Mark Maness
Forum Replies Created
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I’m seeing this on a G5 and a Mac Pro.
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First, let me say…. Its great that you are learning this in school.
[vallier] “While I was editing my film, I found my images sometimes were not satisfactory (when moving frame by frame, squares like mosaic appeared in high-speed footages or dark footages) and sometimes when i stacked several video tracks, the quality declined… My project involves some compositing effects too… “
This is a product of the HDV codec. Its great for acquisition but NOT for editing and compositing. Sony techs will be the first to say that HDV is a transport format, not an editable format. Sony didn’t intend on this from the start. It just ended up that way later.
[vallier] “1) If I get myself FCP 6 (I can urge school), and from what I have read, I only need to copy my finished editing to a new sequence set to be rendered in ProRes, and I’ll get improvement on the quality of the images, as well as the compositing effects, subtitles, color, etc… Am I right?? Are the differences big?
“FCP6 and PreRes422 will help with these issues since its close to uncompressed as you can get.
[vallier] “3) I’ve read some people capture HDV in ProRes codec before editing. But you need a capture card which we don’t have at school. Also in terms of my situation (I nearly finish my editing), it does not seem feasible to do. But does this really further improve anything (as opposed to editing natively and just set a ProRes rendered sequence)?? “
This is the ONLY way to avoid your issue with the mosaic pattern that you are seeing
.[vallier] “5) After all this, what’re the best output choices for me? This film might get a film print. But it’s not sure yet. Before that, what’re the best possible outputs? (especially if the ProRes workflow works, also considering a possibility of film print, could be considered seperately of course) Digital Betacam maybe? (This project is aimed to be screened in theatres in film festivals)
“This all depends…. Did you shoot 60i? or did you use the Cineframe30? Hopefully, you didn’t shoot Cineframe24 becasue this will give you your mosaic pattern that you speak of, and if you did, nothing can be done about this except reshoot those scenes in 60i and convert to 24p with something like the Nattress Film Filters.
If you don’t have a capture card, your only avenue for output would be HDV or DVCProHD if you have a deck to use (which will introduce a whole new set of problems for you).
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey -
[davidb] “The piece I am not grasping is, can we go back to the PDW-F70 (XDCAM HD recorder)? Of course you can (I think), it’s a recorder.
So the real question is….would it be a good/bad idea to do this?
“The answer is… Yes.
The best solution to mastering and archiving is always thru a deck. Using a camera always puts on undue stress on it that you should consider, more than the re-compression issue. The PDW-F70 is an awesome machine that can do your down-converting if needed. The F70 is a full deck with all the capabilities than anyone could ask for.
[davidb] “I would assume the biggest problem would be that the signal would be recompressed,
but is there a way using HDSDI (out) from the NLE straight to the HDSDI (in) to the recorder that would not recompress?
“Of course…. You can go back HD-SDI like we do. You can go out thru firewire using the Sony Transfer program for FCP. I have done it both ways and I have never seen a difference in the signal.
[davidb] “Is there a way to get the clips shot on the express cards backed up to the XDCAM HD discs and then use them in the PDW-70 just like they came from a XDCAM HD camera?
“Yes, that will be available in the newest version of the Sony Transfer software.
To give you a little insight… Our company has been using XDCAM now for almost three years with the last year using XDCAM HD. It is by far the best format available for flexibility and ruggedness. I will be more than happy to answer any more questions that you might have on this format.
BTW… You need at least an AJA IO HD to do what you need. For a little less money, the AJA Kona 3 would probably be a better choice, if you are looking at any uncompressed HD in the future.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey -
To be perfectly honest… we are editing in DVCProHD. Let me explain our workflow a little…
We edit in DVCProHD (because we mix XDCAM HD and HDV (trying to avoid the pitfalls of HDV)), output thru HD-SDI to the machine (because its faster), then downconvert to IMX50 for commercial integration then out to a PDW-1500 XDCAM deck thru firewire. This is where the output is taking about 45 minutes to copy across.
Th only reason I have to do it this way is because we have to insert the commercials ourselves before we make our BetaSP masters for broadcast.
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Not having done this… I would imagine that the export function is telling FCP that you want to export XDHD. That would explain what is going on.
You can create another sequence in ProRes and render that one. Then export like you want and your issue should go away.
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True…. but I leave that to the web guys.
I’m sure this will work for Rick’s needs. We’d all love to have the best toys but sometimes we have to live with some things that we can afford.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey -
The cheaper version is called Flix 8 Exporter. It costs $199 for the export codecs.
https://www.on2.com/products/flix/exporter/
It works very well. You can use it anywhere you can export a program, even in Compressor 3.01.
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I agree about the ranting… BUT….
Flavio is right about the issues that have now surfaced after the Pro Apps update. Our systems have become unstable and all around “freaky” since this update.
Seems like the update fixed issues that were very important but at the same time made our systems very flaky.
Let me say that it was our decision to update the software after experiencing the issues that the Pro Apps update was supposed to fix. Yes, we always clone our drives before any major updates. The the fixes were more important to us. Being able to use ProRes422 on our g5 system was very important. Before the update, the G5 would crash trying to play ProRes422.
These are the risks we have to take from time to time. And sometimes we just need to vent our frustrations on those who may have experienced the same things.
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Just happened to me last week…
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey -
Hey Matt,
I’m having an issue with downloading the newest software (ProAnimator 4.3.1 for Mac). I fill in the necessary info and I wait for my email. I click on the link and receive and error message reading:
ERROR
The download key is invalid.
Please try the download process again.I’ve done this twice and got the same error message each time.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey