I’ll soon be working on a large project that I’d like to grade with Apple Color.
The original footage was shot in HDV 1080i60. There are also clips that were shot in SD that have been up-rezzed to HDV using Digital Anarchy’s Resizer, and some other clips that have been created by panning and scanning stills in After Effects. Quite the witches brew!
I should add that a large number of clips exist only as Quicktime HDV 1080i60 1080x1440 files (no master tapes) but others are still on tape, and could be transcoded on ingest in FCP 6.02 based on what I have read here:
I’ve been doing some tests with FCP and Color, basically re-encoding some of the QT HDV files to DVCPro HD and Pros Res 422 HQ, dropping them into a matching FCP sequence and grading, round-tripping and looking at the results.
that you can grade the native HDV material reasonably well, and I have only see a few clips (out of 180 that I tested) where the grade has introduced some troublesome artifacting.
I don't really understand what color is doing and what they mean by the term 'promote' you can't do a true import and obviously they are not transcoding, so it must be grading the HDV material?
So, after that long pre-ample (let it not be said that I don’t provide enough info ;) I have a question:
Would I be best to import all my existing QT HDV files into a HDV 1080i60 FCP sequence, print these back to HDV tape and then recapture to ProRes 422 on ingest as suggested above?
Or could I just set up a Pro-Res FCP project, import the QT HDV files, and, let the FCP>Color handoff promote the files to ProRes 422, render and ultimately let the ‘Send to Final Cut command’ replace the HDV originals with the graded ProRes replacements?
Or, should I take all the QT HDV files, do a batch to ProRes in Compressor, and then drop all of them into FCP?
Re: HDV ingest by Stuart Ferreyra on Mar 18, 2008 at 5:00:55 pm
I would much rather spend the time converting everything to a workable video format than working in HDV. I have tried in the past and it is nothing but nightmares. Convert it to anything you want -ProRes is a great option- and get away from HDV at least for the last 2 steps of the finishing process.
"High-end Post Services at Affordable rates"
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Stuart Ferreyra
Timecode Multimedia Owner / Colorist
http://www.timecodemultimedia.com
Re: TEST CLIPS HDV ingest by Paul Ramsbottom on Mar 18, 2008 at 11:12:29 pm
A lot of the time I see people knocking HDV (and obviously I am aware of its limitations) but occasionally it feels that some folks bash it because HDV has a consumerish stink about it these days, and forget what a real marvel it is (was).
I personally have never had any 'nightmares' at acquisition, ingest or post but like any media, I have also learned what it will tolerate and what it will not (heck, even people using 35 have to do the same right?)
So, I was really curious at this stage of my project whether converting (thousands) of HDV clips to ProRes 422 *before* I grade was really going to be a worthwhile exercise.
On the attached web-page you will see a clip that I really pushed in Color to bring out the artifacting. I graded the top clip as a native HDV file but converted the second one to ProRes 422 HQ (interlaced, top field selected, 4:4:4 sampling unchecked) put it in FCP then did the grade.
ProRes didn't solve everything but it is definitely an improvement, and I'll certainly do an batch convert of my HDV stuff based on these results.
The only odd thing I noticed was that the exported ProRes file was ever so slightly smaller that the 1080 canvas in FCP, and needed a tiny stretch to get it back to full frame.
File size-wise, the HDV original was about 9MB, the ProRes conversion was 50MB+, so increasing my storage needs 5-fold is no small consideration but I think it is worth it.
If I had everything on HDV tape I might have considered recapturing to ProRes to see whether the conversion directly off tape was better than what could be achieved running these files through compressor but as a lot of these files are now only available to me as QTs and because I have so much material + the fact the transcode from tape process doesn't sound 100% baked right now, I will probably not bother.
Re: TEST CLIPS HDV ingest by walter biscardi on Mar 18, 2008 at 11:41:49 pm
[Paul Ramsbottom]"A lot of the time I see people knocking HDV (and obviously I am aware of its limitations) but occasionally it feels that some folks bash it because HDV has a consumerish stink about it these days, and forget what a real marvel it is (was)."
I only bash it as a Post format. It's a wonderful acquisition format, but don't edit or finish in it. We tested the workflow and the best results with HDV come when you get out of that format before you start editing.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: TEST CLIPS HDV ingest by Stuart Ferreyra on Mar 22, 2008 at 8:03:40 pm
We do work with HDV we've done some great projects with it as the acquisition format including TV show, Documentary and even an Indie movie.
But, like I've said and Walter has reinforced, get away form HDV for the very last steps of post. Most importantly, color correction and final finishing.
"High-end Post Services at Affordable rates"
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