PILE ON: Possible shortcut to DVCPRO-50 PC-Vegas solution.

xgenei wrote on 10/24/2004, 8:23 PM
(New thread from FX1 footage thread)

Mr. Farss:

Basically I have a DVHS deck (JVC DH-40000U), haven't had a chance to play with it yet, and I have an "HD" projector -- I've seen exactly one movie on it. I'm setting this stuff up for doing lectures up to about 300 people (eventually maybe -- I'm mainly into 5-15), and it has to be running in 30 days, or-else. Basically the DVHS is for archival recording and also for long streaming video taken off a camera -- don't care how (DV via direct firewire). But it's basically dedicated (compared to a PC) which makes it good.

The deck has all the latest circuitry from JVC to make "way better than DVD" HDTV recordings, and up and down conversions, it encodes and decodes HDTV or less component analog to and from MPEG-2, and it can also record DV from a PC or a DV cam via firewire.

Here's the strategy:

1) Shoot in ANY VHD or better source.

2) Output via HD component to 4-2-2 DVCPRO 50 format via a hardware PCI card that I HOPE exists out there (Storm, Matrox, or ?)

3) Leave this edit source material on hard drives (down to $.50 per gig for WD 7200) until a deck is available to offload & archive (more reliable than HD's). Requires a firewire equipped DVCPRO 50 deck or camcorder (the latter I don't know availability, the former is $10,000 +, or rented for the job).

4) Keep bulk raw footage on DVHS full size cassettes (80Gb capacity for $7.50)

As long as a-d and d-d and d-a signals are better than MPEG-2 to DV-AVI, with that being the permanent source.... In other words the DVHS video back and forth via component should be no worse than converting MPEG-2 from the FX1 to DV, and (I think) a WHOLE LOT BETTER thanks to the finer gamma and loss of resolution? (Sorry about all the question marks. I need affirmation.)

I am not at all familiar with what's available in PCI, and generic enough to use with Vegas. I am familiar I think with consumer USB 2.0 I/O stuff and top dollar firewire stuff -- (super $$$) and I think a PCI I/O solution to these requirements just might be available in the $500 range.

I think for a serious documentary beginner that might be a solution with a 2-year + future? Seems to me that could break the FCP/Apple monopoly on DVCPRO 50?

Mr. Farss? Does that sound cool?

X (JohnM)

Comments

farss wrote on 10/25/2004, 7:39 AM
Why worry about DVCPro 50? You can shoot on this very low cost HDV camera, edit in Vegas and render to WM9 HD. I saw WM9 encoded from a DI and playing out 1080p at 6Mb/sec and it looked stunning. You can fit an aweful lot of it onto a $1 DVD and get a half decent PC connected to a good projector via DVI for stunning video projection in a cinema.
It's so cheap I think it's being overlooked. It's early days for HDV, it'll never compete with HDCAM, no way. That's not to say you will not get a lot of bang for your bucks though.
If you are really stuck on DVCPro 50 then you can edit it in Vegas using the free Matrox codec. You need to use a 3rd party app for capture and PTT but that's hardly a show stopper.
But why not bypass as much of the tape stuff as possible. Bear in mind that WM9 is pretty close to mpeg-4 and that is the way of the future.
I do agree Apple and Panasonic are getting very close, maybe too close for the sake of both of them. Sony and uStuff have never been good friends and yet there products seem to fit well together. The Cineform codec is finally unleashing the power of the P4, maybe Intel haven't wasted all that silicon. And I should mention Intels new PCI-Express, Apple bet the farm on PCI-X and it's now pretty well dead as is AGP. PCI-E video cards have a massive pipeline for both uplink and downlink. I think in the next 12 months we're going to see some very interesting uses made of the power on the GPU chips now that it can be utilised.

Bob.
xgenei wrote on 10/26/2004, 2:16 AM
Ah! A a parallel universe! I'll do my best and you may be right but I am planning on a serious budget and serious work.

If I don't get the budget I will probably stay DV and keeping my video physically small but arty.

There's the general idea that MPEG-4 and WM9 and MPEG-2 are DELIVERY codecs, not shooting (image capture) or editing codecs, I think that's kind of unavoidable fact. Let me expand to an abstract "artist's" argument in favor of DVCPRO-50.

Stunning is good. But in the edit process, let's say that I want to produce music-video or something intensely edited, partially de-saturated, wide tonal range, motion, chroma key, glam looking? I'm really trying to replace super-16 in quality and enjoy modern advantages. I want no compression artifacts, no odd highlights, no gain noise, no edge effects. I also prefer to shoot in 4:3 and crop to 16x9. That's for composition, not for milking the last pixel. I also want zero optical distortion (except at extreme WA). If I want to change the look in the middle of a sequence I want that quality to survive the process and not suddenly look like it was shot on a different (cheap) camera.

The FX1 looks like a great 2nd-unit camera, dubb to DVCPRO/50, go to edit. I'm glad to hear this stuff is doable. Thanks for the info on the matrox codec. I also feel the need for a coprocessor board, Think any will work with Vegas?

-John
farss wrote on 10/26/2004, 3:23 AM
No co-processor board will work with Vegas however the Cineform codec for HDV uses the SSI instructions in the P4 chip to give RT playback I hear.
I don't for the life of me understand why you'd want to shoot 4:3 and then crop to 16:9, you're taking a huge hit on the resolution doing that! On the one hand you seem to be wanting to achieve one thing yet then want to go about it all the wrong way, sounds to me like a good way to blow a lot of bucks to produce the same result that could have been achieved for a quarter the cost.
You're right, all those formats are delivery formats although mpeg-4 would be good (well better than mpeg-2) as a capture format.
But you really need to start by understanding what you're shooting on, stunning results have been achieved on everything from lowly DV25 all the way to 70mm as have bloody horrid ones as well. The difference was how well the DOP understood the medium. Each has its own needs in terms of lighting, motion etc. Don't overlook filters, much can be done in front of the lens to make DV look much smoother.
I'll be honest and say I'm no great fan of DVCPRO anything, love all the Panny DV25 gear though. If you see another post of mine someone has written the code to downconvert HDV from 1080i to 720p but at the same time up the sampling, results may well be better than DVCPro 50.
Now if you're worried about motion artifacts I don't see why if you're used to shooting S16 at 24 fps, it's temporal resolution is woeful as is anything shot on film. HDV should perform very well as a replacement for S16 if you use the same shooting style. Well unless you're one of the wobbly tripod school of cameramen in which case why am I talking to you?
Of course why not stick to S16? Hone your craft on that, it'll teach you a lot I suspect, you'll get to see that even film has it's limitation that you have to adapt to.

Bob.
xgenei wrote on 10/26/2004, 3:08 PM
Hi Bob,

Well, I've mixed metaphores. I'm just listing advantages for a DOP's strategy that overrule a highly compressed medium and 16x9 prosumer format other than as an entree, special purpose, or budget 2nd camera. Sure film techniques for film look, but you have 60i available for MTV. Sure shoot 4x3 for maximum flexibility in composition -- and if you have a high quality signal you get a good looking 16x9 if that's what you want to reuse. If you are planning 16x9, then shoot in 16x9. If you always shoot in 16x9 and have to do graphics or multimedia and crop to 4x3 what happens to your composition? So I think natural 4x3 is strongly preferable for this use.

For budget around $50,000 super16 seems a diversion. The flexibility and 4X tone range of the Panasonic SDX900 DVCPRO-50 camera seems to preclude going that route. At that budget this looks like a best-choice, don't you think?

I am thinking for budget timing I can shoot now with HDV and edit to DV-50 for the trick stuff, archive those clips on hard drives, output projects to DV, render to whatever delivery needs. When I get the next level budget add the camera-lens at the then pricepoint, and a deck if that's still needed for I/O.

So I'm mainly interested in editing flexibility for the demanding stuff, and who knows -- everybody seems to have their opinions on if VV can or can't do DV50, but adding Apple and FCP, or a new Matrox DTV and Premiere, is what I need to decide. Naturally I need to look ahead to see what's coming with VV version 6 and the upscale Sony hardware.

Thanks for the wisdom helping me find direction.

-John