Re: Att: Graeme, Walter, et al - HDV/DVCPRO Workflow, etc

[Wayne K.] "1. I'll be doing a lot of color grading [Magic Bullet], transitions, picture-in-picture stuff. I heard that DVCPRO HD doesn't handle the renders well - ie, it loses a lot of quality after being rendered. Any truth to that?"

Not in my experience. We've delivered something like 36 HD Broadcast shows and both networks absolutely love the quality of our work. We use both Final Cut Pro and Final Touch HD (when it works) for color correction and we stay in the DVCPro HD codec from start to finish.

[Wayne K.] "2. Can I edit DVCPro HD with a regular FW800 drive, or do I need a RAID and other fancy stuff."

Yes, but something like a LaCie Big Disk Extreme with two drives RAID'ed together via FW800 is better than a single drive. Also, with more drive speed, you get more RT in the timeline, including the FCP 3 Way CC in my case running a Cal Digit SATA array for this last project.

If you look closely at the scopes and go through all the compression math, Uncompressed HD is always preferred over any other compressed format. But for day to day editing and looking at the image on the screen, DVCPro HD is an outstanding codec that delivers a high quality finished product. We've been using the DVCPro HD workflow for almost 2 years now and I don't plan to change a thing.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
http://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network's "Good Eats"
HD Editorial for "Assignment Earth"

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