Walter Biscardi
Forum Replies Created
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[Steve Mahrer] ”
Please don’t forget that neither deck can edit, just hard REC/PB.”With Final Cut Pro you can do an Assemble edit on 1200A with Firewire control. It’s not completely frame accurate, but it does work.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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In the Features section are three travel matte tutorials I created last year. These should help you out and they’re free!
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[Bob Zelin] “The idea of constantly crawling on the floor and disconnecting cabling does seem pretty silly (unless you in fact have a Firewire patch bay) and you have your equipment centralized in a machine room, where you can run your multiple MAC G5 CPU’s to a FW400 bay, and patch the single HD VTR (like the HD1200) into these VTR’s”
Maybe I’m missing something here, but I can’t find the part in either my posts or weevie’s posts where we describe crawling around the floor to connect and disconnect cables. Again, maybe I’m missing something, but you seem to be responding to comments that aren’t even in our posts. I would prefer you stick to the actual comments that are in everyone’s posts (and I mean all threads, not just this one) and stop adding “assumptions” such as your comment above.
[Bob Zelin] “I can only assume that users like Walter own a Firewire 400 interface device, like an AJA I/O or I/O LA, and must disconnect the AJA box to hookup the HD1200 (or other FW400 devices) when he wants to use them.”
Bob, you obviously don’t know my facility so don’t “assume” anything. But for the record, your assumption is wrong.
[Bob Zelin] “If you have 2 or more FCP HD systems, and are sharing a single HD1200, then you either have Gefen (for example) KVM extenders for your CPU’s to keep the firewire legnth short for the HD VTR, or you pick up the deck each time, and bring it from room to room, recabling each time you want to use it.”
So if I read you right, this is a completely unacceptable way to conduct business? Why? Sure it’s not the ideal way to do this, but it’s easy enough to have cables waiting at each location. And if you’re doing the Firewire workflow, you’re talking about 2 cables, power and firewire.
The 1200A is a very small device and essentially a portable deck. It’s not an F500 HDCAM deck or even an old UVW-1800 which would be quite cumbersome to port around the re-cable each time.
[Bob Zelin] “Please don’t give the misconception that you simply buy one TecNec $120 firewire patch bay, and you are done. Multi room use of equipment requires all kinds of stuff.”
Actually it doesn’t seem to require an inordinate about of equipment. I’m working with ProMax right now to improve our video / audio / control routing for our suites. Seems to be a pretty straight-forward solution if you work with the folks with the right know-how.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Either doing a split screen with the guy gardening on one side of the screen and the standup on the other side. You lock down the camera and shoot both scenes with the locked camera. Then do a split down the middle and be sure he doesn’t cross over to the wrong side during the standup.
Or shoot the standup in front of a green screen and key him over the gardening shot.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[Bob Zelin] “You will never see a professional facility using anything other than HDSDI, with RS422 control. If you are a news reporter in the field, or a student,or on a very low budget,
firewire will work for you.”Bob I just love your absolute statements like they are the law.
Broadcast series are being cut using the Firewire workflow so I would say that constitutes a “professional” use of the DVCPro HD. So I would then consider the facility cutting a broadcast series a “professional” facility.
Your statement would have been perfectly acceptable maybe five years ago in the “old school” ways of doing things. At one time only very large facilities with big machine rooms and row of edit suites would be considered “professional.” Now boutiques and home-based facilities are cutting feature films and broadcast television. Most of these are not low-budget and certainly not low quality.
Obviously you’re free to say what you want (and I know you will) but the world of “absolute law” in video production is long gone.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Excellent points David.
There’s one other thing to consider in all of this. The settings on the Varicam during production. Those who have tested this camera will note that the Video Gamma settings are definitely cleaner than the Film Gamma settings. Film Gamma adds more noticeable noise to an image than Video Gamma.
So when deciding whether to go Uncompressed for your workflow or DVCPro HD, you need to consider how the project was shot. If it was shot with the Video Gamma settings, then the DVCPro HD workflow will add more noticeable noise as you add filters, renders, etc….
If it was shot in the Film Gamma settings, it’s very difficult, if not impossible to notice any additional noise or compression generated by the DVCPro HD workflow.
This is something you can see visually just by creating some split screens within FCP. One thing is for certain, working in the DVCPro HD codec is a very clean format and definitely nothing like working in the DV25 SD format. I’ve noticed that my animations and graphics created in After Effects are completely pristine rendered to the DVCPro HD codec.
One other thing is for certain whether you’re talking DVCPro HD or any HD production. Ask 25 people the same HD question and you’ll get 25 answers. It’s a true learning experience for everyone.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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You really don’t want to capture to any internal drive on the Powerbook as you really want your media on a completely seperate drive. If you run the OS, Applications and your Media off the same drive, even if you partition it, you’re going to have problems eventually with performance.
Better to add an external Firewire drive.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Sounds like you’re set up to crop the edges off the image rather than showing you a letterboxed image in the downconvert. Look at the AJA Control Panel and see how your downconvert is set up.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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DVCPro HD is a pretty low rez format and it cuts easily on a laptop. I’m cutting my independent film using the full DVCPro HD codec on my Powerbook.
However, you need to capture the footage on a tower first to capture with full DVCPro HD resolution. The laptop will edit full rez, but it cannot capture full rez correctly.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Did you re-install Final Cut Pro after installing Tiger?
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.comNow in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters