Mitch Ives
Forum Replies Created
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Yes, I do use Motion project files in the FCP timeline, but have to admit that I haven’t had much time to work with that since installing 10.4…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
To his credit, it was this very topic that gave him the idea to crete that filter. After observing my posts he emailed me and asked for more details about what I was seeing and how I determined what was in effect happening. I recommended that he get the equipment and try it himself. He told me he was interested in creating a filter or plugin that would do that.
So if nothing else, we got that option out of these discussions…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
Tom seems to have made a pretty good case that the Panny decks are NOT doing the same thing that the Sony decks do. Philips’ post would seem to back that up. Since the 1500a plays DVCPro perhaps that’s your best bet?
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
[tom matthies] “If it comes over an SDI connection is it still the same quality. It’s not adding pixels, or anti-aliasing them, simply transfering them. While some decks “upsample” to 4:2:2, there is really no additional data added. Take a picture of a pile of bricks stacked three high a pyramid shape and you will easily see the “aliasing” at the edges of the bricks. Take a picture at a higher resolution and thise edges are still there. The higher sampling rate is not going to fill in the dges and make the stack look smoother. Same principal applies to video.”
Have you actually done this? I’m betting not. There is a difference. More importantly, I’ve had twenty different people who’ve looked at the difference in edge smoothing etc. and they all did what I did… shook their heads and said “I don’t understand why… in theory there shouldn’t be an improvement, but there clearly IS an improvement”.
[tom matthies] “While ther may be some differences in codecs, the main reason why an uncompressed time looks better is the fact that everything else overlaying it looks better. If you add a graphic to a DV timeline, it will look a little soft at the edges. If you add the same graphic over an uncompressed timeline, it will look better, all things being equal. The underlying footage will look the same, more or less.”
That’s true enough… except for the part about the underlying footage.
[tom matthies] “While I won’t argue that there might be slight differences in the codecs involved, there really isn’t that much of a difference between transferring via Firewire or SDI. You will see a major difference, though, between SDI and component analog captures. The former is again just a transfer of data, while the later involdes converting the three analog signals into a digital format for processing.”
Again I ask… have you actually done this?
[tom matthies] “There are filters that can “smooth” a 4:1:1 clip giving the appearance of 4:2:2 sampling and hence the appearance of sharper video. Nattress has a pretty nifty filter that’s always evolving and getting better. I know just enough to be dangerous on the subject. If you really want to get into a technical argument (discussion?), drop him an email on the subject. He explains it beautifully. “
He and I have discussed this. So have marco and I. Everbody argues with this UNTIL they actually do it. Then it gets quiet.
In the future, let’s have everyone state whether or not they have actually done this in their posts. Let’s leave the theorizing to another forum…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
Archive and Install is NOT flaky. Archive and install gives you a fresh OS install without any third party files from your previous OS version. This is exactly the way we want it to work. Therefore you may need to reinstall some programs (or retreive stuff from the old install). Like many people, I do not approve of dragging things from the old install to the new one, with the exception of fonts that are not in the new OS install.
Back to the issues of Motion and Compressor. First, I swear if I wave an install disc over my computer, Compressor stops working. Whenever I upgrade FCP, Compressor seems to be broke and require a complete reinstall. I’ve accepted that as normal now.
With regard to Motion, it’s because there are a lot of files that are in your old backed up OS (Panther) that are not moved (on purpose) into your new OS install (Tiger). What is new is that reinstalling Motion didn’t fix the problem. Then I realized it’s because the Motion disk is version 1.0 and the files on the HD are version 1.01. I verified this by running software update and it came back with no updates since it already sees version 1.01 as installed, when it isn’t anymore. The solution? I just did a Spotlight search and erased all the Motion files on the HD… reinstalled Motion and it worked. Then I updated to version 1.01.
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
But now you do…
Next week you’ll tell me something I didn’t know… and on and on it goes…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
[Michael Lazar] “DV/DVCAM is 4:1:1 format. The use of SDI *may* provide a superior mechanism for capturing to disk but I don’t see how it can add back missing bits of chrominance data through upsampling. Any banding on tape would I suppose simply be “transcribed” into the 4:2:2 sampling. “
Michael, you continue to have theoretical speculations, while the rest of us are working in the practical experience world. First, we observed the reality, THEN we set off in search of the explanation. The difference in edge smoothness is visibly noticeable. It took me several levels of Sony engineers to get the explanation that it comes right off the TBC, which is why it has to be upsampled to 4:2:2. Is it the same as shooting in 4:2:2 to start with? No, but it’s a hell of a far cry from 4:1:1. It keys magnificently, and no it isn’t a codec improvement that’s accomplishing this.
I think it’s time to stop the speculation and have you actually do the experiment. Remember, the NASA engineers speculated that a bumble bee didn’t have sufficient wingspan to support flight, even though people all agree that they do. While the technical reason is that they “swim on the viscosity of the air”, the point is they fly.
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
[Michael De Lazzer] “Firewire doesn’t cause any degradation in and of itself. There’s no encoding or decoding going on during the send over firewire. It’s just a data stream off of the tape, much like a hard drive. The degradation comes from the codec on the receiving end. “
Using firewire MEANS using the codec, which means degradation. I think we can avoid the semantics arguements here. Using SDI bypasses the codec, comes directly off of the TBC and results in an upsampled 4:2:2 signal. This is why you can key from it.
[Michael De Lazzer] “SDI recording looks clean because you’re using the uncompressed codec, Apple’s DV codec, though fine on a consumer level, is dirty under technical analysis. As I wrote, I’ve seen tests that actually verify this. An outboard converter is just doing what the 1500 is doing inside the machine. As long as the converter is of good quality, there shouldn’t be any perceptible difference. If you know otherwise, please explain!”
FWIW, I did this before ProMax. I gave the idea to Charles. Yes, the 1500 IS doing more (as would other decks more than likely), and Charles knew this as well. It was his agreemeent that made me approach the Sony engineers to find out exactly what the deck was doing (which I already explained).
I understand you’ve seen some tests, but I did the original tests in detail. I did blind results testing with people and got consistent results. In addition, I’m doing this day in and day out and have been since before the G5’s were even out (dual 1.25). With all due respect, this isn’t a theoretical discussion with me…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
Actually, I’ve been doing this since the very first day the Io shipped.
FWIW, having a deck that has SDI out is far superior to using any converter box that starts with a firewire input. Decks like the 1500, when using SDI actually bypasses the firewire degradation, and since it comes right off the TBC it is being “psuedo” upsampled to 4:2:2. That’s one of the reasons it looks so clean…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com -
SDI will result in better quality.
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com