XDCAM vs. DVCPro100 - greenscreen?
by Jeff Brown
on
Nov 15, 2007 at 5:50:38 pm
Hi gurus,
I have a client with a 3-day shoot coming up, as part of which they want to do some interviews (talking heads) on greenscreen. They are planning an HD shoot, but not "full" HD... There will be a camera rental, so:
Has anyone had experience pulling keys off either DVCPro100 or 35Mbps XDCam? My guess is DVCPro100 would be better, and maybe even workable?
The budget for an F900 or VariCam is not going to materialize. I doubt we'll be able to get a disc array to record direct from HD-SDI, either.
I'm the one who has to do the keying & graphics backgrounds, so: Suggestions welcome.
Re: XDCAM vs. DVCPro100 - greenscreen? by Heath Firestone on Nov 16, 2007 at 12:14:57 am
Jeff,
These are good questions. Don't let the data rates get in the way of considering quality, being that XDCAM uses Long GOP structure, it achieves comparable quality to an I frame codec of about 3X the data rate, so the two codecs should have comparable quality.
You are right that capturing uncompressed would be ideal, but may not be an option. I shoot a lot of green screen, both with my HDCAM camera, and HDV. Of course, when it is an option, I capture with as little compression as possible, but more often, the budget won't handle uncompressed. I prefer to shoot HDCAM, and capture with one of my Axio LE's to MPEG2 at 150Mbps, which gives me enough overhead that there is no discernable quality difference between it and the original HDCAM captured through HDSDI uncompressed. Both Avid and Apple seem to have similar perspectives, which is clear, based on their adoption of 145Mbps 8 bit 1080i HD coedecs (DNxHD & ProRes). But this doesn't sound like an option for you either. I've had quite a bit of success compositing HDV, though I definitely prefer HDCAM. Either XDCAM or DVCProHD should give you a usable image for compositing. I'd tend to choose the camera I preferred more.
True resolution may be a bigger factor. Remember DVCProHD supports 1280X1080 for 60i and 960X720 for 720p, whereas XDCAM supports 1440X1080. Of course, DVCProHD samples 4:2:2, vs. 4:2:0 for XDCAM.
Either should be a reasonable bet, but given the option, I'd tend toward the XDCAM, though that would be more because of my preference for it's default settings.
Another consideration would be what you were capturing with and what you are using to composite with. XDCAM isn't natively supported by a lot of applications, so you may have to do a conversion to be able to use your compositing application anyway.
Re: XDCAM vs. DVCPro100 - greenscreen? by Jeff Brown on Nov 16, 2007 at 5:09:29 am
Thanks, folks. Useful (and reassuring) advice. Seems like either camera will be serviceable, though not ideal. We may end up leaning toward the Sony, as the production company is considering purchasing one of those; they have been using Sony BetaSP and DVCam for their shooting, and their main shooter is probably more comfortable with Sony.
The end output is likely a few BluRay discs for large-screen playback, lots of SD (anamorphic) DVDs (their last runs were about 10,000), and web media. So, a bit of everything.
My footage would probably be uncompressed QTime coming out of my client's Avid Adrenaline.
Re: XDCAM vs. DVCPro100 - greenscreen? by Tim Kolb on Nov 17, 2007 at 1:55:05 am
Jeff,
Which two cameras are you choosing from? I gather the DVCProHD choices are P2-based, probably the HVX200 or 500...this would be vs a half inch sensor camera on the XDcam side, correct?
Re: XDCAM vs. DVCPro100 - greenscreen? by Michael Palmer on Nov 18, 2007 at 3:24:04 pm
Tim
I recently shot with the HPX 500 and recorded 720p 30Pn and pulled a HD-SDI line into a Mac Pro and captured live into Final Cut to Apples Pro Rex HQ. We had better success with Pro Rez in After Effects keying out the green. The reason I bring this to your attention is the OP could possibly find or rent a Mac Pro with a Kona LHe card and add his own drives that can be removed and worked with later on another Mac if that is what he has. Pro Rez is farely low overhead for storage and it might fit the budget for this project. Just a thought.
Re: XDCAM vs. DVCPro100 - greenscreen? by Heath Firestone on Nov 19, 2007 at 12:53:46 am
The ProRes solution is a good one. I have done live captures into my Axios from HDV cameras through their analog HD outputs capturing to MPEG2 at 150Mbps for green screen in studio and been very happy with the results. Of course any time you are using a camera only as a head, you need to do a live feed, and use an uncompressed transfer protocol (either HDSDI, or analog YPbPr)in order to avoid going through any compression on the camera side.
The same thing can be done with cameras that have HDMI outputs fed into a Black Magic Intensity card, but the same restrictions apply.
Re: XDCAM vs. DVCPro100 - greenscreen? by Jeff Brown on Nov 19, 2007 at 3:02:34 pm
Heath-- Using a computer for direct recording would be my choice, but not an option for my clients.
Tim-- the Panny we were looking at renting is the HDX-900, so DVCPro100. I have done several greenscreen shoots with the SD-900, and really been happy with the DVCPro50 image, so I wondered if the HD cousin would work nearly as well.
As of this morning, chances are the end client won't want to pay for the HD costs, so it's most likely going to be SD anamorphic.
Re: XDCAM vs. DVCPro100 - greenscreen? by Jeff Brown on Nov 19, 2007 at 3:04:31 pm
And also -- Tim, the Sony choices are the ??-330 and the ??-350. I think 1/2" and 2/3" respectively? With the 330 being more likely, as we can find rentals locally.
Re: XDCAM vs. DVCPro100 - greenscreen? by Tim Kolb on Nov 20, 2007 at 4:46:05 am
[Jeff Brown]"
And also -- Tim, the Sony choices are the ??-330 and the ??-350. I think 1/2" and 2/3" respectively? With the 330 being more likely, as we can find rentals locally."
They're both 1/2" sensors actually.
As far as SD goes (since the client doesn't want HD...) the SDX-900 camera with DVC Pro50 is no slouch...and a 2/3" sensor.
