Panasonic AJA-1200a and Varicam Workflow

Jeremy Heemskerk · July 18, 2006

Hey, we are shooting a movie next week, and I am going to be doing all the offline/Online work, and would like to hear the best course of action for the offline/online process with the Panasonic Varicam shot at 24P (23.98)

I know that if I digitize it in through firewire at DVCPROHD 720P 24FPS that there is no loss in quality if I do not add dissolves ect in my sequence, but having 60-80 tapes thats going to be alot of storage space for the offline I think around 1.4 Terrabyes for that many tapes at DVC-PRO res. My question is can I do an offline edit at say DV res at the same editing timebase 23.98 and then use the aja-1200a deck to downres it to that resolution for the offline and then use the same deck to Online it at 10Bit uncompressed HD res for color correction ect.

I know there is an offlineRT 23.98 option too. Last time I digitized it all in a DV/NTSC 29.97, and then when I onlined it I brought it to 59.97 which was horrible, because we changed our editing timebase.

Can someone give me a step by step using final cut pro 5.1 to do a proper offline/online to 10-bit blackmagic Uncompressed 4:22

We have the blackmagic HD card for SDI, and I can bring it all in through Firewire or through SDI. Is there a reason to use one over the other.

Also if I digitize it in as DVC-PRO HD dropping the duplicate frames, and finish my edit, would dragging this into an uncompressed 10bit 4:22 sequence and rendering, be the same as doing an Online and redigitizing it to this resolution.

Should I create a custom sequence at DV res with an editing timebase of 23.98, will this work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Jeremy

Los Angeles, CA

Chris_Burket · July 20, 2006

If you capture everything in DVCPro HD, there would be no reason for an umcompressed online via HD-SDI. You could simply output the sequence to D5, and your done. When you bring the footage in from the 1200a deck via firewire, you are not losing any quality at all. You are simply moving data. When the camera captures your footage it compresses it into the DVCPro HD codec and when you capture via firewire, you are using the same codec and just moving the data over to your hard drive. However, since it is compressed (it is on the tape too), you should color correct from a format like D5, or if you are color correcting in FCP, then it might be beneficial to do an umcompressed online.

If you are concerned with drive space, I would suggest capturing your footage via SDI using a more compressed codec like DV. You could capture at DV resolution (at 23.98), then edit, and then do an online. I have used this workflow with HDCam and it works great.

If you are NOT going to use the DVCPro HD codec to offline, then you might as well do a 10 bit HD SDI online if you have the drive speed to do it.

As far as a step by step for an online, it depends a lot of the project. Some onlines get really tricky. But the basic idea is when you are done with your sequence, media manage it (which is the same as decomposing in AVID). Then batch redigitize everything at your new resolution. The media manage tool is explained in detail in the FCP manual.

Jeremy Heemskerk · July 20, 2006

Well, then how do I do the color correction, I can't do it in DVC-PRO. Last time I onlined to Blackmagic 10-bit 4:2:2 did the color correction. Does anyone know if I just drag my footage into a 10-bit sequence and render, if it is going to be the same as digitizing it off of the 1200a deck? Then I can do my color correction easily instead of renting the deck and redigitzing from D5.

Im well familiar with the media manager, and how to Online it. I've decided to digitize the tapes in at DVC-PRO HD, so I guess my only question is what the best way to do my color correction is, and if I can just drag my final cut into a new 10 bit sequence render it, then export an xml into Final touch HD and do my color correction at 4:2:2 and then render it back into finalcut.

Is there a better workflow, or is this possible?

Jeremy