Firewire Output

[VaricamLife]

Okay here's the setup:

Standard 8 footage (don't ask). Using digital 8 deck transfer via firewire to DVCam. Now I have timecode and an easier format to use.

I digitize the DVCam tape. I do a few effects/adjustments to the footage that I need to.

Now I need to output this via firewire to a new DVCam tape.

My Question:

On the output, what is the highest quality codec I can get away with using firewire? If I leave the output sequence as DV and just output back as that I run the risk of artifacts. But if I bump it to too high a codec to help minimize the artifacts can firewire handle that output? So any thoughts or suggestions on this would be greatly appreciated.

cheers.

 

[adkimery]

If you are going back out to DV then the only thing going over FW will be DV. What I think you mean to do is capture DV, make an uncompressed NTSC sequence and do your effects work there. But if you are going back out to DV (as opposed to DigiBeta or something) I don't know if you've gained anything 'cause your "uncompressed" effects will get compressed down to DV.

I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will give you a definitive answer, but I figured I'd toss in my 2 cents anyway.

-A

 

[gunleik]

As your name is VaricamLife you may have access to the aj-1200?

In that case you could go out to DVCPRO 50

http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webap...oupId=14595&surfModel=AJ-HD1200A&displayTab=F


This'd give you more colorspace (for FX)
It would also hold up better for CC

But your sourceformat decides optimal quality as far as cuts goes.
DV quality in = DV quality out

Gunleik

 

[Michael T]

Hi, it really depends on wether your footage has just graphics or wether it has lots of skintones in it. At the last company I worked for which did sports we did lots of testing on DV out to DVCam and we found that if we ran DV out firewire to a small dv deck and passed it through that deck to a sony 2000 via componet we got alot better video than if we just dumped it to DVCam. I didn't think that it would make much difference but it was amazing how much better the quality of skintones and richer the colors were with this process. Hope this helps some.

 

[adkimery]

Hi, it really depends on wether your footage has just graphics or wether it has lots of skintones in it. At the last company I worked for which did sports we did lots of testing on DV out to DVCam and we found that if we ran DV out firewire to a small dv deck and passed it through that deck to a sony 2000 via componet we got alot better video than if we just dumped it to DVCam. I didn't think that it would make much difference but it was amazing how much better the quality of skintones and richer the colors were with this process. Hope this helps some.

A while back Graeme Nattress wrote an insanely detailed article about chroma sampling and smoothing that I think might explain w/what you are seeing.Link.

-A

 

[VaricamLife]

Thanks for all the input folks. The main problem is/was that I couldn't do most of the work myself. Its sensitive materials that I'm not allowed to see basically. Someone has to blur/black/remove certain aspects before I can get it. My initial thought was to have him go all the way from digitize to re-output, but seems like we'll run into too many quality concerns. My new strategy I think will be to have him output digital movie files that I can see and can output myself (then I can use the AJ-1200, which yes I do have Gun).

cheers.