Starting Feature, want to cut HD

After an good experience cutting HD on an HBO series, I want to cut HD on a feature I'm starting next month. Shot on 35mm, I assume dailies will be transferred to HDCam. What format should I ask for dailies on? HDV? It seems that HDCam deck would be too expensive to rent, whereas we could buy and HDV deck pretty easily at have it for the whole show. I was planning to use the CalDigit firewire 800 drives, which worked great on the last show, although that was only 720p and I'm sure we'll work at 1080p for this film. Do I need to move up to eSata? Or should I just buy a bunch of internal drives. It'll all be brand new equipment, so we'll end up with an 8 core MacPro and Aja capture card, probably the most basic because it's a film finish.

Thanks in advance for the help!

If I remember correctly, I think "Zodiac" was shot on the Viper and cut in DVCPRO HD. I wouldn't recommend HDV for this, first of all because it's hard to imagine Company 3 or whomever wiring one of their telecines up to an HDV deck. But beyond that, DVCPRO HD is a much easier format to cut in Final Cut than HDV is. And since the resolution literally doesn't matter for your offline, DVCPRO HD's 1280x1080 won't be a problem.

I think the deciding factor is gonna be what tape format your transfer house can give you after the one-light. If they can give you DVCPRO HD, great; you can capture over Firewire. If they're going to give you HDCAM, then you'll have to rent a deck and decide whether to capture as DVCPRO HD over SDI or whether to just grab it all in ProRes or what. (ProRes 422 requires something like half again as much storage as DVCPRO HD.)

DVCPRO HD is the good offline codec. I would have them telecine to HDCAM SR though...if you can afford it. 4:2:2 compression vs HDCAM 3:1:1. Heck, even D5 is better. But, if you go with HDCAM, then don't get dubs. That would be more expensive than renting the JH-3 HDCAM PLAYER. And with a capture card, you can capture the footage as DVCPRO HD.

Not saying that HDCAM is bad, but HDCAM SR is better.


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There's a few important questions that need to be answered first. You say this project will have a film finish, by which I assume you mean cutting negative, no DI. So then question is why do you want to cut in HD? The reason I like to cut features in HD is solely so that we can have temp screenings in a theater on a decent sized screen. In that case, you don't really need to telecine to HDCAM, which is expensive and probably overkill for that need. And as Shane said, HCAMSR is even more expensive, and would ONLY be needed for a DI.

The easiest solution, if possible, is to have the telecine house go straight to Quicktime HD files. ProRes or DVCPRO would both be good choices. The telecine charges will be a bit higher, but won't need to spend money on a video deck, and you'll save time. If you won't need to output anything to tape, then you can stay with a totally tapeless workflow. I did this on my last feature, shot on a Viper, and I loved working this way.

If you need to got to tape, then do NOT use HDV, XDCAM or any other "long GOP" format. These are capturing formats, as far as I'm concerned, and not suitable for long form editing. I'm not even sure you can get an accurate film key number list with these formats. Personally, I'd stick with DVCPRO HD, but if you've got the dough, go with HDCAM.

It really depends on your budget, and what you want to be able to do with your HD dailies.

Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, the reason for HD is for preview purposes. I think DVCPROHD is certainly sufficient for that and is easy to cut with. And I'm going to look into telecine to QT, which could save a ton of money on a deck.

You guys are incredibly helpful! Thanks.

"I'm going to look into telecine to QT, which could save a ton of money on a deck. "

just make sure you have a rock-solid back-up/archive of your files if you go that way.


nick

> wiring one of their telecines up to an HDV deck

That's a interesting thought! Nah... forget HDV.. Dvcpro HD is much better as an offline format as well as a codec (HDCAM, HDCAM SR, all good). For offline codecs, you need to have a reliable spatially compressed codec, which you can't on HDV.

> I was planning to use the CalDigit firewire 800 drives

I've used a FW800 interface for DvcproHD 720p as well. Seems slightly laggier than eSATA, though you can probably use it on 1080. However an eSATA or SCSI RAID would probably be what you'll want to look at as they have better sustained data transfer rates.



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