HD presentation format
 

At our local cinema, they have an HD projector for screenings. I would like to show a piece created with the EX1. My question is how to best convey it.
I have a Sony HDV deck that I can record to and bring there, or I could master the piece on Blu-Ray and get a Blu-Ray deck to take there. I'm wondering which would produce the best picture/sound when projected...images from and HDV deck or images from a Blu_Ray Disc.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Best, Craig
PS I don't have an XDcam deck.

Craig, Blu-Ray would be great.

Just connect a playstation or standalone player as you suggested

You could push the full 35mbps with BD. Will look great

I assume you are shooting 1080i(60) or 1080p(24)

Paul

Why do you say this so as to exclude 1080x30p?

If you have Sony Vegas 8.0b, you can burn a 1920x1080 24P right from the timeline to a standard DVD and play it back in a Sony PS3. I believe a standard DVD will hold 30 to 40 minutes, double that for RSDL. It works great! The only thing is Vegas offers no fancy authoring. so no menus. It also will not instant playback without executing the file on the DVD. I would love to see Sony Vegas offer the instant playback in a future upgrade.
Of course you could always bring the Vegas encoded m2v file and audio ac3 file into a Blu-ray authoring program.

Hi Micheal. Correct.
Blu-ray spec doesn't allow 1080@30P (only 24P)

Thanks
Paul

Neither. Both would be a re-compressed renders of an already-compressed origination format. The best picture would be from a master that compressed little or not at all. My favorite option is to bring a computer with a fast disk array and play from a nearly uncompressed master.

What's the make and model of the projector (and accessories)?

Not necessarily; as I wrote in this thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=114431

- computer playback through a graphic card may NOT provide as wide dynamic range and crispness as direct from the camera through component, HDMI (not to mention HD-SDI direct from the imagers, but we're talking already recorded/compressed material here).

Your other thread was about line twitter. The computer master would be truly progressive, not PsF, just like the projector itself, so line twitter would not be a problem.

It depends a lot on the projector model. If it takes DVI, then even a single-link DVI transmits 4:4:4 8-bit RGB 1080p, which is just as much as HDMI 1.0 and better than analog. A dual-link DVI would allow you to do 2K nicely.

Furthermore, DVI allows the use of alternate colorspaces, as the projector may have a wider gamut. (Unfortunately, I don't think there is much software support for this, which may contribute to the high price for digital projection media systems.)

As you said, we're talking about once-compressed material already, which is edited and (probably) color graded. So it would reduce picture quality again to compress it and put it back on the camera (or on bluray or HDV).

Line twitter aside, here is what I also pointed out:

"In fact, playing directly gives not only much more punchy and dynamic picture than using a PC graphics card; it also is much more noise free - no single trace of the mosquito noise!"

One cannot disregard the fact that PC graphic cards are of differing quality, and introduce their own artefacts, as well as generally "filter" the video thus decreasing its dynamic range and crispness.

Sorry; I obviously didn't read your post very carefully. I see what you're saying now.

A computer certainly has the potential to ruin an image, but I've configured several computer/projector setups and had no trouble at all making it sing. If 4:4:4 8-bit looks *worse* than 4:2:0 HDV, the operator is doing something wrong.

PC graphics cards do not do anything to the image unless they are configured to do so. They don't introduce artifacts, filtration, dynamic range compression, or softness. Having set up several computer interfaces with projectors, LCD, and conventional tube HDTV, and comparing a variety of codecs, I can say that your experience does not match my own.

Yes, it looks like our experiences do not match. I have an average ATI graphics card (Radeon X1600XT), and to judge its influence on the source HD material playback, it's enough to:

- watch it straight from the camera, connected via component to the a full HD display
- capture/copy the same clip to the PC, and play back using any MPEG player (VLC or Nero Showtime in my case), or NLE (Vegas in my case), using either DVI or component output of the graphics card on the same monitor.

I can tell you the difference is astonishing - even if I configure the card and the software to do no tricks to my video (in terms of deinterlacing, colours etc.).

Back to Blu-ray: on the Mac side, for a standalone player, my understanding is that the only option is Encore for authoring. Correct?