NTSC HDsr 23.98/48 Khz decklink pro workflow

Hi

In the US what's the standard workflow (including blackmagic/input cards) for a long form project shot @ NTSC 23.98 with audio @ 48 Khz? We have a terrabyte of storage - and approximately about 50 hours of dailies to be diged in.

being from the land of Pal I am not quite up to speed with this stuff and it would be great if you guys had a standard (ha!) workflow.

many thanks

Jamie



Post Edited (08-03-06 02:38)

What format?

HD cam sr shot @ 23.98 .. audio @ 48Khz
into FCPhd 5 @DV ntsc 23.98

thanks

Jamie

I'd capture offline at DVCPRO HD 720p24 at 23.98 and edit until you have a locked cut. Then use the media manager to make a separate sequence with independant clips and recapture at 10-bit uncompressed from the HDCAM masters to online.

Hi Shane

we're just offlining....

is it standard to take the HD straight to the FCPhd and down convert at that point?

please see my other posting 'cos I'm in sync hell

thanks

jamie

I feel your pain.

We're shooting XDCAM HD 25Mbit/s, 23.976 native video and audio. 48Khz/16bit. 2 edit systems, 2 editors, 2 assistants, 2 episodes at a time. One XDCAM HD deck.
Our workflow is like so:
Caveat: This is a work in progress for 13 episodes that evolves everyday.

Video: transfer files off XDCAM disks at XDCAM HD native resolution. Recompress the video to a more manegeable DV resolution. The native files are at 23.976 as are the recompressed files. The assistants are able to name and organize clips while file transfer happens in the background. We have it down to just less than one hour of transfer and logging for an hour and a half of footage. We recompress overnight.
The audio is converted from BWF to FCP friendly files by a utility called BWF2XML.
One days worth of audio can be converted in an hour.

Once everything is recompressed and logged we are able to multiclip by timecode.

We've done a few tests with the online facility and what worked best was a 24P EDL out of FCP that they were able to conform very quickly due to random access on the disks, i.e. no fast forwarding or rewind. You are limited to CMX or GVG edls. Audio goes OMF to audio post as a 23.976 sequence.

We're shooting 3 camera XDCAM HD at 23.976 with double system audio (two 4-track hard drive audio recorders) and offlining, like you for a 23.976 HDCAM SR final. The online system is called Mystica (spelling?) the next step up from Jaleo.

If syncing audio to video is your hell the bigger question is what was the TC rate on the audio record?
Your sync issues have probably been determined already by what was done on the set. If audio was recorded at 29.97, 48/16, were they crossjamming or using a smart slate jammed to audio TC?
Your real nightmare is if video was at 23.976 and audio was at 24 or 30 even without
We recorded every unit (audio and video) at 23.976 TC and synced everything up by Clockits and a smart slate.

Since we're in a totally tapeless system (not counting the final master) and not chained to tape quirks like everything being recorded 29.97 and having to remove pulldown frames, we ran into some issues with crew not used to doing 23.976 across the board and other people in the post chain wanting things the old way and not wiling to try some new methods.
It's not like we're going into space or anything, our edit systems are somewhat underpowered and any workflow issues had to be devised around an evaporated budget but as of right now we have a rythym going.
Hope that was some help.

ak

Thanks AK

our sound is fed live to the two field recorders (sony srw1) as live and recorded @48 Khz. our FCP has the same settings as the dailies but were taking the SDI feed from the same type of recorder into a deckilnk pro card and into the FCP - digitising NTSC Dv 23.98/48 Khz.

the problem is its all out of sync.....see above

were on location in Thailand and tomorrow, hopefully, a decklink HD card will arrive so we can throw HD into the FCP and down convert then.

if it doesnt work i'm going to thow the fuckin' thing into the pool.

rock'n'roll - yeah

jamie

Jamie

Thailand ? HDCAM SR? You, sir, are on the opposite end of the bdget spectrum from where I am. Although the weather in Toronto has been a little tropical recently.

Nevertheless, If I understand you correctly, you have video/audio on the same tape. You are capturing the HD video and audio in one pass as 23.976 native, no adding of pulldown in the deck and removing it in FCP. So far so good? I read back a little and I see that you are capturing at DV res. Does the Decklink Pro do that in realtime? Does it do native 23.976or 24? If not, how are you removing pulldown? Not familiar with that decklink model.
Can we assume that on the tapes everything is in synch and that it is definately a problem within FCP or decklink?

If the capture preset is matching the sequence preset and the synch is consistently off and not drifting further out over longer clips then I would think it's a signal flow issue through the capture card on the way in, the pulldown removal if you're doing that, or on the way out for your monitoring set-up.
The frequency of your audio shouldn't matter if it's being recorded to the same tape as the video. My only experience with HDCAM SR has been as a finishing format though.

andrewk

Jamie,
You should try and keep your problem to one post, it makes it easier that way for people to follow what's already been tried.
I am convinced this is something to do with a setting dring ingest or monitoring issue.
Just as another test, close down FCP. Set your system preferences for audio out to "Internal speakers". Launch Quicktime player. Then open one of the out of sync clips in QT Player, view it on the desktop while listening on the computer speakers and see if it is out of sync. If it is, then it is a problem being caused during ingest. If not then it is a problem within a FCP setting or the way you are monitoring. Speaking of which how "exactly" do you have the card / monitor/ speakers connected. i.e. SDI, component, XLR etc.

Frank,

we checked the qt's and they too are out of sync. - we've narrowed the problem to how its digitising. days ago we checked the sync with the waveform - definately not a monitoring problem - all coming out thru a decklink box.

a thought is that we should spit HD out of the field deck into the decklink/FCP and downconvert there - ie not use the SDI out put. does anyone agree???

the reason why I put a new post was because we were trying to find out a standard workflow used in the US as opposed to just get some feedback about the synch problem. I dont normally cut with FCP, have some HD experience and a little NTSC. The problem has been that I've turned up to cut a film - the kit doesnt work - and trying to find some FCP support from Apple or whoever has been hard work. As far as I can tell its all set correctly and should work fine....

apologies if the two post's has confused!

many thanks for your assistance

Jamie

Hi Andrew

no were not capturing HD - were taking the SDI output from the deck/tape and feeding it into the decklink/FCP. the easy setups dont apply because the deck has a RS422 controller not firewire.

so coming out of the deck/tape thru the SDI is 29.97 (the tapes were shot 23.98) into the decklink card where it is converted back to 23.98 and video compressed to DV resolution ....... and its out of synch!

definately not a monitoring problem.........!

Jamie

Jamie,
You do have a blackburst signal being fed to the deck and the card don't you?
Also did you calibrate the timecode signal from the deck?
Also make sure you have "sync audio capture to video source if present" checked enabled, in the general tab of the user Prefs.

Hi Jamie,

I don't have any real NTSC equipment here, only some knowledge about.

> so coming out of the deck/tape thru the SDI is 29.97 (the tapes
> were shot 23.98) into the decklink card where it is converted
> back to 23.98 and video compressed to DV resolution ....... and
> its out of synch!
Do you conform to 23.976 on the fly? Or do you do later. In any case the pull will affect the audio, so it must go out of synch.
Unfortunately you didn't use the setup Andrew (Hi - nice to meet you here) described. His setup allows to keep audio independent from video at the right rate.

But maybe you can capture AV to independent files (on two drives !), conform video and reconnect audio.

Just an idea.
Andreas

HI all

we think we fixed it - we swopped the decklink pro card for a HD version and instead for taking the SDI output we now squirt HD into the FCP. however eveything is out odf sync by 1 frame - pictures behind audio - consistently. we are going to try and get a tri level blackburst out here and see if that will help.

still trying to find a standard workflow......

at first we couldnt succesfully calibrate the source TC - its good now with the HD card
sync audio capture to video source if present" - always enabled,

the easy setups for this frame rate had to be futsed with because we have an RS442 control deck not firewire

we took the audio and pictures in seperately and synch them up. this was taking forever. each take needs to digitised seperately and with a forty min tape often containing 40+ takes - one tape was taking about 3 1/2 hours to log, digitise and sync. we usually have about 4 tapes a day! maddening for something that is in sync in the first place!

thanks

Jamie