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RooneyX · Jun 10, 2004, 01:31 PM

I need opinions as I'm shooting a feature late this year or next year on HD. I've chosen HD because I need to capture as much natural light as possible and shooting on film makes this a difficult and expensive endeavor.

What's capturing like with FCHD? Any skipped frames? What about scrubbing? Any video/audio synch problems? What machines have you tried it on? I've heard that there are problems, lost frames for example, when using it with Powerbook firewire. Is this still the case?

Thanks.

RooneyX · Jun 11, 2004, 02:44 PM

Anyone?

bmedina · Jun 11, 2004, 11:42 PM

I have some content that Apple sent me on a CD that is DVPRO format (both 1080i and 720p). I have no experience with capturing the content. As for scrubbing/editing performance: what kind of computer are you using?

RooneyX · Jun 13, 2004, 12:54 PM

Originally posted by bmedina:
I have some content that Apple sent me on a CD that is DVPRO format (both 1080i and 720p). I have no experience with capturing the content. As for scrubbing/editing performance: what kind of computer are you using?

At the moment it's a Powerbook but that's not my production machine. For the production I'd like whatever Power Mac G5s are available at the time with RAID storage running Final Cut HD and Apple's other high end apps. But ideally I'd like to be able to capture and do rough edits after shoots and that would mean a Powerbook if I'm going to be mobile. If Powerbooks at that time can handly HD with no problems then I might even be able to do proper editing day by day instead of waiting for shooting to end. That's what I'd like to do.

direktor · Jun 15, 2004, 12:17 PM

I made a test sequence the other week of DVCPRO HD 720p/24, and it came in at a data rate of 5.8MB/sec, which was amazing to me. It seemed so low, I went online to make sure that I had everything correct and to corroborate my numbers. It was correct. It's 4:2:2, also.

The highest data rate you could make with DVCPRO HD was about 15MB/sec, I think, for 1080i/60. Clearly within the limits of almost any firewire drive.

Of course those numbers go through the roof if you decide to work uncompressed...but many people will not need to do that anymore.

direktor · Jun 15, 2004, 12:21 PM

Oh, I forgot to mention that the 720p/24 sequence was really easy to work with on my 17" 1ghz Powerbook.

bmedina · Jun 15, 2004, 03:18 PM

Yeah, I think 720p is fine on current PowerBooks and PowerMacs. 1080i stutters during playback on all the current PowerBooks. The PowerMac I tested (dual 2.0) has CPU usage around 50% when playing back 1080i in DVCPRO format.

RooneyX · Jun 15, 2004, 09:39 PM

Uncompressed obviously. I can't afford any artifacts because it has to be printed to 35mm film where digital projection is unavailable. I'm now thinking even future Powerbooks won't be able to handle it. It will have to be a G5 desktop with the fastest SATA or RAID only.

bmedina · Jun 15, 2004, 10:13 PM

Originally posted by RooneyX:
Uncompressed obviously. I can't afford any artifacts because it has to be printed to 35mm film where digital projection is unavailable. I'm now thinking even future Powerbooks won't be able to handle it. It will have to be a G5 desktop with the fastest SATA or RAID only.

For uncompressed, most definitely. PowerBooks won't even be close.

dlefebvre · Jun 15, 2004, 10:19 PM

Originally posted by RooneyX:
Uncompressed obviously. I can't afford any artifacts because it has to be printed to 35mm film where digital projection is unavailable. I'm now thinking even future Powerbooks won't be able to handle it. It will have to be a G5 desktop with the fastest SATA or RAID only.

Not only that, but you will need a video card like Kona or Cinewave to support Uncompressed HD editing.

RooneyX · Jun 16, 2004, 12:51 PM

Originally posted by dlefebvre:
Not only that, but you will need a video card like Kona or Cinewave to support Uncompressed HD editing.

Yes. I've been looking at the Cinewave as its a PCI-X card with full FCHD support. Very nice indeed.

direktor · Jun 19, 2004, 02:07 AM

Originally posted by RooneyX:
Uncompressed obviously. I can't afford any artifacts because it has to be printed to 35mm film where digital projection is unavailable. I'm now thinking even future Powerbooks won't be able to handle it. It will have to be a G5 desktop with the fastest SATA or RAID only.

Well, this is mostly only an issue then if you're shooting with the Sony camera then, because if you shoot the Panasonic, you do the DVCPRO/HD/Firewire thing until the online.

No matter what camera/format you use, I'd seriously consider doing the offline in DV anyway. Most post houses have been doing that for a while now and have the process dialed to do your online.

I'm as much as a tech/mac geek as anybody, but trying to do uncompressed HD just because it's barely coming available these days would be a good way to slow your project down a whole bunch, I think.

RooneyX · Jun 21, 2004, 01:14 PM

Originally posted by direktor:

I'm as much as a tech/mac geek as anybody, but trying to do uncompressed HD just because it's barely coming available these days would be a good way to slow your project down a whole bunch, I think.

All that would be true a little while ago but now we have such powerful realtime hardware and software available at low cost not only can we work with uncompressed footage quickly but also get the final cut ready for digital projection in a very short time. It also means a final digital master cut can be transferred to film in a short time. Powerbooks are out of the question it seems, but with regards to the rest I'm really pleased to see such advances. I hate high budgets and now costs can be brought right down.

direktor · Jun 22, 2004, 12:37 PM

I think you should try working with uncompressed HD in Final Cut before you commit to it.

It's pretty boggy, even on the fastest machines. I'd go insane trying to cut a movie that way.

RooneyX · Jun 23, 2004, 12:52 PM

Originally posted by direktor:
I think you should try working with uncompressed HD in Final Cut before you commit to it.

It's pretty boggy, even on the fastest machines. I'd go insane trying to cut a movie that way.

Of course I will. I can't jump into something without careful thought otherwise it might cost a lot of time and energy, and cost more than myself. If it's no good even with hardware accelerators then I'll work with compressed footage and EDLs.

saltines17 · Jun 29, 2004, 02:46 AM

I'm new to the whole editing scene, and I want to try to get the best computer set-up I can right now, so that I won't have to upgrade the computer at all within the next 4-5 years.

I'm having a difficult time understanding what role a graphics card plays in editing.

What is the benefit, for instance, of having a card like the new nVidia card announced today by Apple, and how does that compare to having the PCI-X "Cinewave" card that you mentioned?

Forgive me if it's a stupid question, but I'm having a hard time sorting this out in my head.

Thanks!

RooneyX · Jul 3, 2004, 02:03 PM

Originally posted by saltines17:

What is the benefit, for instance, of having a card like the new nVidia card announced today by Apple, and how does that compare to having the PCI-X "Cinewave" card that you mentioned?
!

It's a completely different thing. The Cinewave card is not a graphics card. It's a video I/O card that accelerates editing in the timeline such as transitions, previews and so on. Your primary graphics card simply handles the operating systems GUI. If you do not have something like a Cinewave then your graphics card will only help keep your video previews smooth but won't handle any real-time work very well.

But this looks like it might change with Panther. Corevideo and Coreimage are great technologies that will offload nearly all work on to the video card's GPU and also introduce non-destructible real time effects like never before. I hope this all makes sense to you.

saltines17 · Jul 4, 2004, 01:00 PM

Originally posted by RooneyX:
It's a completely different thing. The Cinewave card is not a graphics card. It's a video I/O card that accelerates editing in the timeline such as transitions, previews and so on. Your primary graphics card simply handles the operating systems GUI. If you do not have something like a Cinewave then your graphics card will only help keep your video previews smooth but won't handle any real-time work very well.

But this looks like it might change with Panther. Corevideo and Coreimage are great technologies that will offload nearly all work on to the video card's GPU and also introduce non-destructible real time effects like never before. I hope this all makes sense to you.

I think I got it.

Thank you!