Rolfe Klement Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Any ideas on the best and cheapest places to get this done. I used to hear that Smoke and Mirrors were going to offer it. I am pretty sure most places do it if you go to HDCAM then they use bluefish or AJA to go to 10bit mov files - but you then pay for the TK, the tape, the transfer , the hard drive conversion and the VTR time... thanks Rolfe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted August 22, 2007 Premium Member Share Posted August 22, 2007 Hi, > I am pretty sure most places do it if you go to HDCAM then they use bluefish or AJA to go to 10bit mov files - but you then pay for the TK, the > tape, the transfer , the hard drive conversion and the VTR time... Yep. And you pay for everything, and get HDCAM quality! Dismal. But of course that's exactly what they want; I suspect they couldn't really give a rat's rear end about your footage. Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirk DeJonghe Posted August 25, 2007 Share Posted August 25, 2007 We are not in London but we transfer telecine direct to DPX 10 bit log uncompressed to our server. The image sequence can then be copied to the customers USB or Firewire disk (not real-time). It takes about one night to copy about 30 minutes HD to a USB disk. The DPX 10 bit LOG files can easily be imported into Final cut using Glue Tools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Burke Posted August 25, 2007 Share Posted August 25, 2007 We are not in London but we transfer telecine direct to DPX 10 bit log uncompressed to our server. The image sequence can then be copied to the customers USB or Firewire disk (not real-time). It takes about one night to copy about 30 minutes HD to a USB disk. The DPX 10 bit LOG files can easily be imported into Final cut using Glue Tools. I use drives that have Firewire 800. It make a consideralble difference when transfering files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Most Posted August 25, 2007 Share Posted August 25, 2007 Yep. And you pay for everything, and get HDCAM quality! Dismal. But of course that's exactly what they want; I suspect they couldn't really give a rat's rear end about your footage. Yeah, that's right, Phil. All labs are in business to screw their clients and keep the humongous profits for themselves. They don't care about quality, reputation, or anything else, they're just money hungry vultures. You just never stop, do you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted August 25, 2007 Premium Member Share Posted August 25, 2007 Alright, Mike, why don't you point me to a place that does it the sensible way? It would be quicker. It would be easier. It would be higher quality. But despite the fact that I am not the only person who's ever mentioned it, nobody can do it. Or rather, of course, they're all entirely capable of doing it; they all have servers and HD I/O. They merely choose not to do it - because as well as all those other things, it would inevitably be cheaper This requires explanation. And you have to be aware: it's only little people who want to do this. Little people who don't want to pay full rate, probably don't represent a good prospect for repeat business, and want you to do annoyingly small amounts of work at a time. So yeah, you're going to screw them. It isn't broadcast work. You're not going to screw your reputation by arsing it up. You have no reason to care. Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Most Posted August 25, 2007 Share Posted August 25, 2007 I am pretty sure most places do it if you go to HDCAM then they use bluefish or AJA to go to 10bit mov files - but you then pay for the TK, the tape, the transfer , the hard drive conversion and the VTR time... That's because most clients who request this are cutting on Final Cut on Macintoshes, and there is no software available on the Mac to emulate a VTR - thus ensuring that editing directly from telecine is not possible for Mac specific formats, like DVCPro HD Quicktimes. That's why these formats must either be created via a tape path (followed by digitizing on a Mac) or done as "hard edits" using programs like Vitrual VTR (that's what we use). But without editing capabilities, the entire lab roll must be laid down continuously, which is less efficient in part because it requires color correcting everything on the roll prior to laydown. The suggestion to use DPX sequences for this purpose is a good one, in part because DPX is a cross platform standard, and there are VTR emulation systems that can be controlled from a telecine suite that can record them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Most Posted August 25, 2007 Share Posted August 25, 2007 It would be quicker. It would be easier. It would be higher quality. But despite the fact that I am not the only person who's ever mentioned it, nobody can do it. Or rather, of course, they're all entirely capable of doing it; they all have servers and HD I/O. They merely choose not to do it - because as well as all those other things, it would inevitably be cheaper See my previous reply. It's not quicker, easier, or cheaper if you're requesting a Mac specific codec. And servers and HD I/O are not what's required. Not to mention the simple fact that wrapped movie files cannot be modified, so unless you lay down the entire roll continuously, there's no way to edit even if you could record directly to movie files. So whatever you do, you're going to have to either lay down the rolls as one piece, or go to frame sequences - which is what a lot of us do - and create the movie files in software, an extra step. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted August 25, 2007 Premium Member Share Posted August 25, 2007 I think anyone doing this for anything other than DPX sequences is a nutcase. Sure, recording to DVCPRO-HD quicktimes is going to be a bind, but you'd have to be insane to even request it. Wouldn't you? P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Most Posted August 25, 2007 Share Posted August 25, 2007 I think anyone doing this for anything other than DPX sequences is a nutcase. Sure, recording to DVCPRO-HD quicktimes is going to be a bind, but you'd have to be insane to even request it. Wouldn't you? Obviously not, since we and many other facilities like ours get at least 10 requests a week for it. Not being a part of the Cult of Steve, you probably wouldn't be aware of that. Neither would I if I didn't have to do it. Apple has largely succeeded in solidifying the notion that good enough really is good enough. But it's also true that in certain cases, it's an improvement on what was being done previously. As an example, I offer the case of a very well known film school at one of the universities here in Florida. They shoot almost everything on S16mm, and prior to adopting DVCProHD, they were using uncompressed standard definition, which we also supplied on drives to them. In the end, the larger image and superior projection capabilities of HD - even in its DVCPro guise - was an improvement compared to the standard def post they were doing, and used less disk space to boot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Phil Rhodes Posted August 26, 2007 Premium Member Share Posted August 26, 2007 I'm genuinely surprised, if there's that much real business going for it, that you haven't run up some sort of batch processing facility to do it. Too much farting about for what the work's worth, I guess? P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolfe Klement Posted August 29, 2007 Author Share Posted August 29, 2007 Good news! I had meetings today in London with 2 post companies (we are trying to sort some deals on TK) and good news! Apparently anyone using a Spirit can go straight to DPX on their network servers - it then can be transfered to a client hard drive - but the files sizes are large (about 1Tb for each 40min) Then using "glue tools" or Shake you can bring it into FCP. The one problem area seemed to be around the timecodes - if we use an EDL from a one light it might cause wonky timecode in the spirit DPX - anyone have any experience or ideas... So both companies I spoke to said "no problem" and it wouldn't impact the price much thanks Rolfe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Most Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 Apparently anyone using a Spirit can go straight to DPX on their network servers - it then can be transfered to a client hard drive - but the files sizes are large (about 1Tb for each 40min) No, that is not the case. Anyone using a Spirit that has a ***data interface*** can do that. The data interface is an option - and a rather pricey one - that most Spirit users do not have, as they use it primarily as a telecine, not as a scanner. The file sizes are large because they're scanning true 2K, 2048x1556. That comes out to about 12MB per frame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolfe Klement Posted August 31, 2007 Author Share Posted August 31, 2007 I stand corrected. The good thing is as post companies try get more DI work they seem to be adding the option. Of the 4 compaines I called so far only Todd AO (UK) does not have the option. thanks Rolfe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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