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S16 telecine data tansfer to Mac Pro


NICK BRAMPTON

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I would like to transfer S16 film to my Mac Pro so that I can edit it in Final Cut.

 

Alternatively, can anyone recommend a location in Exeter or Plymouth where I can rent the necessary equipment to play back the data so that I can firewire it to my Mac?

 

 

BBC Post Production in Bristol has a Shadow Telecine and can transfer to Hard Drive. 0117 9741111.

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What Paul said.

 

I have done this, and people using my gear have done this, lots in the US. Frequently we've rolled up to post houses and taken film scans on a jump drive or plugged portable recorders into existing infrastructure and it's straightforward. There may very occasionally be reasons to go to formats like SR; those reasons are usually that you have someone else who's demanding it (who will then immediately capture it back onto a disk based server and congratulate themselves on their file-based savviness, sigh).

 

Unfortunately I have never found anyone in the UK willing to do this. Take a weekend in New York or LA; if you're talking about more than a couple of hours of machine time, you'll save the cost of the plane ticket on the Spirit time alone, regardless of any tape-related expenses.

 

P

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While that's partially true, there are a lot of advantages to SR tape, even in 2009. Compared to your method, material on SR tape can be played immediately, in real time, on any SR deck (and there are an awful lot of them), in different formats (almost all SR decks have format converter cards). LTO4 may be a fine physical tape data streaming format, however, there is no standard for how files are written to it, and it is nowhere near real time (i.e., 24 fps) when either writing or reading. The format that is used must be available to both the supplier and the user, so whatever backup system is used must be used by both. In many cases, this is not optimal because many of the more efficient backup systems create a local database for file restoration. While it is true that you can use standard TAR files, these are slower to retrieve.

 

Post houses continue to use videotape in part because they're well set up for it. But they also continue to use it because there's nothing in the data world that can match its combination of real time performance, high quality, robust error checking, and common worldwide interchange without conversion. Having a transfer facility deliver both an SR videotape and digitized files (in uncompressed form, ProRes HQ, DNxHD 175x, or whatever other "low loss" format one wants and can use) gives you the best of both worlds.

 

Good points Michael. SR does have a lot advantages, the main ones being the uniformity and availability of the format. But I don't know many filmmakers who would buy a deck for $75,000. However a lot of them are already buying LTO4 Drives for $3,000. So while the decks might be easy to find it's always going to cost quite a bit to get media on and off an SR tape.

 

And what if you've shot your project (or scanned your film) at 4K resolution? How would you propose archiving/storing that data? Downconvert to HD and lay off to SR? That's not very future proof in my estimation and it also locks you into whatever debayer algorithm you applied to the camera raw data when you convert to a linear/video format for output to SR.

 

As to your point about speed & playback... I'm not sure if you're used to LTO-3 but we're getting at least 110 MB/sec transfer speeds with LTO4 which is faster than FW800 and SCSI, and since LTO is resolution/format independent we can always archive "playback" versions (444 RGB Quicktime, ProRes HQ, DNxHD) in addition to the full 2k/4k or RAW master all on the same tape. This would obviously not be possible on SR tape.

 

 

... am I the only one who sees the irony of LTO described as a 'tapeless' format?

 

hahaha that is funny David. Not sure if I ever referred to LTO4 workflows as tapeless... but I did that is pretty ironic. In my mind a better description for the LTO workflow would be "file-based", "non-linear" or "data-centric" rather than videotape based since the assets you can write to it are totally format & resolution independent.

 

-Paul

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After reviewing the interesting and informative posts, I opted to go direct from telecine to hard drive. (I am strictly an amateur film-maker and, for the limited number of short projects I will be doing, it did not make economic sense to include the HDCAM SR tape middle step - this would have doubled the cost of getting the data to my Mac Pro. And I don't need the tape as an archival media as I have the film).

 

So, I now have a 1920 x 1080 uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2, Integer (Little Endian), Timecode 94.66 GB file on a 500 GB G-Drive Q.

 

My next step is to transfer the data from the G-Drive to Final Cut Pro 6 on my Mac Pro which has a 4 TB RAID 5.

 

As I will be using the same workflow for all of the Super 16 film that I bring into Final Cut, I thought it would make sense to establish an Audio/Video Preset for the Capture function.

 

But when I go into Easy Setup and select “Uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2” it gives me two frame rate possibilities: 25 fps or 29.97 fps, not 24 fps which is what my Arriflex SR II shoots at.

 

I want to preserve as much of the image quality as possible and my projects are typically less than 20 minutes long (so not memory intensive).

 

Any suggestions?

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After reviewing the interesting and informative posts, I opted to go direct from telecine to hard drive. (I am strictly an amateur film-maker and, for the limited number of short projects I will be doing, it did not make economic sense to include the HDCAM SR tape middle step - this would have doubled the cost of getting the data to my Mac Pro. And I don't need the tape as an archival media as I have the film).

 

So, I now have a 1920 x 1080 uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2, Integer (Little Endian), Timecode 94.66 GB file on a 500 GB G-Drive Q.

 

My next step is to transfer the data from the G-Drive to Final Cut Pro 6 on my Mac Pro which has a 4 TB RAID 5.

 

As I will be using the same workflow for all of the Super 16 film that I bring into Final Cut, I thought it would make sense to establish an Audio/Video Preset for the Capture function.

 

But when I go into Easy Setup and select “Uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2” it gives me two frame rate possibilities: 25 fps or 29.97 fps, not 24 fps which is what my Arriflex SR II shoots at.

 

I want to preserve as much of the image quality as possible and my projects are typically less than 20 minutes long (so not memory intensive).

 

Any suggestions?

 

 

why are you using an uncompressed setup? Why not use the ProRes sequence preset? You can make a custom preset for your project with the proper frame rate and such. Go to Audio Video setting in the main menu and click on ProRes HQ 1920 x 1080, then click duplicate and then you can customize and then save it as a new preset. What kind of scanner was the transfer done on? HOw does it look. I have used ProRes HQ as my default for all S16 work. To me it looks excellent.

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why are you using an uncompressed setup? Why not use the ProRes sequence preset? You can make a custom preset for your project with the proper frame rate and such. Go to Audio Video setting in the main menu and click on ProRes HQ 1920 x 1080, then click duplicate and then you can customize and then save it as a new preset. What kind of scanner was the transfer done on? HOw does it look. I have used ProRes HQ as my default for all S16 work. To me it looks excellent.
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Thanks for your suggestions Chris.

 

The telecine was done by Ascent 142 in London using a Spirit Pogal. The scan looks very grainy, but then I don't have any experience by which to judge whether the scan is good or bad (other then to compare with the scans that I get when I put my Velvia ASA50 slides through my Nikon scanner - the slides are far superior).

 

From chatting to the helpful folks at 142, it sounds like once I compress the file, one of the side-benefits will be less grain.

 

Following your advice, if I go to the Audio/Video settings and then to the Sequence Preset drop-down, there are 5 different Apple ProRes 442 (SQ) 1920 x 1080 settings to choose from: 24p 48 kHz; 25p 48 kHz; 30p 48 kHz; 50i 48 kHz; and 60i 48kHz. Which one do I use?

 

For Capture Preset, do I use "Generic Capture Template"?

 

And for Device Control Preset, I assume that I should use " Non-Controllable Device" as the file will be coming from my G-Drive.

 

(I apologise for the basic level of these questions. It's not for want of reading the Final Cut manual, which IMHO is poorly written - it is mind-numbingly complicated with partial explanations that necessitate cross-referencing to other sections (and volumes), and duplication of material. And precious little on film to hard drive workflow.

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why are you using an uncompressed setup? Why not use the ProRes sequence preset? ...... I have used ProRes HQ as my default for all S16 work. To me it looks excellent.

 

I would strongly advise against using ProRes HQ as a finishing format for S16. I have done direct comparisons before and found that you lose a decent amount of shadow information in the scan that uncompressed QTs preserve. Uncompressed really is the way to go for 16mm transfers, especially if you're transferring on a Spirit which can't really capture the full image quality potential from a s16 scan like a dedicated DI scanner. Why settle for less unless you're going to rescan in the future?

 

Nick - your vevlia scans will obviously look better than any S16 scan because of the larger format and the virtually grainless characteristics of Velvia 50 slide film. What was the framerate of the uncompressed 1080p quicktime that Ascent 142 gave you? If your SRII shoots at 24 fps this is something the transfer house (especially one in the UK) should know about. Are you trying to go to Prores for an offline edit or final delivery? Compressing the files may reduce apparant grain (if you're compressing to a smaller resolution than HD), but it will reduce texture, sharpness, marginalize subtle details, and compress your tonal range (see my note about prores compression). I would edit w/prores and uprez to your HD uncompress quicktime for final output.

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I could not disagree more Vincent... see, to me.. anything worth shooting on Film is worth transferring to HDCam SR... but that is just me.... I like the idea that... hey, you spent this much... for a few dollars more you can have a permanent 4.4.4 or 4.2.2 record (without having to go back to the neg and retransferring)... so, from here out, you are dealing with Selected Takes only... Sign me up!!!!! :wub:

 

But I am a HUGE fan (like you) of Apple ProRes HQ... Fantastic!

 

Well it's a not just a few dollars more, it's a lot of dollars more and logistically impractical for many. If you are bothering to shoot film then you should bother to be financially smart about the post path and use Cineform or ProRes, or whatever is next, to edit it with and only after your final cut, transfer to LTO and SR. That way you can have a 1920, 2k or 4k 444 or 422 version of everything which exceeds the old SR route when used alone. The days of going back to the lab for conform are basically gone and anyone still trying to sell this method to low budget producers should think twice about what you are doing. (yes, its still happening a lot)

 

I just went through all of this on a film I produced and faced all the in's and out's thoroughly. The posts in these forums are often looked at from a purely technical standpoint, and I understand that completely, but the fact is that all production budgets are dying, esp. in indie film, and these new methods must be understood and applied to keep it alive. We simply could not have used tape in any way on this feature and I'm now pleased to be one of the first generation of film based indies to have followed a completely tapeless workflow, edited online in full HD, on a desktop G5.

 

Of course the best thing is that the movie still exists in a tangible form that will be around long after I, and long after all the digital junk is lost.

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I was really disappointed by the graininess of the output and am not sure if this is because so far I have only viewed the raw file in QuickTime.

 

As Vincent noted, many of us are heavily constrained by budget, and some of us by technical understanding - we don't do this full time and the Final Cut manual is not very helpful.

 

I am having a tough time figuring out the optimal path here.

 

From what I can determine (by doing an Apple Command + I on the file), the file is a 1920 x 1080 uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2 Integer (Little Endian).

 

It was produced by a Spirit Pogal and I am checking with Ascent to make sure that they did incorporate the 24 frames per second shooting rate of my ARRI SR2 in their scanning parameters.

 

Whether the Spirit is the ideal machine to give me a non-grainy file at this point is moot (although suggestions as to what I should be asking for on the next job are most welcome).

 

What I have been trying to figure out is how to input the data on my G-Drive into Final Cut on my Mac Pro to obtain the highest quality results for the deliverable at the end of the process: DVDs (ideally in HD) that I can create on the Mac and send to my friends.

 

If someone could explain the steps of their preferred workflow, that would be great.

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Your footage is already at the optimal look it being in ProRes now.

Import it into Final cut pro from the drive. there is no capturing required, it is already captures. Drop it into the timeline and if it asks you to reset sequence presets to match, click yes. And it will set it based on how the clip is set.

If you're @ 25p already then you're @ 25p, and the Telecine recorded it that was (it being in the UK this is not surprising, as it's a 25p country).

IT looks grainy because it is grainy. The grain will be mitigated when viewing it on a DVD which should be made after the film has been edited/exported again as a prores clip. At which point you'll take it into compressor and encode it for DVD/HD DVD.

S16mm film has grain just as 35mm does. The primary processes for contolling how grainy it is are done in exposing the negative. Thenafter, the Spirit has grain reduction boards in it, but this now depends on where the colorist set theirs as well as the age of the hardware. Newer boards are ok.

That being said the Spirit is a bit grainier than other machines but it's pretty ubiquitous these days. There is also the Shadow which I haven't used, and the C-Reality which I used before and liked a lot. Sadly, that post house never went to HD so I had to move on from it recently as clients are asking for HDCam/HDCam SR masters.

 

There are also plugins out there, I'm told, to denoise the footage, but you'd have to ask 'round 'bout that.

The grain you're seeing is probably due to how the negative was exposed and what it was exposing. The lower the contrast in your scene the more they eye tend to pick up grain. Also normally I over expose the negative to tighten up the grain structure.

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Adrian;

 

Many, many thanks for the really helpful response: I am now up and running :}

 

For my comparison test of the Kodak Vision3 250D and the Fuji Eterna 250D, I bracketed the reading on my Sekonic by a full stop, so am able to review the test film with your "over-expose by one stop" advice in mind.

 

Thanks again.

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What I have been trying to figure out is how to input the data on my G-Drive into Final Cut on my Mac Pro to obtain the highest quality results for the deliverable at the end of the process: DVDs (ideally in HD) that I can create on the Mac and send to my friends.

 

If someone could explain the steps of their preferred workflow, that would be great.

 

 

Hi Nick,

 

I just got back into town off a shoot. As far as transferring from the G-Raid to your Mac I use a 800 Wire and simply drag the Pro Res HQ file from one to the other and start cutting.

 

Regarding DVDs. I am not sure. I edit in Pro res HQ and upon completion down convert that to DVCProHD 720/ 60 for Broadcast....

 

Best of Luck!

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Here is a partial copy of Apple's update news concerning ProRes.

 

(7/29/09)

 

"Final Cut Pro 7, the latest version of Apple’s Emmy Award-winning editing software, includes new versions of Apple’s ProRes codecs to support virtually any workflow with the addition of ProRes Proxy, for offline and mobile editing at low bandwidth; ProRes LT, for general purpose editing; and ProRes 4444 for editing and visual effects at the highest quality possible."

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I love this post & all the solutions offered here. Screw $100,000 SR decks. At Cinelicious we've invested in LTO-4 and all our workflows are tapeless until the very end. Our LTO investment was about $20K for small library and with our "2K Data Spots" workflow we've been delivering 10-bit LOG DPX sequences to clients on LTO4 (in addition to 422 2K ProRes and 444 2K Cineform versions on hard drive). On the receiving end our clients can access those native data files with a $5K investment in a single LTO4 drive which is an open format and therefore can be used to back up/access not only film master DPX files, but R3D RED camera data or any other data with no compression loss at all. Another benefit is that LTO-4 has a 30 year shelf life and instead of a hard drive which is less than 5. And you can archive all digital assets that relate to a particular project (Final Cut / Avid Project file, VFX project files, DVD builds, etc etc) all in the same place... as opposed to having an SR master and then project files on drive or DVD elsewhere. Wether we're scanning at 2K in realtime from a Spirit 4K or our far less expensive Diamond Clear HD direct-to-drive I'm loving that people are catching on to the benefits of avoiding video tape. However, you won't see that workflow pushed by any any post house invested in video because they want to keep charging for the expensive decks they're paying off.

 

My 2 cents.

 

-Paul

 

This is an absolutely fabulous workflow. I have one question. What is the format of the LTO-4 (or LTO-3). Meaning what do you use to write it? I ask because what does a client need at his end (apart from an LTO-3/4 drive) in terms of software, to read the LTOs?

 

If I have a MacPro with, say, BRU or some other software, can I read your LTOs?

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Just got a Hard Drive in from LA and it was damaged during transport. Thankfully I transfer the Neg to HDCAM SR first so it was a simple thing to replace it (data transfer) onto another Drive which will arrive today. This is far better than having to retransfer the actual Film and dealing with all the dust that undoubtedly appears on a second pass. Knowing Drives crash, I feel much safer having the initial transfer on HDCam SR :wub:

 

Here is a frame from time lapse... not bad for 16mm with Zeiss Super Speeds. Nice detail considering the Format (7212 @ :15 second exposures - ProRes HQ).

 

post-31017-1248958173.jpg

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Just got a Hard Drive in from LA and it was damaged during transport. Thankfully I transfer the Neg to HDCAM SR first so it was a simple thing to replace it (data transfer) onto another Drive which will arrive today. This is far better than having to retransfer the actual Film and dealing with all the dust that undoubtedly appears on a second pass. Knowing Drives crash, I feel much safer having the initial transfer on HDCam SR :wub:

 

Here is a frame from time lapse... not bad for 16mm with Zeiss Super Speeds. Nice detail considering the Format (7212 @ :15 second exposures - ProRes HQ).

 

Nice grab David! Very clean for 16mm - what was it transferred on? A spirit?

 

It's great to have the SR backup, will they be pulling the footage from your SR tape to ProRes HQ? I ask because if you're going to ProRes HQ doesn't that introduce a second generation of compression (from the already compressed SR tape?). I know it's more realistic to go with ProRes over uncompressed for ease of hard drive space, but considering how fragile 16mm can be when it comes to compression, going from tape to a non-uncompressed form of data seems rather...unfulfilling... rather than transferring straight to data and then backing up to SR. Was your original Prores HQ file (on the hard drive that got damaged) extracted from SR tape, or taken directly from the scanner?

 

On another note; I'm looking forward to seeing how this new Prores 4444 codec compares to current Prores codecs and uncompressed data, especially for Super 16mm footage. The comparisons I've seen of uncompressed vs. Prores HQ of Super 16 footage (scanned on an Arriscan) lead me to believe that Prores is not, as of right now, a sufficient format from which to finish/online.

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Thanks. Yes, I transfer Neg to HDCam SR via Spirit first then data transfer that to a Drive. After edit/ reconform is completed I export out to DVCPro HD 720/60 for Broadcast (that is what the HD Stations want). I have to say HQ has held up great... looking forward to the 4444 as well!

 

... my Drive just arrived.. gotta go!

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Knowing Drives crash, I feel much safer having the initial transfer on HDCam SR :wub:

 

I'd feel safer dealing with a lab that didnt mind backing up a dozen+ gig's until your project is over. Next week I'm working with some 35mm and dealing with Cinelicious, who does just that.

 

I also just had 30,000ft of 16mm sent to hard drives from another lab and not one issue.

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That would help... but what happens if you need that footage a year or two or three from now? I doubt Cinelicious will still have it saved. Nice to have that SR Tape. Not only that... but if you want to do some 'real' color correcting you'll have the color space. ;)

 

I have footage put to Drives all the time with no issue. The issues can arise if the Drive becomes damaged... like mine did during transport.

 

Vincent, I am glad the Cinelicious workflow is working for you. Super. But don't act as if it is the preferred workflow. It is not. 99.9% of all professionally shot and produced (film) shows go to HDCam SR first. Now, if you can't afford that fine... do what you are doing and deal with your own backups. However, if you can afford to go to HDCam SR first... why the hell wouldn't you?.... especially if you are utilizing a Spirit as opposed to some sort of 'Diamond' something...

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That would help... but what happens if you need that footage a year or two or three from now? I doubt Cinelicious will still have it saved. Nice to have that SR Tape. Not only that... but if you want to do some 'real' color correcting you'll have the color space. ;)

 

I have footage put to Drives all the time with no issue. The issues can arise if the Drive becomes damaged... like mine did during transport.

 

Vincent, I am glad the Cinelicious workflow is working for you. Super. But don't act as if it is the preferred workflow. It is not. 99.9% of all professionally shot and produced (film) shows go to HDCam SR first. Now, if you can't afford that fine... do what you are doing and deal with your own backups. However, if you can afford to go to HDCam SR first... why the hell wouldn't you?.... especially if you are utilizing a Spirit as opposed to some sort of 'Diamond' something...

 

Why would you not back-up your footage after you have had it for "a year, or two" or done a final tape/film-out? Its still fairly rare that a drive would have issues but this doesn't matter if we are talking about labs that back-up until you have downloaded and made copies. In my case, if all three drives stored away as back-ups suddenly fails, which must be the same odds as being hit by lightening, then yes I will have to get that old film out and have it transferred again. I and most others, likely, will take that small risk without worry so the budgets can be spent in other areas.

 

I haven't worked with Cinelicious yet but am going to because of their probable quality, based on others advice that I know that have worked with them, and the fact that they are ahead of other labs in some ways, back up their files, dont seem to push unnecessary services, and for the pricing. The "Diamond" thing is as viable as anything else out there, by the way, it just depends on what you are doing. A Spirit is not the final word in film transfers.

 

You can do quite "real" CC work if your transfer is in the ballpark with 422, not to mention that several higher-end HD cameras shoot to a similar 422 space. Take note of the CineForm and new ProRes 444 comments I posted. Many labs now offer best-lite transfers as part of their basic pricing as well.

 

I did use a Spirit on the referred to 16mm shoot and I can not figure out, to this day, how using tape would have helped anyone but the lab who rents the $80k deck.

 

I didnt say or act like anything was the workflow, I just know that things have moved away from tape for many productions, namely non-studio features, and can't find proof of the advantage of sticking with something that costs more with little chance of return. I think your "99.9%" figure is a little off as of this year, and will certainly be more inaccurate by next. Most of these abundant red/SI/P2 shows dont use tape at all and they get by. The last two I shot, one red and one SI, aren't until delivery time, and why would they? Dont they all depend on drives too?

 

Often the advice here is being thrown around by people that are in different worlds of production, with no mention of these differences. I am coming from a non-studio/LB feature world where this "tape is dead" thing applies much more than maybe someone doing Mercedes commercials, shooting features like Public Enemies or Transformers, or posting TV shows like CSI.

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This is an absolutely fabulous workflow. I have one question. What is the format of the LTO-4 (or LTO-3). Meaning what do you use to write it? I ask because what does a client need at his end (apart from an LTO-3/4 drive) in terms of software, to read the LTOs?

 

If I have a MacPro with, say, BRU or some other software, can I read your LTOs?

 

Hi Neil,

Sorry for the late reply... We deliver totally uncompressed, color corrected 2K film scans (currently from a Spirit 4K at 2K resolution) on LTO-4 as BRU archives so you could absolutely use BRU to restore them. We can also deliver versions of those DPX sequences as ProRes 4444 and Cineform 444. Glad you see the benefits of this workflow. You can actually own the technology to do your own online/offline... free from any compression for about $5K. SR is pretty good... but limited to 1920x1080 and costs a mint to own and isn't cheap to get data to and from.

 

Best,

 

Paul

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I didnt say or act like anything was the workflow, I just know that things have moved away from tape for many productions, namely non-studio features, and can't find proof of the advantage of sticking with something that costs more with little chance of return. I think your "99.9%" figure is a little off as of this year, and will certainly be more inaccurate by next. Most of these abundant red/SI/P2 shows dont use tape at all and they get by. The last two I shot, one red and one SI, aren't until delivery time, and why would they? Dont they all depend on drives too?

 

...we are talking Film Transfers here... not video. I made that clear in my post. "99.9% of all professionally shot and produced (film) shows go to HDCam SR first. "

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