MatthewG

Noise. There is a big difference that you can see on any monitor/tv and that is noise/detail. if you are shooting for broadcast, shoot in 50. If it is an industrial or a project where youre shooting ratio is crazy (skateboard video, etc) then you might consider 25. Big difference in detail areas.

you just don't follow. the point IS digitizing dvcpro50 at 8-bit uncompressed is a bummer, when it was designed to come in via firewire at DV50 (which doesn't compress or recompress, its just a data transfer and a fairly small one compared to 8-bit uncompressed). what I am saying, in response to "how do I edit footage from an sdx-900 effectively" is: get a dvcpro50 deck with a firewire output. word up.

Yo! We have edited DV50 material for over a year on firewire 800 drives with no latency troubles...both a g-raid 800 , single lacie drives AND as a 2 drive firewire 800 raid 0 ( gotta buy seperate fw800 cards for seperate busses). We have had very few problems with the drives (okay, well 10.3 used to randomly delete the media off the drives, but OS updates have fixed that problem ;) ). Any issues we ever have are directory funkiness that Disk Warrior has solved (gotta love that app). We capture off a dvcpro50 deck via firewire, which really is the way to go. The idea of digitizing at 8-bit uncompressed from a dvcpro50 tape is really a bummer when Pani and Apple worked so hard to make the whole thing fast and small via firewire.

There are problably a bazillion sites out there with good descriptions of how "widescreen" DVD material is displayed on different systems, but I will try and explain it simply. On a computer, the software determines that the disc is "widescreen" and will actually resize the window to 16x9, if it is played in a window. If it goes to full screen mode, well then it depends on whether your computer screen is 16x9 or not. If it is 16x9 then it plays full screen, if it isnt 16x9 then it usually letterboxes it. For Televisions, it is actually a bit of chemistry between the disc format, the disc player and the user. If your tv is 16x9, then you need to setup you disc player (in the menus) to 16:9 tvs, it will then playback an anamorphic signal that your 16x9 tv will unstretch and play back full screen. If you have a 4:3 tv then your menu choices in the player are 4:3 letterbox or 4:3 pan&scan, and it will send out whichever signal you prefer. This gets confusing as a producer, as you have just created an anamorphic dvd, but if some viewers have there silly dvd players setup to playback at 4:3 pan&scan, then your film will look like crap. And god forbid if they have it setup to playback 16:9, and they actually have a 4:3 tv. Then you will be looking at the squeezed anamorphic image.

The real pain with the black bars is that if you compress for web or dvd and its shown on a computer monitor....those darn bars DO show. You need crop 5 to 10 pixels on the left and right on Compressor or whatever app you use for web and dvd compression to crop those out.

Ouch, Daniel. The old NTSC versus PAL punch, right in the groin. Nice shot. I can only say that actually everything I shoot with my 900 is far superior to anything you shoot, because basically, you can't shoot worth a *&@!. gotcha. ;) Hey Achim, I had to hand translate your setting as the card couldn't figure out the settings (PAL), but I think i got most of the right numbers in the right places and actually it looks pretty darn good. The 2 issues I still have are in shadow details and highlight details. On both extremes it just seems to lose detail and go to a flat black or a flat white without a lot of detail in either. But it still looks a lot better than it use to.

Achim, Thank you so much for posting your ENG setting. For some reason, folks on this site have been hesitant to post 900 settings. I had hoped that there would be a whole community sharing 900 files, but alas it hasn't happened. I will upload and experiment and let you know what happens.

Wow Achim, Thanks for the still image. That is a lot more latitude, highlight and shadow detail then I am currently getting in 60i. I am looking forward to receiving your 50i setup!

Hi Achim, Thanks for your response...I wonder if you would email me your standard 60i setting??? I know it is in PAL but I think I can translate it. I am curious to see how your "standard" looks in our camera. Frankly, we went out again this morning and shot some tests and it looks like a 1 chip dv camera. yuck.

I have been using these scene files since they were sent to me with Goodman's Guide. It appears to me that they are all designed for 24p, with perhaps scopnorm and scoptung the only exceptions. none provide satisfactory 60i ENG looks.

Wonder if any sdx900 users would give me some tips on making my 60i look better. Shooting in 24p with cinegamma looks stunning, but when I go to do simple news gathering in 4:3 60i, the results look like really aweful dv. Color is super flat and unbalanced, skintone is aweful and white/highlights are just an undetailed mash of uglyness. I do understand white balance, knee points and the such, and try as I may I can't get "useable" results in 60i. My reference for 60i ENG is a Sony Betasp D30, which i understand has some inherent advantages, but i am hoping to get at least a close aprox. with the 900. Any thoughts would be great.

Hi all, and specifically Jan! I have a DVCPRO50 tape that has hot whites (+100) and somebody suggested I go into the 930 menu and pull down the video setting in the SYSTEM menu. Do/can these changes effect the firewire output or just composite/component/SDI? I want to change the settings for the firewire output, but i am thinking that the firewire just reads the info straight off the tape, as is.