[Leslie Tai]

Many many thanks.

[Leslie Tai]

David, thanks for your clarification. I really appreciate all your help and your patience with such a newbie.

Please correct where I’m wrong, but my current understanding is, the 5:1 compression (which is what had me worried) occurs within the camcorder itself, so when I digitize into FCP it makes no difference whether I do so in the DV preset or the Uncompressed 10-bit preset, because the DV codec is essentially bringing in the footage at the highest quality possible, which is just what it is, in 4:1:1 8-bit format. Is this right?

And now to output to Digibeta, if I understand correctly, what I can do is, I open up my current FCP sequence, copy the entire timeline including subtitles and paste it into a new sequence in a new project with Uncompressed 8-bit preset, do all my basic color correcting in FCP here. Then render. Then export Quicktime movie using Uncompressed 8-bit settings (DV settings here would do the 5:1 compression again, thereby losing more quality?). Then bring it to the facility and output to Digibeta. Is this correct?

Now, may I ask, what is the difference between Uncompressed 8-bit and Uncompressed 10-bit? I’ve read above that Digibeta is a 10-bit 4:2:2 format. Do I want to do all of the above in Uncompressed 10-bit instead to make it more lovable to dear Digibeta?

Finally, I just have to ask to ease my conscience. I am mildly worried that some of the footage in my sequence, iMovie DV files which I had to recompress into Quicktime .mov files in FCP, experienced some kind of generational loss(?). The file size was the same, I don’t need to get into deep technical details, so if you think this is fine, I can forget about it.

Again, thanks for your help and understanding with such elementary questions.

Leslie

[Leslie Tai]

Thanks David.

I did a quick search on Kona and Blackmagic card, and I’m guessing that that has to do with color correcting in the HD upconversion.

I guess my main question is whether or not it’s worth it to re-digitize my footage as Uncompressed 10-bit for output onto Digibeta. Due to budget, timeframe, and aesthetic considerations, I won’t be doing any professional color correcting.

I can do all this at the Bay Area Video Coalition, which has all the facilities and technical support to walk me through the entire process. My options with them are (1) I can either output directly as is or (2) re-digitize all of the footage.

Two other local San Francisco dub houses can make the Digibeta for me, but neither of them recommends optimizing the footage by re-digitizing.

I guess I’ll have to do more research on the SD to HD conversion.

Thanks,
Leslie

[Leslie Tai]

Hi everyone,

I don’t know if it’s correct practice to post a new question in an ongoing thread, but it seems as if I’ve stumbled across the right crowd of experts for my related question, so I’m going to give it a try.

I have a project shot on Mini-DV that is now getting festival interest, so I need to figure out how to ultimately end up with it on Digibeta and HDCam. Most festivals desire Digibeta, so it is right that I want to make a Digibeta master?

The project uses footage shot from both a Panasonic DVC30 and a consumer Sony HandyCam. Most of the footage was digitized into FCP under the DV NTSC 48 kHz setting, and some of it was digitized in iMovie as a DV file, which was later exported out of FCP as Quicktime .mov files in order to work with.

The project has heavy (FCP) subtitling throughout, and no other graphics/compositing/anything.

Digibeta:
I’ve consulted a few of the more technically-inclined, and it seems the vote is split evenly between (1) outputing directly from my uncompressed Quicktime movie file to Digibeta (TRT: 103 min. so it won’t fit on a Mini-DV) and (2) re-digitizing all the clips in the FCP sequence under Uncompressed 10-bit settings before outputing to Digibeta.

Those advocating Option 2 tell me about a noticeable upgrade in image quality, and others tell me the difference is negligible. Clearly, I want to do what’s right for the film, and preserve it in the highest quality possible. I am lacking, however, the information that would help justify the tremendous time and energy commitment (2 weeks?) it would take to locate, redigitize, and match frame every single clip in my timeline for the sake of a potentially negligible improvement in image quality. (This is my first large project, and I regret all the many, many mistakes I made in media management. Total mess.)

HDCam:
The same dilemma applies (within my limited understanding). The dub house I spoke with told me they’d do a file to HD upconversion. Also mentioned the difference was negligible. Of course, I’m terribly aware that it’s going to look like crap whichever way I go, but would having a file that’s uncompressed 10-bit vs. DV make it any better?

This guy also offered that it might not even be possible, with my set-up, to re-capture the footage in Uncompressed 10-bit properly, which I guess might eliminate this entire dilemma completely.

I am working on a MacBook Pro, with FCP 5.0.4, absolutely no bells and whistles.

Thanks so much for any help you can give!

Leslie