DVCPRO HD -> Beta SP - best practice?

hi all,

ok, i've finished my first DVCPRO HD clip - very happy with the results. Now to get it to broadcast!

I don't have access to a betaSP deck, so I'll have to go to a dub house at some stage. Its currently sitting in my timeline in FCP - what is the best way of preparing it for transfer to betaSP?

The only thing I have with me is my HDV/DV Canon camera - do I just down-res to DV and give it to them on that? Or quicktime file? I can't get past the girl on the front desk at the only dub house I know of in town.

If it matters, this is the format its in at the moment in FCP 6.0.2 :-



Oh, and for those who don't know, I'm an Aussie, so it should be PAL - though now I think about it, it was shot by an American so it might be NTSC/American format cam. Hope that's not too much of a trauma!

Any advice surely will be appreciated.

jus.

Find a post facility that has FCP and a capture card and can do the output, then export a self contained Quicktime file using the sequence settings. They should import the clip, then using the capture card, output it to betaSP, downconverting on the fly as they do so. THis will be letterboxed, or not...depending on what you want.


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OK, so none of the post houses in my city (supposedly a film captial!) want to deal with me and my DVCPRO HD project. Funny.

The only one that I felt understood what I was trying to do told me to output to miniDV and they'll deal with that.

Is that the best way for me to deal with this? I can't possibly see that going from HD -> miniDV -> SP Beta is better than going HD -> SP Beta?


Anyone here want to make some cash? I can FTP the file (it will be a 1 gig file I guess) and send the tape to me in Oz? Surely I shouldn't have to do that?

Jude/Nick? Any ideas?

Oh, and ideally I need this sorted by the end of this week. Sigh.

Are you for real Jus? No one can go DVCPRO to SP? If Nick can't suggest anything closer to you I'll take it to a post house here for you - or maybe you can just ship it to them. Gonna cost quite a bit to get it done over here though, to get it back to you inside a week.

For real in that I made 6 phone calls, and only one gave me a potential solution, 5 didn't want to know. In the past I've actually sent post stuff to Perth for BetaSP cause its been cheaper than Melbourne (including express post at both ends) and had it back in a week.

So yeah, if you have someone who will ACTUALLY TELL ME THE BEST WAY TO DO IT (sorry, a little frustrated here) at my end, I'll have it in a postpak tomorrow, EFT cash, etc etc.

Maybe Melbourne is SUCH a film town they don't care about the (vaguely) little guy now? I've definitely added a few places to my black list now though.

Weird. OK. Try Location Equipment here in Perth. I know they have a good FCP setup, a pretty cluey operator and I just hired a SP deck off them a few weeks ago, which was in good nick.

Here's the website [www.locationequipment.com]. Call me or email me if you need any help with it. If it's small maybe you can ftp it to them. Not sure if they do that, but it would be a lot quicker.

And, yeah the best way to do it is as Shane said. Just export a quicktime movie using current settings (not a quicktime conversion) and give them that file.

Dave Henshaw is the front of house guy.

Thanks Jude. Just sent an email - I'm onto it.
G'night.

How did you go Jus? Should I recommend them for this kind of work in the future?

Hey Jude,

Your contact rang me back (I emailled him Sunday night) mid afternoon Monday (EST, so AM WST I guess), but I missed the call, because I was at ACMI on the QT doing it myself with their FCP/Beta SP setup!

So it cost me an hour of my life, and a tape.

He did return my email with a phone call, but I didn't get any further than that! Sorry, its been a mad week.

JR.

Oh cool. Glad it worked out. Is Richard Sowada still running ACMI? That guy is such an inspiration.