Re: Working on a DSR-11 SDI solution

>Your setup -- going from FW to 10-bit SDI -- is somewhat the same as going from vhs to D-Beta. >You gain nothing in the process.

Ah.. but you do! Follow me here. When you capture in FCP via 1394, the raw data gets sent over FireWire, and gets put in a QuickTime wrapper using Apple's DV codec. Apple's DV codec is dirty! The edges in footage captured using the DV codec have a lot of crap along them. This is not the fault of DV as a format, it's not a function of 8-bit or 10-bit, it's just that the Apple DV codec sucks. By bypassing the DV codec, and recording in uncompressed, there's a lot (and I mean A LOT) of gunk that gets omitted from the image. I have personally done a test of this. Under controlled circumstances I captured the exact same footage, one in DV via 1394 encoded in the DV codec, one off of a DV deck output SDI and encoded 10-bit uncompressed. The 10-bit uncompressed was clean enough to pull a good chroma key. Try this with DV encoded material. It doesn't work. Blowing up the image in AE nets a very telling inclusion of artifacts in the DV material. My friends and colleagues traced through every part of the system looking for where the DV was getting degraded. It's the codec! Try this for yourself, you will be amazed by how much crap the DV codec introduces.