kinda OT - hpx170 HD-SDI interface

ok, so i just ordered my hpx170 and it has this HD-SDI interface functionality. which im not sure i'll ever use. just wondering about real-world usability...

anybody here using this method for capture (on tower or laptop) and what are the capture hardware choices for such. AND if you've seen image quality increases that justify the effort/cost.

Absolutely. My XL H1 has an HDSDI spigot on it, and I use it all the time when I'm shooting interviews at my facility. I have a set of ridiculously long BNC cables and a set of ridiculously long XLRs, and I just run the picture to my Kona board's input and the sound to my Tascam control surface. I'll have an assistant in my room crash-record Final Cut so I'm laying down uncompressed (well, actually ProRes) while I'm rolling HDV tape for safety. It's a little bit of a pain, workflow wise, but the footage looks a lot better than what comes off HDV tape, and it's a great capability to have. Especially for rapid-turnaround, where I can just live-capture an hour of interview footage and then immediately start cutting it, rather than having to log-and-capture the footage later from tape.

I think if I had a P2 camera like yours I'd use that capability even more frequently, since the full-raster picture coming off the live HDSDI output will be so much sharper than the 1280x1080 DVCPRO HD frame.

For shooting in the field the HDSDI is of marginal utility at best, except for monitoring. I guess you could rent an HDCAM SR or D5 deck and record right off the camera output, but that'd be kind of ridiculous unless you were shooting greenscreen.

Good for connecting to a field monitor HDSDI (like Jeff mentioned). Having the REALLY long BNC cables from the camera to the video hut is a good thing. Component is a bit more difficult to manage.

Good for connecting to a higher end deck, like HDCAM (like Jeff mentioned). In sort of a studio setup...low end studio.

Allows for play through. Meaning you can send firewire to the camera then HD SDI out to a monitor...thus making this a great way to help monitor your footage while editing. Component works too. It was the 4-pin firewire that was the issue on the 200.


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Meaning you can send firewire to the camera then HD SDI out to a monitor...thus making this a great way to help monitor your footage while editing

yeah, i read that over at dvxuser. shane you may have been part of that thread...
about the only thing i can imagine using it for other than that is for live greenscreen capture here in my studio.

what are the say top 3 appropriately equipped capture cards? (cards that dont require an intel mac)

I can only think off the top of my head of two: the Kona LH and the Kona 3. No idea if they'll work in geriatric Power Macs, no idea if there are other HDSDI I/O boards out there.

There are some new generation smaller capture boxes from companies like Convergence that will work with this HD SDI connection. They don't record uncompressed but they do record a less compressed signal than the 170's native DVCProHD signal.

Personally, I get great results just keying the DVCProHD signal, it is 4:2:2 and keys very cleanly but I guess there are always people who think that they need more ;-)

Dan

It's not on topic for this thread, but I'd love to know how you key DVCPRO HD footage sometime. I've never been able to pull a clean key on one.

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but I'd love to know how you key DVCPRO HD footage sometime

i do it on a weekly basis and get superb results:

12x12 foam-backed green background
2, 4' 4bank kinos left and right lighting screen
talent is about 10 feet in front of screen lit by two kino diva 400 (one left one right) and one diva 200 hairlight.

key with dvmatte pro in fcp - clean as can be!

Maybe that's the trick. I've never used dvmatte. Just the various keyers in Flame, and also Keylight and Primatte in Shake.

(Also, it is entirely possible that I just suck at compositing.)

those are all high-end keyers. dont know why theyd give you trouble with dvcprohd???...???...

i have used many of those higher-end keyers and to me, if your source clip was well lit, its WAY easier to pull as good a key with dvmatte pro (and the new v3 is MUCH better than v2) than with the others.

now if you have a crappy shot, there are things those others can do to salvage it that dvmatte pro cant. so its a matter of horses for courses...

best $200 ive spent.

It could be because I was working with 1280x1080 footage that had been stretched out to 1920. If I'd thought to work at native resolution, before all the edges got blurred all to hell, I might have gotten better results.

Something to remember for next time, I guess.

I shoot the same basic way that Wayne does, except I occasionally use the ReflecMedia ChromaFlex system as well as just doing it the old fashioned way.

My editor told me that he liked the stuff that I shot with digital green foam backed fabric lit (FilmTools sells it by the roll) with two of the FloLight 500LED lights better than the ChromaFlex recently. He said that the traditionally lit green screen had cleaner darks and was easier to key wispy hair on but both methods work great. That is one of the best features of DVCProHD/P2, great color space.

I use DV Matte Pro on my FCP Kona System but at work we are using an AVID Symphony Nitris with Ultimatte, Primatte and Boris Keyers as well as the AVID's keyer sometimes. It seems to me that all keyers have their strong and weak points and when one doesn't do such a great job, we just try one until it does do a great job.

Dan

Use Veescope live and no mistakes can be made. Its all there on your screen so no guessing.

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Michael Horton
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