HD Delivery

Hello everyone,

I am in a bit of a quandary and was wondering if anyone out there would be kind enough to offer some advice.

A director wants to hire me to edit/deliver HD footage and I really need to make it happen. He is signed with The Getty for stills and motion. Shooting on a brand new Panasonic AG-HVX 205A to P2 which I bought with my rent?took a big leap of faith?stress level now at 11.

Editing on: Dual 2.3 GHz Power PC G5
10.5 GB DDR2 SDRAM with NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256 VRAM

Final Cut Studio 2 6.0.4

The delivery requirements call for Pixel dimensions of 1920 x 1080 @ 1080 lines of resolution or 1280 x 720 Pixel dimensions @ 720 lines of resolution.

Frame rates of 23.98, 24 fps, Frame composition ? progressive frames
Other/interlaced 1080 60i, (not preferred)

File format: Quick Time movie.

Video codec accepted is 10 bit or 8 bit uncompressed 4:2:2 and P2 is acceptable for media format. Or apple ProRes 422 (HQ)

Totally new to HD; I have been doing some tests e.g. DVCPRO HD 720p60 editing etc., then exporting 10 bit uncompressed doing a Quick Time conversion, increasing the Pixel dimensions to meet the requirements?but does not play smoothly in FC or QT; but when I scrub by frame it looks good?hoping sluggish playback is just a video card issue.

Any workflow suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Best,
John

John-

Uncompressed HD is a LOT of data. You don't mention what sort of drives you are using on your system. Without several drives Raided together you may not have the bandwidth to move uncompressed frames.

Can you try playing out on another system to test?

-Vance

Go to Prores (HQ) 23.98 FPS instead of uncompressed. That might be ok for your G5. May not... your system sounds a bit old for this kind of HD editing and mastering as far as playback without dropping frames.

Yeah edit DVCPROHD and then export the final as ProRes- which requires a fast hard drive HD. You can also create an H.264 1080p viewing copy that will look and play great. This DVD can definitely be your friend:

[www.callboxlive.com]

Noah

Final Cut Studio Training, featuring the HVX200, EX1, EX3, DVX100, DVDSP and Color at [www.callboxlive.com]!
Author, RED: The Ultimate Guide to Using the Revolutionary Camera available now at: [www.amazon.com].
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Go to Prores (HQ) 23.98 FPS instead of uncompressed. That might be ok for your G5.

Its unlikely that it will work capturing directly to ProRes as you are not on an Intel Mac John.

You might however be able to digitise as DVCproHD and Master to PR.

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your system sounds a bit old for this kind of HD editing and mastering as far as playback without dropping frames.

Not true. You COULD digitise Uncompressed 10bit HD if you had a RAID that was fast enough plugged into your system.

ProRes however is a problem due to the amount of Processing it needs on encoding.

I have a Dual 2Ghz G5 which can digitise 10bit 1920x1080i50 with no issues. I have an 8 Channel SATA II RAID attached which runs at about 500MBps.

It will not however capture ProRes properly and will drop frames on capture.



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Sorry forgot to add this: [support.apple.com]

Go uncompressed if you can afford a fast RAID.

Otherwise as you said yourself - cut all DVCproHD then export ProRes HQ.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

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DVCPRO HD 720p60 editing etc., then exporting 10 bit uncompressed doing a Quick Time conversion,

you are doing exactly what i do and ive never had any problems... what kind of hard drve are you working off of?

Hi Wayne,

Thanks for your reply,

Was so excited to test did not realize that I was sending files to an external maxtor 800 firewire...that was dumb. Am trying to internal drive right away. Very encouraged to hear that i am attempting to do exactly what you do without problems.

Will have to upgrade my internal drive.

What internal drive do you suggest?

Again, many thanks.

Best,
John

Hi Vance,

Thanks for your reply.

No dough for a new system...yet. But may be able to put a raid system together.

What do you suggest?

Again, many thanks.

Best,
John

I think, bang for the buck, an esata solution would be your best bet. There are endless threads on this forum about external raids. Do a search and see what the locals are recommending theses days.

For my personal system I bought a mount that fits a couple of extra drives inside my G5 Quad. With that I am able to RAID 3 drives together which would give me the speed to work uncompressed if I need too. Personally I prefer to work in Pro Res, but that isn't an option on your system now.

I bought the kit from Granite Digital. In a recent discussion about this Shane Ross pointed me to his solution:

[lfhd.blogspot.com]

I have to say on a per dollar spent basis you can't do better than this!

-V

Thanks so much Vance.

Best,
jj

Hi Noah,

Looks like a cool DVD and thank you for the viewing copy tip.

Looks like PRO RES renders out at the source media parameters...and the HVX CCD's evidently capture @ 1920 x 1080 BUT down convert to 1280 x 1080 onto P2.

So that route won't meet the pixel dimension delivery requirements of 1920 x 1080.

Hoping to edit in DVCPRO HD and render out the master as 10 bit uncompressed with the increased pixel dimensions.

Best,
jj

Hi Ben,

I cannot tell you how happy it made me to read that you have successfully captured 10 bit 1920 x 1080i 50 uncompressed on a similar machine because i imagine that capturing is more processor/workstation intensive then rendering out.

As long as I can render out my DVCPRO HD timeline, either 1080i 60 fps or 720p 24 fps issue free as 10 or 8 bit uncompressed Quick time Conversion @ 1920 x 1080 pixels or 1260 x 720 I will be good to go.

Thanks!

Best,
John

>So that route won't meet the pixel dimension delivery requirements of 1920 x 1080.

The HVX does NOT capture 1920x1080. The CCDs have a resolution of 960x540 pixels which is then uprezzed to 1920x1080 via pixel offset. Then it is compressed to the codec you select.

You need to check with your broadcaster if your camera meets delivery requirements for HD.



www.strypesinpost.com

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because i imagine that capturing is more processor/workstation intensive then rendering out.

Sort of - its not that it is more intensive per se - more that it requires that it be fast enough to do realtime and alas the Dual G5s aren't quite up to speed with ProRes even with my RAID the 2.5GHz G5 Quads are though.

Also, everyone thinks uncompressed is intensive - in fact its one of the least processor intensive as for the processors it more like just shifting the data around rather than compressing/decompressing on-the-fly which IS intensive.

The downside to Uncompressed is the "data-wrangling" involved requires fast HDDs and fast memory and fast system bus. Higher Bandwidth yes, but not so much processor speed.

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You need to check with your broadcaster if your camera meets delivery requirements for HD.

Yes do this urgently as you might need to upscale using a plugin or with compressor that will take a long time to do so you will need to build this into your time in output.

However they might be fine with the HVX - if they're not sure - you could send them a couple of up-converted stills at 1920x1080 and ask for clearance before going on with something that ultimately might cause issues later.

I'm writing an article on delivery at the moment and will cover the finer points there so look out for that post NAB.



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Thanks again!

Look forward to that article.

Successfully exported 1920 x1080 uncompressed.

Getty accepts HVX.

So far so good.

Best,
John

Hey Strypes,

RE: The HVX does NOT capture 1920x1080. The CCDs have a resolution of 960x540 pixels which is then uprezzed to 1920x1080 via pixel offset. Then it is compressed to the codec you select.

Thanks for the correction. Absolutely right...sorry my bad, was weary when I read "even though each CCD has only 960?540 photosites. Internally the camera uses 1920?1080."

Never meant to mislead/inform...have foot in mouth...always a privilege to be surrounded by people more clever than oneself.

RE: You need to check with your broadcaster if your camera meets delivery requirements for HD.

Got an answer back today which is Yes, The Getty accepts the HVX as HD.

Thanks!

jj

Glad you got a go ahead JJ - let us know when your stuff is up and put a link to it on the news and announcements page.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]