[Neil Sadwelkar]

Datacines used to be able to scan only at HD frame sizes. Then upsize to 2k. Not any more. The spirit4k is capable of scanning at 4k natively. No scaling. At 4k the full 35mm frame size is 4096×3112 pixels.
At 2k – 4k scaled down to 2k, or scan natively at 2k – frame size for full frame is 2048×1556. If you crop out the left of frame sound area, you have a frame of 1828×1556. And Super35 wherein you expose for final Cinemascope projection, you use the ‘middle’ 1828×778 area and crop out the rest.

You work on this 1828×778 portion thru the grading/VFX process and finally render out stretched 1828×1556. Meaning the horizontal 1828 is preserved, but 778 pixel height is scaled to 1556.

So basically if shot as Super35 for eventual Cinemascope projection, 2k is effectively 1828×778. So that’s why some post houses are now scanning only the central area at 3656×1556 resulting in file sizes just two times larger than if scanned at 1828×1556.

Neil

FCP Editor, Mumbai, India.
Completely PAL.

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Forgot to mention. My HDCam-SR source is 1080p24. I’m capturing to DVCProHD 1080p24.

Neil

FCP Editor, Mumbai, India.
Completely PAL.

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Have you tried enabling VITC in the deck control settings? I know you have no deck, but I had once managed to acquire TC as VITC from a live feed from telecine. We had put a window burn to ascertain that the TC was right.

Neil

FCP Editor, Mumbai, India.
Completely PAL.

[Neil Sadwelkar]

I’m curious. What part of 24@25 does not work with Decklink. I too work in 24@25 with footage telecine’d to DV. But I think even if the footage was on BetacamSP or DigiBeta, you could capture it via your Decklink as 8-bit or again DV using the Blackmagic PAL – DV setting and then convert it to 24 in CinemaTools.

In fact we have created our own Blackmagic PAL – 8bit 24 @ 25 and Blackmagic PAL – 10bit 24 @ 25 setting for film related work.

What does not work is that footage conformed to 24 when played through the Decklink card has a large 24+1 judder. We’ve resolved it by setting Playback control to 24@25 repeat and using the “Use Playback Settings” control in the timeline shortcut menu. That takes care of the judder.

THIS HAS REFERENCE ONLY TO PAL 24@25. NTSC IS NOT AFFECT AFAIK.
Sorry about the capitals, but every time I write this I have someone from an NTSC workflow telling me about 2:3:2:3 or something like that.

Neil

FCP Editor, Mumbai, India.
Completely PAL.

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Option-right arrow to slide down, Option-left arrow to slide up, If something is in the way, Option-up arrow to take it to a higher track, and then option-right or left to slide it. If you’ve moved it to a higher track because something’s in the way, then you’ll need to trim out the start and end after silding.

Neil

FCP Editor, Mumbai, India.
Completely PAL.

[Neil Sadwelkar]

I don’t know if this helps, but I’ve been able to get VITC from a DL HDPro from a signal fed by a telecine. Over SD-SDI. RS-422 was not connected. I had to make a setup where the deck was non controllable and the timecode source was set for VITC. I could confirm that I was getting time code because we had set up the feed to have burn-in TC as well via an Aaton keylink.

So VITC from Decklink works.

Neil

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Cost will definitely become an issue. XServes have always costed more than desktop machines.

Neil

FCP Editor, Mumbai, India.
Completely PAL.

[Neil Sadwelkar]

If space is your concern, then you can consider 4 XServes and 2 XRAIDs. So it will be 10U total. That’s less than 4 VTRs and lass then any other DDR with similar capabilities I’ve come across. You can add a 17″ MacBook to remotely control all four XServes. And monitor the recorded streams anytime over GigE.

Neil

FCP Editor, Mumbai, India.
Completely PAL.

[Neil Sadwelkar]

At our facility we have two FCP systems with Decklink HDPro cards and Miranda SDI-analog converters. Of course our routers and all other systems (smoke, flame, eQ, iQ etc) are SDI with embedded audio. And our broadcast monitors are SDI. This has worked for us for the past 2 years. At the time we set these up (end 04) there were no Multibridges.

Recently when we added two more setups using existing Decklink HDPro cards, we evaluated various converters as well as our good experience with Miranda. Eventually we opted for two Multibridge Extreme. These work as SDI audio embedders, give us the option of connecting a analog component monitor, use a SP deck for ingest directly and are generally stable. One unit was DOA but the dealer replaced it instantly.

I think you too will find the Multibridge Extreme the most cost-effective solution. And if you were to upgrade to a new PCIe Mac, you can use the MBExt directly with a small PCIe card, as we too would have done had we had acces to a PCI-X card for the MBExt.

Neil

FCP Editor, Mumbai, India.
Completely PAL.

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Its a standard IEC cable that goes into most PCs and Macs. You must have one lying around somewhere.

Neil

FCP Editor, Mumbai, India.
Completely PAL.