Timothy Duncan
Forum Replies Created
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I take exception to your statement “I checked out the 330 a couple of days with the 1/2″ canon lens. I cannot say anything about the HD part, but downconverted to SD the 2/3″ DVCPRO50 is far better.”
How was the camera setup? What was the footage? That lens is not nearly as good probably as the one you are used to. Did you actually do an A/B side by side? Perhaps you were only looking at analog signals as the F330 has no SDI output. Or were you looking at a deck output? What monitor did you use to view the downconvert?
We have A/B’d the Varicam and F900 and the F350 (same imagers as the F330)and the F350 looks every bit as good and even cleaner in the black levels. We have clients that shoot on F900s and I just did a color finishing session project and it was considerably more noisy than anything I’ve seen from XDCAM HD.Once software is released for full XDCAM disc based support writing to and from disc, you’ll think your video tapes are archaic. Digitizing will be old school.
The Sony cameras are almost always “cooler” out of the box than Panasonic. All you have to do is make a few adjustments to get the warmer look, and you have lots of detail control, too.
Regarding 1/2″ vs 2/3″ CCDs — I dare anyone to actually see the difference on a broadcast glass CRT. You might be able to measure it with test gear, but you certainly can’t see it.
And one last comment: I’ve color finished enough film and HD footage to tell you that XDCAM HD HQ holds up every bit as well as HDCam and certainly much better than DVCPro HD in the color grading process.
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I think Alliance Atlantis are — well how do I say this delicately — I can’t seem to find a PC way to say “stupid” or “narrow minded”. 🙁
I think their fear is that this opens up the door for too many people to be able to afford HD production.
Do they realize that the Discovery network now fully approves XDCAM HD HQfrom the F350 for acquisition? Discovery has always had extremely strict technical guidelines.If anyone knows the folks from AA — feel free to forward them my info and comments.
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Matrox Axio is the best solution I’ve found for handling MXF, including native MXF timecode. We have two Final Cut suites here but we’ve been using Axio to do all MXF based editing for a couple of months now. On an average project, we are saving about 2 Terabytes of hard drive space on our SAN. We’ve had up to 1:50:00 of HQ footage fit on a single XDCAM disc. (That’s only 23 Gigs!). We have a workstation setup to do the MXF transfers so that everyone connected in our workgroup has instant access to the XDCAM footage.
Axio can mix all formats on the same timeline including HDV. (It allows you to even monitor HDV via HD-SDI outputs while connected to an HDV device 1394). So, I can mix MXF, HDV, and uncompressed HD on the same timeline all real-time with all effects real-time, too. All renders can be done in full uncompressed so no new compression is introduced. Color correction and multiple secondaries all easily real-time, making it a very enjoyable editing experience. Plus, you get a real-time down convert from 23.98 to 29.97 SD SDI simultaneously.
We’ve done several projects now completely MXF based. Axio does not write back out to XDCAM HD MXF files at this time. We use the XDCAM HD as acquisition only, and master out to HDCam. But, we can output HD-SDI to the XDCAM HD as well for archival purposes.
Axio also handles Panasonic MXF files natively allowing you to even mix those with the HDV and XDCAM MXF. It is one heck of a great solution, especially withe the Adobe Production Suite ,which allows you to dynamically link After Effects compositions and Photoshop files in Adobe Premiere Pro. I often make AE comps from the timeline in PPro that other artists here work on while I continue to edit away. (Axio supports MXF files into After Effects as well).
And the bummer for Final Cut is that it only supports 25 mbit HDV from XDCAM HD currently. Axio supports ALL frame rates and data rates.
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I use https://www.cuibono-soft.com/ and recommend it. It can be used with many programs including Vegas.
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3,000 hours is what Sony says for the camera. Since it is the same laser as 10,000 plus XDCAM units already in the field, this should be pretty accurate.
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The F900R can record variable from 4 to 60fps. (It has over and undercranking, as well as interval recording and slow shutter).
Also, the XDCAM HD F350 can record from 4 to 60fps, and can play it back at the “native” frame rate you are set to. For example, you can setup for 24P recording, then overcrank to 60fps. The XDCAM plays back the footage at 24P giving you playback right in the camera or deck at 40% (in this example). So, you can instantly check your shots in the field. In a recent project, we shot quite a bit at 48fps and 60fps. The footage looked awesome, and I was able to enhance the effect with additional DMC in post. No need to “de-interlace”. One thing to note: You cannot ramp frame rates during recording with this camera. You can only set the frame rate per shot.
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Axio will have a very nice solution for XDCAM HD support in their next release. They were showing it at NAB. (Matrox Axio uses PremierePro 2.0).
It is an excellent solution not only for XDCAM HD, but for mixing HDV footage into your projects as well. The Axio uses the 1440×1080 native footage as if it were 1920×1080 uncompressed. You can set any rendering to be uncompressed, MPEG2I-frame from 100-300 mbit (200 and is 99.999% as clean as uncompressed doing a “difference” key), or DVCProHD (which really takes clean crisp footage and makes it look like you added a “blur” filter). When dealing with HDV, you get HD-SDI output for previewing even when scanning HDV footage via 1394 from a deck. So capture and editing with it are a breeze. Axio also uprezes SD footage to 1080i in real-time.
I am very happy with Adobe Production Studio overall. Does it need improvements? Absolutely, and so does every system I’ve used (which is a long list). I switched over to Axio from Avid|DS Nitris, and don’t miss it at all. I can do 3-4 times the amount of work in the same timeframe, and my system is rock solid. We use XServe Raids (18TBs) with MetaSAN software, in a mix of Macs and PCs. Our main HD suite is the Axio, and our two secondary suites are FCP/AJA. We also have Final Touch HD in suite B (with JL Cooper surface control). But, I’ve done the majority of finishing and color correction in Axio. It has very good correction and secondary correction and can do multiple streams of HD in real-time. (The limit for me is the bandwidth of the SAN). I can get 5 streams of uncompressed 1080 HD with FX on each layer including an incredible chroma keyer while still seeing 20 fps playback for previews. (VERY smooth). This system never gives you a “needs render” screen. It gracefully degrades frame rates during playback for any areas that are beyond the real-time capabilities of the system. Two streams of HD are always realtime with no render needed even for print to tape. And when you do need to renders — it is extremely fast. Axio has much cleaner file encoding than Compressor on the Mac. You can convert from HD directly to SD MPEG2 for DVD autoring. (Export is real-time or faster for single pass).
Our FCP editors are clamoring to get on my Axio system. I’m going on vacation week after next, and there are serious dibbs on my suite. 😉 And — I am as much a Mac user as PC. I think it’s important to stay up to speed on both. I use a very cool software that allows me to use my keyboard and mouse on both my PC and MAC without a KVM. You simply drag your mouse between screens which essentially switches you between computers. You can also copy and paste between computers. (You have to have separate VGA screens for each computer — there is no limit to how many you can use and they can be MAC, PC, or Linux).
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HDCam and XDCAM HD record 1440×1080 but output 1920×1080 from the cameras and decks. The F900 has 2/3″ CCDs and the F350 uses 1/2″. You’ll find that the F350 actually produces less noise in the blacks. HDCamSR records the full 1920×1080. You’ll need an F950 to record SR in 4:4:4 as well as a connected deck. Unless you are planning for a 2K output, HDCam and XDCAM HD are fine. HD is only delivered today as 4:2:0 MPEG.
We found that XDCAM HD in HQ mode is indistinguishable from HDCam. However, you can see the difference with HDCamSR, but only on a high end HD monitor. It is not worth the additional cost for us to use SR at this time. We are extremely happy with XDCAM HD for acquisition. We have HDCam, DVCProHD, and XDCAM HD in-house and we are shooting primarily now on XDCAM HD.
Tapeless workflow is HUGE plus for us as well. Several solutions will be released for this soon. But you can always digitize as if it were tape. The advantage of going native is a savings of hard drive space during post. I had over a TB of space in use on a music video captured at uncompressed via HD-SDI. The same original data transferred as MXF was under 75 Gigs. My workflow is to use native MXF but do all processing and rendering as uncompressed 1920×1080. Even though we acquire on XDCAM, we are still outputting to HDCam tape. We keep the original XDCAM discs for archiving, and usually save a backup copy on XDCAM HD as well. But, this is not a format you want to bounce to and from very many times. Neither is HDCam, but this is where SR comes in — so that you can save uncompressed finals of your hard work for the future.
In the post process, I find that XDCAM holds up every bit as well as HDCam and much better than DVCProHD. Color correction, compositing and keying are all excellent.
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Edward and family,
Please know that you are in our thoughts and prayers.
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We aren’t seeing any visible vertical loss. We just shot quite a bit of footage at 48fps and 60fps that I will be intercutting with 24fps footage this coming week. (Music video). I’ll let you know how it comes out.
We purchased a Fuji 17-7.5 2/3″ cinema lens and use the 2/3″ to 1/2″ adapter. Nice glass makes a big difference on any camera. We rent primes and wide angle as needed based on the production. We have a nice matte box, follow focus, and microforce zoom, as well as small jib and Glidecam. The Fuji is a good lens, but breathes more than I would prefer. We did not purchase an ENG lens. In my initial test of a protype F350, the ENG lens on it was horrible. Fuji overnighted us a new 1/2″ HD lens to test, but we decided to go with a 2/3″ lens.
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