DV to film transfer

[Krishna Chandar]

Hello friends,

 

I have recently been invited to do a project on DV and then transfer to film.

I would like to have some good advise regarding cameras that are good and the quality of the final output on film.

 

Can I get some test footage on projects done already from some companies?

If someone can provide me some links it would be great.

 

Thank you for your kind support and time,

 

Krishna Arunachalam

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

It looks rotten; much better to shoot HDV, I'd have thought.

 

Phil

[Tim J Durham]

Hi,

 

It looks rotten; much better to shoot HDV, I'd have thought.

 

Phil

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I thought "28 Days Later" looked great considering they used a Canon XL-1s, so it was shot in 60i. They also used a Canon XL-1s on "Full Frontal" tho I can't say I remember anything about how that looked.

 

I would imagine you can get much better results with an XL-2 or a DVX-100a since you can shoot in 24p Advanced and edit in true 24 fps.

[David Mullen ASC]

Key qualifier is "considering"...

 

There are just inherent quality limitations to standard def video, to consumer camera designs, and to the DV recording format.

 

Generally you get what you pay for: 4:2:2 looks better than 4:1:1, DVCPRO50 looks better than DV25, pro video lenses look better than consumer ones, larger CCD's produce more pleasing images than tiny ones, less compression is better than more compression, etc.

 

Consumer DV is so far below 35mm, which is the benchmark standard for feature filmmaking, that the "look" must be taken into the design of the movie rather than simply feel you will fool anyone once you transfer it to film and project it on a 50' screen.

 

One of the best-looking DV-to-35mm material recently, from what I've heard (I've only seen the trailer, which looked good) is John Bailey's DV work for "Incident at Loch Ness" using the DVX100 I believe.

 

"November" hits theaters this Friday, also shot on the DVX100. Nancy Schrieber won the Best Cinematography prize for it at Sundance in 2004.

 

These are all examples of about as good as consumer DV can get.

 

Wasn't "28 Days Later" shot with a PAL Canon XL1, therefore 50i? Maybe even in frame mode for a fake 25P look? I don't remember. 50i PAL converts to film better than 60i NTSC (unless you shoot 24P on the NTSC camera.)

[Peter J DeCrescenzo]

I believe the film "The Anniversary Party" was shot by John Bailey using Sony DSR-500 DVCAM camcorders, possibly the PAL versions (50i). I thought this film looked pretty good in the theater I saw it in.

 

I assume whatever post-processing is done, and the lab which does the film-out, and the budget & time allocated for doing it, can also makes a big difference in how a DV film looks.

 

All the best,

 

- Peter DeCrescenzo

[John Hall]

Wasn't "28 Days Later" shot with a PAL Canon XL1, therefore 50i? Maybe even in frame mode for a fake 25P look? I don't remember.  50i PAL converts to film better than 60i NTSC (unless you shoot 24P on the NTSC camera.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

From American Cinematographer July 2003

 

MPC believed the best results occurred with footage shot in the 4x3 aspect ratio but matted for 16x9 by the PAL XL1 (625 lines of resolution, 900,000 effective pixels over three 1/3" CCDs) in Frame Movie Mode, its pseudo-progressive-scan method, which is performed electronically within the camera.

 

I'm kicking myself for not seeing it in theatres, would have loved to see how it handled blowup to 35mm.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

28 Days Later looked surprisingly good, considering. Considering...

 

But it didn't look surprisingly good because it was shot on a specific camera, it looked surprisingly good because it was shot under very ideal circumstances, under which most things would have looked good.

 

The thing is, it's all incremental:

 

- A PAL camera will look about 20% better than an NTSC one.

 

- A true wide camera such as an XL2 will look up to 40% better than a 4:3 one.

 

- A progressive-scan camera such as an XL2 will look anything up to 50% better vertically than an interlaced-only type.

 

- A broadcast camera such as a DSR-570 has more horizontal resolution than a prosumer one (typically 500 versus 750 lines).

 

- Professional lenses look better than prosumer ones.

 

So by the time you get to comparing an NTSC XL-1 with a PAL SDX-900, you're really in a different universe quality-wise even if they're both recording 25-megabit DV.

 

However.

 

I've played with the HVR-Z1E on a monitor and seen many stills from the camera, and I really can't see how it could fail to be better than any SD camera, even deinterlaced. I've had absolutely glowing reports of this camera even in DV mode from people who know what they're talking about.

 

Phil

[Krishna Chandar]

Thank you for your valuable advice. Do you know where I can get a real transferred footage to view on screen? Does anyone have any websites, links for me to approach?

 

I am talking about HDV transferred film footage that any company sends out as demo reel.

 

Thanks a lot again,

 

Krishna