Mark Maness
Forum Replies Created
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Have you tried capturing in DVCPRO HD? That’s how I use mine all of the time. DVCPRO HD handles everything beautifully including graphics. As a matter of fact, that how most of us use our HDV equipment. HDV captures in FCP are very troublesome at best.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
I second that! Arnie is absolutely correct. Don’t ever try to boot from a RAID setup. That’s asking for trouble. Try what Arnie suggested. And as for the drives, have you contacted Western Digital yet?
Here’s an idea. Purchase a new Sonnet SATA card and install that into your computer. There maybe be something flaky with Apple and 10k SATA drives.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Thank you, Barry…
That was the answer I was looking for. Doing low budget features can be tough when your budget is extremely low. We have to start somewhere…
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Well, Ian….
The workflow choice for everybody at the moment is the DVCPRO HD workflow. It doesn’t tax the system and the quality is absolute stunning. You could do 10-bit just fine, but you would need a huge storage and a super fast computer (nothing slower than a dual 2.7 with plenty of RAM).
If you’d like, I think there is an update for Vegas to use the XDCAM HD. I heard that Vegas could do XD HD at NAB. And that would make since, it is Sony’s software and they did kill their edit station again. BUT FCP does use DVCPRO HD really well and I would bet that almost all of us with XD HD are using this method.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
The first question here is… what is your final product?
Are you exporting to tape or to DVD?
If you are exporting to DVD or web, just export to Compressor and select the correct settings for your needs. You’ll have to change some settings but it will do a great job. If you are exporting to tape (DV), then you need to create a new sequence with the DV settings and drop your HDV timeline in it. It will letterbox for you automatically.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
When you say widescreen… it could be true widescreen (or anamorphic).
But when they say its 4×3 letterboxed, its a widescreen that is directly formatted for a 4×3 screen. In order to really understand what you client has you need to ask, is this true widesreen or is it letterboxed. And if they can’t tell you, you find out when you play it back on a monitor. True widescreen will make everybody tall and skinny.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Well, using an SD lens could create problems for you. The glass in an SD lens is not as sharp as an HD, but I do understand the cost considerations. We have not tried to use and SD lens on ours. We purchased a Canon wide angle lens, the industrial model, not the pro model. We, too, have tight budets and have consider it BUT after lots of discussions we decided to get an HD lens with our camera.
As for being able to hold its own with other HD formats. YES! The quality is such that the Discovery Channel recently ok’ed it to be used for their prodction standards. And their standards are extremely high, kinda like National Geographic. That says alot! I dare you to be able to pick it out of a sample of other HD formats when compared. Its awesome!
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
No… not really. But using the HD-SDI is always better. But we also use HDV and I capture it using the component ouputs on my M10U deck. Quality looks great to me!
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Or… Here’s an idea. Nothing says you can’t capture to another codec from your machine. My suggestion is to hook up your machine and capture using the DVCPRO HD codec. Its much friendlier than HDV and much more realtime effects than HDV.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Well… That’s what I am doing right now anyway. We have all the newest updates and lastest patches applied and I still would rather use the old method at the moment. Let me explain why…
At the current time, the Sony plugin only supports the 25 mb/s HDV setting in XD HD. To me, that’s no good. I want the best possible quality so we are using the 35 mb/s setting on our F350 camera. I then use my F70 deck to output thru HD-SDI to my Kona 2 where I capture using DVCPRO HD. The quality is absolutely fantastic.
Let me say… The HDV (25 mb/s) setting is the same type as Sony’s HDV cameras, but the other settings (18 mb/s and 35 mb/s) are different than standard HDV. The 35 mb/s setting is the best quality that uses a type of HDV but its not the same. And to eliminate all the HDV drawbacks, its always best to capture in another codec. Your only choices at the moment are Uncompressed 8-bit or 10-bit OR DVCPRO HD (1080 or 720). The Uncompressed codecs for myself are somewhat of overkill. DVCPRO HD is slowly becoming the industry standard for any HD work. Mainly for space considerations.
So…. to answer your question… The quality of DVCPRO HD and XDCAM HD is absolutely gorgous! Personally, I’d still upgrade your FCP to 5.1, its only about $99. If you have any other questions about XDCAM HD, feel free to ask!
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com