP, but really, it’s a camera codec, and never was designed for editing, and especially not for intermediate codec work:

1) it’s too compressed. You’ll see artifacts in camera original footage, never mind after a render
2) it’s not full HD resolution, but either 960×720 or 1280×1080, thus complicating things further with pixel aspect ratios, and it reduces the resolution of all footage coming into it , HDV being natively 1440×1080.
3) it’s not the usual delivery format for broadcast, that being HDCAM (hopefully the nicer SR version) or D5. That would mean, in my mind, for best quality that you do your final render of everything in a uncompressed timeline.

Apple, in their infinite wisdom, have had a superb intermediate codec for years, called “PhotoJPEG” – but they fail to RT enable it or give it the ful support it deserves. Although it’s compressed, it’s full raster 4:2:2 and mild with it’s artifacts, and fast too. But it’s not a choice as Apple don’t RT enable it. That leaves you with sub-par DVCproHD (best used in situations where that’s what you shot) and Uncompressed, with it’s massive file sizes, and nothing in-between.

I’m not saying you can’t get good looking results with DVCProHD, but I am saying it’s not without it’s obvious flaws. If ease of editing is your primary goal, then DVCproHD on the current FCP platform is about it for HD (due to Apple’s infinite wisdom – even Avid people now have DNxHD), but if picture quality is our ultimate goal, there’s only one answer – uncompressed.”

Here’s the link to the quote: https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=8&postid=914834
Here’s the link to the thread: https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=8&postid=914825

Later in the thread Graeme made one other comment that pertains to you situation. He mentioned how in the evolution of technology each new step seemed the pinnacle. How VHS, then LaseerDisc, then DVD, now HD all seemed perfect in their times- yet in a few years something new came along that resets the bar much higher. He’s now working in ultra high definition and DVCProHD doesn’t stack up. So for most folks, DVCProHD looks great today, except compared to uncompressed HD, especially if you were to be working with full HD all day long, but DVCProHD won’t look as good in 5-10 years time.

[Boyd Mccollum]

You might want to break your timeline up into smaller sections, ie. use 3 to 4 sequences for your show. BTW, which graphics card to you have? The more elements you have on a timeline (clips, audio, filters, graphics) the harder for the graphics card to keep up in RT or even Unlimited RT. The display uses the memory in the graphics card – higher end cards have more memory and are faster (I think I have that right, others could chime in with more detailed info). With the lower end/stock cards, even simple stuff eventually bogs down the display (like 2 hour timelines :-).

[Boyd Mccollum]

I’ve used it a little and it works fairly well. They have a demo you can download – you should check it out for yourself and see how it stacks up to what you are currently doing.

[Boyd Mccollum]

[walter biscardi] “I just completed the first episode of “Assignment Earth” which was shot on HDV, but captured in DVCPro HD througth the Kona. Network told me it’s the best looking HD they’ve ever seen.”

Hi Walter, did you do anything special with the footage after you captured it? I will be shooting some HDV in the near future and it’s good to hear that the quality holds up through editing. I’m sure that having an excellent cinematographer/production crew helps as well!

Thanks, Boyd

[Boyd Mccollum]

it depends on what you are going to do, what type of editing you will be doing, what source media you will be working with (HD, SD, HDV, etc.) and what kind of money you want to spend. Faster is always better, but here are some other things to consider:

1. you’ll probably want to buy additional RAM – check around for good prices
2. think about which graphics card you will need – depends on how much graphics you are going to do, if you have the money, get the high end one
3. additional internal/external drives. With video you can never have too much disk space.
4. external broadcast monitor
5. capture card
6. what kind of display(s) you will need (separate from your external monitor)

[Scotty] “Should I go ballsout and get the $3000 Mac?”

Commiting to upgrading your system is good, but think about it first. It’s a lot of money and more than 3K.