DVCPROHD workflow costs

[mgalvan]

Hello all,

Watching all of this "excitement" over this new camera has gotten me thinking. I recently purchased the XL2 and love what it is capable of. But I also believe that I purchased it in interesting times as the shift for HD capable cameras is coming to us. With this camera, it got me thinking to what costs are involved in moving from the DV workflow I'm using now into an HD workflow.

So seeing how the camera is marked as "sub $10,000," what else would be needed for the workflow. I would assume that an HD monitor would be needed for post. Is there anything else I'm forgetting? Using FCP, I know that the DVCPROHD codec is native within FCP, so it would seem that working with the footage would be much like working with DV. Assuming that we can just offload the cards into the hard drive, there would be no need for a deck as well. Is there any other items I am missing to be able to have an HD workflow with this cam, from what has been stated so far? Or just in general?

I am really interested in this new camera as I am writing up a feature that will be finished this soon. Looking at a production time frame of sometime this fall, I would like to shoot with this camera as it seems to brings the "holy grail" to us Independants finally, but I would like to see what costs are fully needed to have a workflow in HD. I am ready for this camera, but not ready yet to sell what I currently own ... I would just like some more info before I make any decisions and you guys are always great for that.

Thanks!

[Gary_McClurg]

I know that on the Panasonic site they have a drive that holds four cards that you can put into your PC. Now PC is funny considering that Apple is the one that Panasonic seems to be working with the most.

That would save the cost of a deck.

I have no clue about prices etc.

[Flintstone]

I know that on the Panasonic site they have a drive that holds four cards that you can put into your PC. *Now PC is funny considering that Apple is the one that Panasonic seems to be working with the most.
Yeah! *It's freakin' hilarious if you ask me. *Maybe Panasonic got pissed off when Steve Jobs had the Sony president come in on stage at the Apple Keynote in January to show off the FX1 with iMovie HD and FCE HD *:-X

[xander76]

What you need depends on:

1) your budget
2) your risk tolerance
3) your budget
4) your shooting ratio and style (i.e. run-and-gun vs. studio)
5) your budget
6) your minimum quality standards, and
7) your budget

Here are a list of things I can think of that might be needed, depending on your setup. For each item, I've also included how you can do without it if you have no budget.

1) an HD post production (broadcast) monitor
-- you can also just monitor on your NLE screen, or perhaps downconverted on an SD monitor. Not a great idea, but can be done.
2) an HD (broadcast) field monitor
-- you can use the camera's LCD, hopefully with a zoom in for focus checking.
3) a card reader
-- you can probably just use the camera as a media drive over firewire/USB.
4) multiple P2 cards
-- there's probably not a way to get around having P2 cards, although it is conceivable that you might be able to capture directly to a computer over Firewire.
5) a hard drive reader for field production
-- I think this will be indispensable for run-and-gun folks for now (assuming that P2 cards are no bigger than 8GB this year). Narrative shooters can get away without this.
6) a DVCPROHD deck
-- this is only needed if you want to output your piece to tape for some reason. I suspect almost everyone will just rent a deck for the few times they need it.
7) an HD PCI card
-- you can probably get away with using Digital Cinema Desktop in Final Cut Pro to avoid having an HD PCI card, but the quality will not be as good.
8) an external RAID 1/3/5 drive
-- people with truly no budget will not use a drive with built in redundancy for their media, but they would be fools to do so IMNSHO. With tape acquisition, you can always recapture if you lose your media drive. With P2 acquisition, you are hosed if your media drive goes down; there's nothing to go back to. Some no-budget folks will still use non-redundant drives because they're cheaper, and some of them will lose their projects.
9) Some way to back up footage (either a data tape drive, DVD burner, or HD-DVD/Bluray burner)
-- no budget folks will probably just throw out their raw footage when a project is done and they need more space.

[mgalvan]

Yeah ... why the drive it isn't Mac compatible is beyond me ... I would think that they would at least come out with one that is supported by the Mac platform along with a PC one ...

Thanks Xander for your input ...

My question comes from your 1) on your list. I have my G5 connected to a JVC DV deck which is connected to a Sony PVM broadcast monitor. If I was working with DVCPROHD footage in Final Cut Pro HD, would the footage be downcoverted through my set up so I can see real-time playback on my production monitor?

I know I will probably just have to bite it and buy some HD capable monitoe, but will my current setup work for playback?

Thanks!

[Flintstone]

Downconverted HD to an SD monitor is a perfectly acceptable workflow. It will double up as a way to monitor the downconverted stream as if you'd be watching it from an SD DVD. Buy an HD screen when the finances and need meet up.

[mgalvan]

Ok great Fred, I think I will live up to your advise ...

But does my current DV setup allow for the footage to be viewed in realtime on my production monitor? Or do I need to purchase an HD capable card for my G5?

[Flintstone]

I think it may be a bit to early to say, unless Jan or Barry has some insight. *As you already know, DVCProHD can work off Firewire.*I presume there might be some sort of bidirectional converter (firewire <-> analog/HDMI) for this in the near future without going full blow with a pro DVCProHD deck at $20K. *Of course you could go with an HD-SDI card with a break-out-box to suite your monitor's input, but that would defeat the whole DVCProHD via Firewire workflow. *This is why I believe there must eventually be a converter for DCVProHD via Firewire, such as the Canopus ADCV-100 is for DV. *In the meantime, I presume the Firewire connected HDX will allow you to hook up to a monitor, just like the DVX can, for viewing playback on your NLE.

[PSfromApple]

Hi everyone... I enjoy reading the posts here but felt like it was time for me to chime in since there is a lot of conjecture over FCP and P2 support.

In September 2004 at IBC (International Broadcaster Convention), we publicly announced plans to support the following technologies/formats in the next major release of Final Cut Pro: Panasonic P2, HDV, Sony IMX.

As always, thanks for your enthusiasm and continued support.

Paul S
FCP Product Manager

[boo]

thank you mr saccone! like panasonic, thank you for your support and listening to the consumers!

[Flintstone]

Hi everyone... *I enjoy reading the posts here but felt like it was time for me to chime in since there is a lot of conjecture over FCP and P2 support.

In September 2004 at IBC (International Broadcaster Convention), we publicly announced plans to support the following technologies/formats in the next major release of Final Cut Pro: * *Panasonic P2, HDV, Sony IMX.

As always, thanks for your enthusiasm and continued support.

Paul S
FCP Product Manager

Cool, we have an Apple rep in our midst! * :D

Paul, is it true that FCP 5 will be annouced at NAB2005? *Can you tell us, if allowed, when it will be shipping? *I just bought a Mac G5 last week, and being a long time PC user (17 years) with Premiere (5 years), I wanted to get my hands on FCP, but if the new version is coming out in a month or two, then spending for the current version, plus the eventual upgrade, is kind of rediculous for now. *Do you think it's possible to have an eval version for 90 days (or for whatever the shipping date is) of 4.5 HD? *Or even better... The production bundle?

I thought about the possibility of getting FCE for the time being, but the expenditure, and it's limits, are rediculous, as I'm sure I will be going with FCP.

Any thoughts?

[PSfromApple]

Hi Fred...

I cannot comment on ship dates, prices, or features for future versions. I can only reiterate and clarify what has already been publicly announced.

Thanks for understanding.
Paul

[Flintstone]

Thanks Paul,

Any chance of getting an eval version?

[Gary_McClurg]

Paul, any idea when Tiger is coming?

[xander76]

In September 2004 at IBC (International Broadcaster Convention), we publicly announced plans to support the following technologies/formats in the next major release of Final Cut Pro: Panasonic P2, HDV, Sony IMX.

I'm a little confused by this post; does it mean that P2 is somehow not supported in current versions of FCP? My understanding was that P2 just acted like a hard drive, so I'm unsure how FCP could not support it (as long as the format of the video on the card is a supported one). Am I missing something?

[mgalvan]

Yeah, I thought with P2 cards, you can just connect them to your G5 via a USB port or something along those lines. Someone please educate us.

Thanks,

[Barry_Green]

P2 cards plug into the PCMCIA/Cardbus/PC Card Type II slot on a laptop. Panasonic makes a product for PC computers that is a five-slot P2 card reader, fits in a drive bay.

If you can get a PCMCIA card reader for your mac, you could just plug the P2 card straight in.

If you can't get such a thing, then you could always take one of two other tacks: the P2 Store, a hard disk P2 reader, which will automatically copy the contents of a P2 card onto a hard disk (which you could then attach to the mac through USB2); or, you could plug the camera straight into the mac (using either firewire or USB2, whichever they support) and read the cards that way. The camera would appear to the mac to be an external hard disk, and the cards contents would show up on your desktop.

(that presupposes that they design the new camera to work the same way as the SPX800, which can do that).

[mgalvan]

Thanks for the clarification Barry!

Where would I be able to get on of these PCMCIA card readers? Just curious ... are they expensive?

Thanks,

[Barry_Green]

Here's one for a hundred bucks:
http://www.amtron.com/reader/pcdtp220s.htm

Here's one for $75:
http://www.synchrotech.com/products/card-rw_06.html

I really don't know much about these yet, and what would fit a mac vs. a pc etc...

[mgalvan]

Awesome!!! Thanks Barry!!!

One other thing .... I'm looking at my current workflow setup and am thinking of how to transition to an HD workflow step by step as need arises. For now, I would like to use my Sony PVM boradcast monitor for post production still in HD. Would the BlackMagic decklink card work for me in terms of viewing DVCPROHD footage back in realtime on my broadcast monitor as I edit it on Final Cut Pro? Seems like a very cost effective solution this time around ($295) for one looking to use their current SD monitor to edit HD content.

Thanks,

[Barry_Green]

Well, again, it's completely out of my area of knowledge once you start talking about FCP. As I understand it, DVCPRO-HD, being an I-frame-only DV-based codec, should be able to do the same firewire-streaming preview as you can currently do with a DV camera... i.e., you should be able to plug the firewire out of the computer into the AJ-1200 deck, and watch live real-time firewire-streaming previews on your HD monitor.

Of course, that deck is $25,000. Whether the camera will be able to do that remains to be seen... or, perhaps someone will come up with an A/D device that takes firewire in, decodes DVCPRO-HD and outputs analog component, so you wouldn't need to have the camera there all the time.

But I don't think anything like that exists *yet*.

[taubkin]

Paul, any idea when Tiger is coming?

Jeez, People,

the guy is an apple prod manager! - Apple! He is not going to give head for rumors! He'd be fired in a pinch!

---

Paul, it's very nice to have you with us, and to see how manufacturers are understanding the seriousness of this site. It's the best channel to hear about the true needs of pro/prosumer FCP users.

Oh, and if it's a practical joke, kudos, it is a very good one!

Cheers!

[Gary_McClurg]

jeez, taubkin, does it hurt to ask?

[xander76]

Thanks for the (quite good!) P2 recap, Barry, but it still doesn't answer why the Apple product manager said that the new version of FCP would support P2. I don't understand how the current version of FCP (or any other NLE) could not support it; it's like saying that the new version of your NLE will support Maxtor hard drives.

Unless maybe it has something to do with the proxy streams I read about in some of the P2 documentation?

[Jan_Crittenden]

I believe that what Paul is referencing is that fast USB support for the P2 will be announced. The format streaming over 1394 is a no brainer. But picking up files and moving them quickly over USB is new on the Apple platform, from what I understand.

Hope that helps,

Jan

[Flintstone]

Perhaps it's the fact that DVCProHD stores native video stream at 60fps on tape, regardless of frame rate used, and because the way the timeline works now in FCP, is probably doing a pull down (much like the DVX 24p footage). *Perhaps native support for P2 in the next release signifies that they can read pure native frame-rates from a "data file" with all it's meta-data.

[taubkin]

jeez, taubkin, does it hurt to ask?

Off Course Not, don't take me wrong, it's just that apple is somewhat known for it's discretion about upcoming developings, if you know what I mean, afterall, Mr. Jobs kinda grew accostumed to the surprised awes at apple's keynotes...