Scott Sheriff
Forum Replies Created
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Some thoughts on SD card cams.
No free lunch here. With the card media cameras there is a price to pay for the speed of transfer.
1. Keep original footage on the cards, buying new cards as needed.
2. Transfer footage to your HD and recycle the cards. Now the only place your footage lives is your HD.
3. Same as #2, but backup your media to tape archive. Have you priced tape BU systems big enough to handle HD media?
4. Same as #2, but back up to another HD. Most experts say HD backups are a weak link, which is why banks and corporations use the tape systems.
This subject came up at our last FCPUG meeting, and a lot of the guys with SD card cams brought up these issues, and a few more regarding card speed, and failure rates. Seems like one of the big pitfalls brought up is that people have had cards fail where they footage appeared to ‘record’, but couldn’t be retrieved from the card.I think JVC cams give a great bang for the buck, but I’m not a fan of these handy-cams like the HM100, unless there is a specific reason to have such a small camera. If your budget allowed for 6-7K, the GY-HM700U with the Cannon lens might be a contender.
With your stated budget, consider a used, low hour JVC 110U. Yeah it uses tape, which means real-time transfers, but it eliminates the ‘how to archive’ problem. I have one of these, and its worked well for me, but I don’t find the transfer time problematic. I just do it during the off hours in the evening.
Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
Alessio,
“I always thought that it wasn’t a good idea to compress an already compressed format as HDV”HDV is compressed when you shoot it, both the frames and the color space. Going ProRes doesn’t ‘uncompress’ it. What it is really doing is filling in the missing info (through interpolation) from the ‘P’ and ‘B’ frames in order to create a full (I-type) for each frame of video, which reduces the workload on your system, and keeping the quality at that level. This is simplified, the whole GOP, Color Space discussion could fill quite a few pages.
No matter what HD material (HDV, ProRes, etc) you start with, if you go to SD DVD you are going to encode (compress) the footage for SD. Since SD DVD is already MPEG2, and so is your native HDV footage, unless you have a compelling reason to transcode to ProRes, staying in HDV should result in the same quality on a SD DVD, and will eliminate a time consuming step, assuming you don’t need ProRes for any of its other advantages. Since HDV is already MPEG2, it might (in theory) be less compressed going to SD DVD than ProRes. I guess this would be dependent on how the code doing the compression was written.
Where you may run into quality differences is where in the process your footage is deinterlaced, since SD DVD is Progressive. You could do it in the timeline with a filter, or do it in Compressor. Just don’t do it twice. This is why you might want to run some short tests and try different setting and see what looks best.Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
A few thoughts on JVC+FCP from someone that has been using both together for a couple of years without any problems.
I’m assuming you shot on tape, and not a HD.Make sure the camera firmware is current.
What tape stock did you use?
Did the ‘cleaning’ warning come on during the shoot?
Did you try a different Firewire cable?
Use the BR-50 deck to capture, instead of the camera. The transport in the camera isn’t optimized for playback.It is not a blown Firewire port. If it was, it wouldn’t work at all. Blown ports aren’t intermittent, that would be more like a cable problem.
And it is not just the JVC gear that is sensitive to static shock failure, as another poster asserted. All FW devices are subject to static damage, and surge damage from ‘hot plugging’. This includes the FW card in Mac Pro’s. FW is not like USB and should never be ‘hot plugged’.
Never touch a FW port or connector without grounding yourself first.
Always make sure the Mac and the camera/deck is off when connecting/disconnecting.
Turn on the camera/deck first, the Mac second. Power off order doesn’t matter.Could be a tape problem.
There are two thoughts on tape lube among manufactures, ‘dry’ and ‘wet’. These terms are relative, so you can’t tell by looking. Mixing tapes of different manufacturers can cause contamination drop-outs. This is especially true of using Sony, then a JVC or a Panasonic (dry) tape afterwords in these cameras. This is not bashing, each company formulates tapes optimized the tape path in their gear.
Get a JVC cleaning tape and try cleaning your playback device, even if the ‘cleaning’ warning didn’t come on. You might have to do this a couple of times.
For ‘mission critical’ shoots with JVC GY HD-1xx series cameras, stick with JVC ProHD media, and you will have a lot less drop-outs, and the ‘cleaning’ light won’t come on very often, if at all. In an emergency, JVC consumer grade, or Panasonic are the next best in these cameras.It also seems like the practice of ‘cracking’ new tapes before first use is something the digital crowd never does. Big mistake. These small tapes, and small transport paths are much more subject to ‘sticktion’ issues than the much larger Beta (or 3/4) tape were. If the tape doesn’t peel off the supply reel smooth, this could cause a data loss without a physical wrinkle at that spot on the tape.
Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
Alessio,
I think you have been mis-informed. HDV is mpeg2, and so is SD DVD.
So if your workflow is HDV to SD DVD, keep it native if your system can handle it.
So If you convert HDV to ProRes, and then Compress for SD DVD, that is two unnecessary transcodes.Try this for an easy HDV to SD DVD workflow:
Capture footage as HDV 1080i (for the Sony camera) and edit
Render your timeline
Use ‘Export Using Compressor’ from the FCP file menu
In Compressor
Set the destination
Use DVD Best Quality setting
Let Compressor do its thing.
Import the two Compressor output files into DVD Studio Pro and make your DVDScott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
Why buy a plugin for something you have already paid for?
In FCP6 aka FCS2
Effects>Video Filters>Stylize>Bad TV
Apply the filter to the clip.
Load the clip with the applied filter in the Viewer.
Select Filters Tab, drop down arrow on the ‘Bad TV’ filter will reveal 9 key-frame adjustable parameters to customize the look. If this still doesn’t get what you want, stack another filter with this one.Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
IMHO
With that workflow I think you wold be better off staying native, and going to compressor as HDV. The benefit you get from ProRes is that it’s less processor intensive and you get more real-time FX/playback. It is also a better choice if you are mixing a lot of different formats in the timeline. If your system is fast enough, and you are not adding a lot of filters, and your staying with 1080i HDV as a source, going ProRes, especially just to go to a SD DVD is unnecessary transcoding and is actually lowering the quality. But not enough that its noticeable.
Native HDV 1080 15 frame GOP, will seem a bit slower than ProRes in the timeline even on a fast system, but I think you would save time, and quality on the project overall.
Shane is the real expert, hopefully he will chip in a few more thoughts.Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
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Alessio,
A lot has to do with what system you have, and how much VFX and layers in your timeline.
If you have an 8 core machine, and do a moderate amount of FX (3WCC, minor cropping) it might save time in the long run if you are going to an SD DVD.
Best way to tell is do a short test both ways and keep track of the time the entire process takes for each way.I have a JVC 720p HDV camera, and I almost always stay HDV since I’m going SD DVD most of the time. I can pile on the FX and layers no problem using my 8 core 2.88. I have done stuff with the Sony camera too, and found that it is a lot more sluggish using it native (HDV) than the JVC. This is probably due to the JVC having a much shorter GOP (6 vs 15), and the smaller JVC 720 frame.
Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
Hi,
How about a little more info?
Which camera? What is the workflow you are using to capture, and with what hardware, and to what system?
Are you judging this by a recorded reference tone?Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
I think the reason you feel like your being attacked is that you have unrealistic expectations, and don’t want to hear the truth.
Shane was right, you have to charge more. But the other side of that coin is that if you charge more, you have to be able to deliver, and have a system that is somewhat current. If you don’t charge enough to pay the bills and be able to upgrade your system occasionally, I don’t know what else you can do, except give up owning your own system and get a gig working for someone else. There are only so many corners you can cut, before someone comes along that can spend the $$$, and they take your client(s).
Your situation of using your system to pay the bills is not unique, as I would say the majority of the editors here own their system and face this decision everyday. Your idea of going from a ‘boat anchor’ system, to another less than adequate system (MBP w/FCE to edit HD) just doesn’t make technical, or business sense.
So as was said before, if the cost of FCS3 vs FCE is a deal breaker, how are you going to afford a laptop fast enough to run FCS3, or an external HD to put your media on?
Maybe the better idea is to only hire shooters that can continue to shoot SD, or buy a used SD camera and shoot the stuff yourself.Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com