DVCPro 720p Data Rate in FCP very low

If it's a 24p clip- nope that's about right. Remember it's 100 Mbits for the full 60p so when you through away the redundant frames there is less data. Every frame gets the same amount.

Noah

Higher 24p data rates- such as? I've been hard pressed to see a better price/performance than the DVCPROHD setup.

Noah

I agree- if you have the $100,000 for an F950 + $80,000 for the HDCAM deck- more power to you.

John wrote:
>Nice to see you on the Varicam boards.
I lurk mostly

>Do you really think any of us who bought Varicams were deluded by marketing?
Any? yes for sure. Many? hmmm. You? absolutely not. ANd don't misunderstand me this is not a Panasonic issue, it's Sony, it's Thomson, it's everywhere.

>People dont lay out $65'000 without due diligence.

Of course they do I see it all the time. MANY people only do what others tell them or what they read in a brochure or meet with an uneducated uninvolved hack sales guy who shoves marketing crap down their throat. Remeber the difference between good marketing and good engineering is that no one ever has to explain about doing too good engineering!

>I was completely motivated by my clients. I do about four shoots a month with the Varicam and I have >had one call for the F900 in the last year. I dont choose the format, my clients do.

There you go! My number one rule is buy what your business will support. I recommend Varicam as a solution frequently when I believe it will serve a client's need and Band Pro doesn't sell it or make a dime.

>Ive noticed lately in your posts on various forums you have been raising your standards on what >qualifies as a good HD format. HDCam is no longer the benchmark for you in the way it was a year or >more ago. Sony also " upvalued what they got" with HDCam at least until SR came out.

John-Heck, HDV is a "GOOD" HD format but not a benchmark.. The Benchmark was HDCAM but that was then and now SR for a tape format and the F950 for cameras. When the Arri D20 arrives it will probably mark a few benches in my world. My job and my passion is to evangelize technology and the best tools, not to advocate a format. I think my worldwide reputation for promoting the DigiPrimes speaks to this.

>I think if you were to flatter us deluded Varicam owners a little more we might feel a greater urge to >see the value in buying some Digiprimes.

Deluded? where did you get that I just responded to a post about 24P HD DV being low data rates. It is, who's deluded? Besides you are all so talented and virile and have so much unexpressed talent that the urge for German glass will come eventually. You know what DigiPrimes are you want then so get em! (was that good?)

>I am by the way very happy with everything I have bought from you. At least while it is working :-)

As it should be my friend as it should be.


Hey my pet peve is folks who buy Corvettes and tell vereyone how it's as good or better than a Ferrari just because it's red. Business is all about when how and why we make compromises. I think if you choose a compromise you shouldn't be ashamed to own up to it nothing wrong with that. In my past I have bought over $2mil in gera and somnetimes I compromised and sometimes I didn't. Ask me about RECAM or BVW2 NEWSCAM or QUARTERCAM sometime.

Michael "likes great glass and high data rates" Bravin
Chief Technology Officer
Band Pro Film & DIgital

Noah wrote:
So are you saying that unless you have the very best it's pointless to spend your money and to tout what you can accomplish with the gear you "settle for"? Why stop at an F950? An IMAX camera blows it away. :)

No Noah you wrote this as your paraphrase of what I actually said. FYI an F950 is an HD camera and IMAX is a film format.

What I said is that I take issue with people compensating and justifying their compromises based on cost or size or weight or availability or 1000 other practical and necessary compromises folks make every day and then calling it something else. For example you will soon see many very accomplished W&EV shooters shoot HDV as a professional choice for their job. You will also see many F900 or 27V wanna bes shooting with an FX1 and calling it the better choice, this was my point.

Leo Tichelli is a friend and a client. He conciously chose the Varicam in a test with the F900. As far as I am concerned his work and professionalism speak for themselves and his kit costs less and has lower technical resolution (whatever THAT means) but Leo made a pro's choice and does pro work. I take NO issue with and respect highly, Leo. I have other clients who want to shoot Collateral II with no budget for gear and no clue and they buy a camera based on price just because someone on a list serve said it was better in the demodulation transfer coefficient which is meaningless; but really is all they could afford with the standard def lens which was more than they could afford and then saying it is actually better kit than the Viper and F900 used in Collateral.


Michael "let's call a spade a spade" Bravin
Chief Technology Officer
Band Pro Film & Digital

John.

I completely agree. Personally I am extremely happy with our VariCam, and we use it both for TV type stuff and for film type work. We have different workflows for different type of material.

From interbee: The new uncompressed VariCam support from BlackMagic that came out yesterday, we can record 10 bit 4:2:2 from the camera at something like 30 MB/sec (250 Mbps at 24fps) and have full slow motion control. On a small HD array I can have easily 10 hours of material. On a small FireWire disk several hours, as well. This, for me, extends the useful life of the camera for higher end production infintely, plus storage issues, which is my biggest gripe with Viper and even Kinetta and D20 when they arrive, become less of a hassle.

Obviously when we record to tape we have a great although compressed image, and a very flexible post workflow, which is close to perfect. I don't have to drag a big "portable" HDCAM SR recorder with me on the set, and the images are pretty good. We have mosquito noise reduction filters and some cool software that we use to clean up the image afterwards, and so far it's working beautifully.

Whenever I'm editing/grading material from the Vari and I see artifacts, I like to switch to a downconverted signal and just laugh at how beautiful my HD images are.

Plus, of course, the cost benefits are incredible compared to any other HD camera.

It's not always all about having the best possible image quality. If the rest of your process is flawed or awkward or overly expensive, then what's the point!

--rune

Michael wrote:
Can I surmize that if an F950 cost 35K and an SRW1 cost 12K and Final cut supported 4:4:4 in realtime on SATA off the shelf drives you'd choose the Varicam and it's workflow?

Michael
Turn it into a camcorder with 40w of power consumption and you have a deal.

Can you tell me if the new Sony S280 will allow me to make dubs to HDCam at 1080/60i from my AJ-HD1200a deck via SDI? What playback options does it have? This could be very appealling to Panasonic owners for the price.

Best
John

Hey Christoph, you raise a good point. I was VERY skeptical that the data rates in FCP were accurate, and if they were, I was VERY skeptical that files were not somehow compressed through FireWire capture. However, I tracked down some people at Apple that seem to know what they're talking about, and they assure me that DVCPROHD footage is captured 1:1 in FCP. The exact same 1s and 0s recorded on your DVCPROHD digital tape are taken over firewire into your computer. The footage in FCP is EXACTLY as it is on your tape. All the compression is built into the format itself. Since the VariCam runs at a (relatively) low data rate of 100 Mbps, that's where the compression happens - in the camera when it's recorded.

Over FireWire it gets even better because you get the 5.7 MBps data rate you were talking about at 24 fps. The VariCam always runs at 60 fps - no matter what. But, if you're set at 24 fps, there are only 24 unique frames each second - the other 36 are copies. The 24 unique frames get a flag put on them. When you capture over FireWire, FCP sees those flags, and knows to only capture the 24 frames you want each second, and throw away the other 36.

If you ever do undercrank or overcrank, though, don't be surprised to see your files capture at 15 MBps or so, because FCP needs to capture all 60 frames each second. FCP only knows to throw away those extra frames when you're shooting at 24 or 30 fps.