recording medium discussion, pros cons of each

T

themagickite

Well-known member
35mm film:
Pros - looks great
cons - cost of everything equipment, stock, processing etc

16mm film:
Pros - looks really cool (bit of grunge to the image but still "film look")

super8 film
Pros - still looks cool (grainy in a pleasing way), lots of great cheap s/h cameras out there, cheapest way to shoot real film
Cons - cost of media, cost of processing, processing time, expensive to get high quality transfers to make the medium worthwhile today

tape

DV tape
Pros - cheap media

optical disc
pros - reduces capture times

hdd
pros - reduced or omits capture stage

solid state
pros - very reliable, reduces or omits capture stage
cons - initial cost of media



Please add more info, experience, etc!
 
35mm- PROS: Looks great, can be scanned to 4k resolution. Still the format of choice for master archival and Feature production

Cons- Price for entire workflow: editing, filming, archiving, etc.

16mm- 2k HD equivalent. A bit more noisy than 35mm. Great organic look. Its film.

Cons- Same as 35 mm, but a bit cheaper.

Tape: Pros and Cons: Depends of the Format. Tape can range from HDCAM SR to Beta SP, or Mini DV.

High End HD Tape (HDCAM SR, D5): Pros: Resolution enough for Theatre distribution (Star Wars Episode 2, Once Upon a Time In Mexico, Sin City), lot less expensive to shoot with, and native digital Post Production.

Cons: Expensive Cameras (For Indies). Expensive Media. Expensive support equipment (decks, tapes, etc.). Bulky equipment. Dinamic Range on HD cameras not up to par to FIlm cameras. Color and movement still diferent from 35mm film (subjective)

Medium end tape (EX: HDCAM and DVCPRO HD)

Pros: Good looking films can be produced. Relatively cheap media and support equipment. Acceptable for Film distribution.

Cons: 16mm equivalent of the "high End" tapes: Not as good looking as HDCAM SR and D5. If content of production is average, it will hardly be accepted for theatricall distribution.

Low End Tape (HDV, Betacam SP, SD formats in general, Mini DV)

Pros: Very cheap media. Cheap editing, and cheap support equipment. A feature can have all the bells and whistles in a relatively low budget if shot in HDV or top SD format. IF done correctly and professionally, HDV can be up there with the medium tape formats.

Cons: SD technology obsolete. Disctracting for theatrical distribution. Very rare acceptance for film and commercial distribution. Hard to attract serious partners.

Optical Disc- Now mainly used professionally on Sony XDCAM line-up.

Pros: Relatively cheap media. Produces nice medium end HD results. If done properly can compete with More expensive and technically superior Medium End Formats (HDCAM, DVCPRO HD)

Cons- 4:2:0 color space and long GOP encoding. Acceptable for
footage capture, but need to be edited in another format for optimal Post-Production.

(This will change with the new 4:2:2 XDCAM codec)

HDD Recording

High End Recording- Uncompressed HD

PROS: Raided HDD's are currently the only solution for raw uncompressed HD recording. i
PROS- Top quality HD image. Immediate Post Production. If footage Acquired from a 4k camera, or a top of the line 2k resolution HD Camera by HD-SDI, one can get very close to 35 mm in quality film outs and effects. This is the way most film is worked in Post.

Cons- Expensive and not very mobile. Needs lots of disk space. media not 100 percent reliable. Potential aquisition failure.

HDD- Medium End Recording:

Intermediate Codecs- Like Redcode Raw, Cineform, Apple 4:2:2, etc.

Pros: Good HD quality (Redcode Raw seems very high quality and a serious alternative to uncompressed HD), acceptable for editing and HD distribution. Cheaper and less demanding to both HDD and CPU.

Cons- HDD media still not 100% reliable. Not very good for long therm archival. Moving parts can compromise high movement shooting.

Solid State:

With High End Codecs (Redcode Raw, Cineform, etc.)

Pros- Cheap, fast, reliable.

Cons- Limited file size.


I could go on, but am getting very bored with this. Please add on. I'm associating codecs and Media, because its not possible to differentiate the two in this area, I believe....
 
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This discussion cannot be summed up in the space we have on these boards.

If someone want to author a paper or a book on it, I would love to read it. But it is VERY difficult to get solid facts, especially when dealing with film.

Talk to Kodak and they'll tell you that film can achive 900 stops (haha), and can scan at 128k minimum. (There is actually a whitepaper by kodak that compares 35mm to 65k scanning. oy... )

Then talk to a working professional who's just seen 4k digital aquisition projectect at 4k, and they'll tell you it looks far more like 70mm film than 35mm.

IMO - there is a reason that most studios still scan all but the biggest features (and even then.... ) at 2k. The extra quality derrived from 4k from film is not nearly as big as the numbers would lead one to believe. This is a generalization and you could debate and discuss this alone for 60+ pages.

It would be great if the digital industry and the film industry picked an impartial group of professionals to study the issue in REAL production, and asses quality and such, with fair committee (selected by both groups) to construct a nice big white-water legnth report about this to be the consumate reference for all things film-in dealings with the medium digital or otherwise.
 
arrestthisman said:
This discussion cannot be summed up in the space we have on these boards.

If someone want to author a paper or a book on it, I would love to read it. But it is VERY difficult to get solid facts, especially when dealing with film.

Talk to Kodak and they'll tell you that film can achive 900 stops (haha), and can scan at 128k minimum. (There is actually a whitepaper by kodak that compares 35mm to 65k scanning. oy... )

Then talk to a working professional who's just seen 4k digital aquisition projectect at 4k, and they'll tell you it looks far more like 70mm film than 35mm.

IMO - there is a reason that most studios still scan all but the biggest features (and even then.... ) at 2k. The extra quality derrived from 4k from film is not nearly as big as the numbers would lead one to believe. This is a generalization and you could debate and discuss this alone for 60+ pages.

It would be great if the digital industry and the film industry picked an impartial group of professionals to study the issue in REAL production, and asses quality and such, with fair committee (selected by both groups) to construct a nice big white-water legnth report about this to be the consumate reference for all things film-in dealings with the medium digital or otherwise.
Click to expand...

Excelent post. Agreed 100% (BBC usually does a report on new technology and its feasability for production- Never seen if they went that far, tough.)
 
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yeah that's the kind of thing i was hoping this thread woule turn into rather than just film vs video cause there are a few types of film and heaps of types of video

how bout the lattitude of different mediums?

the dvx is supposed to have about 7 stops

cheaper consumer cams have about 4 stops (as far as i can make out)

how bout 16mm, 35mm, and higher end forms of DV (xdcam, red, hdcam, etc) as well as old school studio analog video?
 
SPZ:You have a link for the BBC? I'd love to read one of their assesments. (BTW, thanks for the compliments on the posts, I usually get quite the acid tongue back when I give my opinion. hehe.)

magikite: The problem with your initial question is that you presume that the media upon which you record digital upon changes the quality, lattitude, etc.

The codec, the lens, the imagers most of all, are what make video look better or worse. The media XDcam, SD card, P2, MiniDV is inconsequential except for the codecs they can handle. a MiniDV tape can hold about 12GB worth of into per tape. That's a good bit. If someone could lower the compression it would lower the time you could record onto a tape, but the image would improve.

Also, different video cams produce different results with the same codec, and same specs.

The DVX gets a little more than 7 stops, IMO. I think digital gets short changed simply because the detail is far more biased to the blacks and washout is a real problem with the highlights.

A blanket statement like 4 stops for consumer cams is over simplification. I hear where you're coming from though, I wish I had a clear guide, too, but unfortunately the technology is a labyrinth of this and that in all aspects.

The best thing IMO, is to balance the specs with the image. Some formats that don't have a lot of color space to spare can fool you. Some HDV looks fantastic, but try and pull a greenscreen matte and you're kind of screwed.

Anyway, I still think it's an interest discussion though.

Take care,
- alex
 
arrestthisman said:
magikite: The problem with your initial question is that you presume that the media upon which you record digital upon changes the quality, lattitude, etc.

The codec, the lens, the imagers most of all, are what make video look better or worse. The media XDcam, SD card, P2, MiniDV is inconsequential except for the codecs they can handle. a MiniDV tape can hold about 12GB worth of into per tape. That's a good bit. If someone could lower the compression it would lower the time you could record onto a tape, but the image would improve.
Click to expand...

that's just the sort of thing i hoped to learn from this thread

so if you recorded miniDV going through the tapedrive 4 times as fast you could get 100mbps? but i assume this would drastically increase the amount of dropouts too, correct?
 
Dont forget the biggest PRO of non-destructive archival quality media... it IS it's own back-up. If everything goes tapeless we will lose the archives and hidden gems as all non-essential takes will be deleted.



ash =o)
 
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