Tony
Forum Replies Created
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Keep one major item in mind.
Just because you can change a menu item does not imply you should.
Before you change anything you should educate yourself on what exactly the menu item effects, what the end result will be, and if you change something will it improve the camera performance.
When in doubt always have a fallback to “undo” whatever you may have screwed up.
Tony Salgado
Tony Salgado
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It sound like you are seeing the drawbacks of a 8 bit digital system. The artifacting you may be seeing is called “banding” and is a drawback of any digital system which uses 8 bits.
FYI There are settings in the Varicam to deal with low light compression artifacts.
Tony Salgado
Tony Salgado
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Pat,
If your camera does not output SMPTE bars and instead using bogus non unity standard video and chroma levels then the color bars are absolutely useless for the purpose color bars are intended to serve.
That being primarily to establish a unity reference standard meaning what you saw in the field should be able to be recreated on the playback vtr using color bars as the alignment reference signal.
Since your camera bars are outputting non standard luminance and chroma levels they will not match the actual video material on tape which makes them useless to any editor or post facility. In such cases I would rather have a pure black signal and peak white and will use those to set up the playback and eyeball the chroma levels using a waveform/vectorscope.
If you are inputting via firewire I would not worry so much about the bars at the top of each tape since you cannot adjust the video levels during the capture process (in the digital domain it is what it is until after it gets into FCP. But if the client insist on having color bars then what the heck give it to them and let them figure out that the bars are non standard and useless.
Color bars are very useful when dealing with the analog world or other stages where a unity reference test signal is necessary to establish proper video and chroma levels for playback.
Tony Salgado
Tony Salgado
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Sophie,
If you intend on repurposing the render files again I recommend saving the specific render files as part of the overall media you backup.
This will allow you to use the render files for multiple projects in the future.
The stupid thing about FCP is it can’t reconnect the render files once the links have been lost and results in rerendering all the renders once your recall the project with broken links.
Why FCP has the reconnect renders as a option is a mystery to me.
Tony Salgado
Tony Salgado
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Joseph,
Contact Walter Biscardi via email or post this question to him with the header “Walter please response.
Walter is a great resource for such dvcpro HD issues.
Tony Salgado
Tony Salgado
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The pre-release hype may be great but what really counts are a couple of major items.
Does the post production workflow and equipment already exist and is it in currently in place? If not then will the post equipment and workflow be available with the release of the camera?
Does anyone recall when the Varicam was first released the lack of linear and NLE facility options? There were very few linear facilities that could handle dvcpro HD and they were only available in major cities. Sony on the other hand already had HDCAM facilities and a workflow infrastructure before the F900 camera was released.
My motto is “If you can’t edit it then don’t shoot it” this includes numerous factors including ease of editing, cost of editing, availability of numerous editorial resources to obtain services as well as affordable rates.
In addition to the post production workflow we also need to ask does a field production workflow exist whereby the recording devices required are portable, battery operated, and can survive under harsh real world field production environments.
Anyone who has worked on a major film production can relate to the rigors any field production equipment has to endure day in and day out. Testing and shooting in a controlled lab environment is ill suited for the real world under the controlled chaos which a client creates.
Tony Salgado
Tony Salgado
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Jackie,
You are using inproper gear for what you are trying to accomplish.
First of all the BVV-5 is a portable field recorder and was never intended to be used for high quality playback into any non linear or linear editing system for that matter.
Even if you use a VA-500 (which by the way is the worst playback adapter ever created by Sony) you will not have the benefit of a Time Base Corrector which is absolutely necessary for playback of betacam material.
The VA-500 was created for the sole purpose of making sure you actually got a recording in the field and confirmed the recording was in color not for any sort of high quality playback period.
Typical playback on the VA-500 results in lots of dropouts, low res image and the worst monitoring output possible which is NTSC without a TBC.
If you really want to use the BVV-5 for playback I highly recommend not buying the VA-500 and get the VA-300 playback adapter instead which features a built in time base stabilizer and SVHS as well as composite outputs. The VA 300 offers major quality playback improvements than the crappy VA-500 ever did.
FYI I have a VA-300 for sale if you are interested.
If you want to record in component on the BVV-5 you will need a 26 pin male to RGBX breakout cable which allows recording from a component source. This method is much better quality than composite.
Tony Salgado
Tony Salgado
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Joseph,
Are you using media manager with dvcpro HD footage by chance or another codec?
Great demo reel on your website by the way.
Tony Salgado
Tony Salgado
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Are you trying to use the Avid codec within an FCP sequence or did you post this question in the wrong forum?
If not well I guess you did not know that Avid’s codec will not work in FCP as far as editing on an FCP sequence is concerned.
Tony Salgado
Tony Salgado
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Are you coming in via HDSDI or Firewire? What frame rate did you shoot at? What vtr are you using? What are the capture settings set to?
FCP has a problem with HDSDI 720P captures.
Research this forum and the FCP forum for prior discussions regarding this capture problem.
Walter can tell you about his experiences with HDSDI captures.
Tony Salgado
Tony Salgado