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Working with DVD source material
Posted by Nick Baer
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Re: Working with DVD source material January 14, 2009 11:21AM |
I think it's less a case of being "a slave to parochial convention" than it is a case of "Wow, you're really treating your footage like @#$%&. Don't you love your footage? What did your footage ever do to you?"
As film-and-television professionals, it's our responsibility to be aware of things like the fact that going from DV to DVD imposes a chroma subsampling conversion that severely degrades the footage. It's our responsibility to know just what each format conversion step in the pipeline does ? like what it actually does to the footage, technically, and what we're losing in that step. And it's our responsibility to incorporate as few "this degrades my footage" steps in the pipeline as we can get away with. That's what separates people who do this for a living from youtubers.
When somebody gives you workflow advice, they're trying to help by sharing their knowledge of the craft. That kind of sharing helps both the giver and the recipient, because the recipient learns something, and the sharer gives somebody even smarter and more experienced an opportunity to step up and say "Well, actually."
Cowering behind high language about "democratized media" counts only up to the point where somebody looks at your product and says, "Wow, that really looks like ass."
As film-and-television professionals, it's our responsibility to be aware of things like the fact that going from DV to DVD imposes a chroma subsampling conversion that severely degrades the footage. It's our responsibility to know just what each format conversion step in the pipeline does ? like what it actually does to the footage, technically, and what we're losing in that step. And it's our responsibility to incorporate as few "this degrades my footage" steps in the pipeline as we can get away with. That's what separates people who do this for a living from youtubers.
When somebody gives you workflow advice, they're trying to help by sharing their knowledge of the craft. That kind of sharing helps both the giver and the recipient, because the recipient learns something, and the sharer gives somebody even smarter and more experienced an opportunity to step up and say "Well, actually."
Cowering behind high language about "democratized media" counts only up to the point where somebody looks at your product and says, "Wow, that really looks like ass."
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Re: Working with DVD source material January 14, 2009 11:37AM |
It's not elitism, man. It's professional experience. It's not "you must do this." It's "this is better and here's why." But hey, whatever works for you. If you want all your shots to come out looking they were filmed with a piece of muslin over the lens, go nuts.
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Re: Working with DVD source material January 14, 2009 11:42AM |
I'm inclined to agree with Jeff Harrell here.
The fact is that going through video DVD is an unnecessary step here.
As for "democratized media", would you want your car mechanic to be a self-taught person who doesn't know the danger of smoking a cigarette near your gas tank, or would you want a meticulous, experienced professional who doesn't cut corners? Why should audio/visuals be any different?
I self-taught music recording, producing and arrangement, and there are times when I do say, "I don't have this equipment or that equipment and I can't do this or that". But if an experienced audio engineer were to tell me "This can improve your sound quality without buying $20,000 worth of equipment", it'd be foolish of me not to listen. And there's also the fact that in this case I'm the end client.
If burning to video DVD produces quality you're happy with, so be it...and if your clients are happy, so be it. Just know that if the client takes the same footage to someone who properly processes it, and you do a side-by-side comparison, your video quality will get creamed and you'll lose the client.
Some technical gaffes can be compensated for by creativity and concepts, but the fact is, if you have the creativity and concepts, why settle for a third-rate workflow that automatically puts you at a disadvantage? And why be so obsessed about speed that quality goes down the drain? If your post-production schedules don't even allow for proper copying/conversion/capture of footage, then your schedules are the problem, not the work protocol.
www.derekmok.com
The fact is that going through video DVD is an unnecessary step here.
As for "democratized media", would you want your car mechanic to be a self-taught person who doesn't know the danger of smoking a cigarette near your gas tank, or would you want a meticulous, experienced professional who doesn't cut corners? Why should audio/visuals be any different?
I self-taught music recording, producing and arrangement, and there are times when I do say, "I don't have this equipment or that equipment and I can't do this or that". But if an experienced audio engineer were to tell me "This can improve your sound quality without buying $20,000 worth of equipment", it'd be foolish of me not to listen. And there's also the fact that in this case I'm the end client.
If burning to video DVD produces quality you're happy with, so be it...and if your clients are happy, so be it. Just know that if the client takes the same footage to someone who properly processes it, and you do a side-by-side comparison, your video quality will get creamed and you'll lose the client.
Some technical gaffes can be compensated for by creativity and concepts, but the fact is, if you have the creativity and concepts, why settle for a third-rate workflow that automatically puts you at a disadvantage? And why be so obsessed about speed that quality goes down the drain? If your post-production schedules don't even allow for proper copying/conversion/capture of footage, then your schedules are the problem, not the work protocol.
www.derekmok.com
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Re: Working with DVD source material January 14, 2009 12:16PM |
Sorry to hear you say that, Nick. But that's democracy. We're not going to censor you -- say, remove your posting because we disagree with it. But three of us at least are disagreeing with you and we're going to have our say. And if somebody else feels your work method is great and s/he would recommend it and implement it, by all means feel free to say it in here as well.
This is, at the end of it, a troubleshooting forum. For my purposes (I shoot DV -- because I'm not known primarily as a shooter), if I were to work with another editor who ran my DV tapes through a video DVD and then gave me back clips that have lost two digital generations, just because he "didn't have time" to capture those tapes properly, and if he never got my approval for using this approach, I'd stop working with this editor. To me that would have been a step in his workflow that qualified as "trouble" and needed to be improved if this editor were to do any of my projects again.
www.derekmok.com
This is, at the end of it, a troubleshooting forum. For my purposes (I shoot DV -- because I'm not known primarily as a shooter), if I were to work with another editor who ran my DV tapes through a video DVD and then gave me back clips that have lost two digital generations, just because he "didn't have time" to capture those tapes properly, and if he never got my approval for using this approach, I'd stop working with this editor. To me that would have been a step in his workflow that qualified as "trouble" and needed to be improved if this editor were to do any of my projects again.
www.derekmok.com
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