Outputing HD for 4x3 broadcast

S

spunkme99

Active member
We shot and edited a spot in 1080 60i and now want to output this for broadcast. We'd like to do a letterbox, any suggestions on what would be the best way to do this? Use compressor (what settings) or nest it in a new sequence (again, what settings)?

Thanks
 
What are the delivery requirements (some places will accept letterbox while others want full frame)? What tape format? What deck? What kind of i/o will you be using (firewire, SDI, etc.,)?

-A
 
YOu will need a capture card to do this. Decklink or AJA or Matrox MXO...something that can read an HD signal and downconvert that to SD, and letterbox it...all those options do that.

Now, when someone asks "what format do you need to deliver?" Saying "it will be recorded to a deck" is not the answer we are looking for. That's like someone asking "what kind of car do you drive?" and you responding "a red one."

BetaSP? Digibeta? DVCPRO 50? DV? SPECIFIC tape format.
 
Shane Ross said:
YOu will need a capture card to do this. Decklink or AJA or Matrox MXO...something that can read an HD signal and downconvert that to SD, and letterbox it...all those options do that.
Click to expand...

Probably - but possibly not...all depends on what format he needs to deliver.
I mean, I doubt it, but he could possibly need to deliver DV, DVCam, or DVCPro.
(do any digiBeta decks over firewire input? I'm not sure)

But odds are its BetaSP - in which case a card of some kind would be necessary.
But not necessarily an HD card with downverting capability - you could easily downconvert in the system and output an SD version to a deck.
But again - the particualrs all depend on what format its going to.

Now, when someone asks "what format do you need to deliver?" Saying "it will be recorded to a deck" is not the answer we are looking for. That's like someone asking "what kind of car do you drive?" and you responding "a red one."
Click to expand...

Well put Shane.
I'm glad someone else stepped in to clarify that point.
:)
 
Funny enough, the deck is red!

Actually, I'm interning at a tv station and they asked me to look into using final cut (using HD footage) for some promos - their testing it out on some guys laptop. We got Avid Adrenaline and their thinking of switching to Mac because you gotta drop 50 grand for an HD card (supposedly)

I don't know exactly what kind of deck it is, I grew up using miniDV and nothing else, but I can tell you that it's a sony and it doesn't seem to use any tape at all - a kind of digital recorder maybe? We record to it, then press a few buttons through a menu and the video is sent through a network downstairs.

Shortly after I posted this thread I made a quicktime of the spot, then started a new sequence (SD) and dropped it in. It was letterboxed automatically. But dropping the HD sequence directlly into the SD sequence didn't do that and needed some work with distort and resizing.

So final destination is 4x3, tapeless (as far as I can tell). Exporting as a quicktime worked, but I want to know if there are other methods of doing this.

Also, hooking up the deck via firewire and using print to tape worked too (seemed to work so far, I'll let you know for sure tomorrow.)

I'd give you more specific details, but I'm not there right now. Only in the mornings.
 
the deck is a sony video disk recorder dsr-dr1000 (says DVCAM on it)

we use the avid unity network to send our clips
 
I'm not familiar w/that deck, but after reading up on it quickly it looks like your input options are Firewire or SDI. If you are equipped to use SDI that will probably be the better route for quality as I'd think the decks internal hardware would be create a cleaner DV signal than FCP would in software. Since I don't know what all you have for a FCP setup I'll give three options that I think will cover all the bases.

1. If you have a video I/O card (Blackmagic, Kona, etc) or a Matrox MXO that can do an HD to SD down-converstion in hardware over SDI that would probably keep the best amount of quality.

2. If you have a video I/O card that can't do an HD to SD down-conversion but does have SDI then I would nest your HD sequence in an uncompressed 8-bit SD sequence and send that out via SDI. If you don't have fast enough storage for uncompressed SD then DVCPro 50 would be my next choice.

3. If you only have Firewire I/O then you'll need to nest the HD sequence into a DV NTSC sequence and send the video into the deck that way.

-A
 
If it's a DV or DVCAM deck then your solution is pretty simple.
Forget using SDI, just use the Firewire connection - no card needed.
There is no quality advantage to going SDI over Firewire if you are recording DV or DVCam.

Create a DV NTSC sequence in FCP, drop your finished HD file into that sequence and render it. Then just 'print to video' or play it out, connected to the deck via FireWire and you should be fine.
 
Luis Caffesse said:
Forget using SDI, just use the Firewire connection - no card needed.
There is no quality advantage to going SDI over Firewire if you are recording DV or DVCam.
Click to expand...

I'd agree that there is no night/day advantage, but as I understand it the Apple DV codec can be get blocky when it comes to chroma sampling so using SDI (thus avoiding Apple's DV codec) will help get a smoother looking image. If you feel like "geeking out" here is an article Graeme Nattress about chroma sampling (about 1/3 of the way down he compares FW to SDI). Link


I'm not saying the station should go out and buy a bunch of new gear, but if the OP already has the hardware available for SDI he might as well take full advantage of it, IMO.:beer:


-A
 
dont know too much about this subject, but...

i've been telling them that if they decide to go with apple that they HAVE TO get the MacPro. There was very brief talk of getting two or more iMacs - this is not for the station (yea right), but just for our office: Creative Services. Yea, I work with iMacs at my other job, it will allow us to have more than one editor and I know they can handle the work load, but it seems like a quick fix and not a long term solution.

And of course a high end blackmagic or k3 card.

But that deck is our lifeline. Thanks for that link, I'll geek out and read it
 
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