[John Sharaf]

Oh! Now I think you’re looking for a problem.

A background for keying has to be a uniform even surface; if the monitor was sufficiently out of focus, thus obliterating the dot and/or line pattern, it would probably be ok, but that presumes your foreground subject is very small (perhaps that’s the case).

If you are really intent on finding out, give it a try, but the alternative of making and lighting a 3×5′ chroma screen (is your monitor that big?) is easy, cheap and proven technology.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Aaron,

You can key with almost any color, as long as the exposure and saturation is correct. A waveform/vectorscope is very helpful in this determination.

If your scene requires replacing both the background and the inside of the monitor screen you can use two colors, just be certain they are not contained in anything else you photograph in the fireground.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Dusty,

I went to a Sony event last night at the Motion Picture Academy in Hollywood entitles “HDCAM-SR 2.0” where they showed their own solid state media; about the same size as P2 card but planned to be 1 Terabyte! Also capable of writing 4K 444 at 60p with 4:1 compression.

But you’re write about archiving; this part of the equation needs to be figured out before the ultimate benefit and acceptability of data based video will be universally accepted. The benefits of ingest at high speed, up to 12x real time I recall from last nights presentation (3 or 5 Gb/ second?) and transport full quality media at these speeds now becomes the new “Holy Grail”.

Stay tuned and fasten your seat belts!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Jason,

Because progressive frame rates do not have “half” frames (otherwise known as “fields”) there are now 60 frames per second instead of 30 frames. This is why some observers think that 720/60p creates a “smoother” action than interlaced formats.

When you specify 720/30p, each of the distinct 30 frames are repeated one time to create the 60 frames that are consumed each second. At this frame rate the “action” looks more “filmic” because it includes a 2:2 pull down cadance.

Hope this helps,

JS

[John Sharaf]

OK. Two 400 Divas and two 200 Divas, plus Source Four (or two),

I own a litepanel but as a camera light, and since I bought it there is another on-camera LED light I bought that I much prefer, that being the Zylight.

Zylight also makes a larger panel light, but it’s very expensive (as is the Lightpanel) and I don’t favor it for portrait or set lighting. These are very specialized units, useful to hide in nooks and crannies and power with batteries, but for the price you can buy more useful general purpose instruments.

The Lightpanels in particular burn green and are not variable color like the Zylight, which offers tungsten and daylight presets and also a full range of colored light.

Just no $.02

JS

[John Sharaf]

Chance,

Great choice to start with a 200 Diva. I’d recommend that you now add a 400 and another 200. This gives you 3200K and 5600K flexibility with a strong key, a fill and a backlight. For the backgrounds the best choice in my opinion is an ETC Source Four with a wide lens (like 50 degrees) and a small squeezer (dimmer). With a selsection of patterns and color gels you can create a variety of pleasing background looks.

The Source Four is not easy to put in a case nor travel with, but around town it’s easy to throw on top of your gear stack in the truck.

After that a 350/600 ARRI kit and then you’ll have to start thinking about an 800 Joker HMI, but maybe I’m getting ahaead of myself.

Good luck,

JS

[John Sharaf]

Chris,

I don’t think so. This from Panasonic website:

Recording and playback formats include 1080/60i, 1080/50i, 720/60p, 720/50p in AVC-Intra and DVCPRO HD; and 480/60i, 576/50i in DVCPRO50, DVCPRO and DV

Unit would have to be pretty smart to reverse telecine on the fly (and encode in AVC-I codec). You’d need a lot of processing power.

I’d think you’d be better off with AJA Ki Pro which will take HD-SDI output from Varicam in full rater and 10 bit as well. Of course this presumes you’re editing on FCP in ProRes.

So many systems, formats and choices. Lot’s of room for error!

JS

[John Sharaf]

Simon,

You will never notice on the monitor.

It will only matter if you choose to make filmout or otherwise on-line your project. Here the accumulation of 1/2 frame errors might effect the sound sync and also create difficulty in accurately matching the intended frame.

Again this is corrected in version 1.5 software.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Simon,

I’ll bet that your camera is a PDW700 with 1.2x version software. This (or earlier) software did not conform to SMPTE RP188 where the TC and Frame would start together. Thus the random nature of field dominance. The new 1.5 software fixes this and other things, but of course that won’t help you. Unfortunately in FCP you can assign the import to begin at the beginning of the frame; this can however be done on the Avid platform as a holdover from the early telecine days. Let me know if I’m right about your camera’s software. If I am, upgrade with the free download from Sony support (you’ll also need to upgrade decks and readers() and test new material.

JS

[John Sharaf]

Bryan,

It sounds like you did everything right. The “judder” that the editor is referring to is normal. I suspect that he has never seen/edited 24p before. I’ve had this problem before with 30p when viewed by editor familiar only to 60p!

Granted that for production you should have a bigger monitor than a 8″, preferably the 17″ or I use a 23″. This way there are no surprises later with motion or focus. But I understand the economic necessities.

When in doubt, of course, you must test the variables all the way through your chain. Most rental houses will allow you to comne in a nd shoot test in their shop for no charge.

JS