Sean Oneil
Forum Replies Created
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If you capture and edit HDV natively, all cuts-only edits are exactly 100% 1:1 purely identical to the way it existed originally on the tape.
If you are mastering back to HDV (which you shouldn’t do nor have any reason to do), then the quality does not get ANY better than a native workflow. Period. It is as much of a lossless workflow possible. Any conversion means that you will be re-compressing back to HDV format when you master to HDV tape. This is REALLY BAD. One generation of HDV is bad enough. Avoid a 2nd one at all costs.
If you are mastering to another format (which is a normal method of delivery) like HDCam, then there is no reason to keep it HDV. There are several workflow related reasons why it is better to capture and edit Uncompressed (or ProRes) – or at least render your final sequence to an Uncompressed or ProRes timeline. It’s faster to work with, better effects performance, it’s easier to key stuff, color correction works better, etc. But it does NOT improve the quality. It simply does an excellent job at preserving the quality. Since you are not mastering back to HDV, this workflow is not going to hurt the picture quality. However, if you were to capture ProRes and master back to HDV, that would be a big mistake unless you are applying effects to the entire project (like color correcting). If that’s the case, it doesn’t make a difference. But none of this should matter since you should never want to nor have any reason to master a project to HDV. You might as well just burn a DVD and deliver that.
Sean
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[gary adcock] “Firewire is a data transfer Only – and no it will not work, not in real time.
You would be able to transcode after the fact, but that would defeat the purpose of having a TRUE 10bit codec since all of the FW captured footage would be 8bit compressed.”You don’t get TRUE 10-bit from HDV period. Whether you use FW and transcode or use a FW to SDI converter (or an HDMI to SDI converter) – the end result is the same (barring any quality differences between the encoders).
Sean
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What kind of footage is 1280×1080? DVCProHD? If so, that is meant to be the same aspect ratio as HDV (16:9). So as long as they both fill the screen, you didn’t do anything wrong. Just makes sure the pixe aspec in the item properties is set for DVCPro 1080.
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Does anyone know anything about software that can automatically back up large amounts of data to a bunch of DVD-Rs? Like by using a replicator or the Sony Media Changer?
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[walter biscardi] “In day to day capturing I upconvert and cross-convert all the time. The Kona 3 does this in real-time so for our Post Production workflow, it’s not overkill by any means. In fact, if you’re in a true HD Post environment, all the extra features of the Kona 3 or Io HD are a must.”
I’m just talking about being in the field. To anyone who doesn’t do conversions in the field, it is overkill. To those who do, then perhaps the IO is the best choice.
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[Jerry Hofmann] “I don’t understand the elation… if you buy the magama and then buy a Kona 3, wouldn’t it be more expensive than an Io HD in the first place? Course, if you already own a Kona 3, I can see where it might be cheaper, but it would also involve tearing apart your system to work with it…. 3 days down with the ‘home’ system would cost more than an Io HD… So even that scenario doesn’t really make sense.
I’d rather go with the Io and forget tearing apart a system, and thus keeping it from working while you shoot etc… Let alone the possibility of frying a card moving it back and forth. Not only that, the io HD will releave the CPU from doing the compression to Pro Res… I’m not sure that a laptop can manage the compression on the fly by itself… at NAB we were told that it would only work with intel macs, and Apple hasn’t posted any minimum spec on capturing to pro res… it’s nowhere to be seen on the specs page of Studio 2… I think we’ll have to stay tuned for that one.”
Well I agree, I certainly wouldn’t recommend pulling a card in and out constantly. That’s an enormous waste of time.
But I totally disagree with your economics. First of all, a Kona 3 is complete overkill. You don’t need it’s advanced features or it’s extra connectors if all you’re doing with it is capturing. You can get a Kona LHE or Decklink HD between $1000-$1500.
So this would cost $1800-$2300. The IO HD costs $3500.
I’m not trying to tell people not to get an IO. I know you guys have relations with AJA. But this is an alternative way capture ProRes on a laptop and there is no reason why it wouldn’t work just as well. The fact that it’s lighter and less expensive might be important to some people.
Sean
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You NEVER want to scale between 480 and 486. Never. This is a lossy process and there’s no reason to do it. Instead you want to either crop 6 lines, or add 6 lines of black depending on which way you’re converting it. FCP handles this automatically, and it compensates for the field dominance reversal by adding a “shift fields” filter as Walter mentioned.
The extra 6 lines are well within the overscan area. So you can go back and forth between 480 and 486 a million times this way and it won’t affect the viewable image.
Sean
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I posted the wrong link. They actually do have a 16x lane PCI Express version.
https://www.mobl.com/expansion/products/expressbox1/expressbox1.html
NOT to good to be true.
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I just found this thing:
https://www.mobl.com/expansion/products/expresscard_expansion/index.htmlThink about it. You just buy that thing, throw a Kona or Decklink in it, and plug it into the Expresscard slot on a MacBook Pro. Bam. ProRes capture in the field. No IO required.
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If it’s the one with the red motorcycle, yeah I saw it at the convention. Very cool.