Difference between DVCPRO-PAL and DV-PAL?

volcano

volcano

Carbonite Member
Hi guys,
Trying to fix a friend's project here, shot in Europe with PAL camcorders, it is such a mess... They combined very different formats in a totaly wrong sequence...Long story(they made a letterbox sequence and tried to fit the anamorphic footage into it by distorting it), but here is the question:
Director says main camera was a Panasonic DVCPRO, but when I check the format of the source clips it says they are captured as DV-PAL. (Editor captured and did the cut in Europe, other 2 cameras were DV-Pal, so I assume he captured all of them the same way)
Footage looks a bit soft, did it loose quality due to wrong capture set-ups?
So, what is the difference between DVCPRO-PAL and DV_PAL??? Normally For NTSC DV/DVCPRO is grouped together as a compressor format...
Thanks
 
Addition:
Footage shot by mini dv camcorder looks much more clean and sharp than 2/3 ccd DVCPRO camcorder footage...
 
Well DVCPRO is a 4:2:2 codec where DV is a 4:1:1 or 4:1:0 so you bascily you don't have as much color information as you would with DVCPRO. So yes if you had DVCPRO and then captured it with a DV codec you would lose that color information and would put a 5 to 1 compression on it. So yes your footage could look worse. And I have never seen DV and DVCPRO grouped together but that is just me.
 
And I have never seen DV and DVCPRO grouped together but that is just me.Tx for clearing that loss problem due to the wrong capture preset...Attached is sequence settings in FCP4.5. As you can see compressor is DV/DVCPRO. Whereas when you click on compressor you ll see they are seperated for PAL version...That is what i meant...
 
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DVCPRO50 (emphasis on "50") is 4:2:2.

DVCPRO is not.

DV and DVCPRO are identical in codec implementation in the US/NTSC version. However, you are correct that they are different in the PAL version: DVCPRO uses 4:1:1, DV uses 4:2:0. Transcoding from one to the other would give the result you describe, it being a little soft.
 
Very interesting Barry I never new that when it came to PAL show how much I've worked with it (once) As for the DV/DVCPRO I'm sorry I didn't even think you were not talking about DVCPRO 50 We just call it DV and DVCPRO 50, we call DVCPRO The only time I make the difference is when talking about DVCPRO HD.

Well good luck the only thing would be to recapture all the media I don't know how viable that is for you but good luck.
 
Transcoding from one to the other would give the result you describe, it being a little soft.
I see, too bad.. They also captured anamorphic footage as nonanamorphic and then distorted it to -33 to fit into letterbox 4:3 sequence...Funny/sad thing is 2/3 of the doc was shot with anamorphic DVCPro Pana...(what model, i dunno)
Well good luck the only thing would be to recapture all the media I don't know how viable that is for you but good luck.It is not viable at all...(On DVD already, I am just gonna put english subtitles for North American release) I guess they are gonna live with it and be smart enough not to cheap out on editing in their next project...
 
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