[Craig Seeman]

[Navarro Parker] “When I get the SxS card back to my FCP station and import the footage, this is what I get: chunky dog food.”

But what are you looking at that footage with?

I send DVI to HDMI out to a 1080p HDTV, not ideal but it gives me an idea what’ll look like on such a “typical” HDTV (not that there’s a “typical” HDTV). I don’t see serious noise in most situations until I hit +6db gain.

You certainly seem to have an “issue” but I seriously doubt it’s the camera or the codec. You haven’t mentioned how you’re monitoring out of FCP nor have you mentioned what your attempt at keying looks like. You need proper monitoring to judge the material and then see if you have any issues keying.

GIF is not the right codec to look at things with subtle colors.
You really can’t tell in FCP itself because it’s scaling to play in the viewer/canvas.

[Craig Seeman]

I’ve even gone through the various XML and other metadata related clips in a BPAV folder and I don’t see this info as metadata at all.

Yes this frustrated me on a recent shoot where we were trying to keep track of shutter angle, Iris, gain for possible fx work.

[Craig Seeman]

How are you creating these animated GIFs?

Is it looking like this on an HD QC monitor coming from your edit system?

I just shot at +3db 720p30/60 (overcrank) of Tennis player on a poorly lit indoor clay court with ugly green walls and it doesn’t look anything like what your GIFs show. I see some very fine noise in some parts of some shots but nothing like yours at all.

[Craig Seeman]

But then you have to hook the dern thing up to your desktop and copy the files over. Certainly GigE connection would be fast but it’s just another step.

It would be nice to have PCIe to Express Card reader and Synchrotech is close except for the apparently insurmountable issue they’ve hit.

Now for field use I’d like something like and iPhone or iTouch with Express Card reader and 160GB of storage. This way I can keep the thing in my pocket (or the PA’s pocket), have a little screening window . . . but I’d still need to hook that dern thing to my desktop and copy the files again.

I was really hoping Apple was going to come out with a 13″ MacBookPro or start including Express Card slots in the MacBook. You can get a Windows laptop with Express Card slot in that price range or less.

I have the Sony SxS USB reader but it’s only around 3.5x to 4x and then I have to convert them to .mov in the Transfer tool.

[Craig Seeman]

That sure is noisy. The real test is trying to do a key. I think a decent keyer would handle that. The thing I’d look for is to see how the noise impacts the edges (his arm for example).

I don’t see that kind of noise in well lit shooting at 0 or -3db gain though so I’m not sure what caused the issue.

[Craig Seeman]

You don’t need FCP to read Time Code. Sony Clip Browser and XDCAM Transfer Tool read time code. Both have some logging features but Transfer Tool is better.

It might be interesting if something like User Bits (which can be displayed) could be used to display clip number so that it would advance for each clip though.

In Media Playback mode it can display the Clip Name in Clip Info but one would have to switch to that and back to Camera mode which is awkward.

[Craig Seeman]

There’s two possibilities:

1) User error. Turn up volume on monitoring system. Make sure dials are at 10 and not 0. Make sure you’re on Internal to check. Toggle AGC and Manual. Go into menus and adjust mic sensitivity up and down. Check all other menu audio settings. Make sure you haven’t done something to the “odd” channel 3 and 4 settings. Listen in an environment where there’s significant noise.

2) Somethings wrong with the camera and having rebooted and done the above it needs servicing.

[Craig Seeman]

[Simon Haywood] “he also doesn’t have to keep checking the ‘time created’ of each clip. “

Huh? TIME CODE. All professional NLEs read time code.
Import clips. Sort in Time Code order. DONE.

Clock Time code matches the time the person starts speaking. Matches what your watch shows. You don’t even need to bother the DP. Subjects moves mouth, you look at watch and write down time. Editor see time displayed in NLE. EASIEST way to do it.

Clip names aren’t displayed on LCD although you can get them from menu or playback but THAT’S awkward. Time code is displayed on LCD but with Clock Time you don’t even need THAT.

[Craig Seeman]

None that I know of. There’s Sony’s SxS USB reader. Given that Sony is one of the “inventors” of firewire/iLink you’d think they’d go in that direction but there must have been a reason they haven’t nor has anyone else (yet).

There is this PCIe Express Card reader but note there are SERIOUS caveats
https://www.synchrotech.com/products-expc/pcie-expresscard-slot-drive_02.html
Macs need to be rebooted on every card change and Windows needs to search to recognize hardware. This kills the speed advantage.

They’ve even made this statement to detail what they’re running into
https://www.synchrotech.com/support/tech-notes-hot_swapping_pcie_based_expresscards.html

[Craig Seeman]

Data per frame is also affected by frame rate 720p24 would have more data per frame than 720p60. Of course the motion vs the frame rate might impact the key too (motion blur for example at lower frame rate).

-3db can yield lower noise than 0db but it does depend on the shoot circumstances.

Since “well lit” isn’t very technical it’s hard to really determine if your key was lit properly. It takes a lot more than throwing lots of light on things to get a good key.

Since you’re not describing what you mean by “noise” I can’t help you there either. If it’s properly lit with 0 or -3 gain you shouldn’t get noise.

One might use color smoothing techniques if the issue revolves around 4:2:0 color space but that’s “noise.” I’ve seen keys pulled from the EX1 4:2:0 that look fine since the files are such high resolution (pixels close together help limit the edge nasties).

One might convert the source to Uncompressed or Apple Pro Res or some 4:2:2 format when doing critical compositing but again your description doesn’t tell me enough to suggest what to do.

If you’re in a “studio” situation one might consider taking the HD-SDI out of the camera and go to uncompressed or Apple Pro Res directly.

You really need to post frame grabs unless you can otherwise describe things in better and more accurate detail.