capturing better SD in Avid Media Composer

S

sean90291

Veteran
Well in the last year of learning a few things about Avid, I've come to realize that not all SD footage is created equal. There are a variety of ways it is compressed by NLE software upon capture.

My question is if I shoot on a miniDV tape with a DVX100A, and then capture to Avid Media Composer using firewire from the DVX100A, will I acquire any "better resolution" or bit depth by choosing a higher resolution in Avid Media Composer? Or is all miniDV footage shot with a DVX already 8 bit anyhow. I see that one can capture 1:1 SD footage in Media Composer. So would doing so give me any better results than simply capturing my DVX footage in DV25P 411?

EDIT: I did come across this info in an Avid forum...

If you capture via firewire through a DV deck of any sort you will still be capturing a compressed data stream. You may then be able to upres to 1:1, but you will still be dealing with dv25 compressed material.


If that's true, maybe a Mojo would allow for higher res capture right from a DVX camera? Or maybe not.

Cheers.
 
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If you're capturing over firewire, then it's going to be the same footage going from that cable into the software. Therefore DV25 footage that has been captured at 1:1 will not look any better than DV25 footage captured as DV25 (there's debate about this, but it's subjective and one person will say it looks better and another person will say no difference).

Now the advantage you can get is working with the footage. By taking DV25 and increasing the bit depth, or transcoding it to 1:1 then any affects that you apply, or any altering of the video will be done in a 10 bit 1:1 space and that will increase the quality of your final project.

Now, I've explained it this way for simplification. If you're capturing over firewire, then you have to capture as whatever type of video it is. DV25 source over firewire must be captured as DV25. DV50 captured over firewire must be captured as DV50. Once you capture the video you can transcode it to 10 bit 1:1 if you want, in which case see above for the advantage that you'll get.

One other option is to use a Mojo and the compositie or S-Video outs on the DVX (or a deck). This will allow you to capture directly to 1:1 footage, but you have to weigh that with the disadvantage of sending the video out through composite or through S-Video. Personally I see this as a less favorable option. When using firewire you're digital to digital, then you can transcode to whatever kind of video you want. If you go through Mojo to capture 1:1 then you have a digital to analog conversion step, and I don't like that. Still I know people who swear that capturing 1:1 through Mojo with S-Video is the only way to do it. I just shrug and let them believe what makes them happy. :)
 
Most excellently awesome and wise advice. Cheers. I'm gonna try my first transcoding of DV footage just for purposes of rendering the effects. But I'll stick with firewire capture (DV25), as per your advice.
 
What if you have already rendered effects when you transcode? Will they also be up-rezzed to 1:1? Or do you have to transcode a sequence without any effects applied or rendered and then apply them all over again to the new 1:1 sequence?
 
Hey MichaelP. Are you saying you can render effects in 1:1 with regular ol' DV25 footage on a timeline containing DV25 clips? Or can you only render effects in 1:1 when your timeline already consists of (transcoded) 1:1 footage.
 
You can choose to render effects as 1:1 when using DV25 footage. That works for 30i projects, not 24 which does not get 1:1.
 
I didn't know that. Unfortunately this is a 24p timeline. If my footage is transcoded to 1:1 on a 24p timeline, and then I render effects, won't they be rendered in the 1:1 10 bit color space?
 
When Michael says 24p doesn't get 1:1 he means in any way shape or form. You can't even transcode 24p to 1:1, just to DV50 (speaking of Xpress Pro, I'm not sure about MC). I should have mentioned that in my first reply, but I thought we were talking more theory than practice.

Sorry for any confusion.
 
You guys are not confusing me at all! This information is really really valuable. Hope other newer Avid users are getting something out of this information. Because if we want our DVX footage to look its best, these small tweaks can really give us a bit of an edge. But it's complex.

Anyhow, I did this test in Media Composer to test Krestofre's question:

I created a QT video with After Effects so that it's 24p/DV25/Avid Codec. I then imported that resulting "footage" into Avid and created a 24p DV25 timeline. I then transcoded the DV25 material to 1:1 10b MXF. And it worked. So apparently Media Composer can give you 1:1 footage from 24P DV25 footage (realizing full well it doesn't "look better" in quality, but does give me a "better canvas" for adding effects/color correction).

My question is still about effects rendering, however. I'm still just a little vague on what happens to the effects within a DV25 timeline when:

a) there are unrendered effects on that timeline, and then you transcode to 1:1--I presume then when I click "render at position" Avid automatically renders these effects with the new 10 bit 1:1 color space?

b) there are RENDERED effects on that timeline, and then you transcode to 1:1--do you have to re-render these effects on the new transcoded timeline in order to take advantage of the 10 bit 1:1 color space?

New territory for me.

EDIT: what I was forgetting/not realizing...the effects are part of the SEQUENCE...and NOT part of the FOOTAGE. So when I transcode, I'm creating new footage, and so there are NO effects on it at all. And so I guess I have to learn how to replace the DV25 footage in the sequence (it has effects) with the new 1:1 footage, which will undoubtedly un-render the effects and require re-rendering. It's starting to make sense to me.
 
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