[Tony]

I was present at a recent Varicamp when Jeff did indeed verbally tell the audience that “no new Varicam” would be shown at NAB 2006.

He did not mention a new P2 HD camera but now that the word is out on a forthcoming P2 HD camera I would expect the price of the existing tape Varicam to drop in price one day in anticipation to get potential customers interested in the P2 line.

It looks like Panasonic is trying to beat Thomson to the punch by showing the P2 HD camcorder before Infinity launches.

At long last now higher end HD camera gear will start to drop in price similar to the HD video card wars that have been taking place in the last few years.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Plus Eight Digital supplied Viper Camera’s and SRW 1 vtr’s (HDCAM SR) along with Sony F900’s for the shoot.
The movie shot in 4:4:4 RGB mode which is processed not filmstream raw data.

35mm Film cameras were also used for portions of the movie.

The soon to be released Superman movie used Panavision’s Genesis.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

It’s all in the secret maintance menu which allow you to change the frequency recording etc.

This menu is only to used for those who really understand what the implications are so proceed with caution.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

DF does not exist in 23.98 or 24P.

At the end of our hour in NDF timecode you will see approximately a little over 3 secs difference when compared to the DF stripped tape.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

YEs all this will exist in FCP,

just not yet.

I have a direct phone line to Steve Jobs and he tells me things I can only repeat when I am not awake. I am sleep typing at this moment.

Things like FCP will rule the world one cluster at a time.

Ok now the only thing we know about any future release of FCP is that there will always be rumors that get started and eventually maybe 1/3 of them might be true.

If you like you may want to start a rumor about clusters (just don’t do it here on the cow) and see if your wish list comes true at NAB or later.

Tony

[Tony]

I hate to say it but somewhere in the chain the decision not to record audio to the camera @#$%% you up.

Some DP’s don’t want the extra cable dangling from the camera. Othertimes the audio guy just is too damn lazy to provide the proper audio snake to the camera so he can feed sound and listen to a audio return for confidence monitoring. Or yet another reason would be the sound guy insists the audio on the camera is not good enough and that the external audio recorder is the only way to get quality audio.

I won’t argue any of the logic behind these excuses except to say the responsiblility lies with the production company or editorial department to demand steps be taken to reduce the amount of time wasted in post production with attempts to fix field production issues.

The single greatest failure in production is the lack of detailed analysis of how precisely to accomplish the post production workflow before a single frame of footage has been shot.
In order to succeed you must first start at the end of the chain and work your way backwards to discover all the loopholes.

You did not mention how the timecode was jam synced. Did you use a lockit box or Deneke SB-T timecode generator to slave the audio recorder so the camera and did the audio recorder have common timecode? Did you shoot a smart slate with has visual timecode as a reference?
What was the frame rate on the audio recorder. Was the timecode NDF or DF?

I would advise taking the files to a professional audio facility and hire them to assist in fixing this nightmare.

Learn from this experience and never allow yourself again not to have a backup plan or secondary audio recording as a fallback.

There is no such thing as “we’ll fix it in post” …. at least not cheaply.

Good luck,

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

You can’t mix codec and expect Real time performance but there is no limitation on mixing two different codec one of which is common to the sequence and rendering the clips which are uncommon.

Depending on how many different formats you have you would capture at one common codec when ingesting so that all the clips will be native to the sequence codec

Ie – shoot dvcam capture dvcpro 50
shoot betacam capture at dvcpro 50
shoot dvcpro 50 capture at dvcpro 50

Then all make the sequence dvcpro 50 and magically all the clips can be dropped into the timeline without need for rendering.

There are many third party video capture boards which can deal with standard def or HD analog, SDI, as well as HDV. The video card takes care of all the input/output (IO) for capturing, laying off to tape and monitoring on an external monitor.

You should take a look at AJA’s Kona LE for example if you believe you will be dealing with SD analog and SDI material as well as HDV.

Do a search here on the Cow on the benefits of uprezzing DV 4:1:1 to DVCPRO 50 4:2:2 as to the merits of working in a timeline at 4:2:2 and the end improvement for the graphics etc.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

Don’t make a FCP movie which is self contained instead uncheck the self contained option and make what is called a reference movie. In other words a pointer back to the sequence and files.

Export that to compressor and it will take a hell of alot shorter for the export.

You can do the same thing for the window burn instead of a nest.

FYI the window burn happens via RT extreme which if you are using FCP 5 is dynamically controlling the RT capabiility.

Using reference movies is a great way to export stuff quickly. The only requirement is that you are the original media is on the same computer or drives which can be accessed by the other application which you are exporting the movie too.

This means you can’t send a reference movie across town because the other user does not have the media to reconnect the pointers too. In this case you need to export a self contained movie.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

It works like this You (client expect freelancer to commit to you once project is underway and not flake out on you which will screw you royally.)

He freelancer desires you client to commit to him so he can turn down other paying work which he will lose out on and not be able to pay his mortgage,send his kid to school, eat at his favorite diner, take his wife out for some well deserved R&R.

Your client or maybe even you can or is unwilling to firmly commit so you want to hedge your bets and tell the freelancer “well the job may happen but I don’t want to commit to you at this time cause I don’t want to pay out if the job does not happen”

What can you do in such a case.

Well the answer is to tell the freelancer this is not a firm booking just a pencil me in and if another client challenges for the time then call me immediately to check the job status and then maybe we will have an answer and formally book the freelancer at that time.

IF you cannot provide a solid answer then the freelancer is allowed to take another job immediately in which case if your job does happen do not expect to be able to retain their services unless they are still available.

Tony Salgado

[Tony]

FYI D2 is composite digital not component digital.

You could get an parallel to serial converter or just use the composite outputs from the vtr.

FYI D2 ain’t worth the hassle anymore, beside the major issues with head life on those machines the image quality is well behind what you could expect from component digital today.

I was just going thru my old manuals today and found my D2 stuff. It reminded me of the days of yesteryear when I had to deal with those machines.

Tony Salgado