[Brent Altomare]

Thanks Bartek!

You’re right that convincing the client is going to be one of my biggest challenges. Fortunately I do have access to the original footage, so of I can figure out the correct way to approach the time stretching, we’ll be able to send it through quality control.

BUT I’m likely only going to get one shot at this – if my retiming fails QC, the client will almost certainly fall back to their original solution.

So any suggestions as to which way I should go? Not having a ton of experience with time expanded footage for broadcast, I’m not sure how to evaluate if the results I’m getting with Timewarp or Twixtor (or another tool I’m not familar with) are being successful.

Thanks!

—
brent altomare
executive producer
groovy like a movie
c: 619.227.2818
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skype: groovybrent
twitter: @groovybrent

[Brent Altomare]

[Reid Caulfield] “How much of a difference is there? And is the difference identical on all HDCAM tapes?”

Anywhere from a few frames to a few seconds. It does seem to get worse later in the tape (the average differential is worse at the end of the program than it is at the beginning).

Part of what has us scratching our heads is that the difference seems to slide all over the place. There is no pattern that we can discern.

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Brent Altomare


Groovy Like a Movie

[Brent Altomare]

Deck was set in drop frame[walter biscardi] “Then something is up with the HDCAM deck. If this was an FCP issue, the DigiBeta would be off too.”

That was my thought as well, but since I had another (more experienced) editor who had an identical problem with his HDCAM SR deck, I was leaning towards a setting within FCP (although I suppose we could have both had similar settings wrong on our Sony decks!)

[walter biscardi] ”
I believe that should have been 29.97 to match your timeline. 59.94 can be NDF or DF. Was the deck set in Non-Drop Frame?”

Deck was set for drop frame. The timeline is actually “DVCPRO HD 1080/60i” (which it the default for our easy setup, which is “AJA Kona LH – 1080i 29.97 – DVCPRO HD”)

—
Brent Altomare


Groovy Like a Movie

[Brent Altomare]

Thanks for the input Mike!

We’re implementing a business-wide green initiative, of which this decision is only one element.

—
Brent Altomare


Groovy Like a Movie

[Brent Altomare]

Thanks for the feedback, Eric!

Basically all I’m looking at right now is the relative “green-ness” of the medium.

The other factors you mention certainly weigh on the decision as well, but all of those are known variables (or known unknowns in the case of how reliable Blue Ray will be in the long run).

Keep in mind that unless the HD manufacturer specifically has taken action, there’s a ton of toxins going into production there as well. I should look at manufacturers that tout that they’ve reduced toxins and heavy metals out of their process…

—
Brent Altomare
Groovy Like a Movie
(877) 3-GROOVY

[Brent Altomare]

[Blub06] “As in, changing something on top or below and rendering using the previous render.”

We are sure that we’re looking at new renders (turned layers on and off to be sure).

The general concensus seems to be that this is expected behavior from DVCPRO HD. That really surprises (and disappoints) me.

Oh well… just something we’ll have to work around, I guess.

Thanks again to all the COWites for the help! If anyone else has any additional input, it certainly is appreciated.

—
Brent Altomare
Groovy Like a Movie
(877) 3-GROOVY

[Brent Altomare]

Thanks for the responses!

Sean – That’s exactly what I was thinking (that the noise looks like a compression artifact), but the noise I’m seeing in this particular case is as bad as anything I’ve ever seen come out of DV.

Walter – I didn’t think about rendering the graphic out in the DVCPRO HD CODEC. I guess that would make a lot of sense…

One question (that I’m sure I can answer myself once I’m in the office), does DVCPRO HD allow you to render out an alpha channel? That’s why we’ve always done all our our motion graphics renders in the Animation CODEC, for clean renders plus a alpha channel. That’s not a problem with this particular graphic, but it will be for other graphics work we do.

Maybe I’ll make a couple copies of the timeline and change the CODEC on each one… That might give me a clue as to where the problem lies. I’ll also modify the graphic and try a couple different colors.

Any other suggestions or ideas are always welcome!

—
Brent Altomare
Groovy Like a Movie
(877) 3-GROOVY

[Brent Altomare]

Unfortunately in digital footage, once that detail is gone, there’s no recovering it. So my suggestion would be to really tweak the footage out and call it “a thing.” Add a color tint or do the ol’ “old film” treatment on it.

Good luck!

—
Brent Altomare
Groovy Like a Movie
(877) 3-GROOVY

[Brent Altomare]

I thought maybe you had it with the HD Frequency setting (I hadn’t looked at that), but it is set for 59/23.

I was watching the loop-through from the deck on the monitor, and it looked *different* than directly from FCP (on the same monitor), but I’ll definately check a recorded section.

Thanks again for all the support!

—
Brent Altomare
Groovy Like a Movie
(877) 3-GROOVY

[Brent Altomare]

Got it. WIll give that a try.

I guess what I’m really confused about is why I have to introduce the pulldown at all. If I’m staying in high def, why do I need to go back to 29.97? I understand the need (and the sacrafice) if I’m laying back to SD, but not HD.

Thanks again for your help!

—
Brent Altomare
Groovy Like a Movie
(877) 3-GROOVY