what's better sdi or firewire?

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by walter biscardi on Jul 1, 2005 at 3:23:05 pm [dan luke] "Is it better, the same, or worse to digitize using the dvcprohd codec through the Kona card as opposed to firewire? Logistically it's simpler to just run it through the sdi connector but is the signal transcoded to hd-sdi in the deck and transcoded back to dvcprohd in the card? Doesn't this dual transcoding cycle cause wear and tear on your virgin digits?" For straight DVCPro HD, just come in and out via Firewire. If you come in HD-SDI, then come in uncompressed. Do not set up your Kona 2 to capture at DVCPro HD via the SDI input because that will simply add another round of DVCPro HD compression. I've found that capturing DVCPro HD via Firewire and Uncompressed via HD-SDI yield identical capture results. There is no difference in picture quality. Some folks have a problem with editing in a DVCPro HD timeline due to the compression hit you will take with all the renders. To my eye, I'm not seeing a quality hit from the original so on this current project I'm working on, all 7 episodes are being captured Firewire, edited in DVCPro HD with filters, then output back via Firewire to DVCPro HD. Walter Biscardi, Jr. Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media http://www.biscardicreative.com Now in Production, "The Rough Cut," http://www.theroughcutmovie.com "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - Adam Savage, Mythbusters Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by David Battistella on Jul 1, 2005 at 3:38:30 pm One place to really see these tests results is on Graeme Natress's website. He did an extensive test to see just what the differences were. this is the article. http://www.nattress.com/Chroma_Investigation/chromasampling.htm he did a demo of this at our FCP user group a few months back. He makes some of the most useful products for FCP. David Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by walter biscardi on Jul 1, 2005 at 4:51:14 pm [Fred Connors Jr] "However, we also believe the SDI/HDI into the KONA2 and down sampled to DV25, DV50, or DV100 "looks" the same as FireWire in of the same sources. We test this with a Panasonic HD1200A that had both the FireWIre and SDI/HDI options installed. We tried it with DV25, DV50 and DVCPRHD (DV100). We could not detect a difference in the Decompressed HDI -> Recompressed DVCPRO and the FireWire -> DVCPRO direct." Actually, you should be able to see a difference using that method since you've doubled the compression. You take a DVCPro HD tape which is already compressed. Run it into the Kona 2 and ask it to compress it again. I can see the added artifacts when viewing an image that has been captured this way. If you're going to come in HD-SDI, then stay at 720 uncompressed, don't apply the DVCPro HD codec. I've done the side by side comparison of Firewire DVCPro HD capture vs. HD-SDI Uncompressed capture of a DVCPro HD tape and they are identical. But apply the DVCPro HD codec to the HD-SDI capture and there's a difference. Walter Biscardi, Jr. Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media http://www.biscardicreative.com Now in Production, "The Rough Cut," http://www.theroughcutmovie.com "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - Adam Savage, Mythbusters Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by walter biscardi on Jul 1, 2005 at 8:00:34 pm All I can say is we've done splits here as well and honestly, there really is no way the HD-SDI capture could look better than firewire since it's just digital information coming in. What you will see is if you start to add filters, the quality will be different in the uncompressed timeline, but again,t that depends on how many filters and what type. We've done a split of a DVCPro HD Firewire Capture, DVCPro via HD-SDI at uncompressed and an AVID DS/HD capture of DVCPro via HD-SDI and in all cases, the captured video looked identical. Comparing DV/25 vs. 8bit and DVCPro HD / 720 Uncompressed are not the same at all. It's really an apples and oranges comparison since there's a huge difference between DV/25 and DVCPro HD. With straight DV footage, you always want to work in uncompressed so your graphics don't take a bit quality hit. With DVCPro HD, that's not the case. I'm also finding that the filters hold up very well with DVCPro HD. It just depends on what you're doing which will determine whether you want to go Firewire or Uncompressed on the way in. Walter Biscardi, Jr. Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media http://www.biscardicreative.com Now in Production, "The Rough Cut," http://www.theroughcutmovie.com "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - Adam Savage, Mythbusters Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by David Battistella on Jul 2, 2005 at 2:43:43 pm This has been a very good thread and many of the same questions that have come up in SD are not much different in HD. Each has a specific workflow and this makes perfect sense. Robert. The footage looks better via HD SDI because you are capturing more information when you are capturing the DVCPRO at 8 or 10 bit uncompressed quality. But the source never gets better. It can only remain better throuhg the post process and I think that is always the fundamental arguement. The 10-bit uncompressed codecs will hold up better when rendering, importing motion graphics, and multigenerational codec performance. With DVCPRO HD100 you are looking at 14mb/sec file size and a frame that is 1280x1080 vs1920x1080. In uncompressed 10 bit that frame is always 1920x1080 with a data rate of 165MB/sec. That is almost ten times the data rate in the frame. This is why sony has developed SR, to put more information on the tape, which means more information can be captured. If these data rates and sizes did not matter, people would not be trying to capture 4:4:4 for truer color reproduction, etc. There is always going to be a push to crunch the most number of pixels from a through a lens to a CCD and onto tape then into our edit systems. The question is always this. If you capture DVCPRO100 natively and send it out the Kona a the end of the day are you actually getting a worse picture because of the frame size and data rate? It will never get better that the amount of original information you have captured. But maybe that information is preserved better in the 10-bit uncompressed codec. Now in HD, you may not see the difference on an 800 line CRT, but you might see the differnece if the tape you output was projected. nIt is also a fair argument to say, why capture more than I ever recorded. All of these choices come down to anyone persons specific workflow. So in Walters case that workflow is perfect for him and it is diiferent for Fred and Robert. IN the past with DV timelines I have cut the DV natively, created all of the graphics in Annimation codec and re-rendered my final sequence in 10 Bit uncompressed SD so that my graphics didn't take the DV hit. It was a great compromise, using the low data rates and never recapturing, only recompressing (which quicktime is fantastic at!) I think that if you can offline in DCVPRo100 and online (recapture) that finished product in 10-bit uncompressed you will have the best of both worlds, cutting at HD resoltion and finishing as good as it can possibly look. It's hard to argue about how something looks to the eye because it is subjective. 16mm film had a much better archival quality than 3/4inch video tape, but economics won. The worlds archive of events like the fall of the berlin wall, Tienimen Square, is a betacam tape. Compare that to how some re-released hollywood movies look on DVD, where great care was taken to capture the highest quality 35mm film and I guess that is why this sort of discussion will always be alive and well. 10-bit uncompressed is always only going to capture what is there as will the DVCPRO100 codec, but it is hard to argue that DVCPRO100 will hold up better multi-generationally than Uncompressed 10 bit HD. Great thread! David Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by walter biscardi on Jul 2, 2005 at 5:20:24 pm Excellent points David. There's one other thing to consider in all of this. The settings on the Varicam during production. Those who have tested this camera will note that the Video Gamma settings are definitely cleaner than the Film Gamma settings. Film Gamma adds more noticeable noise to an image than Video Gamma. So when deciding whether to go Uncompressed for your workflow or DVCPro HD, you need to consider how the project was shot. If it was shot with the Video Gamma settings, then the DVCPro HD workflow will add more noticeable noise as you add filters, renders, etc.... If it was shot in the Film Gamma settings, it's very difficult, if not impossible to notice any additional noise or compression generated by the DVCPro HD workflow. This is something you can see visually just by creating some split screens within FCP. One thing is for certain, working in the DVCPro HD codec is a very clean format and definitely nothing like working in the DV25 SD format. I've noticed that my animations and graphics created in After Effects are completely pristine rendered to the DVCPro HD codec. One other thing is for certain whether you're talking DVCPro HD or any HD production. Ask 25 people the same HD question and you'll get 25 answers. It's a true learning experience for everyone. Walter Biscardi, Jr. Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media http://www.biscardicreative.com Now in Production, "The Rough Cut," http://www.theroughcutmovie.com "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - Adam Savage, Mythbusters Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by Bob Zelin on Jul 2, 2005 at 3:10:45 pm Hi - I will put my 2 cents in, in a different light. If you are incorporating this into a facility, into a machine room, there is no question - you are going to use HD SDI, and not firewire, just like every other professional does in a facility enviornment. If you are a home user, and want to get away with low costs, just stick your firewire cable in, and away you go. But this approach does not work in larger enviornments, where you must share a single HD VTR between several FCP HD edit suites, as well as dubbing, etc (as well as use of other VTR's with your FCP HD system). You will never see a professional facility using anything other than HDSDI, with RS422 control. If you are a news reporter in the field, or a student,or on a very low budget, firewire will work for you. Bob Zelin Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by walter biscardi on Jul 2, 2005 at 5:34:39 pm [Bob Zelin] "You will never see a professional facility using anything other than HDSDI, with RS422 control. If you are a news reporter in the field, or a student,or on a very low budget, firewire will work for you." Bob I just love your absolute statements like they are the law. Broadcast series are being cut using the Firewire workflow so I would say that constitutes a "professional" use of the DVCPro HD. So I would then consider the facility cutting a broadcast series a "professional" facility. Your statement would have been perfectly acceptable maybe five years ago in the "old school" ways of doing things. At one time only very large facilities with big machine rooms and row of edit suites would be considered "professional." Now boutiques and home-based facilities are cutting feature films and broadcast television. Most of these are not low-budget and certainly not low quality. Obviously you're free to say what you want (and I know you will) but the world of "absolute law" in video production is long gone. Walter Biscardi, Jr. Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media http://www.biscardicreative.com Now in Production, "The Rough Cut," http://www.theroughcutmovie.com "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - Adam Savage, Mythbusters Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by Bob Zelin on Jul 3, 2005 at 1:16:59 pm The idea of constantly crawling on the floor and disconnecting cabling does seem pretty silly (unless you in fact have a Firewire patch bay) and you have your equipment centralized in a machine room, where you can run your multiple MAC G5 CPU's to a FW400 bay, and patch the single HD VTR (like the HD1200) into these VTR's. I can only assume that users like Walter own a Firewire 400 interface device, like an AJA I/O or I/O LA, and must disconnect the AJA box to hookup the HD1200 (or other FW400 devices) when he wants to use them. If you own the gear, and no one else is using it, I guess this is what happens, but when you are in a multi user enviornment, bringing everything to bays (or a router) just makes sense. If you have 2 or more FCP HD systems, and are sharing a single HD1200, then you either have Gefen (for example) KVM extenders for your CPU's to keep the firewire legnth short for the HD VTR, or you pick up the deck each time, and bring it from room to room, recabling each time you want to use it. Please don't give the misconception that you simply buy one TecNec $120 firewire patch bay, and you are done. Multi room use of equipment requires all kinds of stuff. Bob Zelin Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by walter biscardi on Jul 3, 2005 at 1:47:42 pm [Bob Zelin] "The idea of constantly crawling on the floor and disconnecting cabling does seem pretty silly (unless you in fact have a Firewire patch bay) and you have your equipment centralized in a machine room, where you can run your multiple MAC G5 CPU's to a FW400 bay, and patch the single HD VTR (like the HD1200) into these VTR's" Maybe I'm missing something here, but I can't find the part in either my posts or weevie's posts where we describe crawling around the floor to connect and disconnect cables. Again, maybe I'm missing something, but you seem to be responding to comments that aren't even in our posts. I would prefer you stick to the actual comments that are in everyone's posts (and I mean all threads, not just this one) and stop adding "assumptions" such as your comment above. [Bob Zelin] "I can only assume that users like Walter own a Firewire 400 interface device, like an AJA I/O or I/O LA, and must disconnect the AJA box to hookup the HD1200 (or other FW400 devices) when he wants to use them." Bob, you obviously don't know my facility so don't "assume" anything. But for the record, your assumption is wrong. [Bob Zelin] "If you have 2 or more FCP HD systems, and are sharing a single HD1200, then you either have Gefen (for example) KVM extenders for your CPU's to keep the firewire legnth short for the HD VTR, or you pick up the deck each time, and bring it from room to room, recabling each time you want to use it." So if I read you right, this is a completely unacceptable way to conduct business? Why? Sure it's not the ideal way to do this, but it's easy enough to have cables waiting at each location. And if you're doing the Firewire workflow, you're talking about 2 cables, power and firewire. The 1200A is a very small device and essentially a portable deck. It's not an F500 HDCAM deck or even an old UVW-1800 which would be quite cumbersome to port around the re-cable each time. [Bob Zelin] "Please don't give the misconception that you simply buy one TecNec $120 firewire patch bay, and you are done. Multi room use of equipment requires all kinds of stuff." Actually it doesn't seem to require an inordinate about of equipment. I'm working with ProMax right now to improve our video / audio / control routing for our suites. Seems to be a pretty straight-forward solution if you work with the folks with the right know-how. Walter Biscardi, Jr. Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media http://www.biscardicreative.com Now in Production, "The Rough Cut," http://www.theroughcutmovie.com "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - Adam Savage, Mythbusters Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by David Battistella on Jul 3, 2005 at 8:49:36 pm What is your set up Bob? Perhaps we can all learn a thing or two? David Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? by Bob Zelin on Jul 3, 2005 at 11:08:51 pm What is your set up Bob? Perhaps we can all learn a thing or two? David The type of system that I usually setup for most companies is almost identical to what Steve Covello describes. I usually start with Middle Atlantic racks. Each rack contains a Powerware PW5125 or APC Smart UPS 1500 on the bottom. Video patch bays are Canare 242U-DVJAW, which handle everything thru HDSDI, and are the least expensive video bays on the market that can handle HD. Audio patch bays are ADC PPA1 series solder point bays (long frame 1/4", but I often get requests for Bantam, where I use the PPB series). I bring all RS422 points up to a CAT 5e coupler patch bay, either from TecNec or ADC. The Tecnec model that is reliable is the PB8-R4R4. Firewire 400 bays are Tecnec 8XFW 16XFW, which too have been reliable. I have not tried the new ADC firewire patch bays. I have been using Gefen KVM extenders. For new MAC G5's with the dual DVI ports, I use the Gefen CAT 5 5000 HD, which works very well. I realize that there are cheaper KVM's on the market, like Hall Research, etc., but I have had good luck with the Gefen series. For drives, I have stopped using Lacie FW800 drives, in favor of G-Tech and StorCase. For SATA, I have found that Firmtek Seritek (with Hitachi drives) and the Sonnet Tempo X eSATA 8 port have been reliable. For SCSI array's, the combo of a HUGE U320RX with an ATTO UL4D is unbeatable. I am not an Apple XServe fan. For monitoring, I have been using AJA HDP HD-SDI converters with either Sony SDM-P234b or Apple Cinema 23" monitors, even though I LOVE the "old" Sony PVM-20L5/1. For those looking for routers, I have also found that Sigma Electronics offers an excellent value vs. performance. Their SDI routers handle the embedded audio as well. I have not yet tried the Blackmagic Videohub, but I am anxious to do so. I have certainly used Kramer (also sold under Ocean Matrix and Comprehensive Video) routers, which certainly work, but I don't have the confidence in this line compared to Sigma. And what's the moral of all of this nonsense here - ITS COMPLEX AND EXPENSIVE to build a nice editing facility - you just don't stick a firewire cable in the back of a G5, and say "I'm in the TV business". Bob Zelin Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? - reply by Bob Zelin on Jul 3, 2005 at 10:54:19 pm Steve - you are doing NOTHING wrong here - but you obviously have a standard central machine room, with audio patch bays, video patch bays, a Firewire 400 patch bay, as well as a Sigma router, and KVM's for EACH of your edit systems. You probably have all of this mounted in several racks, with UPS's on everything. My whole point was this is NOT a simple system. I don't want to give anyone the impression that building a facility is as simple as one firewire cable. If you and Walter have chosen to use Firewire as your I/O for your FCP HD systems, instead of HD-SDI via your Kona 2, then God bless you - that's not my choice, but I absolutely don't want to give anyone the impression that building a multi room facility, such as yours, is as simple as a couple of G5's and a firewire cable, that you drag a VTR around from room to room. Your model of a central machine room, with centralized patching and normalized connections to the most commonly used devices in both HDSDI, SDI, component, and composite is the correct model. And it requires LOTS of wires, lots of equipment. Not just a single firewire cable. With all of that said (and with your obvious investment), I am still surprised that you don't use HD SDI to go into your Kona 2, since you obviously have the patch system already in place. Bob Zelin Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? - reply by walter biscardi on Jul 4, 2005 at 7:07:24 pm Excellent post steve (or weevie, whichever you prefer). All points well made and you really sum it up for many of the "new generation" facilities, as I like to call them. [weevie833] "Your knowledge, Bob, is highly respected by this guy who types as we speak, so don't think I'm being oppositional for my own self-aggrandizing. I only find that when a facility owner says that their setup is the way everyone else should accommodate, it seems counter-productive." Actually, from all of Bob's posts I think he's a sales rep or owner of a VAR, but he'll let us know for sure. Your point in that last statement applies to many sales reps I've met in the past as well. Because a multi-million dollar facility has such and such option, then that's what all the facilities in town must have it too even if you don't really need it. I now have a single sales rep here in Atlanta that I work with because he listens to my needs and presents good options, not just the most expensive ones. He's David Strupp with the WH Platts Co. and he respects that I'm spending very hard-earned money. Instead of looking to pad his commission, he ensures that I get the right products for my needs at the absolute best price. Walter Biscardi, Jr. Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media http://www.biscardicreative.com Now in Production, "The Rough Cut," http://www.theroughcutmovie.com "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - Adam Savage, Mythbusters Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: what's better sdi or firewire? - apology by Bob Zelin on Jul 4, 2005 at 7:08:19 pm I would like to apologize to this esteemed forum for any outbursts that I may have made, that may have seemed as if I was attacking anyone. I assure you that I was doing no such thing, and regret if it was interpreted this way. Sincerely, Bob Zelin Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index