[Chad Brewer]

Hey fellow Illinoisan Mark,

I would take the hard drives out of the old system that have your work history, plug-ins, added apps. etc. and keep them. It seems ridiculous that you would have to give back a now “old and used” boot drive to a vendor. It’s not like you’re swapping out a very expensive RAID system from a vendor.

Then, I would buy an external SATA dock for $25-$30 that you can plug those 3.5″ drives into and mount as externals on your new system to sort through what is valuable/will work on the new tower when you have time. That way, you’re not in a time crunch to find every little thing on the drive to copy before the old tower is escorted out of your facility.

And, if you must relinquish your drives for whatever strange reason, as Rafael said, in cloning the drive, you could do the same thing with the SATA dock as it’s not going to be the new boot drive so it doesn’t matter if it’s an older OS, etc. It will just come up as an external so you can pilfer what you want from it.

Chad Brewer
Senior Broadcast Videotape Operator
TeleVersions, LLC

[Chad Brewer]

Is this what you’re looking for?

https://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/detail.asp?techID=124

Chad Brewer
Senior Broadcast Videotape Operator
TeleVersions, LLC

[Chad Brewer]

Rafael, thanks for the further helpful info. Much appreciated!

Chad Brewer
Senior Broadcast Videotape Operator
TeleVersions, LLC

[Chad Brewer]

Thank you all for chiming in on this thread! The last few posts have cleared things up for me as well as support what I believed was going on all along in FCP.

Despite not starting the thread, some of these issues had been bothering me for a while. Being an FCP only editor at an FCP based facility, it first started bugging me when my clients’ exports from their AVID’s didn’t have proper black/white levels when brought into FCP. Furthering the madness was how I now know FCP handles levels – between either FCP or the corresponding AJA, Blackmagic, etc. capture cards, the output signal is in fact proper 16-235. What was confusing things the most for me is that within FCP, all of its channel controls go from 0-255 like computers/graphics, instead of 16-235 which is correct for broadcast video. So, after having understood all of this for years in terms of video signals, it was mostly how FCP “represents” things within itself as a program that was throwing me for a loop.

All in all, I’m not versed at all in AVID, but when my clients export Quicktimes from their AVID with rec.709, the levels are wrong in FCP. When they export with RGB, black is black in FCP. I still can’t figure that out, but at least I now know what’s going on with 16-235 in FCP outside of that issue.

Thanks guys.

Chad Brewer
Senior Broadcast Videotape Operator
TeleVersions, LLC

[Chad Brewer]

Hey Rafael,
So, can you offer answers to my posts in this thread regarding how the signal appears to be mapped from 0-255 in FCP. For example, if I choose a color in FCP that is 255x255x255 it is 100IRE on the scope where 235x235x235 is not 100IRE. Is this just how FCP happens to map the signal?

Thanks.

Chad Brewer
Senior Broadcast Videotape Operator
TeleVersions, LLC

[Chad Brewer]

Eugene,
The HDCAM SR 4:4:4 signal is RGB, not YCbCr.
I’m trying to figure out other signal mapping issues between AVID and FCP as seen in my post below and in the Broadcasting forum…

However, for your case, if you’ve properly captured with a 4:4:4 codec over dual link from the HDCAM SR, check out your settings here:
Go to sequence settings and then the tab for video processing. Here you can choose to work in RGB or YUV.

Let me know if that helps…

Chad Brewer
Senior Broadcast Videotape Operator
TeleVersions, LLC

[Chad Brewer]

Angelo/Andrew,

Thanks for the responses. I don’t believe it’s a gamma issue at all as I’ve done color correction on these types of clips where gamma never had to be corrected, only lifts and highlights were translating incorrectly.

I’ve previously read the rec.709 specs in detail and I’m trying to gather how FCP handles the values. What I’m looking for clarification on is whether the video signal values are 16-235, but FCP has been designed to handle them/map them to 0-255 like computer graphics software, e.g. it behaves consistently like a program like Photoshop. Some say 0-15 is reserved for super-black and 236-255 is for super-white. If that is the case, then in FCP super-black and super-white are either below 0 or above 255 as translated on this scale…

So, is it just an issue of how FCP is designed to interpret what is always 16-235 for black/white in the video signal? Seeing the differences between AVID and FCP is what has made me curious about this.

Chad Brewer
Senior Broadcast Videotape Operator
TeleVersions, LLC

[Chad Brewer]

Maybe Dave LaRonde (who I know from reading here is well versed in FCP) or someone else can help explain. These color issues between different NLE’s have messed with my mind from time to time.

We are an FCP based facility and I know very little about AVID.
Every time a client gives us a Quicktime from their AVID in rec.709, it appears to be mapped over 16-235 and black/white levels are wrong coming out of FCP, wrong on all the scopes regarding what digital black and white should be, basically it’s washed out as black comes in around 10IRE and whites barely hit 100IRE. If they export from AVID with RGB instead of rec.709, then the levels seem to be on (or at least close enough) for outputting from FCP. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that FCP is based on full swing 0-255 because everything including graphics that adheres to that space is proper coming out of FCP, verified on scopes. FCP plug-ins that allow RGB value inputs are also using 0-255 scales.

So, are the color specs really different between different NLE’s or is rec.709 truly 16-235 across all HD video and FCP has an internal conversion algorithm that maps it out as 0-255 when it’s really 16-235? My scopes tell me that 0x0x0 is 0IRE and 255x255x255 is 100IRE…

Chad Brewer
Senior Broadcast Videotape Operator
TeleVersions, LLC

[Chad Brewer]

Some small stations will actually take a playable DVD as a deliverable as you’ve seen which is very telling about the low quality standards going on at such a station.

For the station that is complaining about your playable DVD, forget making a playable DVD in DVD Studio Pro. Contact the station and ask them exactly what FILE BASED formats they accept as deliverables. They may accept certain Quicktime codecs, AVI codecs, AVID codecs, MPEG2 transport streams, MPEG2 program streams, etc.

Once you ascertain what they will accept as a file, you need to prepare that file to their specifications (if they have specifications) and then put that file on a DVD disc as DATA, not an authored/playable DVD. They might even allow you to submit the file to them via FTP, YouSendIt, etc.

Chad Brewer
Senior Broadcast Videotape Operator
TeleVersions, LLC

[Chad Brewer]

https://web.me.com/andymees/Free_and_Easy/main/Entries/2008/1/29_Andy%E2%80%99s_Guides.html

Chad Brewer
Senior Broadcast Videotape Operator
TeleVersions, LLC