HD workflow advice in advance

Hi All,

I have an upcoming project we're shooting with the Sony F-900 (proposed format 1080p/24p).

Questions:

? I have a Dual 2.5 PowerMac G5 with 4 gigs of ram and the latest versions of FCS. This will be my first time editing HD and I want to make sure the above format will "play nicely" with FCP. I was planning to do ingest and final Color Correction through the Digital Service Station/Alpha Dogs. We'll have a number of greenscreen elements to composite and a couple shots where I'll have to composite (and possibly motion track) some footage onto a blank plasma TV screen as well.

? I'm assuming to edit this properly that I'll need to invest in a CalDigit HD Pro Raid 5, or Dulce equivalent, correct?

Many thanks for any advice!
~Chris

I haven't used it but I would look at CalDigit, yes.

You might run out of RAM with 1080 compositing work, not certain. Might be sluggish and for many under time pressure sluggish is not an option. Them's is big frames!

Others will comment.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:
Instantly find Next/Previous timeline Gaps with Shift/Option -G !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
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Thanks Loren. I'm concerned about the RAM issue as well (also with AE last year, I created a 5 min video slideshow that I wasn't able to render out until accessing a "secret" menu in AE that allows you to purge the cache and render out in chunks, then reassemble in FCP - a real pain). How do people work around the RAM issue?

All the best,
~Chris

That setup will be fine. I have a lesser machine and it handles uncompressed HD just fine. You just need that HD PRO from CalDigit, and bit more RAM (as Loren noted) and you will be fine.


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Thanks Shane, that eases my mind. How much RAM do you suggest? I thought FCS used to have some issues with over 4 gigs of RAM...

On a side note, thanks as well Shane for all your articles, tutorials and forum replies - the community is in your debt. Just watched your tutorial on creating filter transitions - brilliant

Cheers,
~Chris

4GB is plenty. I have 3.5 and am humming along fine.

And you're welcome.


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Phew

Also, as far as workflow goes, remember that, more than likely, you want to capture as 1080psf 23.98 instead of actual "24". Its the format that plays with all of the other formats so well. Its the United Nations of formats.

And anyone want to chime in about ProRes HQ instead of uncompressed? I'm just getting my feet wet with it but man, my F900 HDCAM 24p stuff looks gooood in that codec.

-Christopher

There is a white paper on the ProRes codec that explains the difference between HQ and plain, but visually I sure cant see the difference. Saw it at an Apple booth on a 30 inch monitor and source media was from a F900. Both look really good to me and if both look really good why go with the bigger file size? Me be perplexed.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Thanks Christopher and Michael - I meant to follow up on this. I think on HD for Indies I'd read that 24p is difficult to deal with in FCP. Our plan at the moment is to keep HD versions for high-end web clients & future-proofing for HD DVD release, but down-converting to SD for the current DVD release.

Great to hear that about ProRes, and I've heard many echo Michael's comment.

Thanks again everyone

Many of us here, and now I, work in 23.98 instead of actual 24 because it translates on the fly so well to a HDTV and NTSC SDTV. And it remains compatible with film out and translates easily to PAL. And DVDs look better because you can get more footage on one at a higher bit rate. FCP and a display/capture card make editing a "24p" project out to a monitor a breeze with the live added pulldown. My understanding is that "straight 24" doesn't convert as well on the fly (or at all).

If your DP shot "straight 24p" or even 25p, the high end HDCAM SR deck can convert it to 23.98 on the fly when you capture. We had post house Filmlook do that for us in Burbank, CA. Now all of our F900 clips are the same frame rate and we are in heaven.

-Christopher

>I think on HD for Indies I'd read that 24p is difficult to deal with in FCP.

Than you read or remember incorrectly. 24p (23.98) is VERY EASY to deal with in FCP. What Mike is talking about is trying to capture and edit 23.98 when your delivery is 29.97. In other words...don't. There is no point to it. If you deliver 29.97, edit 29.97. Potential headaches caused trying to edit 23.98 and output to 29.97 can be costly.


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Thanks Christopher, and yes, Shane, that's where I was getting confused - I wasn't sure if I could edit in 24p (23.98) and down-convert to SD DVD without getting into 29.97. As mentioned, this is all new to me so I'm trying to get the workflow planned before we shoot next month.

I truly appreciate all the advice.

~Chris

Thats the beauty of 23.98. Just make a DVD with DVD Studio Pro and encode your movie without adding any frames to it at all. You will have a 24 (23.98) frame DVD, which is fine because every NTSC DVD player out there will add the pulldown and make it 29.97. This is what feature film DVDs do (to my understanding).

-Christopher

> Just watched your
> tutorial on creating filter transitions -
> brilliant
>

Haha... watched that too- but realized i did the filter transition thing around 6 months ago.. And yea, thanks for the videos- some were great. Btw, Shane, what's your workaround to the BS (broadcast safe filter)? I threw it onto some clips and it stills shows a warning sign on the range check (i'd be using the 3 way, but it'd bring down all my highs, and it's as clunky as using a 3 band eq). And yea, how accurate are the fcp scopes?


4 gigs are the most you can go on FCP/tiger for now (i think compressor 3 can tap into more), but final cut pro and tiger are 32 bit platforms.

I haven't worked on uncompressed HD, but dvcpro HD 720p was fine even on a firewire drive. A lil sluggier, but still rocks. You might need a capture card to preview it on a broadcast mon, though.

That's great news, thanks Christopher! And thanks for the addt'l info strypes. I can deal with a little sluggish, and have a Multibridge Pro out to my broadcast monitor, so hopefully all's well.

I'm going to do the color correction at Alpha Dogs, and then send the final project on a drive to have a DLT made for DVD replication. I can author in DVD SP.

Cheers,
~Chris

The BS filter is a waste of time. Looks fine, then render and BOOM...bad.

Color correct your footage and manually make it under 100IRE with the 3-way color corrector...shot by shot like us pros do.


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i use the 3 way, but i sometimes it's fairly clunky for controlling highlights.. also some transitions and when i'm on composite modes- additive, etc... Geez! wish my card could take color...

If my project was shot on Sony HDW-F900R at 1080psf 24fps. Would you recommend editing at 24fps in FCP or should I use Cinema tools to convert captured footage to 23.97
Tom

Well, how do you intend to master this? Back to HDCAM SR at 24fps? Film? If yes to either, then edit 24fps.


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Thanks guys...Shane I wish we'd had time to consult beforehand, but I ran out of time (you likely know how crazy it can get right before a shoot). We ended up shooting 1080p/29.97.

I was at the post house Wed. doing the capture over to ProRes HQ and it was looking beautiful, until I started noticing random image glitches and artifacts. These got worse on the second (of 11) tapes. We tried another HD Cam deck, and I even went up to see Terry at Alpha Dogs and tested it on their HD Cam SR deck. Same problem on all.

We went to the camera rental house and the camera was fine (a brand new Sony F-900R). The engineer and I went over the tapes and turns out it was bad stock!! Even new, these Sony tapes had small bubbles and creases in them. Utter nightmare - I could actually feel my hairline receding!

The only slight workaround we could find to help minimize the problem is to rent a Sony SRW 5500 deck to do a format conversion to 720p/60p while I capture. This obviously doesn't solve the problem, but it may help alleviate lesser glitching (as they were at random intervals and I don't know how widespread yet).

Hopefully I can salvage the edit by cutting around these issues, but it was a fast shoot and we only got a couple takes of certain scenes / coverage.

As Shane said, this is a good reason to pay for a pro consult, but my bigger concern right now is overcoming this hurdle - and yet another reason I'm behind the tapeless workflows (though I know they have their own issues to contend with).

Best,
~Chris

Wow...bad stock! I have had that issue before. GRAY MARKET stock was sold to us (wondered why I got such a good deal) and it had sat in moist storage on a boat as it was shipped to the U.S. That is a very long story from back in the day when I was Tape Vault Manager at America's Funniest Home Videos...so I won't go into it other than to say it was BAD.

Terry is a good guy...you picked the right guys to go to. Good job. Sorry they couldn't help you. Not much to be done when the stock is bad.

Sorry man.


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Thanks Shane. Somehow the format conversion to 720p/60p improves the problem. (We tried all kinds of esoteric tests like running it with an HD legalizer, etc.) Fingers crossed, but I really feel bad for one of my producing partners as this is his first project and this is all new to him.

My DP's confidence is shaken as well. All of our stock was from the same batch going by the codes. Just awful, and the guy at the camera rental house said that Sony's answer is just to hand you some new tapes!

~Chris

Hi Shane

No documentary is for TV and promotions for the larger project which is an Imax film. First release will be in North America and then in Europe. I was not asked prior to the shoot or else I think I would have asked him to shoot 23.98fps. But he shot in 24fps and I thought it best to capture and edit in 24fps. Would Coinema Tools be the best way to convert 24fps footage to 23.98fps.

Tom

Not sure. You are treading water that I haven't had to tread.

You'll have to do all of the exploring and testing and report back to us. I am busy with other things.


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Hey Chris - did you have any insurance on that job? You can sometimes make a claim on tape damage or bad stock and get enough money to redo the entire shoot.

Tom wrote:
No documentary is for TV and promotions for the larger project which is an Imax film. First release will be in North America and then in Europe. I was not asked prior to the shoot or else I think I would have asked him to shoot 23.98fps. But he shot in 24fps and I thought it best to capture and edit in 24fps. Would Coinema Tools be the best way to convert 24fps footage to 23.98fps.

Tom,

We are working on a feature doc shot on F900's. Our project is 23.98 because it is so compatible with every kind of output. Problem is some DP's shot pure 24p and 25p. Bummer.

The post house in Burbank called Filmlook had the highest end HDCAM SR unit and that deck can change that footage, on the fly, to perfect 23.98. They can do the capture or dub new masters. Works great.

23.98 is nice because it translates to everything easily (NTSC, PAL, web, DVD, film)

-Christopher

Hi Jude,

We checked and for film it's a $0 deductible and for video it's $5,000! What does that tell us?

I captured 8 of the 11 tapes today and so far believe I'll be able to salvage the edit. One tape was really bad all the way through, and I think I'll probably eek through to the frame on some shots to make it work; definitely a tense day.

Best,
~C