DVCPROHD can be awesome...

[Shannon Rawls]

Originally Posted by Brian Petersen

And with the "good take" marker you can use in the camera..... I'll already know what I want. It's gonna speed up my process a ton!

Whooooaaaa.. STOP THE PRESS! The HVX has a "Good Take" feature that wuill mark a take as good???? Oh wow...that's awesome. I didn't know that. So when the director screams "PRINT THAT ONE!" the camera Op can just tap a button and it's done???

Ahhhh man....that's GREAT!!

and I can always give them a MiniDV tape that I've been simultaneously recording to throughout the day. Done.

How are you going to do that?

- ShannonRawls.com

[Chris Hurd]

Ahhhhh Chris......So we can only talk about how "great" and "exciting" something is in that area? Can't talk about how un-great and un-exciting it is?

Well, here's how I look at it.

This is a practical community focused on usability. In other words, DV Info Net is about sharing tips, tools, techniques and learning from each other with regard to this amazing digital content creation technology. It's about ideas and results and the hardware and software we use every day. Key focus here is in what we're using or in the pre-purchase stage, what we're planning to use. Many of our members are experts on the tools they're using.

I can think of no greater waste of time and effort than to spend energy talking about what you're not using. What's the point. It's just so much negativity. A person can't be an expert on something they choose not to use, therefore, what advice can they give? None. And who can learn from it? Nobody.

When a Ford owner posts in a Chevy forum about how un-great and un-exciting a Chevy is, all that does is upset the Chevy owners. That's called a platform war. As I've said before, we don't do platform wars here. DV Info Net isn't about making war, it's about peace and harmony and sharing with others and learning a thing or two while having fun along the way (now I remind myself of Bill Cosby). The way we keep the peace around here is by having the P2 folks stay on their turf and the HDV folks stay on their turf, or Canon vs. Nikon, or Panasonic vs. Sony, or Final Cut vs. Vegas, or PC vs. Mac, or whatever. Pick a brand, we've got a room for it here at DV Info Net.

So we've always had this rule, which goes like this... this is somebody else's description of it: "(regarding DV Info Net) the policy is that you aren't allowed to bash something that you neither own nor use. Only legitimate critisism from actual owner/users is allowed. This is to keep trolls from infesting the board and engaging in vendettas to destroy a product. Unfortunately that happens all to much around the net. He allows you to expresss your opinion once like 'I don't like this camera and won't buy it,' then move on. More than fair."

I want this place to attract serious people who are interested in learning and sharing, and part of the process of getting these folks to come to this site is our real-names-only policy plus the fact that we don't engage in platform wars. The internet is chock full of places where people can bash stuff all day long... we're different. We're more of a "what are you about" kind of experience as opposed to a "what is that thing about" kind of deal.

Hope that's clear anyway.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Shannon Rawls

"Uhhhhh John, where's the master tape for today? Please take that out the camera and toss it over to me please...thank you kindly."

I use tape now and I still don't work that way... :-)

"Uhhhhh John, have you finished copying over the footage from the P2 cards yet? Ok, when you're done, please bring me the Hard Drive, and please be careful that you don't accidently trip over that C-Stand and watch out for those sand bags laying in the middle of the floor. Because if you drop it and we lose that footage, the whole day was a waste and that's $4000.00 worth of time, food, labor, and location costs down the drain." not to mention our schedule will be ruined.

Oh, Lordy no. In a proper P2 or "tapeless" environment, the footage is as good as archived as soon as it's logged into the NLE. And it works this way with our tape captures too. Once it's in our system, the DV tapes are of no more use to us, we keep them just because we're too lazy to destroy them.

You need to pull a clip from the archive? Look in the catalog and if it's not online in our redundant SAN, then pull the corresponding DLT and load the video you need. DV loads off the DLT a lot faster than re-capturing from DV tape.

What, the producer wants a tape??? OK, put a blank in the deck and cut one for him.... :-)

All the bickering aside, it's obvious we have different ways of doing things. You're a producer and a "video guy". I'm not... I'm an animator and software developer with an existing workflow and I'm trying to add more video into the workflow I have already established. For me, trying to work with tape captures as I have done for years as a hobby at home and storing DV tapes, is an unappealing and a somewhat foreign concept. Apparently, a tapeless workflow with continuous, semi-automated DLT/LTO back-ups from redundant SAN spanning about 30TB of online data is a foreign concept to a lot of "video guys". To each their own... A setup like this would be very expensive to put together just for a new camera that's hitting the market. But then again, if I were starting up a new production company, I wouldn't consider any other way. We're pretty future proof here and any tapeless system that comes along from here on out will drop right into our workflow as long as the software supports it. Our other work beyond video will keep the hardware on the cutting edge, so I don't have to worry about that aspect of it being supported by the next great camera.

[Earl Thurston]

Just to add to the hard-drive versus tape debate, the company I work for, an ISP, has made the move AWAY from DLT tapes to a hard-drive backup strategy. The DLT tapes have proven to be too slow, too expensive and too delicate. Indeed, hard drives aren't foolproof either, but they're much less headache to manage and are proving to be much more reliable.

[Kevin Shaw]

Sorry guys, I was just responding to the comment that DVCProHD and HDV might be cost-comparable and got a little carried away with my response. 'Nuff said.

[Luis Caffesse]

Originally Posted by Shannon Rawls

I understand P2 expidites the editor and all that, but screw that. He ain't got nuthin' but time! Plus, I'm paying for it anyhow. Moreover, I'd rather my editor sit back and watch all the Takes as he captures anyhow. This will give him a better understanding of how the production went so he can make better decisions when cutting.

I realize you just threw that out there as one of the many reasons Shannon, but I gotta say... If you need you worry that the efficiency of your post workflow might make your editor lazy then maybe you need to find a new editor.

:)

In my opinion, ANY editor worth his rate will become more than familiar with the footage before making his first cut, whether the footage shows up on tape, hard drive, DLT, or whatever media you choose.

[Toke Lahti]

Originally Posted by Shannon Rawls

"Uhhhhh John, have you finished copying over the footage from the P2 cards yet? Ok, when you're done, please bring me the Hard Drive, and please be careful that you don't accidently trip over that C-Stand and watch out for those sand bags laying in the middle of the floor. Because if you drop it and we lose that footage, the whole day was a waste and that's $4000.00 worth of time, food, labor, and location costs down the drain." not to mention our schedule will be ruined.

How about: "Just have a cup of coffee and wait couple of minutes, the laptop is burning the last shots to dvd/hd-dvd/blu-ray right now and there's already backups in the internal and the external drive of the laptop."

And you could also continue: "When I get back to office, I'll copy the footage to SAN or raid5 and also make another set of optical disks to archive in another building in case my office gets burned down. If you happen to loose the footage you can have another copy of then in the matter of hours."

[Steev Dinkins]

Haha, this is so off topic now. "DVCPRO HD can be awesome," was the inspired spirited beginning. Where is the discussion now? Hahaha.

I see a thread lock coming :D :D

[Chris Hurd]

No impending lockdown, but I do smell a thread title change in the air.

[Toke Lahti]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

HDV will once again have a practical advantage as an end-to-end recording, editing and distribution solution -- with the end user discs serving as a convenient full-quality backup of the finished project.

I'm not sure if this thing has already been stressed enough, but this end-to-end philosofy is totally wrong in today's digital workflow. If I remember correctly it was sony that used this marketing slogan with beta-sx to justify lower quality than digibeta.

Every time something is done to a compressed footage it has to be uncompressed and then compressed again. All fades, cc'ing, graphics etc., with long gop even straigth cuts. Many times in production workflow these are done in a chain one after another and even with different systems that use different codecs. At the end broadcasters usually have sdi pipes in the playout systems, so there's still one de/re-compression more and they might also have to do statistical multiplexing when broadcasting.

So the uncompress-recompress chain will remain long at least for years from today and in every step the quality can only get worse. If you start with hdv, end user will receive somthing much less. If you start with dv100 the end user can have something that's even better than hdv's camera originals.

[Steev Dinkins]

Originally Posted by Toke Lahti

If you start with hdv, end user will receive somthing much less. If you start with dv100 the end user can have something that's even better than hdv's camera originals.

I wasn't following your other train of thought too much, but I agree with what you're saying about better final product, and I'd like to add to it. My tests with HDV, CC and/or filtering/FX, and then out to Mpeg2 yields artifacting that I simply am not getting from similar treatment and output from DVCPRO HD (or even DV) source.

Can anyone explain in technical terms, the ramifaction of HDV (Mpeg2) source getting compressed to Mpeg2 distribution? And god forbid, Mpeg2 source, out to Mpeg2 master, out to yet recompresed Mpeg2 for broadcast, then recompressed Mpeg2 to DVR. I'm suspecting it's like chopping at a tree trunk. But what if there is nobody there to hear the tree fall? Okay, I digress. Cholly HA HA HA.

[Brian Petersen]

Originally Posted by Shannon Rawls

How are you going to do that?

- ShannonRawls.com

You can simultaneously record to MiniDV tape while recording to the P2 cards or out to Firestore device or whatever. So at the end of the day I, or the producer, or whoever, could look over the MiniDV tape to watch the footage, all while the "original" high HD res stuff is in hard drive form getting handed to the editor.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, if I did any variable frame rate stuff, that will show correctly on the MiniDV tape. So if I shot slow-mo, when I pop in that MiniDV tape at the end of the day i would be watching the slow-motion footage in actual slow motion. Pretty dang cool if you ask me.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Brian Petersen

You can simultaneously record to MiniDV tape while recording to the P2 cards or out to Firestore device or whatever. So at the end of the day I, or the producer, or whoever, could look over the MiniDV tape to watch the footage, all while the "original" high HD res stuff is in hard drive form getting handed to the editor.

Ummm.... No you can't. You have to choose your record media P2 or Tape. You can dub HD to a DV tape in camera when you're not recording, but there is no simultaneous recording to both. The firewire stream is always live, streaming whatever it is you're recording.

[Shannon Rawls]

Originally Posted by Brian Petersen

You can simultaneously record to MiniDV tape while recording to the P2 cards or out to Firestore device or whatever.

LOLOLOL. You sure about that? Absolutely positively stick a needle in your eye sure about that? *smile*

Originally Posted by Brian Petersen

if I did any variable frame rate stuff, that will show correctly on the MiniDV tape.

LMAO. You certain about that statement too Brian??. I mean, cause if you were wrong that could be disasterous....I know you're kinda new here and all, and may not have done your due dilligence, and may be blindly following a certain manufacturers camera without doing any research, but I doubt that's the case....correct? Even worse, I would hate for you to be wrong about this information and actually preaching it to some unsuspected guy who is taking your advice on buying the camera, but in reality, you gave him bad info and didn't know what you were talking about, because you were so gungho about the camera you missed the specs and capabilites...... so now this person who took your advice went out and bought the camera based on your incorrect recommendation....and found out it didn't do what you told him it could....... $10,000.00 after the fact. *smile*

Are you sure buddy?

- ShannonRawls.com

[Bob Grant]

Sorry to butt in on this interesting discussion with a point that is indeed way off topic.
I think the biggest issue with HDV is the cameras used to shoot it and how it's shot. Biggest killer for mpeg-2 compression is noise, from my experience the more pristine the source the better it survives high levels of compression.

Years ago now I used to make VCDs from off air VHS, the results looked absolutely horrid, barely watchable. And then the same clients gave me a SP studio master to turn into a VCD and the results were remarkably good. In other words the amount of degradation suffered by the VHS was dramatcially higher than what happened to the SP.

I've seen the same thing with DVDs, given footage from a 2/3" DB camera and the results look pretty close to the original, start with VHS or poor DV and things go downhill really badly.

Same has got to happen with HDV, I'd bet starting with HDCAM you could produce a HDV master that held up very nicely, run some upscaled noisy SD through the same process and it'll fall apart real quick.

Starting with noisy HDV and as said decompressing and recompressing that is a formula for things getting ugly quickly, so much of the available bandwidth is being used up by the noise. When the bandwidth is exhausted artifacts creep in and they need more bandwidth during the next pass.

Given that mpeg-2 is the standard for HD broadcasting I think an issue that needs more attention is the noise level of any of these camera. Recording DVCPRO HD to P2 cards avoids the issue at acquisition, but still the footage has to pass through the same process during broadcast. Perhaps some form of noise reduction in post would help out, certainly that'd work better with DVCPRO HD than HDV acquisition.