GH1 Action/Thriller

Svart said:
The first digital films were indeed delivered by hard drive. They were in some file format for the projection system.

Modern systems do deliver via satellite and/or some kind of hard line(DSL/ISDN). I'm not sure many use physical formats anymore.

Either way, a technician has to put the file on the server in the correct way. The files are encoded in an encrypted copy protection scheme (all according to the document I linked to). It does not say if a modern digital projector can play a non-encoded file.
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In my look into this, the 'projectors' that are used in the local digital theater chain, take in two DVI connections. So, whatever 'server' has to process the data to the point of DVI output that goes directly into the projector.

Since one of the theaters in the chain, nearest my house, has a monthly 'film friends' presentation of a set of films, my presumption is that this group brings a DVD/BLURAY disk to the theater and has the projectionist load it up for viewing. Another theater in the chain hosts a 'yearly' film fest, and the media that was asked for by the fest management was either DVD or BLURAY. I had a showing there, but it was not on a 'big screen'...
 
I think I need to be more specific. I am not looking for the format needed for play in digital theater (although that may be necessary in some capacity).

I need to know what format to edit this entire project in (using Avid) for a filmout for distribution in theaters nationwide.

I don't want to edit the entire project on DNxHD145 and find out that it is unacceptable for professional filmout or for national theatrical release.

Can anyone help, as I need to start editing soon.

Thanks
 
If you want to make a 35mm print it runs about 100K, If your shooting on a GH-1 then I don't think you want to go that route so the Digital Cinema is your next best bet and thats where this thread is morphing into.
 
Indyreel said:
I think I need to be more specific. I am not looking for the format needed for play in digital theater (although that may be necessary in some capacity).

I need to know what format to edit this entire project in (using Avid) for a filmout for distribution in theaters nationwide.

I don't want to edit the entire project on DNxHD145 and find out that it is unacceptable for professional filmout or for national theatrical release.

Can anyone help, as I need to start editing soon.

Thanks
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Sorry to get off topic in your thread.

Back on topic. I think the answer is "we don't know", but only because I don't think there is a standard for something like this. Each film transfer company might want something different or might be able to handle anything you give them. I think you need to find one that suits your budget and timetable and give them a call and ask what they prefer you give them.

The other issue is that you are talking about editing in some format and then you also talk about giving a file to the film transfer company. Those are two different things. You can edit in any format you wish. You then render to whatever format you wish. You can use two different formats if you want.

personally I would use some kind of fast editing codec that is either lossless or minimally lossy as the intermediate. I use Cineform for this. I edit Cineform's AVI format intermediates and then render down to MPEG2 at very high bitrates for master copies. I can then take those masters and recode/transcode those to whatever format I need.

I would expect that since DVD and Blu-ray are MPEG2, any film transfer house will accept MPEG2.
 
Svart said:
Sorry to get off topic in your thread.

The other issue is that you are talking about editing in some format and then you also talk about giving a file to the film transfer company. Those are two different things. You can edit in any format you wish. You then render to whatever format you wish. You can use two different formats if you want.
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Thank you Svart for getting back on topic.

Are you saying I can do all my editing in DNxHD 145 then output to mpeg2?

That would be awesome, but would mpeg2 be acceptable for a professional filmout?
 
If you get a 'distribution deal' then they7 will tell you what to give them the master in and handle all of that stuff. To be safe I would just edit in a high end intermediate like cineform. Since it sounds like you are on a pc, and editing on vegas, you COULD edit the native files.. (this is what I do) and I get a better output than if I go through cineform... UNLESS I need to do a lot of color correction work.

The problem with vegas is it's just not industry standard and I think they highest it puts out is 25mbits.

Now if you are just having a premiere, that is more than fine. Christie 2k digital projectors have hdmi and dvi in, and I have shown some of my GH1 stuff on both a Christie and a Panasonic 2k projector by 1 hooking the cam directly in, and 2, hooking a dell studio xps 16 laptop in.

They both looked very very good, but the output from the xps 16 looked better.... the win 7 avchd codec playback is very7 very good.
 
+1 for the post and the great link Blackout.....we are at a precipitace between old and new technology and that's both a good thing and a bad......either way we'll see how the cookie crumbles and just like everything else it's commerce over art.
 
Blackout said:
Since it sounds like you are on a pc, and editing on vegas, you COULD edit the native files.. (this is what I do) and I get a better output than if I go through cineform... UNLESS I need to do a lot of color correction work.
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I don't have Vegas, I have Avid MC5. That being the case, should I edit the entire film in DNxHD 145?
 
I am not too familiar with that format but as long as you keep an output an edl list which I know Avid does, I'm sure you can be fine and redo it in any format any studio would want. If you are trying to 'sell' your film, your concern is what the major festivals want, which is usually now blu-ray. If a distribution company at a film festival makes contact with you, then they will probably recut, make small changes, and either print to film or whatever format their own distribution channels go through to digital cinemas. If you are trying to 'be your own distribution company' be prepared to see your film go down the tubes. It's too many roles to take on in my opinion.
 
Dear IndyReel, I'm no pro but i hope this helps.

I checked out your setup on the web and it doesn't seem like you can actually "online" from your Avid, what I mean is that your system does not seem to posses the capability to "play out" the final film?

This means that you will only ever be doing the cutting on your system, and NOT the finishing, am I right?

Therefore regardless of what you do next, once your film is cut, you will still have to go to an "online" facility to "assemble" the final film before it is "played out". Hope I'm still on track.

A facility that will play your film out, is going to require the very highest quality or most original version of your footage, then they will take your "offline" or "cut" and "conform" it using your original footage. Furthermore they may do some grading or other image processing or even some visual effects before the final picture is "played out". This format in itself will be determined by your client or end-user or distributor, because whoever is buying the film will know how they deliver the image to the screen.

My biggest piece of advice would be to get some good advice from the PROs, especially seeing that you are putting so much into it.

I would find a "film-out-capable" facility close to me, and go and tell them what I'm doing and get the best advice i possibly can, straight from the people who have to help you get your film out. Furthermore I would get three such opinions at the very least. At least then you will see some patterns emerging. And the best way to go in is to say, listen I know absolutely nothing, please help me understand this process. It seems like you have done way too much work already to risk a mess-up at any stage.

But be careful of what question you ask, as you can see here. If you ask a specific question, it shapes the answer.

Perhaps you need to get a general idea of the "industry standard" workflow first, before getting specific.

Here is a perfect example. If your "original" footage does not contain timecode, then it will be very laborious to conform the high quality footage to your cut, "by eye".

My last piece of advice is to give you a "fool-proof" answer to your original question. If I were in your position and I did not know what lay ahead, I would merely "transcode" my original GH1 footage to the highest possible quality files, like for instance Apple Pro Res 4:4:4 with timecode etc, or something uncompressed. Uncompressed will take too much space IMO, so it's better to go for a compressed industry standard format like Pro Res, but use the highest quality you can "afford" disk-space-wise.

In closing I would say an optimal workflow would be to work from the highest quality source and keep that for "conforming"and grading your film later, but for cutting purposes, encode it to a codec that makes the files smaller and your cutting faster.

I hope this helps. =)
 
I have a question about this subject matter as well. I'm going to be shooting a film in hopes of a distributer buy. And I remember Philip bloom had his 5d and 7d footage filmed out and played on theater screenings with george Lucas and zacuto. And he uses ProRes LT. I also read somewhere in a videography that using anything higher then prores LT or hq won't be much of a difference because of the 8 bit or 10 bit coloring thing of the codec. Any answers welcome.
 
I heard blooms talk about always using a digital intermediate but I don't agree with it. The digital intermediate cut of my GH1 footage was NOT as good as the edit from the direct MTS files. Cineform, even in it's highest quality mode, introduces slight noise, color shift, and some grain.

It changes the image ever so slightly. Now if you are going to be doing a lot of color grading and ABSOLUTELY printing to film, then this may be the best route. But I don't know how many people ever actually print to film, and I don't know how much longer even studios will be doing it being that now most cinemas are converting to digital projectors.

The playback of my NON CINEFORM edit looked better than my cineform edit. It was slight, but every step ads a re compression stage with slight addition of artifacts.

If you are editing in avid, you are doing an offline edit and there should be a timecode stamp on everything - and then you do the online edit or have another facility do it when yo9u are done.

Again I think you are worrying about things that really aren't your job to worry about. Get the best original images captured you can and sound of course, edit the film with time code, then for a festival or trying to sell it I would make some blu-rays. If someone wants to buy your film - THEY are going to do the stuff that is needed to get it distributed. As long as your source is high quality they will know what to do.

They got Blair Witch into cinemas from a very bad edit on an old copy of premiere... seriously, I think you are over worrying.
 
Blackout said:
If you are editing in avid, you are doing an offline edit and there should be a timecode stamp on everything
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When you say "should be a timecode stamp on everything" do you mean that I should timecode stamp or that Avid will automatically timecode stamp?

If Avid automatically timecode stamps, how will I know?

Sorry for the dumb questions.

Thanks
 
I'm really not an Avid expert so it would be better to go to the avid forums to ask this, but I have been with a film editor who edits on avid and as far as I know the whole point of avid is that it is the industry standard for cutting films and it keeps a time code on everything so that you have an EDL (edit decision list) that can then be applied to the ONLINE or original highest quality footage.

So for films, they scan the film if it was shot on actual film, then edit in avid in what is called offline mode (lower res footage just for editing and timing, not for actual use or final output) and when they are done they use the timecode frame numbers from avid to actually cut the film, then it gets rescanned at the highest resolution, color corrected, and either sent out for digital distribution, or printed back to film for conventional film reel distribution... or in most cases, both.

Since you are not using film but using GH1 mts files (hacked I hope?) you would use the edl to then cut together your master .mts files... they may have to be converted to a digital intermediate first.. they may not. I don't know enough about your film.

Again I would get on the avid forums and you'll probably get better answers but I think in general what I stated above is how it works.

When I was watching him edit, there was a timecode stamp on everything - meaning the timecode was displayed on screen at all times. This can be turned on or off, but it's usually left on while editing so that you can refer to specific parts of your movie by the timecode stamps and say "We need to tighten up the edits at 00:01:52:00
 
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No prob. Good luck on your film and if you have any clips I'd love to see some. I find the private youtube feature very useful for showing footage back and forth that can't be put up publicly.
 
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