Bypass The Codec?
 

Has anyone heard about ways to bypass the codec and go straight to a a very fast drive? I'm noticing that the automatic 5:1 compression (on the old Xl1) is making some headaches for me when trying to do high-end effects. Especially with green screens and such.

If possible, it'd be nice to go straight to a drive even if it wasn't in real time (for example, shooting minatures at a slower motion control rate) and avoid that first layer of compression. Even better would be to avoid that in real-time!

Thanks!

Jeffrey

Sorry, if you shoot on DV, it's already encoded in the camera. You need to shoot DVCPRO, SD, HD or Film to have less problems. You can still use keying software to make your life easier, like the canopus keyer, Combustion, After Effects etc.

It might be that an uncompressed analog signal is on the XL1's
analog outputs. If you hook this up to a high quality MJPEG board
(the ones that go over 10 MB/s) you might get a better quality.
If however the camera encodes to DV and then decodes that
to analog (which could be since they could then use the same
circuitry that they use for playback) you will loose quality. If
you go down the analog route you will need very high quality
cables and other components to not loose too much quality
in that process.

But as Akos already explained, best is to go with a camera with
lesser compression.

Rats!

I just started thinking about the analogs out to a really fast capture card. Since I'm shooting in a controlled enviorment, I can afford to have fast hard drives and such to avoid the compression.

I should probably figure out the best way to use the Xl-1 so that the wife doesn't kill me...

Oh... also...

How can I find out if the analog is already getting the compression going through the camera?

That would be too bad, but I'm betting it is.

Now that would be hard to tell indeed.... Best way probably
is to compare frames with DV and analog. The more detail
in them the better. Also sharp contrast will more easily show
macroblock compression. Then even your capture card might
introduce unwanted side effects. Best to stay uncompressed
then. As I said earlier, better stick to DV or get a higher grade
camera in my opinion...

<<<-- As I said earlier, better stick to DV or get a higher grade
camera in my opinion... -->>>


I'll use you as a reference with the wife!

Uh oh... glad she doesn't know were I live exactly <g>