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So if the project is a mix of 720P and HDCAM at 24P, I’m wondering how the conversion would work. Out from the computer, through the Teranex and directly into the mastering deck, or would I have to recapture all of the 720P tapes again through the Teranex? That would be gnarly. We’re looking at a final 24P HDCAM master to eventually print to film.

Which Teranex product, and where is it purchased from?

Thanks for all of your experience with these issues, it’s a lot to chew on and will affect any mastering outputs.

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Ah, I see now the confusion over HDCAM. It’s a compressed codec that records internally at 18MB per sec. It then goes uncompressed over the HD-SDI connector which requires 240MB/sec at 10bit 4:4:4 uncompressed.

Here’s a chart:

https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/hdedit/

I would think the Sony editing system can handle HDCAM in it’s native compressed form, but who’s really using that editing system?

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Interesting idea, bringing in a color artist. How challenging is Final Touch to learn how to use? I’ve seen it in action and the rotoscoping, tracking features seem high end.

Is it possible to master a fair bit of it, even to understand how to get going with it in a fair amount of time?

Also, I’ve seen the JL Cooper controllers — can it be used with just the mouse and keyboard, or is this too limiting?

Thanks for the info!

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Thanks for this reply.

Regarding the coloring of the movie, I’ve always just assumed it was best for an artist to do it. But maybe times are changing, since many of us do know how to get 80% of the way there, and end up coloring many projects anyhow. I just think with a feature products the results could be stunning with a pro doing it? Can an editor really get the good results?

That Final Touch looks interesting. I spent an hour watching the dude at HD Expo a few months ago, and it looks fantastic. Though I wonder how difficult it would be to jump in and use it well. Also, does it even work well without the hardware addons?

Coloring is an important issue, and one that I approach with hesitation on full length projects.

But yes, that JVC is difficult to handle at this point. My workflow was the following:

~Capture from HD50 deck using HDVxDV software. — I consider the .m2t files from then on as the camera negatives.
~Export out as DV quicktime for editing.
–Original Timecode is lost, it puts out new timecode! But I’m expecting that a re-export at full resolution using the same process will yield the same new timecode.
–Audio drifts out of sync! On this project I’m using separate production audio anyhow. Otherwise, to eyeball it back in is not the end of the world.

~Sync up each scene with production audio. (The JVC was the b camera of on the steady cam, so the sound guys rarely ran audio into it.)
~Batch export out to create new synced master clips, using the existing timecode from HDVxDV.
~Batch conform them to make sure they are 23.98, takes a few seconds.
~Drop them back in, and edit!

For the online, re-export from the .m2t originals at the proper codec. Thanks to your post I now realize that it’s going to be a long export render, but they used that JVC HDV camera much more than they planned to, which will take some time to handle. Either pay during the shoot, or pay for it later…

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I [i]hope[/i] the enormous camera crew did the right settings! Sheesh, between the DP, the operator, the camera “tech”, the two AC’s and the silly Paintbox dude — you would think so! Ang Lee at a recent DGA event: “Shooting the movie is the shopping for ingredients, and the editing is the actual cooking.”

The HDCAM is 23.98, and the JVC is a bit funky. It shows up at 24, though it was set at 23.98. I conformed it to 23.98 with “cinema tools”, and it seemed to go through okay. Regarding the resolution, I was thinking of just rendering it into the 1080 timeline in Final Cut Pro.

I find QC with the JVC HD50 deck to be a bit temperamental. The deck has a personality that requires a tender approach — something that the sony hardware doesn’t require — it just works!

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Thanks for the info. Interesting that 720 is a cross-convert. Do people find the uprez capabilities in the Kona2 / 3 card useful? I’m thinking of just rendering the 720P sections in the timeline to the higher resolution.

Regarding drive speed, I think there is a bit of misinformation floating around here. A 5 drive SATA RAID minimum speed is over 200MB/sec, which should always be fast enough for HDCAM, which is shot at 8 bit 3:1:1. Maybe some PC systems loaded with antivirus, spyware, and malware software can’t handle the load and drop frames?

I’m thinking about picking up one of these:
https://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusion500p.html

One of these:
https://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_x4p.html

And 5 of these:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148108

I do find the SATA-2 3gb standard to be a bit bunk, with no real performance gains. But hey, the 4 year manufacturer warranty is a plus.