DV100 vs DNxHD vs CFHD

Panasonic DVCproHD codec in Varicam have fixed bitrate 100 Mbps and limited resolution 960x720p and 1280x1080i when recorded on tape.
But without limitation of tape in P2 camcorder possible to obtain real HD resolution as 1280x720p and 1920x1080i ?
And last big question: Why Panasonic used outdated 8 bit DCT codec, when exist much better 10bit wavelet codecs as Avid DNxHD and CineformHD ?
Ikegami choose right direction: EditCam has 10 bit 4:2:2 DNxHD codec and record to HDD.

It's a good point though. Perhaps with there being no tape on this camera the possibility exists down the road for an upgraded compression codec. DVCPROHD is a solid codec especially compared to HDV but there's always room for improvement.

Noah

All Wavelets are not created equal in the same way that DCT codecs are not equal. Pixlet uses a different Wavelet transform than CFHD (Cineform).

DNxHD is DCT-based, not wavelet.

I've worked with CFHD, and the codec is practically flawless. On the one-river media codec test, it's almost on the level of Apple's Uncompressed 10-bit HD, except it's being compressed at 6:1! But seriously, CFHD perfectly preseves the gradients in Marco's test image (so there's a very low white-count), and the only artifacting apparent is the 4:2:2 color sampling on the super-saturated colors.

Pixlet is also 8-bit, not 10-bit like Cineform, so it doesn't do as good on the gradients.

Also there's a big difference between Prospect HD (their high-end professional 10-bit codec engine), and Aspect HD (their 8-bit HDV intermediate codec).

If you're at NAB, I'd really encourage you to check out Cineform's offerings. For a listing of where they'll be, go to their website (they're in 8 different booths ranging from Microsoft and Adobe to AMD, etc.).

Jason Rodriguez
Virginia Beach, VA

I had to do the test myself with the Cineform stuff, since Marco only seems to do codecs that are Mac-based.

Yes, Cineform needs some muscle, especially Prospect HD and HD-SDI input/output, but I think it's well worth it. You get three HD streams in real-time on one of their "certified" turnkey systems, with DVE's, transitions, graphics, etc. Sort of similar to what you have with DVCProHD in Final Cut, except the visual quality of CFHD, even after multiple recompressions, is on-par with what a traditional uncompressed signal would look like.

The only down-side (for us FCP guys) that I see with Prospect HD is that it's PC-based, and only works in 10-bit in it's native AVI codec inside Premiere Pro and After Effects.

BTW, all the real-time effects are made possible by the Prospect HD rendering engine taking over Premiere Pro's default render and effects processing engine. So you have to have a Prospect HD system to work effectively with 10-bit CFHD footage.

Jason Rodriguez
Virginia Beach, VA

Cineform is going places, many more than you think.

For instance, Adobe has licensed their coded for their HDV intermediate technology, making Adobe's compression technology for HDV intermediates one of the best in the industry for it's abilty to sustain multiple generation passes, yet retain all the aspects of the original MPEG-2 source, compression artifacts and all (yet not introduce any new ones, except for YUV->RGB conversion artifacts, as you go through the post process).

Much, much better IMHO that native MPEG-2 GOP editing (which can't sustain multiple generation passes), or Apple's MPEG-2 I-frame intermediate codec (which also is lossy).

In other words, Cineform is a very powerful technology as an intermediate codec that allows one to get away from the limitations of the tape-based native codec editing workflows with their lossy generation problems WITHOUT having to resort to the space and bandwith consumption of uncompressed base-band HD-SDI editing.

Frankly, from the testing I've done, I would never go through post-production on a film using DVCProHD. I would readily choose CFHD because it gives the picture quality of uncompressed 10-bit, can withstand multi-generation passes like an uncompressed 10-bit codec, yet still give the editing speed of a compressed codec like DVCProHD.

All in all, CFHD and DNxHD are the same concept, although CFHD is more efficient for the same bandwidth as a wavelet-based compression codec rather than DNxHD which is DCT-based.

Jason Rodriguez
Virginia Beach, VA

[Luis Caffesse] "Obviously you wouldn't convert your footage upon capture, because there is no capturing to be done. So what would we use to convert the DVCProHD footage to CFHD, and how long do you think that transcode would take? "


The workflow is play out of a DVCproHD deck into the HDSDI Xena card. AFAIK the footage is converted in real time on a dual Opteron.

http://www.cineform.com/products/ProspectHD.htm

David
AllinOneFilms.com

[Luis Caffesse] "I assume there is some way to easily convert DVCProHD footage to CFHD"


Probably not just yet. Directly through their convert utility. But I'm sure it will happen once the P2 cameras come on stream.

[Luis Caffesse] "Of course, then we would need twice the hard drive space. "

I believe the DVCProHD codec and the CFHD codec use about the same amount of bandwidth. Last time I looked they did.



David
AllinOneFilms.com

[David Cherniack] "
I believe the DVCProHD codec and the CFHD codec use about the same amount of bandwidth. Last time I looked they did. "



Right, but if we were to transcode all of our footage from DVCProHD we would need twice the hard drive space. Remember that on P2 everything is being kept on solid state, and then transfered directly to your hard drive for editing (with no digitizing).

If you were to transcode 1GB of footage, you would need 1GB to store the DVCProHD footage, and 1GB onto which you would save the CFHD footage.
Hence, twice the hard drive space.

That's all I meant.

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

So how is converting DVCproHD to an intermediate compressed codec going to improve matters? This is just the same as people who edit DV uncompressed thinking they're getting a better picture out at the end - they don't! Even if you're mastering to D5 or HDCAM SR, you're still going to edit your DVCproHD footage as DVCproHD, flip your codec settings to uncompressed when you're finished, do a final render then out to tape. Where does an intermediate compressed codec help you here?? If you're plugging in a deck worthy of rendering uncompressed, you've certainly got the money for the RAID and HD card to handle it.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

My thoughts exactly. Intermediate codecs are for when you're shooting with a distribution codec. DVCproHD is more than suitable for both acquisition and editing. Then you convert to a delivery codec, or render out uncompressed for D5 or HDCAM SR. No intermediate codec needed at any point here.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

I think you're missing the point Graeme.

I've used both DVCProHD from firewire (1200A deck), and footage ingest uncompressed to Blackmagic 10-bit.

There is a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE between the footage. You can argue all you want on the technicalities of this process, how you're editing with that native codec, etc. but once you ingest via firwire the native DVCProHD codec signal, the damage IS done. Frankly, there's something about ingesting a base-band signal that is much higher quality than the native DVCProHD codec. Maybe it's the way that Apple decodes the codec compared to the hardware decoders in the Panasonic decks, but the footage is simply NOT THE SAME. This is the same concept behind the differences of working with firewire DV, and digitizing DVCAM off SDI via a high-end DSR deck to a 10-bit 4:2:2 format. There's a big difference in quality with the SDI signal.

So, if you're ingesting the HD-SDI stuff via blackmagic, etc. you're now doing uncompressed 10-bit. Big files, and a lot of storage. That is where intemediate codecs come into play like Cineform or DNxHD. They allow you to work with the base-band HD-SDI signals with real-time effects, etc., not being constrained by the bandwidth and processing requirements that moving around multi-stream uncompressed HD would require. Furthermore these codecs are higher quality/more efficient than DVCProHD, they are full-raster, 10-bit precision, can survive multiple passes, etc.

Ingesting the native DVCProHD signal via firewire, adding effects, and then rendering out uncompressed does nothing for your quality in improving how the DVCProHD signal was decoded in the first place. When you do this, all you're doing is preserving the artifacts of the original decode, whether that is banding, blocking, etc. I've tested and I've seen with my own two eyes that the software decode of these native DV codecs, whether it's DV, DVCProHD, etc. is not as good visually as the hardware decoder required to output a base-band HD-SDI signal.

So, there is a big use for intermediate codecs, in that working with native DVCProHD is not that wonderful a solution for really high-quality work, especially post color-correction, etc. Digitizing off HD-SDI is, but there is a definite workflow bottleneck when you're trying to move around uncompressed footage. Intermediate codecs allow you to re-definte the HD-SDI workflow by having the benefits of the HD-SDI stream decode process (and it's quality improvements) and the flexibility that editing with the native codec allows, but now with visual quality that matches the uncompressed HD-SDI workflow.

For P2 this process is totally irrelevent, since there is no HD-SDI decode process. You already have the native codec on-disk ready to work with. But if you ever want to work with HD-SDI uncompressed for the highest quality possible, intermediate codecs are a huge boon.

BTW, when Qrez is released by AJA, that should make for a very nice intermediate codec in FCP compareable to CFHD or DNxHD.

Jason Rodriguez
Virginia Beach, VA

Something's different, because the files definitely do look different.

Try doing some green-screening sometime with DVCProHD over HD-SDI and then over the same footage on Firewire.

You will notice a difference, especially on challenging footage.

Seems as though the software DVCProHD codec can suffer horribly from macro-blocking in the shadows and saturated color gradients. I hate color-correcting DVCProHD footage for these reasons, there's not much you can do before you see some pretty terrible-looking stuff, if you've under-exposed the camera a little too much. I've talked to Pana about the problem, and they acknowledge that much of it has to do with the 8-bit precision and compression on the codec not being able to really take advantage of the full dyanamic range that the FILM REC mode on the Varicam can deliver.

BTW, for a quick visual comparison between DVCProHD and CFHD, go over to one-river media and look at Pixlet 100% vs. DVCProHD. Ignore the white-count, because CFHD has a very, very low white-count (the gradients and other areas that Pixlet does bad in are perfectly preserved with CFHD). But they look about the same visually, with the edge going to Cineform. And again, their white-counts are completely different (the white count of CFHD is close or very comparable to Apple's 10-bit 4:2:2 Uncompressed, so again, it's a very high-precision codec, and way beyond the other 8-bit codecs that have very high white-counts).

Jason Rodriguez
Virginia Beach, VA

I still think that you're being a bit short-sighted about the benfits of a good intermediate codec, especially when there's more to the world than keeping your entire project inside Final Cut Pro.

For instance the current digital cinema project I'm working on has been onlined in Final Cut, but was then exported for 16-bit color correction and effects inside of After Effects. Since I'm working with Uncompressed 10-bit Blackmagic stuff, the file sizes are huge, and it would be a nice feature to have the same image quality in a file-size 1/6th the size, like Cineform and DNxHD can do.

DVCProHD is not the ideal solution for these types of multi-platform, multi-program, multi-compression workflows. If all you're doing is working inside of FCP, then that's great, but for many of us, that just isn't the case, and that is where a nice intermediate codec that withstands the tortures of repeated compression, passes, etc. with flying colors comes in very handy.

You call the tests that Cineform did as "not fair", yet this is exactly what you have to deal with if you use the native DVCProHD codec outside of Final Cut, in Shake, After Effects, Combustion, etc. When that becomes the playing field, then I feel the results are very fair, because that is exactly what I'm going to have to deal with when I use DVCProHD outside of Final Cut's native DVCProHD timeline.

So, I'm not saying that DVCProHD is no good, but I'm saying, it's NOT a true intermediate codec, meaning that it's not made to withstand repeated YUV-RGB conversions and be visually lossless, survive multiple passes between different programs for effects, color correction, etc.

Basically, it's a crappy codec for Digital Intermediate work. Does everybody need to do a Digital Intermediate? No. There are many programs that do just fine adding their effects, graphics, color-correction, etc. all inside of Final Cut, and then drop back to tape. But there is another side of the industry, those people who are working on films, high-end commerical work, etc. where a visually lossless digital intermediate codec can come in very handy. Uncompressed is great, but like I was saying before, it has it's problems when it comes to speed, bandwidth, etc. If you can do all your digital intermediate work and maintain visual perfection, but have a file size that's 1/6th the size of uncompressed, I think there are some definite advantages to that workflow. And of course AVID and Cineform have seen the market potential in that mid-range to high-range area, and I hope that Final Cut doesn't get left behind because they think that DVCProHD is good enough for that kind of work-cause it's not.

Who knows, maybe core video will enable all sorts of real-time stunts on uncompressed HD footage, so this whole argument is moot.

Jason Rodriguez
Virginia Beach, VA

I'm sorry, but I just don't see any kind of sensible post production workflow that repeatedly compresses the footage over and over and over. If you edit DVCproHD, send that over to AE, then AE decompresses the frame that it's rendering into memory, and at that point, that frame is totally uncompressed. AE then does all it's magic, and when you render, you get to pick which codec you want to render to. Say you're going back to DVCProHD tape, then you can render back to that, or say you're going to D5, so you render uncompressed. At what point do you need an intermediary codec, and how can an intermediate that is compressed in any way be better than going to that frame in memory totally uncompressed??? I really just don't get what kind of workflow would warrant repeated recompressions....

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

Thanks Luis. I'm happy that I've not gone completely gaga yet....

Seriously Jason - help us out here to understand what you're getting at.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

Suffice to say, when trying to push the Varicam to it's maximum dyanmic range, or when trying to shoot a very "flat" image for post-correction DI that has no clipped highlights (sort of shoot a digital negative, or the equivalent of a film inter-positive from the original color-negative, but in order to protect the highlights, you have to underexpose), the software codec, the way that Apple chooses to decode it, exhibits artifacting that I DO NOT SEE in the HD-SDI ingest of the same footage. It's typically a nasty, large, pixel blocking artifact. I've seen it, my DP has seen it, when pointed out to others they see it, it's plainly there, and it's impossible to get rid of UNLESS you digitize through HD-SDI.

I'm not saying that the hardware codec is better than the software codec, they're the same codec. But there is a different decoder happening in the Apple sofware than in a Panasonic deck.

Now here's one interesting thing. Like DV, IF you apply no effects to your footage, you ingest via firewire, and then write back to the tape via firewire, you basically have a clean digital copy of the footage. Now you can take that same tape, and digitize it via HD-SDI (but it's now an edited program), and have a 'cleaner' copy to do effects with. Not as convenitent IMHO, but it does work.

But the point is, if you choose the DVCProHD software decoder from the start, that's the problem. IMHO, the HD-SDI hardware decoder in the Pansonic decks makes a "cleaner" (not necessarily more accurate to the actual information on the tape) image than what I get off firewire.

BTW, one other thing you missed.

If you export DVCProHD to After Effects, render to a new "uncompressed" codec, and import back into Final Cut, and then want to go back to tape, you're either going to have to render back to the DVCProHD codec (another generation loss), or you're going to have to render out your whole timeline to some other codec (which can take some time).

I think in the end my argument has been pretty self-explanitory, and it's that HD-SDI looks better than what's coming off firewire, plain and simple. I don't know EXACTLY why, but there's a reason that the top post houses in America and around the world aren't ditching all their gear for firewire ingest if it was so much better-because it's not, and it has some definite trade-offs to the higher-quality input you get over HD-SDI. The footage looks cleaner, there's less artifacting, the noise looks more "natural" rather than blocky, less banding in the gradients, etc. I'm sure there's some form of dithering happening to create this phenomena that is not occuring with the Apple software decode so that Apple's codec remains more faithful to the "original" data on the tape. But that dithering, or whatever is happening inside that deck over HD-SDI is making the footage look much "better", or "cleaner", or less "digital" and more "natural" (in the sense of less digital artifacting) than what I see from the same footage off firewire.

Jason Rodriguez
Virginia Beach, VA

Luis, you're spot on right there. Only one recompression at worst in that workflow, and seriously, even mulitple compression DVCproHD is much, much better looking that broadcast HDTV that nobody would ever know anyway.

The DV revolution was based around a couple of things - cheap, high quality cameras that were a big leap over the previous analogue models in quality, a tape format / copdec that at least equalled the old analogue broadcast standards, and native editing. Of these, it was native editing that brought the computer costs for NLE down to an affordable level.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

What about edit in FCP, send over to AE and do dissolves CC and titles, and then output back through FCP. Only one DVCproHD generation.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

Output out of AE as uncompressed then, or if that takes up too much space, use PhotoJPEG75%. No need to pay money for an intermediate codec. Does not automatic duck translate dissolves across from FCP to AE? I think the bigger issue is Jason's point about the DVCproHD codec implementation by Apple. I don't have enough DVCproHD footage or any transferred over SDI to be able to see exactly what he's getting at, but it's bound to become important at some point. I think I'd better get to work with some magic de-artifacting and de-banding algorithms..... And also the code I'm working on to improve the conversion of 8bit to 10bit or more video. As people in Yorkshire say, "where there's muck, there's brass".

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

With perceptual encoding, I'd got straight to 16bit RGB no chroma resolution reduction. With the perceptual coding, you'd only use more than 8bits when it's needed, up to the max of 16, as a lot of the >8bit data would just be noise. Fully raw is nice, but you need to correct it before playback or it just looks out of whack. I see something inbetween - lightly compressed R'G'B' 16bit video.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

I have an idea that the Digital Betacam codec might work something like this for bit depth, but I dont' really have any evidence for that, but I may have read about such an idea in conjunction witht that format at some point.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

"I'm not saying that the hardware codec is better than the software codec, they're the same codec. But there is a different decoder happening in the Apple sofware than in a Panasonic deck. "

But you say that the hardware codec looks cleaner etc. etc. and hence it must be better, right, but above you're saying that the software codec is as good as the hardware codec.

I don't have a lot of DVCproHD footage on my system - only what clients have sent me so that I can develop plugins that work with it, but I've not seen the problems you mention other than inside FCP. I don't have a DVCproHD deck, and the whole idea of P2 is that I don't need one. I view my footage out of the Decklink HD card to SD monitor, DLP projector and 23" Cinema Display over SDI and HDLink and none of these methods of display show the artifacts that FCP does internally.

As I say, I've had the very same discussions over the DV codec - hardware v software, and I managed to prove to myself quite clearly that any differences are utterly negligible as I mentioned in an above post. If you can send me similar DVCProHD over Firewire v DVCpro over HD SDI footage, I'd be very happy to take a look and see if I can see what you are seeing and therefore be able to put my mind to work in trying to solve any problems with the firewire / Apple codec route if there are any. I've got a feeling, that anything you're seeing is probably due to scaling issues from 960 to 1280 or 1280 to 1920 that could be solved, in that FCP does pretty poor scaling and that the deck's SDI output does nice scaling.

Graeme



- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

Ah but, the Avid DV codec doesn't stand up as well to generational loss as the Apple one! The difference is that it smooths the chroma so that it looks better on screen, but this will "bleed" over generations and the colour will leak out. The luma is also more filtered (to produce less mosquito artifacts by not letting as high a resolution through) so with the Apple codec, you must pre-filter any graphics or high resolution elements that you add yourself.

When you decode DVCproHD over SDI, you're not just decompressing the video, but you're also scaling it up from 960x720 to 1280x720, and the chroma, which is 4:2:2 at the compressed resolution get's scaled up to, to be 4:2:2 at the uncompressed resolution. As we know, the scaling in FCP / Quicktime is rather poor, so if you're viewing the footage at a proper 16:9 stretched out resolution, you're seeing Apple scaling artifacts. But when you render in FCP, it uncompresses it to 960x720 without scaling, the effects are done and it's recompressed, all without scaling / unscaling. Ofcourse, this means that if you do effects in FCP, then no scaling occurs until playback, and all is ok. I think this is also why people hate AIC so much, as when you convert AIC to uncompressed you see all these scaling artifacts.

Now, if I was compositing in Shake, I'd set it so that all the compositing goes on with the unscaled footage, but with the viewer so that I can see it all at it's proper aspect ratio. Can you do this in AE, or is it square pixels only for everything??

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

Thanks. I'm going to do some more investigation and see what I come up with....

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

Jason, I'll look forwards to meeting you.

I managed to do a quick experiment this morning though. I told quicktime to give me a frame from some DVCproHD footage, and it gave it to me with 960x720 dimensions not 1280 x 720 dimensions, so there's certainly hope for editing / effecting DVCproHD without doing the shrink and squeeze routine, and this also means that once magic scaling is up and running, I can probably do better 960 to 1280 scaling anyway.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

The DVCproHD codec is done using 4 DVCpro codec chips, and DVCpro50 is done using 2 DVCpro codec chips. DVCpro just uses one of them :-).

There is a specific data rate that each chip can handle. Therefore resolution of image is limited. 720p is double the pixels of DV, and 1080i is double the pixels of 720p in DVCproHD format.

These 4 chips are not user-reprogamable, so don't expect "upgrades" to them.

As for capturing the "full" resolution - I think you're expecting too much here. Every camera has a resolution filter on the front of it - the lens. Lenses that let more detail through are more expensive. I thoroughly expect that even if you could rig up the camera to capture the full raster, although you'd get more resolution, I severely doubt you'd get more actual real detail. It's detail that counts, not resolution. You can take VHS and blow it up to HD size, and now it has 1920x1080 pixels, but it has no more DETAIL than which it started with.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

The lens is the first limiting factor the light meets as it enters the camera. It's vitally important that it passes exactly the right level of detail too - not too little (or it'll be blurry) or too much (aliassing artifacts). So the resolution of the chips, their type and if anything like PixelShift is being used are all factors in how much detail the lens needs to pass.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

The lens has to act as an anti-alias filter, so that the image sampled by the CCD doesn't alias and create artifacts. For pixelshift to work, you need to create some aliassing so that it can be anti-aliassed as more real detail is created by the pixelshift algorithm. I'm guessing that Panasonic will make the lens just good enough for the CCD to function properly, and that to keep sensitivity of the chips up, they won't have any more pixels than they need, and so the camera won't generate any detail beyond what the codec is capable of, and hence capturing the image uncompressed ahead of the codec won't add in any extra detail save reducing any artifacts from the codec. If they were to put a "better" lens on the camera, and the chips were high enough resolution for full raster, there is a point whereby the lens would be too good for the chips and produce aliassing artifacts which would be objectionable. It is the camera designers' job to balance these factors for an intended result.

Capturing uncompressed on F900 or Varicam makes sense as the chips are more detailed than the codec allows, hence the codec can deal with super-sampled information, and the lens choice would be made so that it works with the chips and resolution detail of the camera, not limited by the codec.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

I'm starting to get out of my depth here with my knowledge of such things. For one, Digital Cameras use a single chip with a Bayer pattern, wo things are not as simple as they are with 3CCD video cameras, and I have no idea on the relative resolving powers of the lenses in question. If anyone here has more insight into the optical block and lens of a video camera in relation to filtering to stop aliassing on the CCD, I'd certainly appreciate some insight.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

I thought there was some kind of optical filter block after the lens, but before the CCD??

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

With progressive picture there is of course a lot less problems with aliasing than with interlaced.
But if ccd's are not having the same resolution that is being recorded, there will be scaling that
leads to aliasing if it's not low-pass filtered. Same thing with pixel shift or 1-ccd de-bayer.

I'm not a camera dsp engineer either, I only use these cameras and look what I get with analytic eye.
But I also like to keep my technical understanding in a logical level to better use these tools.
So I don't exactly now how things happen, but I know why they happen and see the result.

I still don't think that is wise to leave low-pass filtering to lens with interchangeable lens cameras,
because then you might get into trouble if you happen to use "too good" lens.

Thanks Jason, that explains a lot!

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

[Graeme Nattress] "Cineform is very interesting, but without a camera or tape deck that supports it, it's only useful as a computer codec. Without camera or deck support, I doubt it will ever be popular"

First of all it's an intermediate codec, not an acquisition or delivery codec. With prospect HD on a dual Opteron you ingest via HDSDI from wahtever flavour of HD you've shot in (or 1394 if HDV) and convert to it in real-time. After editing/compositing (and it can do 10 generations without blinking), you export to whatever delivery codec you want.

AFA popularity goes you can bet that as a superb codec that's a cheaper alternative to Axio and a more powerful editing solution than Decklink, they're going to do very well with PremierePro as their base.

David
AllinOneFilms.com

[Ron Shook] "Irregardless of compress codec quality, the problem with the wholey software solutions to HD editing is that there is no true full rez, full speed output to monitor like there is with hardware accellerated solutions. "

In fact because it uses the overlay of video cards, Aspect and prospect can output to HD monitors from the new Matrox Parhelia and Nvidia 3 headed cards. I believe it's full rez.

David
AllinOneFilms.com

You are partially correct. Full rez is available while scrubbing. Full rez in play probably by NAB

David
AllinOneFilms.com

At that point, surely, you edit uncompressed and have the advantage of faster renders due to much less processor overhead.

Graeme

- http://www.nattress.com - Film Effects for FCP

Yes, you must have Prospect HD and Premiere Pro 1.5.

You can now purchase Prospect HD stand-alone for $1,500, but it needs a 3.4Ghz P4, and that is without the ingest/output card (Aja XENA HD).

With HD-SDI card, you're talking around $6,000 with the Adobe Video Bundle and Prospect HD. Also for ingest/export you'll need a much beefier machine, basically a dual Operton 252. Since you don't need a drive array, once you're all done, figure under 10K for the whole package.

Go over to http://www.cineform.com and click on Prospect HD for the different choices you can make.

Jason Rodriguez
Virginia Beach, VA

(vsv): "This is a Kinetta's little brother"

Seeing as how the Kinetta isn't out yet, I'd say that the kinetta is the "vaporware older brother of the Drake".

Also, I think the Drake also records 10 bit log files to disk. But I could be wrong.


jeremiah black
dual 2 gig G5
2.5 gigs of RAM
Decklink Extreme capture card