Advice sought on HD camera rental
by John Nelson
on
Aug 28, 2008 at 1:58:26 am
Thanks in advance to all who respond.
I'm lining up a potential shoot in Roswell, NM (yes, the town famous for its little green men/beings) that will be aired on Discovery in the near/far future. The producer, and Discovery require HD and my gear is SD. Preliminary indications are that shooting should take about a week, maybe less. Roswell, as you may have guessed, is not the HD center of the universe. Closest cities are Albuquerque, Lubbock and El Paso for possible rental equipment. The tentative target date for shooting is the second week in September.
Never having shot in HD I am asking who/what/where would be best to check with and is most 'honest' on their pricing? The producer wants to offload the footage to a firewire drive so which, if any, camera would be best for that? Also, I want to know if the learning curve is short or long for HD shooting vs. SD. I currently shoot with a Panasonic DVX 100B. Letterbox and Anamorphic won't cut it for the producer, or Discovery.
Again, thanks for all input and feel free to add any additional tidbits I, most certainly, left out.
Re: Advice sought on HD camera rental by Adam Smith on Aug 28, 2008 at 6:32:10 am
You might want to look into what sort of specs Discovery requires before you start trying to select a rental camera. "HD" is open to a lot of interpretation (equipment and format).
- - -
Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor
Re: Advice sought on HD camera rental by Jeff Brown on Aug 28, 2008 at 2:52:38 pm
If this is your first venture, I'd suggest hiring a camera op & gear package from someone that has HD experience. Even if you have years of SD shooting, a job for Discovery is probably not the place for on-the-job training. Particularly in a relatively remote location where you can't grab another piece of gear from the local rental shop. I would hope that if you're up front about wanting to treat the job as a tutorial, you could find someone willing to assist. Maybe approach it as you are assisting for the first few days, then you do the shooting for the last couple...
Re: Advice sought on HD camera rental by Dale Doebert on Aug 28, 2008 at 4:20:36 pm
The document I had was last updated 2006. I'm sure it is close to the spec's now though.
I agree with Adam. You should have the producer supply you with specific formats needed.
BROADCAST MASTERS
Sony HD Cam 1080i / 59.94, Stereo audio on channels 1 & 2, Dolby 5.1 mix
(when available) expressed as Dolby E on channels 3 & 4.
Where facilities exist, the HD master must be accompanied by a closed
captioned Betacam SX standard definition down converted dub. This standard
definition dub shall contain a 16:9 letterboxed image obtained from the HD
master. The program content shall be exactly the same on both versions of the
master and the times codes shall match exactly. Audio shall also match for any
Lt/Rt or Lo/Ro content but no Dolby E is necessary. Closed captioning shall be
on line 21.
Discovery HD requires programs to be mastered in the 1080i 59.54 signal
standard. Programs may be acquired in the 720P 59.94 signal standard and
mastered in 1080i 59.94 for delivery only with prior approval. Programs may
be acquired and delivered in 1080 psf 23.98 or 25, or 1080i 50 only with prior
permission from Discovery HD
SOURCE MATERIAL NOTES
Non-HD Footage Limitations:
Maximum of 25% non-HD material is allowed in production, with no more than 1 minute of contiguous non-HD
footage in any sequence.
Use of HDV Footage:
1080 line HDV footage may be used in HD programs with the following restrictions:
Program may not contain any more than 15% HDV footage.
The combined percentage of HDV and SD upconverted footage is not to exceed 30%.
Producers wishing to use HDV must submit an approved post production path outlining their handling of
the footage in the editing process.
Video Footage:
Video Footage should be acquired using any of the following formats, taking in the non-HD footage and HDV footage
limitations above:
High Definition Formats
Acceptable Up conversion Formats
Film Formats
Sony HDCAM
Sony Digital Betacam
35 mm Film
Sony HDCAM SR
Sony Betacam SP
70 mm Film
Sony XDCAM HD (35 mbps only)
Sony MPEG IMX 50 (tape)
Panasonic DVC PRO 100mb (HD)
Sony MPEG IMX (XDCAM)
Panasonic HD-D5 (Film Transfers)
Panasonic DVC PRO 50 (tape)
HDV at 1080i (with restrictions)
Super 16mm Film (non-HD Guidelines)
HVX-200 DVC PRO HD 100
(with HDV restrictions)
720P Camera Masters:
720P material is acceptable, only with a pre-approved post production path and budget. Delivered Master must be at
1080 resolution. Footage may not be converted from 1080i to 720P for post and converted back to 1080i for
mastering. We cannot allow multiple resolution changes on material. If you have an editorial need to use mixed
resolutions, please discuss this with us.
Film Footage Transfers:
35mm Material – High definition datacine transfers of this material produce perfectly acceptable results.
Super16mm Material – High definition datacine transfers of this material do not currently produce results that
are acceptable for usage in Discovery HD programs. Usage of this material is limited to non-HD footage
guidelines.
DVCam and Mini DV – High definition up conversions from footage acquired using these formats do not
produce results that are acceptable for usage in Discovery HD programs (DVCPro HD is acceptable as noted
above)
Re: Advice sought on HD camera rental by John Nelson on Aug 28, 2008 at 7:16:48 pm
Dale, Jeff,
Thanks very much for your help and information. Agreed I may be getting over my head but, after digging deeper into this project I'm finding more questions than answers, so far. Looks like I'll be getting to visit more with the producer before jumping into a 'fire' of problems.
I did locate an HD camera here at our university but it's not on the list; JVC 110V. The instructor did say they've used it for projects that went to Discovery but, as you say, it was probably converted up.
Re: Advice sought on HD camera rental by Dale Doebert on Aug 28, 2008 at 7:32:33 pm
Yes, this can be considered one of the lower end "HD" cameras. You can trick it our with better lenses and DOF converters but it does record a highly compressed signal.
The more you dig into the prepro process the better off you will be, ensuring you deliver what the client is really wanting.
Re: Advice sought on HD camera rental by Steve Wargo on Aug 29, 2008 at 6:45:50 am
We just shot a Discovery job with a Sony EX-1. They fully accepted the footage where before, they required our Sony F-900. We rent ours for $300 a day on a "Use for 7 and pay for 4 scale". You should be able to find a similar deal. We offloaded the footage to the producer's Mac laptop.
Write if you need more details: steve at sntvideo dot com.
Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It's a dry heat!
Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .
Re: Advice sought on HD camera rental by Bryan Banks on Aug 29, 2008 at 2:56:20 am
The specs that Dale listed above look like the ones we had on the last Discovery show I worked on (in April). So I would consider them current (until you get official specs for your specific project).
