[Kaspar Kallas]

Hi,

There are about 1000 things to wach out for….
1. To wich format to telecine, If you need full raster HD or some hevy dudy color grading then HDCAM SR and some disk recorder are the only way to go – here is why:
HDCAM SR is full raster meaning 1920×1080 and has color depth of 10bit (HDCAM is 1440×1080 and 8 bit)
HDCAM SR has much better compression (even 4:4:4 RGB option and 4:2:2) HDCAM has only 3:1:1 and more artifacts on blacks

There are also some bad disk recorders that introduce some artifacts from internal compression – so make sure it DOES NOT compress picture, or test the compressed picture in some CC aplication and maks sure you have good information in the dark area of the picture and white clip shouldn’t be to sharp

NB there is no 1080 25p standard in HD there is only 50i (put this is not a problem becuse bot fields are from the same frame so you will end up with the full frame anyhow)

2. Codec – it depends how much space you have and how fast array you got – you said you will preform the final CC yourself so ONLY 10bit codecs (and up) will do
4:4:4 RGB codec is superior but it requires 1/3 more bandwith and you have to render evrything outside FCP because fcp can RENDER RGB only in 8 bit – if you choose 10bit uncompressed (be it apple or BMD) then you will not have the problem – but it is much harder to pull decent keys and CC is bit more triky as well

I think you should get the HW you plan and maybe get a demo from telecine house (just few minutes of any footage in the specs you plan to do the job) and TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST – don’t risk to look like a fool in front of your client
(I know I started the same road about a year ago and there are many caveats on road, so planning and testing – just planning is no good)

-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

Maybe there is something up with final touch or X800 drivers because my shake works under 10.4.2 and decklink HD pro very nice (both apple and bmd codecs)

-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

but that is only for mac 🙁

-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

Hi

You get the artifacts because the field order is reverse in DV than uncompressed, move the enitire clip one pixel up or down and it should be OK

-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

the esy setup just sets the playbakc video to blackmagic card nothing more

-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

There is no blackmagic HDV codec!

-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

There were no dropped frames, just one stream seemed outputing both fields the same, this happened when I had 4 streams + text layer over the whole thing – when text was on evrything was ok, when text was off on stream became soft (meaning single field replicated to other) I am in PAL country so its 50i and using decklink for output, dont have a DV device @ moment and monitoring off HDLink apple cinema display so I can see both fields separetly (because LCD cannot show interlaced)

It does smell like bug though
then again….

-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

Actually now I have to eat my words, after few hours of testing a I found a way where full is not the same when rendered – I hope it is a bug of FCP5 but maybe not

-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

PIP meanining picture in picture right?

yes I have 3 streams of DV all 3 way CC’d and cropped/scaled so that all of them are visible and FCP show full on top bar (dark green) if you would argue that being a preview tehn make a cut throug all three stream and render a part then you will not see any differece on either side, if you use uncopressed timline then you get bright green indicator meining PREVIEW – this you will have to render before laying to tape

so once again in DV timline YOU HAVE REALTIME (as real as they come) EFFECTS

-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

in DV quality theese thing run fine in FULL REZ, FULL FRAMERATE in FCP, in uncompressed timline – it is a different story

-Kaspar