[Jef Huey]

Here is a post from the DS Google group by the online editor of House. He describes their post process.

Jef

——

from Derek Herr
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date Fri, May 14, 2010 at 2:43 AM
subject Re: Canon 7d files
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We recently finished the season finale of House on DS 10.3 – the episode was shot entirely with the Canon 5D and 7D.

It airs Monday night on Fox here in the U.S.

We finished this season of House in 4:4:4 using the DS and a Nucoda coloring system, using DPX files in-house until we produced the final HDcamSR masters out of the DS. We captured all the h264s from the Canon DSLRs directly into the DS and made dailies “reels” which were then colored by a dailies colorist and synced and downconverted to standard def for offline editorial like a normal film-style show.

After much testing, we used the “legacy graphics” setting in DS to import the Canon files, and we always use the Rec 601/709 settings when importing and exporting DPX.

When shooting video, these cameras only capture 8-bit color, so there are banding artifacts. We added grain to all the footage using the Foundry FurnaceCore plugin set, just enough to obscure the banding and I ran the grain plug-in through a keyer so it was only applied to mid and hi luminance portions of the frame that needed the treatment; this kept the dark areas from looking too grainy and was a better solution than “debanding” plug-ins.

The grain also helps the picture out of the Canons, which is a little soft and tended to look a bit “inky”-we thought it looked a lot like reversal film.

The Canons are challenging for focus pullers, some shots were processed with aggressive sharpening applied to faces.

When we had finished the episode, I asked one of the co-producers if he felt that using the Canon DSLRs had cost less, more, or about the same as the 35mm process they normally use. He said it was about the same.

-Derek

[Jef Huey]

Hi Gary,

I know what AJA TV is, but what is VTRX?

Thanks,

Jef

[Jef Huey]

I guess what I am saying is that we have two companys saying the same thing in two different ways.

29.97 and 59.94i

While these are in fact the same thing, it feels like AJA is seeing the numbers and reacting differently to them.

I think anyway.

Jef

[Jef Huey]

Hi Shane,

Sorry if I was not clear. I am not talking about 59.94p. I am discussing field based material.

In Avid, they are using the nomeclature of 59.94i. At AJA they seem to be saying 29.97i.

See the following:

https://www.moviola.com/hd_framerate_confusion

If you do an Apple I of a 1080i 29.97 ProRes file it will say of frame rate of 29.97. If you do an Apple I of a DNX 59.94 it will say it has a frame rate of 59.94.

In fact, both of these formats are field based. And one is stating the rate as 29.97 Frames per second. The other is stating 59.94 field per second.

I think that AJA is confusing this metadata because it is actually playing the DNX files at the wrong speed.

I will check our driver versions as noted by Gary.

Have I explained what I am seeing clearly or am I just making things worse?

Thanks,
Jef

[Jef Huey]

What no one has asked here is why the OP was going to a DS Nitris in the first place? Surely not to just output to tape.

What if they went to that environment for effects work? Specifically green / blue screen keying.

Any effects person with any experience will always want the least compression when pulling keys. And compression is almost a given when it comes to camera sources these days. Add a another, different form of compression on top of what ever native camera compression to a screen work and life can get difficult.

Perhaps asking some questions to clarify the situation, rather than immediately demeaning the editor involved would be best way to give the OP a useful answer.

Jef Huey

[Jef Huey]

Hi,
I read the pdf you offered. It does not address my question.

My question is: what file types does Pan And Zoom support? I can only get PSD files to load. Can other file types such as .tif, .jpeg, or .png be used? If so how?

Thanks,

Jef

[Jef Huey]

We are considering that. There are concerns about latency and how fluid it is in a real work situation.

Plus there are costs there. Set up dedicated PC to serve the software.

A license server is really the most cost effective solution. But seemingly not available anymore.

Thanks,

Jef

[Jef Huey]

I am not sure how realistic that would be for our need:

Alot of offline rooms that SOMETIMES need Photoshop and AfterEffects. But not enough of the time to justify a license. Float licenses would be perfect.

We are experimenting with remote desk top, but that has various issues both technically and fiscally.

Jef