Steve Covello
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I’m not up on the latest FCC rulings, but I could swear there was some sort of mondate that all broadcast outlets had to be digital by the end of 2006 or something. Check this out:
https://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-948956.html
https://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/digitaltv.html
While it doesn’t specifically mandate HD, it seems to me that if they have to switch over to an all-digital system, it would likely be built primarily for HD, then “accommodated” for SD.
I guess if the FCC can “force” the public to buy new TVs or adapter whether they like it or not, you would figure that people will go for the HD compatible sets. Thus, an incentive to provide HD programming.
IMO, all this will be moot when Google TV (or the moral equivalent) makes cable TV/satellite providers irrelevant some day…
steve covello
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Had this problem on an HD test where I captured 1080i uncompressed, then transcoded the media file to DVCPro HD, then imported the new file. Same problem as you described occurred. However, if I changed the Easy Setup to the native 1080i DVCPro setting, it played fine. [don’t ask why I did thid crazy test – I just wanted to see the difference in quality and file size]
I’m guessing that the K2’s hardware activates certain functions related to un-compressing video for display only when the appropriate setup is selected rather than autodetecting the kind of footage you are playing.
I would say that if your DV footage is not playing, try using the native DV NTSC setup just to get it to play, then try other settings. Also, check the playback settings in the timeline and put it to Highest quality. If no luck, do a Panther Cache Cleaner zap at MEdium Cleaning for all caches.
Steve Covello
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I noticed the same thing, and when I rendered out in AE and re-imported the graphic, it did not match the source footage from which it came on the hz scale. This is the first time I have seen this since I’ve been using K2 this year. Can’t say whether this is a QT, AJA or something else issue.
For those who aren’t familiar with this bug, when you select a clip in AE it shows: 720 x 486, non-square (0.91:1). It should show 720 x 486, D1/DV NTSC (0.9).
My workaround has been to interpret the footage in AE (cmd + F) as 720 x 486, D1/DV NTSC (0.9) and everything is fine. Also, make sure that your sequences are also the same spec, especially if you drag/drop clips into the seq icon to create a sequence based on the clip specs.
I checked all of my digitizing specs and cannot account for why this happens. Anybody?
Steve Covello
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My point is that when you are sitting in the room with a Director, DP, producer and client and they ask you if what they are looking is accurate, if it’s anything but a $40,000 telecine CRT, I will always so no. But if I have a $3000 CRT at 800 lines, I will say “this is close as I can get without going into a telecine suite.” If they are satisfied with this standard, fine. If not, they can pay for a telecine room. Not my nickel. And I’m not the least bit convinced that color correcting for “bad TV” is a good policy.
If I were to turn to them and say, in effect, “I realize that you’ve just spent $500,000 to shoot all this beautiful footage, but I’m going to show it to you in the screwed up color balance and luminance range of the real world just give you an idea of how much worse this footage will look once it leaves this room.”
They are not interested in what it will look like for the viewing public. They care about what it will look like on their reels for their next job. Or if the director and client are in the same room, the director wants his/her footage to look “worthy” of the money the client just blew on them.
Steve Covello
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There has been a raging debate among myself and my producer on the topic of whether color correction “counts” only when it’s done on calibrated CRT versus “what the customer will see.” After all, when you do a mix, the last thing everyone does is listen to it on little Ritz Cracker sized speakers, right?
The semantics of the argument are whether you want to be “accurate” or “realistic”. The problem I have with the “realistic” argument is that it is entirely subjective to the singular (innacurate) reference you have in your studio versus the millions of other references in the viewing audience. While the rule of thumb in audio mixing is “you lose music levels when it goes out to air” (so I’ve been told), you lose quite a bit more in color accuracy by the time it gets piped out over the air/cable system. So if a client is watching at home when their spot/program comes on and they say to you, “Geez, the blacks were so washed out! What happened? I thought we color corrected it?”. What do you say?
I never will advocate the “realistic” argument when it comes to color correction by measuring against anything other than an accurate monitor.
Steve Covello
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I can’t speak on behalf of your clients, but they should be able to look at something that is at least 20″ diagonal (that’s assuming you have/get a conventional 4 x 3 CRT broadcast monitor with HD capability), and you can get an accessory 16 x 9 mask that will cutoff the blanking on the top and bottom parts of the HD picture.
I’m speaking from the point of view that unless your clients are providing you with the quality and quantity of GOOD paying jobs that allow you to actually make good money, then they should not expect you to blow $6000+ on a BKM HD monitor so that they can watch their damn reality show in full 900 lines of resolution or whatever. Call me cheap, but if I have a PVM20L5 with component analog 1080p 23.98 in 800 lines of resolution and a low-budget client has the compunction to complain about it, then it is likely that they are, in my father’s words, suffering from high self-esteem. In which case, I would say that we could always move the session to Nice Shoes for $1200/hour if they would like, versus my $1200 a DAY (maybe).
If you plan on color correcting, then forget about the non-CRT monitors for the time being. Their contrast and black levels are never “real”. If you want to blow thousands an thousands of dollars on HD monitors, then it had better be because your clients are paying for it, or that your competition mandates a certain standard. It’s a tough call.
Here’s a link for all of Sony’s monitors:
https://216.245.175.12/AVCat/CTL203/index.cfm?mlc_id=203&SID=12724363&var_id=207476&SUBCATID=282
Steve Covello
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There’s a HUGE long string on this topic from around March or February. Check it out. I have the PVM20L5 and am using the component analog inputs for the HD input (no additional accessories needed). Damn good! If I ever get a huge enough HD job that I can drop for an HD SDI card, maybe I’ll go for it.
Steve Covello
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Look at the big picture here: should we judge AJA or anyone else by how many new tricks their products can do at the particular moment? IMO, if a company has superior products but lousy customer service and a crummy corporate culture conducive to the likelihood that their best talent will quit (and I am not implicating ANY company here), then I don’t care what announcements they make during NAB. In fact, I HATE it when companies rush half-baked features into a product just so that they can announce it at NAB.
So far, for me, AJA has produced reliable products, consistent improvements, excellent support, and has gained the trust of enough peers that I can reliably draw from the collective experience of other users. I have never gone the Blackmagic route, but it sounds like BM-ites are equally satisfied. Nuff said.
And in the long run, I can “guarantee”, like Joe Namath, that it will only be a matter of a short time when everyone’s products will all do the same things, but in different ways (see: Avid, Media 100, Video Cube, EMC2, etc., etc.). The difference, years from now (when the true value of an investment pay off), will likely be the characteristics of the company as described in paragraph two above rather than the one with the best price or first with the release of a particular attribute.
eh oui?
Steve Covello
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MY dopey scr vo method: I have the Edirol UA1A (see link to similar product – I think the UA1 is discontinued)
https://www.edirol.com/products/info/ua1d.html
…and set the audio capture input in A/V settings to USB. This automatically changes the System settings as well. Mic is connected to mixing board, board out to USB device (via patch bay in my setup), and media goes to the usual capture scratch location. This also makes it possible to ouput Kona to vhs, Beta, 3/4″ etc. without Flying Cow. Two tracks only, however. I have no sync issues whatsoever by setting playback to USB as well, with USB output normalled to the mixing board. Good cheap solution!
Steve Covello
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Supposedly, all BM media can be read via the Apple 10-bit codec without any problem. when I switched over from Kona HD to Kona2, I still had a few leftover clips done in BM. No problem, generally, although there were a couple of moments when the luminance levels were incorrect. Some other people who experienced the same thing say it is a QT issue.
Hate to say this, but did you read the readme that said that the BM codec was now considred a “conflict” before you installed the K2?
Actually, I’m glad they are off the BM codec since I would rather have a piece of hardware running of its own codec rather than its competitor’s.
Steve Covello
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