Any Firewire Previews Out to Component HD Monitor
 

Can't find it in the manual, but can you run a firewire preview out of a FCP timeline through the camera to a component HD monitor?

Manual pretty much says no (Page 87, I think)... but I WOULD like to hear of someone trying this...

David,

The answer is both yes, and no.

You can get static, single-frame HD previews out firewire but not real-time playback. For that you need either a Kona, Blackmagic or other dedicated HD-video I/O card. Doing so negates using the camera as an interface.

Apparently you can output a sd signal. This would be great for color correction as you can use existing sd monitors. Have you looked at the price of hd monitors?!

Color correcting HD footage through an SD monitor will only get you in the ballpark. HD and SD handle color in very different ways.

I find in my HD->SD downconverts that the image tends to pick up much more contrast. HD is also more tolerant of saturated colors, where SD will have buzz and dot-crawl problems (when you're checking with a composite signal, which you should do once in a while)

In the end, if you're just a hobbyist, then I suppose the above is cool. But if you're delivering HD masters (even HDV), then you should take care.

Are you saying that if hooked up to FCP via firewire the camera will output via the component connection a single frame to an HD monitor? Please clarify. If this is the case at least you could see somewhat what your colors look like on a proper HD monitor.

Can you be more specific as to what you mean?

Marty,

Until you try this yourself and actually see what happens it's a bit tricky to fully comprehend; I'll try to clarify as best I can:

If you playback an HD clip either from the viewer or the timeline and your output is through firewire, you will only see static frames, not real-time playback. It has nothing to do with if a camera acting as an intermediate connection or not.

For example: Pull up an HD clip (like one of Kaku's HVX samples) and play it. You'll see the real-time playback on your Mac monitor, but all you'll see through your firewire output is the very first frame from where the playhead started. The next frame you see will be where the playhead stops - but nothing in between.

Real-time playback in HD requires an HD-capable video card. Firewire literally can't keep up with HD content in full playback mode, it can only show static, single frames, one at a time.

If that doesn't clear it up you'll have to either ask for Barry or somoene else to give a better explanation - or try it yourself.

Thanks for the explanation but there is one thing that I am still not clear about. I thought the Panasonic DVCPRO-HD deck was designed to interface with a firewire connection to transfer from a NLE to tape. I may be wrong but I also thought firewire was more than capable of outputting realtime HD. It sounds like you are saying you see the first frame and last frame only. What if you scrub? and stop on the timeline somewhere? Does it show that frame?
I'd try it myself but Panasonic isn't cooperating with sending enough cameras to get mine!

Thanks!
Marty

The best thing you can do to get your questions answered is to download the test clips Kaku shot with the HVX that are listed on this forum. Import them into your FCP timeline and see what happens. It will all make sense then.

I have downloaded Kakos clips. I don't have the HVX yet so I can't see what it does. All I want to know is if the still images appear on the output of the HVX to a HD monitor. The manual all but says output from components is not possible when firewire in is used. Your comment made it sound like something comes out of the component outs but it is not streaming. Just a static frame.

If I had the HVX I would be posting the answer to this question and not asking it.

I can't answer definitively yet, but as soon as I have some sort of Mac here I'll be able to.

Okay, just tried it through Avid on the PC, and it appears that the manual is correct, there is no component output when doing a firewire input (at least in HD mode, didn't try in DV or DV50 mode). You can output from the computer timeline and see the results on the camera's LCD, and you can tell the camera to record the incoming data stream onto the P2 card, but it doesn't show a live E-E component output.

Don't know if it shows S-video or Composite, I'm assuming it does...

The problem would not be the firewire bandwidth, as stated above, hdv can
travel over the firewire no problem. The problem, I assume, is the realtime
encoding of the HDV signal. For it to travel over firewire and be understood
by your camera it needs to be in HDV (mpeg-2) format. As far as I know it is
impossible or very difficult to encode that format in realtime. I also doubt it
would look good (enough for what you need to see on the screen).

Perhaps this will change if they can use some dedicated hardware MPEG-2
encoder. I assume those dedicated boards like the decklink that over HD out
will also use less or no compression. Which may be a good thing for color
correction etc.

Wrong camera! :)

1) FireWire can move DV100.

2) Question -- if you feed the FireWire output from one HVX to another HVX, does the second one output real-time HD via component? If so, then the HVX can de-compress DV100 on the fly. I can't see why it can't -- despite the reported test. Perhaps it's a copy-protection restriction.

3) To work, FCP must use CPU cycles to compress video to DV100 while also playing the uncompressed on your Mac's monitor. So the question is -- does FCP even try to output DV100 during playback? I expect it does not.

4) You do not want to use an SD monitor for HD CC. Different color spaces.

No. No component output of firewire input, as the manual says.

It does decompress it; you can see it on the LCD. It just doesn't travel out the component outputs at the same time. Don't know why.

Haven't tried it with FCP, but Avid does it; plays the footage in the computer monitor and also outputs the full 1080 DV100 stream through the firewire, so I don't know why FCP wouldn't do the same.