[John Sharaf]

Not really possible unless the imagers of the SLR camera and the format you’re shooting is exactly the same. A better, cheaper and more accurate tool would be a tape measure and the DOF charts in the ASC Manual.

JS

[John Sharaf]

It is a mystery because presumably the same processing chip that’s in the Nanoflash, which Sony manufactures, allows higher bit rate and even I-Frame formats. It’s most likely the same part also that’s in the PDW700/800’s too which records the 50Mb format, and the SxS cards in the EX’s are very fast, for example, in the Alexa they’re rated at 448 Mbits/second. That’s lightening fast!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Sorry,my bad. I guess then the cheapest solution is an AJA IO Express at about $800US.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Isn’t the simplest solution to import HD-SDI by playing back in the camera (or deck) through a capture card (Blackmagic Deck Link is cheap, although I use AJA Kona Lh) as if it were baseband video, into whatever ProRes codec you desire. The slight loss of time by importing in real time vs. as files often is made up on the export side. You usually have to log and/or view your material anyway so why not do it on import?

JS

[John Sharaf]

Jay,

Just add one more 2’Tor 4′ Twobank.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Noor,

The soft lighting in the foreground is either because its in the shadow of the buildings (early morning or late in the day) or because they flew a large silk across the street, building to building. Sometimes large silks are hung from construction cranes.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Craig,

I just had to go through hoops laying off four sets of eight campaign commercials for a rural area in Northern California for cable head end playout. They all still have Beta Cart machines to auto play their commercials. I believe this is still very common especially in the cable world. I think there is a similar system that Sony makes for XDCAM. It’s like a jukebox and any broadcaster or cablecaster that has not gone with actual servers is still using one or another of these systems.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Allby,

In a word – yes!

The PDW-U1 is a very capable reader/writer for both XDCAM and data onto 23Gb and 50Gb XDCAM discs. Sony however has just introduced four-layer discs and will show products (presumably new reader/writers and recorder/players) that will handle legacy and new versions. the 128Gb XDCAM disc to come is intended mainly for archival purposes, so it may not matter to you. In the mean time, you should be glad that they offer a product for under $3000 that will allow you to satisfy your client’s needs. It’s probably cheaper than overhauling a Beta SP edit deck!

JS

[John Sharaf]

I beg to differ regarding the value of 10 bit mastering! I believe that while you are correct that on a small screen (most legacy displays are 8 bit) you will not be able to tell the difference, you will be able to tell the difference if you do any color correction of your project. 8-bit has only 256 shades of each color, 10-bit has 1024. Four times the color makes color correction much more subtle and transparent. When you color correct 8 bit it turns into “cartoon” color very quickly. Having this additional control allows you some room for error in your original photography both in color and exposure. I’ve sold my Nanoflashes (although I really loved them and found them bullet proof) and am replacing them with KiPro Minis.

Another important and future looking advantage to the 10 bit recoding is that if you use any of the log curves or even severe HyperGammas (on Sony) or Cine Gammas (on Panasonic) that require color correction, you will end up with a much larger and usable dynamic range which is really the “Holy Grail” in trying to imitate the look of film.

JMHO,

JS

[John Sharaf]

Jim,

Two things:

It is not possible to remove flicker in post. Sorry!

It is possible to shoot 60fps without flicker when HMI’s are running on 50Hz current, it’s just a matter of using the right shutter speed. There are published tables showing HMI/Shutter Speed windows (look in the ASC Manual) or just use your variable shutter function to scroll through the fractional shutter speeds until the flicker disappears. One caution when doing this is to be careful observing the effect on an LCD as it has a faster refresh rate and can “hide” the flicker. Use the viewfinder in your camera or another CRT device, or a dedicated waveform monitor. These will clearly reveal the presence or absence of the flicker.

JS