Michael Gissing
Forum Replies Created
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A Decklink or Kona (HD SDI) with the XL H1 is the best way to go. Firstly it is straight out of the camera, into FCP without needing a converter.
Secondly you can monitor back out through the card in HD to a suitable external monitor. The cost of a Decklink HD SDI card is likely to be similar to an HDMI card plus an SDI to HDMI converter. Don’t know the Kona cards but they are highly recommended here at the cow too.
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I have the Decklink HD Pro and Walter is right. Leave the FCP settings to playback 1920 x 1080 not 720 x 576. Change the Decklink settings as you have to downconvert and all should work.
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Borrow the camera and do a test. Personally I think the HDV downconvert to 10 bit uncompressed SD looks better than native DV on the same camera. You will need a capture card and take the SDI from the camera as input to do this. If you downconvert to DV in camera and capture firewire then you may as well shoot DV in the first place.
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Not sure if you should have anamorphic checked. Try unchecking this first. What settings do you have in the Motion tab/ distort. You should be able to adjust both height and width to fill the frame correctly.
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Sounds like an EDL and find/ replace in a word processor then. Tedious but lucky it is only 4 minutes.
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I don’t think FCP can capture with an offset of 1hr. I take it that you have the two versions on tape. If so why the need to offset? Surely it will capture both layers correctly.
Otherwise how did you end up with the offset?
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Ironically tone is an irrelevent concept in digital transfers. It is only relevent in the analog domain.
Here are the rules for broadcast. Reference tone is -20 dbfs (Full Scale on a digital peak meter) in the NTSC world and PAL is -18dbfs. Program peak signal levels shall not exceed this reference level by more than 10db (again on a digital peak scale).ie Maximum peaks shall not exceed -10dbfs.
When dubbing to an analog machine with VU meters (basically all SP beta decks) set the -20dbfs tone to be 0 VU. On a digital dub (DVCAM, digi beta etc) use the digital signal either embedded or AES. Do not adjust your levels. Tone should show as -20 (or -18 for PAL). Digital machines all have digital peak meters that scale up to 0.
The fact that FCP tone default it -12dbfs is perplexing to me as the broadcast standards for reference tone have neen around for over a decade. If you follow the broadcast rules of -20dbfs with peaks no more than -10dbfs, you will always have correct levels.
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Do you charge by the hour or job? I would check issues like spool speed. If the 1500 is not faster than the 25 then it may not be worth the extra price. Does it upconvert SD to HD? again if not then why the $s?
You don’t say if you have an DVCam deck at the moment. If you do then all you need is an HDV solution. HDMI can be converted to HDSDI (I think Convergent has a convertor) plus there is a cheap Decklink Intensity card that takes HDMI directly so the 25U can be used to direct ingest digitally without the loss of component.
The solution I use at the moment is a DSR 1500 for DV, DVCam and DVCPro25 and a Canon XL H1 for HDV input (firewire control and HDSDI output). The cheaper Canon XL G1 also has HDSDI out with embedded audio. I don’t use analog video or audio signals anywhere in my system except for monitoring.
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I see. I start with just a project file (usually emailed) with no media.
I wonder if you tried this it might help. Make a “save as” copy of the project file (rename it Online) and save to your local drive. Shutdown and disconnect all media drives. Reboot and open the Online project. All media will be offline so click continue.
Then launch Media Manager and see if it quickly gets to the main page as the media will all be offline. Of course, when you are done and reboot with all drives back on, the original project will not be affected. The only copy, saved with the media offline is the new one.
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I am not sure why this is such a misunderstood process. All SD is 4:3. In PAL land that means 720 x 576. Into that frame you have three basic options,
1. Standard 4:3. This means the image is full frame (No black bars anywhere) and not squeezed looking.
2. Anamorphic or Full Height. This means the 4:3 image is full frame and looks squeezed. A 16:9 TV horizontally stretches this to fill a 16:9 frame. A 4:3 TV will show the squeezed look. This is normal.
3. Letterbox. This means the image is not full frame but has black bars top and bottom and doesn’t look squeezed. A 16:9 TV can zoom this signal out to fill the 16:9 frame but you are not using the full resolution of a 4:3 frame to achieve 16:9.
All of these settings require the TV watching public to set their 16:9 monitors correctly. No magic flags will do this for them even if they can be embedded in the tape data.
Ask the broadcaster (they usually issue specs with the contract to the producer) what format they want. In my experience Full Height (anamorphic) is always required for both domestic broadcast here in Australia and internationally. I have never delivered a 4:3 Letterbox and no longer deliver Standard 4:3.