Ernie Santella
Forum Replies Created
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Don’t want to re-render. The project has 80 timelines!
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
It sounds like something is wrong that you are having freezing issues. What kind of computer? How fast/large is your RAID? Is your RAID over 3/4 full? That could cause the issues you’ve mentioned.
Personally, with drives so cheap, I would never work in Low-rez. You could consider breaking your project into smaller segments. Or, Export parts that are nearly complete and re-import them as standalone segments. Those will playback much easier. (But, saving the original timelines if you need to go back and re-edit.)
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Not enough info to answer your question. What format (HD, SD) is your FCP timeline? And what is your footage formats? HD, cropped SD, anamorphic SD?
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
John, that’s great. I wish I could have a few decks in house. But, I’m just a small, one-man company. I only edit what I shoot, no outside clients only the agencies and corporate clients I have. I guess, I’m just between a rock and a hard place. Margins are thin and I have to really justify any large expenses.
I was just chatting with a friend who owns a medium size production company. I was asking about doing a layoff to HDCam for me. He doesn’t own an HDCAM deck either. He says almost all footage brought in to his house is on file formats of HD and especially in RED right now. Tape is going away really fast.
Even distribution. Some of our local stations are accepting spot directly uploaded to their servers, no more tape at all. That goes for cable too. I exclusively send spots to Comcast by FTP. It’s all changing pretty darn fast right now.
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Here’s my twisted logic on the subject.
I transfer to FCP from my camera as I don’t have a deck. The economy is so frickin’ tight and I just can’t afford to buy a deck. In my market (Denver) There is only one rental house and they wanted $750/day – ouch. I tried that a few times, but said screw it. I am just very careful NOT to do any shuttling, just rewind and play start to finish without stopping. (I log clips into FCP on the fly)
My thought on head-wear is this. I’ve owned my camera for over 3 years. I knew that tape-less recording was coming in the next few years So, I figured that the cost to replace the heads would be about $4K. vs. buying a $20,000 deck. Even if I had to replace them once or twice, I’d be way ahead of the game. (For mastering back to tape, I just take my exported FCP file to a local edit house and for about $75 layoff to one of their decks.
In the past 3 years, I have not had any issues with heads. So, by not spending the $20K has really saved me money (and may have kept me in business through these tough economic times.) I did buy a Firestore, but didn’t like it – too bulky and flaky. Any day now, there’s going to be another recorder like the tiny NanoFlash HD-SDI Compact Flash recorder that I can use to record tapeless.
Note: This was my decision and your mileage may vary.
OK, flame suit on. Hit me!
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Shooting 60p will give you the clearest images. For maximum focus you need to have the lens closed or iris’d down are far as possible. (That depends on your lens, it could be f16, f22 etc) To achieve that, you will need to find a compromise between filter setting, shutter and available light to get there. Most likely, you will not be able to use the highest/fastest setting on the shutter.
Start with the lens iris’d down as far as you can. Just be careful and not go all the way to extreme closed end of the iris as most lens get a bit funky. You can see what happens when you do. Back off a little which will also give you a little adjustment range while shooting. Then, set the camera’s ND filter to 1 (Clear, no filter), Switch on the Shutter and switch it until you get a nice exposure. Depending on light, you may have to adjust the iris a tiny bit to get a prefect exposure. That’s the way to get to the max depth-of-field.
Now, saying that, using the shutter at 60p is also a creative decision. The image will look a tiny bit stroby when on. I personally don’t like that and only use the shutter for slo-mo scenes and when shooting at 24p or 30p. So, that is your call.
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
John,
Shooting 60p vs. 24p is a creative choice. 24p (with half shutter) will blur similar to film. But, with fast motion, it might not be the best choice for sports. If you are looking for that film-matic look, then great. The other thing to consider with 60p is the excellent slo-mo you can get in post that you don’t get with 24p. You might also consider using the shutter even at 60p to add even more crispness to the slow-mo.
As far as focus, HD is extremely demanding on focus. You really can’t just set a ‘hyperfocal distance’ and shoot. (Now, there’s a word I haven’t used in a long time.) The short explanation is, the setting on the lens where you set a certain zoom setting, focus and f/stop and get everything in focus. (Note: that only works with a fixed zoom setting) It would also depend on your lens, but with most video lens, it might not be possible. I would just set the f/stop as closed as possible using the ND filters. That will give you the max focus and the least focus adjustment. But, I would definitely adjust as you go.
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Aaaaah heck, it was nothin’.
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
OK, when shooting 720p format, the camera records over 60p. So, 720p/60 is actually recording 60 progressive frames. When set to 720p/30 it is still recording at 60p which is still progressive, but just doubling the frames recorded to tape.
That is opposed to the 1080i settings where the camera is recording interlaced. So, at 1080i/30p, its adding the conversion and not actually recording 30p.
I shoot 720p/30 and edit in 720p all the time.
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Yes, it’s recording at 59.94 even if you shoot 1080i/30p. That’s sounds goofy, but yeah, it’s doing internal conversion.
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com