mixing formats and going offline.

stephen_nugent

stephen_nugent

Well-known member
hi,

just finished shooting a two cam docu - sony 750 delivering 1920x1080/25p and the humble HVX as B-cam, at 720p25. Director editor wants to work offline first (SD) and then export an EDL for the online edit.

I am uncertain of the whole procedure. What timeline settings to use both offline and online, how to convert the footage (compressor?) for less hassle in the edit, how to create the EDL when the source will be both tape (sony 750) and HDD (HVX footage)? Also how do HDCAM and DVCPROHD match together?

What i thought might work is:
1. Digitise and downconvert sony tapes and hvx files
2. Work the offline edit on a SD timeline
3. Export EDL
4. Uprez hvx footage from 720 to 1080
4. Cross fingers that EDL will call both tape and HDD uprezzed footage into one harmonious timeline.

any ideas/precautions? thanks.
 
My question would be why go offline with this situation? I don't see the technical need for it.
 
hi ben,

i know what you're saying, but the director is doing his own edit and he got many hours of footage on tape and where he's editing he seems to have space issues so he prefers to go offline. drive space is cheap nowadays but heck those are his intentions, not to digitise in full rez his 25 or so tapes. If he were to do so or not (ie in both cases) what workflow do you suggest?
 
I'd capture the files full-rez native format. Convert everything to Apple's HDV Intermediate Codec to edit with. The you have the original files to on-line with.

I guess, AIC is the way to go. Mixing DVCPRO-HD and HDV, wow, something I hope I never have to deal with. Why make the higher rez camera the b-cam? Who knows, some directors are just like that...

But converting everything to SD would work, too.
 
BenB said:
I'd capture the files full-rez native format. Convert everything to Apple's HDV Intermediate Codec to edit with. The you have the original files to on-line with.

I guess, AIC is the way to go. Mixing DVCPRO-HD and HDV, wow, something I hope I never have to deal with. Why make the higher rez camera the b-cam? Who knows, some directors are just like that...

But converting everything to SD would work, too.
Click to expand...
BenB, the Sony 750 is HDCAM, not HDV. But I do have to mix HDV and DVCPro HD on dang near a weekly basis (in fact, I'm doing it right now). I'm hoping these days are number though as we are working towards getting cards so all the HDV will be transcoded to DVCPro HD on ingest.

nudge,
Are you doing the online yourself, or taking it out of house? If it's going out of house I'd talk to those guys and see what they think is best. It would suck to take it to online and have them go, 'Oh, you really should've done it like this...".

Since the Dir insists on offlining in SD I'd get all the tapes downconverted to MiniDV w/slaved TC and make sure each tape has a unique number. I've never onlined w/FCP, only Avid, but I assume you can use the Media Manager to create an offline project with which to ingest your HD media. I don't think you need an EDL. Of course, this is assuming your Dir is working w/FCP as well.

If you have the setup to handle HDCAM in an uncompressed timeline I guess that would be the way to go. If not, doing everything in DVCPro HD is a good alternative as I understand it.


-A
 
true adkimery, 'Oh, you really should've done it like this..." is what i'm trying to avoid..

The director is working with FCP, which "uncompressed timeline" setup configuration are you referring to? And how would it work to ingest online the HDCAM footage from tape and the DVCPRO HD rushes from a HDD on the same timeline? thanks.
 
nudge said:
true adkimery, 'Oh, you really should've done it like this..." is what i'm trying to avoid..

The director is working with FCP, which "uncompressed timeline" setup configuration are you referring to? And how would it work to ingest online the HDCAM footage from tape and the DVCPRO HD rushes from a HDD on the same timeline? thanks.
Click to expand...
If you are going to ingest HDCAM footage you'd need something like a Decklink or Kona capture card a and big, fast RAID to handle HDCAM's data rate.

Mike Curtis (the man behind hdforindies.com) wrote a good article about HD setups for small, medium, and large budgets for dv.com. You might want to check it out.


Unfortunately I can't give you any "hard" answers because I don't have any first hand experience w/a workflow like what you are facing.

You might want to swing by the FCP forum over at creativecow.net if you aren't able to get all the answers you need here.


-A
 
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