Dylan Reeve
Forum Replies Created
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It’s not ideal, but there is a solution involving a media conversion process with the open-source utility ‘FFMpeg’ that will take the HQ files and convert to DNxHD material.
Check out the EX1 blog here:
https://www.bolanski.com/ex/It’s not quite what we’d all like to see, but it looks like it will get the job done in the immediate term.
I’m trying to get EX1 footage onto DVCPRO HD tapes to fit into our workflow for one show at the moment.
Taking it into FCP and them playing out to HD1400 deck is not working like I think it should at the moment. I’ll be revisiting that later this week I think. I may end up transcoding with FFMpeg and taking into Avid directly. I’ll have to experiment a bit.
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I believe if you capture with device control switched off (as you might be inclined to do with a tape full of broken timecode) then all clips will start with 00:00:00:00
In Avid, if I encountered this I would (after swearing a lot) capture the whole tapes in from the beginning to end (with TC switched off) and then (hoping I had a tape copy or something of the previous edit, or even sound) would find a ‘coincidence’ point on the original (now lost) media and my new (recaptured) media. I would work out what the timecode was in the original clip, and I would modify my captured clip’s timecode to match that. Then I would relink.
I have no idea how realistic that proposal is in FCP. Also, it requires that you have a tape or something of the earlier edit so you have a reference to what should be there.
If you have no reference at all, then I’d say you’re probably out of luck really.
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There are some photos on the web – can’t remember where though… There should be quite a few pretty much unused 4GB cards around.
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There are some photos on the web – can’t remember where though… There should be quite a few pretty much unused 4GB cards around.
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Unfortunately the Framerate Converter only works with NTSC framerates – for those of us in PAL-land it’s basically useless (unless we want to take all the clips into CinemaTools and reset the framerate of the converted clip).
In fact, in general, Varicam is a gigantic pain in the ass for people in PAL regions.
In this case I’ll have entire tapes shot at 60fps for 25fps output (42% speed or something).
To capture at present I need to figure out how long the clip I want is (so say 20 minutes of source footage, or 48 minutes of 25fps) and then capture for the target length regardless of what is actually playing off the deck. I hit ‘Go’ then wait 48 minutes and hit stop (despite the fact that the tape ran out 20 minutes ago). I get a 48 minute clip.
So far, in my opinion, the only NLE I’ve used that does Varicam right is (believe it or not) GVG’s Canopus Edius 4.5 — I can capture Varicam footage into PAL framerates via Firewire, in the time it takes be to watch it – I even get appropriately sync’ed audio (slowed to the same speed). Nothing else does that. Nothing.
Sadly, Edius is not the most usable app for serious long-form editing, and converting from it to other NLEs can be painful.
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Sony made some fairly significant changes to the XDCAM format and container for XDCAM EX (while retaining the earlier format and container for the continuing XDCAM and XDCAM HD lines). This makes the job of supporting EX slightly harder than it might seem.
Avid have committed to support EX and those in the know have suggested an ‘early 2008’ release date for EX support.
The camera has been shipping for less than two months.
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I haven’t touched it or used it yet, but from what I understand of it technically, it should be reasonably decent, although it’s apparently not being used to it’s full potential in most cameras (which are running at low bitrates).
I’m not hugely fond of the explosion of formats in HD, but I guess given that AVCHD is backed by Sony and Panasonic then we can hope it will at least get a reasonable level of support.
I can’t even count the number of different and incompatible (or mostly incompatible) HD video formats that are now in existance…
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The compression algorithms are different, so while they have similar bitrates, the compressed footage in Avid is not simply being reverted to how it existed on the tape.
However the quality of the 2:1 compression is such that compared to a 1:1 capture of the same material there is very little difference (certainly none that you’d identify visually, and I’d say none you’d identify at all without a direct comparison).
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If you were going to buy a capture card anyway, I’d probably buy an HD one, it’s not going to be a whole lot more money, but will give you a lot more options later.
We have a Decklink HD Extreme, which is about US$1000 and gives us a full range of SD/HD IO. Totally worth it.
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I don’t think you’ll find a huge difference between manufacturers on those items really. I am personally pretty fond of Addonics at the moment – they have all those products at what seems like pretty reasonable prices.
As for RAM – My impulse is to stay as far from ‘Mac Resellers’ as possible – Adding ‘Mac’ to the front of something is like adding ‘Wedding’ in front (see, Wedding Cake, Wedding Photographer, Wedding Band, etc)… It just ensures you pay much much more for the same thing.
The MacBook Pro used PC2-5300 SO-DIMM memory – so that is readily available online from all manner of suppliers. Locally (in New Zealand) from a Mac reseller, I’ll pay NZ$358ea for the Kingston 2GB modules, or I can buy from a PC reseller and pay $223ea for exactly the same modules.