[Hector Berrebi]

i think Aaron meant tapes were faster…

you can work in the RED workflow you described, or in a myriad of other (some simpler) flows… no need really for best light or for any downconverting in a lab… its digital, so you can do it later. and the camera generates QT proxies for you to work with.

read the RED FAQ, and browse through the user group forum.

you will be surprised of how resourceful guerrilla film making and post are in RED world

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

funny they came down to two cameras with a price difference of 200K between them 🙂

i believe F23, meaning HDCAM SR, in an offline/online workflow might be simpler (you have access to an HDCAM SR VTR?) and will generate amazing 10/12 bit footage for grading/finishing

note that even if they shoot in the camera’s lower bitrate 440 Mbs
you will still need a very fast and sturdy disk array for online and grading. or even for conforming to image sequences if you’re not doing the grading.

SR is safer (tapes)
SR is (quite) more expensive

RED is cool and all, will let the DP work with a film size sensor
and has a variety of online/offline workflows (read through posts in the RED user group)

might run into some bumps along the way but the wide and generally friendly online RED community will be happy to advise you and in most cases solve your problems

smaller file sizes and bitrates, so less work for your drives, still… you will need good raid to work properly

and double storage for backups
RED is cheaper…and sorta’ hip

however… not sure about how nicer the image is compared to SR

shouldn’t be an editor’s choice in my opinion… you might have to face their disappointments later.

both are valid feature film formats.

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

christina hi,

this is a well known annoying issue that comes up and stings you more or less frequently depending on your workflows

it seems to be apple related

there are many workarounds and general voodoo on the subject.

this should be somehow obsolete very soon when new OS and new QT and hopefully new FCP will be out.

very improbable that the techs at apple do not know about this

here is an interesting recent thread from another forum

https://fxguide.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6682

also,
in the fcp manual look at page 1453-5 in pdf. very useful gamma information

about your solution… i don’t think i heard of that one before. i want to recreate it… sounds interesting..

what is your source format?

any filters?

about other settings that might affect it,
did you choose the “render 10 bit material in high precision YUV” option in your sequence settings?

and maybe motion filtering quality to “best” if you did anything to it

hope this helps

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

Iain

chroma key filter in FCP is not the best one out there. but it is definitely not rubbish.

the thing with chroma key is, that countrary to what most people think at first, its not simple to shoot it well, and not simple to cut it well.

it requires knowhow and experience, regardless of the tools you use. and can generate horrific results when you don’t know what you’re doing.

apple seemed to slightly overlook chromakeying in FCS.

unlike Avid for example, which added the wonderful spectramatte few years back with online tutorials on using it properly

try this, a bit basic but can be a good start

firts de-interlace filter as your footage sounds problematic on that aspect from what you described

then put on a color smoothing 4:2:2 filter on it

then chroma keyer
then select a narrow range closest to your key color (use the GUI tab)work with the color picker from somewhere close to the edge of your foreground

and broad ranges on luma and sat

then broaden your selection color as much as you can in small steps until all edges are clean
some edge thinning is needed at times, especially with badly lit or DV footage

a tiny bit of softening and enhance

and should look fine

or, use after effects with keylight to get much much better results

there are a million tutorials and guides on the web with tips for good keying. post and shooting

hope this helped

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

Ken, i don’t think it asked that back in version 5

Nelson, as Chris mentioned, P2 and HVX is not at all HDV, but DVCPRO HD and has its own setup.

you can always scroll the columns in the browser (‘view as list’ mode) to read exactly what format your clip is in and mach it in your setups.

today upgrading to fcp 6 is not a very expensive step. you should strongly consider it. it will make your life easier and on the not-that-long run will save you time and money.

what brought you to post this question would probably not even be an issue in fcp 6.

maybe you don’t like working with HD because your editing app is a bit old?

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

smith

your post is a little confused..

can you supply more details?

and make sure you put your project into HDV easy setup.

can make magic sometimes

good luck

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

Mike

i agree with Rafael that QT photoJPEG are a very good option

however..

if its for editors you are intending these files, maybe a more common work format would be more appropriate

HDV captured to PRORES will make beautiful and very practical files for all FCP editors out there

and for the savvier ‘other-apps’ editor who will get the codec (maybe include a txt file with instructions and links?)

you could think of including a QT DNXHD file too, its AVID’s proress with a wider variety of bitrates, has a free codec for reading AND writing QT files, and generates excellent results for post work (i heard there are still quite a few AVID editors out there… )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNxHD_codec

if you have two flavors of each shot, prores and dnxhd, you will make most editors quite happy and satisfied.

also… if file sizes are an issue, why not have just plain DVDs with links to a server where editors can download of the HD file?

my two cents…

good luck.

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

hi

if its one or two shots, you CAN just import them to color
and it does work

if you have an EDL with proper file names, color will open it too

color is slightly different from other apps in the studio and so is its import

after creating a new project
in the setup tab’s upper left box navigate to your DPX folder

you will see the file

click on it
then click import

should put it on your timeline

also there are some things you should probably read about working with color
and about grading LOG files. not as straight forwards as you would expect

true comment about drive space and speed
. you will need them fresh and fast

if for any other reason you need to go through FCP, you will need gluetools. which i can testify works great.

i used it to conform a 90 min feature film through FCP

worth the price

good luck with your project

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

this is fun 🙂

done using color

very little primary – just taking out some midtone reds
then 2 vignettes in secondaries 1 for the eyes, which i isolated and enhanced a little, and 1 for her face, big vignette coming from upper left which darkens all but her (maybe a little too much)

then primary out, most rough work.

a de – saturation of 5%
less reds in shadows, a bit more in mids
contrast
and a touch of green

could be a million other things

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

thanks chris

SR is spectacular.. and so consuming 🙂
i think that at 4:4:4 RGB you get 110 MB per second.

i know HDCAM records 1440 1080 and plays 1920 1080, the pixels are not square sort of like HDV.

so answer to my question is that even with a camera that can record full raster (900R) the HDCAM tape limitation stays?

Hector Berrebi
Schibber Group
prePost Consulting