Graeme Nattress
Forum Replies Created
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Moir
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DVCproHD is great to use if that’s what you shot, or that’s what you’re mastering to. But I’d not use it as an intermediate codec, because that’s what ProRes is designed for. ANd it’s great at it.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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Just edit native HDV, but on a prores timeline. Why bother transcoding? You’re only adding anoher layer of lossy compression on an already delicate image.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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It’s G Chroma Sharpen in Film Effects that does the chroma fixing. Can work well for this, but you’ve got to render in a 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 timeline.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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Use File -> Export -> Quicktime Movie, (current settings), (make self contained) and that’s the best you’ll get. Don’t use quicktime conversion.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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I don’t think compressor makes a valid HDV stream – you’d have to check. FCP’s timeline does though. I’ve done this conversion (but never managed to get it back out to HDV tape) with my 60i to 24p conversion tools in Standards Conversion pack to get 720p24 from 1080i60 and that bit worked well. If you’re confident you could get 720p24 back to HDV tape, then try it. It doesn’t matter what you use to do the 1080i60 to 720p24 conversion, but compressor is rather slow at this. I’d then use FCP to make the 720p24 HDV by putting the converted video on such a timeline and hoping that it will go out to tape.
As Shane mentions, HDV is not to be considered a mastering format though. It’s way too much of a pain to output to and recompressing back to HDV doesn’t look too hot. HDV isn’t the worst 720p format in the world, at least it’s full raster, but that doesn’t make it that good either.
For mastering, best look to HDCAM SR or D5, both of which are sufficiently less compressed than HDCAM or DVCProHD, and record the full HD signal.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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Difference is, as you’ve found, subtle at best, and if you don’t have a pristine source on BetaSP, you’re not going to see any benefit.
Jerry’s comments about rendering are very valid. You obviously want to avoid rendering graphics down to too low a format, but it all really depends on what format you’re mastering back to!
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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Not all HDV though….. Best double check that before you shoot. Some are supported by FCP for this, some not. I think it’s all how the HDV is made – is it recorded as 24p with flags, or is it actually recorded as 29.97fps (24P + 3:2 pulldown).
With SDI / capture card based capture, indeed – got to be really careful. Good that we’re moving to datacentric workflows that avoid such needs for capture.
Be interesting to fully see how FCP handles different frame rates on the timeline. I’ve got the feeling (from the demo on the big screen at NAB) that it’s not 100% completely smooth.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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I think, if you want a 23.98fps deliverable, it’s best to shoot in a format where FCP can remove the pulldown on the fly, or, where it never gets recorded with pulldown in the first place so it never needs removal. HDV doubly complicates this as Cinema Tools won’t remove pulldown on HDV. Some HDV cameras record 24p with proper flags so that it’s 3:2 pulldown doesn’t get added by FCP on capture and you get the native 24p.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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Keying and CC are related to that you shot on HDV in the first place though, and transcoding cannot help these aspects in any way.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP