Exporting HD footage as an uncompressed Quicktime for Tape Transfer

Hello,

I am at the point where I actually need to get the film out of the computer to a post house to color correct it. The place I called recommended that I make a quicktime and if I could do to it black magic uncompressed. When I tried an experiment (selecting black magic 10 bit) it said that the image was medium which is lower (right) then highest when using the setting for "None" in apple quicktime.

There is no slider bar to change. It just goes to a flat, grey screen. Medium is all I get. Am I doing something wrong? Or is Black magic's medium the same as quicktime's Highest. and is one better than the other? Should I just stick with what I know?

Thanks,
Carole

Just mark an in and an out in your timeline, go to export>quicktime conversion and select Blackmagic 10 Bit Uncompressed. Beyond that there are no adjustments available, nor are any necessary. Be sure to enter the size manually i.e. choose size>custom and enter your format. Give it a name and export. Pop the exported movie open in QuickTime player and use window>movie inspector to display the exported files settings and check them before sending it out to post.

The medium and best names are just QuickTime assumptions of what the export quality is. They have no measurable or adjustable meaning otherwise. You can ignore them. Blackmagic 10Bit is excellent quality.

hth,
Clay

Thanks Clay, Yes that does help!

One other question. I understand that Black Magic is an actual video card. But they have a codec as well that can be used without the video card.

Does the video compression Codec work as well without the video card?

Carole

The Blackmagic Uncompressed codecs were created by Blackmagic in a time before Apple had any uncompressed codecs.

You must have a Blackmagic card installed in your system before you can see this option. No, I don't think it runs without a Blackmagic card installed, as the installation also includes the codec.

Export QT conversion? Frankly, i just don't trust it. Does it rerender off the already rendered file? You should pop the final edit into a sequence set at your export quality, switch all render settings to YUV high precision, render and do a QT export.

"Export QT conversion? Frankly, i just don't trust it. Does it rerender off the already rendered file? You should pop the final edit into a sequence set at your export quality, switch all render settings to YUV high precision, render and do a QT export."

Hello, and thanks for the response. I'm a little confused.
I see where I can change the settings to go for YUV but it does warn that there may be intense color shifts.
What would the benefit be of using the YUV option to export. I found the Blackmagic codec and downloaded it for free from the blackmagic website
[www.blackmagic-design.com] It showed up on my quicktime options,

but I just wasn't too sure it was useful without the card.

Could you explain a little more about the YUV option you mentioned, or point me to something I can read about it? Thanks so much for your help.

Carole

You have a few kinds of color space, 2 of them are 'YUV' and 'RGB'. RGB is additive, where at max amount on each meter, creates white, equal amounts on all meters create various shades of grey. YUV is essentially what we use for video. In the digital world, YUV (or officially YCrCb) consists of 1 luma channel and 2 color difference channels. Transferring between these two could produce a Gamma shift, but if the video was shot on a YUV codec with superwhites, working in YUV space will preserve superwhites. You only convert to an RGB codec (aka Animation) for roundtrip work in an RGB processing software (After Effects).

I would assume you're editing traditional video (YCrCb formats). So you render in YCrCb and export 10 bit uncompressed (either Apple Uncompressed or Blackmagic). There is no difference and the luma/chroma mappings are largely similar.

What I would do, is to pop in the sequence into an uncompressed timeline (i usually use the 10 bit Apple one), and set render properties to 10 bit high precision YUV rendering, render, and preview it for any mishaps like gamma shifts/field tearing, etc... Then export a self contained QT movie under current options. That way, the video doesn't go through the QT conversion engine.

Export QT Conversion: no difference than dropping your sequence in a Blackmagic timeline and renedering that out. Same deal, it requires a render.

Using QT conversion will place your timeline in a QT wrapper as opposed to a FCP wrapper when exported without conversion. The latter can in some cases be unreadable for external post facilities, especially if they're on Windows. I'd ask them first.

YUV render settings: whether or not you'll notice any difference depends largely on what format your original timeline is, and if you've done any extensive compositing or color correction. Since you're sending your sequence to a post house for cc as opposed to doing it yourself, it's not going to matter, they can adjust for any slight shifts if required. The color and luminosity depth in 10 Bit allows that easily.

Clay

>Export QT Conversion: no difference than dropping your sequence in a Blackmagic timeline and
>renedering that out. Same deal, it requires a render.

Supposedly same deal, different butter. Ashtrays run better pussycats... Okay. I've never seen a QT conversion that I'm happy with. QT pro, Compressor compresses H.264 sooo much better and cleaner than QT conversion. Different engine. And from what I recall, QT conversion compresses off the render files, which is an automatic generation loss. No kiddin' QT conversion is cool, fast. I use that when I'm short of time but NEVER for final output. Render in uncompressed timeline, watch it once for problems, presto, deliver, we're all smiles.

>Using QT conversion will place your timeline in a QT wrapper as opposed to a FCP wrapper
>when exported without conversion. The latter can in some cases be unreadable for external
>post facilities, especially if they're on Windows. I'd ask them first.

I don't recall there being a difference between the two. FCP is a QT editor. Possibly the difference is a flag. If you select "always open with" QT player, basically, the icon changes to a QT icon. Can't tell the difference in a Mac.

>YUV render settings: whether or not you'll notice any difference depends largely on what
>format your original timeline is, and if you've done any extensive compositing or color
>correction. Since you're sending your sequence to a post house for cc as opposed to doing it
>yourself, it's not going to matter, they can adjust for any slight shifts if required.

1. Rendering in 8 bit YUV results in 20% of rounding errors when compared to 10 bit. Not so cool for stacked effects.
2. Of course, if the sequence was set to DV or lower quality, the difference would be noticeable. Double compression always looks worse in lower quality.
3. Post houses cannot undo rounding errors. I've had clients request to "color" shots when they are horribly pixelated. I tell them they are out of their minds if they think that color= depixelating.
4. Exporting to an RGB codec from a YUV codec automatically clips superwhite values. You can't "Unclip" anything in post (neither audio nor video), you can do a repair job (introduce a gradient), but you can't get back superwhites. I expect the same results with RGB rendering.

Strypes,

Some good points raised. A few thoughts:

Like I said, it depends on what the original timeline is. Generally speaking, a QT Conversion export will produce very good results. I oftentimes also drop sequences into an uncompressed timeline for final titling and certainly for cc, and play out to file from there. Getting back to the original post though, the project's going straight to cc in a very good codec, so I'd doubt there would be any noticeable or measurable difference. The easy way to make sure would be to just run a test.

The QuickTime vs. FCP Movie icon wrapper is of course not an issue within the Mac world. However, I've had numerous experiences with external facilites not being able to open our FCP QT's when they're running windows-based software. There it does make a difference. Hence the suggestion to give the guys a call and make sure.

YUV settings: like we both said, there's a lot of variables here, including what camera was used, what the original timeline format is, if any composting or titling or cc has been applied, if there are any imported graphics, and if we're talking delivery for broadcast or not.

Carole, if can you tell us what the original timeline format is, and roughly what if any effects work has been done, we can give you a straighter answer.

Clay

Hello,

I hope I give you the correct information
Its 960x720 HD
DVCPRO HD 720p60
editing timebase 23.98
Video Processing is Render in 8-bit YUV


Let me know if I have left anything off.

thanks again, folks,
Carole

>The QuickTime vs. FCP Movie icon wrapper is of course not an issue within the Mac world.
>However, I've had numerous experiences with external facilites not being able to open our FCP
>QT's when they're running windows-based software. There it does make a difference.

There should be some Apple documentation on this. I've personally never encountered this one. Most incompatibility issues are a result of codecs.

>YUV settings: like we both said, there's a lot of variables here, including what camera was used,
>what the original timeline format is, if any composting or titling or cc has been applied, if there
>are any imported graphics, and if we're talking delivery for broadcast or not.

ditzydame's sending the footage for color correction, so she needs to make sure that nothing is clipped going out.

Lol. I was actually wondering about the pixel aspect ratio differences for a conversion from DvcProHD to Uncompressed. I believe the sequence should be set to Blackmagic HDTV 720 1280x720, since leaving it at 960x720 might confuse some systems.

Basically, you drop the timeline into a Blackmagic HDTV 720 timeline, hit sequence settings (apple 0), select High Precision YUV rendering and switch the Motion Filtering quality to best. Render out and export a self contained movie file.

Hmmm.
I am now trying to apply what I have sorted out from your posts-- thanks guys for your help
I've made a timeline at uncompressed NTSC 10 bit sized to 960x720 with the YUV settings on best-- why does it require a render? I thought render was bad. When I drop it into a HDVCpro 720p24--which it was shot in, it does not require a render.

Also, what do you mean by export from final cut pro? I seem to have two options-Compressor and export using quicktime conversion. Do you mean the option that says just plain quicktime?

Thanks again for your help.

oh-- and another thing-- when I exported using the Quicktime option (not Quicktime conversion) even though the timeline setting was at 960x720, the exported frame size turned out to be 1280x720

Huwah?

I can't seem to find anyplace beyond the settings of the timeline to constrain the frame size

Nope. You'll need a render when you're switching codecs. Rendering decompresses your footage for accurate calculation (footage is decompressed to 4:4:4 YUV 10bit and rendered in uncompressed data, filter by filter, before being recompressed back to your sequence codec), and since your final codec is Uncompressed, it won't be recompressing.

One thing, though. If I were you, I'd use 1280x720 as it is a HD resolution. 960x720 is a size unique to Dvcpro HD, the online machine might misinterpret the frame size.

Okay-- thanks. So I have a question now--

I have several scenes I need to put a filter on in AE, should I have done this to them?
What I had done was exported them from the 960x720 timeline with the regular 8 bit YUV with compression set at NONE from export as quicktime conversion.

(I did the same with a compositing shot, and tracking motion shot as well)

I've never worked with the "none" setting before. I'm not sure if that works well with AE. File sizes are huge! Usually my roundtrip workflow to AE is to color correct it so the whites and chroma will not clip, then export as Animation (via Compressor). The only issue being the YUV-RGB conversion which is pretty accurate, but a little greenish.

The issue of clipping whites seem to have been addressed on intel machines:
[www.fxguide.com]

Should check with Grafixjoe on this one as the AE machines around me run on PCs.

Frame size, I believe should be set to 1280x720 as AE will read that as a normal HD file (the dvcpro HD pixel size and ratio is unique to itself).

In short, if you can, export Uncompressed at 1280x720.