For Farss / anyone else interested in commenting

Darren Powell wrote on 1/1/2009, 1:46 PM

Hi Bob,

Really amazed that Vegas is still having major issues ... you know the hell run I've had over the last 12 months ... and people are still reporting render problems in 8.0c and low memory errors in 8.1 ... unbelievable really after so many years of rock solid performance from Vegas ... anyway ...

I'm gearing up to shoot my new film now that Robbert's project is pretty much done and dusted (apart from the Blu-Ray authoring which I'm preparing for now ...)

So, here's my question if you would take the time to consider it:

I'm curious to know what your ideal shoot / edit / output workflow would be if budget wasn't an issue.

1. Acquisition ... 1080p? 2K? 4K? what type of camera / lens setup would you go for?
2. Post ... I'll still be bashing my head against the Vegas brick wall for this next one in 64bit ... so how realisitic is 1080p, 2K and 4K stuff ... does the Red 4k stuff integrate into Vegas at all ... or is it so tightly integrated into FCP that those formats are simply not an option for Vegas... I'm really not that interested in learning FCP or trying to make it work considering the years I've invested in Vegas.
How stable is your Decklink card ...? the SDI could be good depending on the type of acquistion and the HDMI monitoring looks nice ... does the hardware acceleration mean you get nice full res smooth previews out of Vegas when using a Decklink card... ?
3. Delivery ... I've had quite a bit of success burning and watching Blu-ray from DVDA ... it looks good even at 720p ... so I'll be mastering out to that I guess ... any thoughts ... ?

Your comments (and those of other guru's here) are appreciated as usual!

Cheers,

Darren Powell
Sydney Australia

Comments

farss wrote on 1/1/2009, 2:14 PM

1) As we own a SI-2K that'd be my obvious choice. Looks more filmic than RED for my money and since Slumdog there's finally some real interest in this camera. You really should start using cine glass. Can do you a good deal on camera, but lenses, sorry a set of Digiprimes aren't cheap per day and nor is the good glass for the RED either. Could get you a good deal on a set of Elite primes.

2) Forget Vegas for either SI-2K or RED. Thanks to Cineform both work in FCP but Ppro / AE is still better for SI-2K as FCP doesn't do active metadata. I'd still use Vegas for mixing audio, hard to beat for that.

3) Depends what you want really. DPX is the industry standard for a final master. Best advice from the gurus. Factor in doing two grades, one for cinema and one for broadcast / DVD release, depends on if you're serious about a 35mm print or not. I've been hearing really good reports about the Baselight system. What you see is really what you get on the screen from the print.

Everything depends on what your budget is and how important image quality is. If you're only thinking small arthouse cinema screens 720p is about as good as a 35mm release print on those sized screens with eCinema projection. With 2K dCinema projection / BD every pixel counts. Set construction, props and CGI have to be up to it, costs can go through the roof.

Bob.

Darren Powell wrote on 1/1/2009, 2:31 PM

Thanks Bob,

I'll speak to you about this in more detail soon ... interested in your 2K option.

Cheers,

D.