Tjerker

Does anyone know if the HD SDI output is uncompressed HD while shooting? I'd like to capture uncompressed HD straight to disk via HD SDI. (HD out --> powermac G5 --> decklink HD card, FCP 10 bits uncompressed capture)

Capturing your video via Firewire is, indeed, losless. As long as you do not compress or decompress your video, it stays the same as captured on tape. EVERYtime you alter the video (dissolves, color correction: the works) you'll go through a decompression - compression cycle, and you'll lose quality. That's the reason they mention having a cuts only transfer - then you don't lose anything. If you're planning on heavy duty editing, you could capture via SDI and then stay uncompressed in the rest of the workflow. Even better is to capture straight to disk while shooting - but that's an other story.

Good luck to you, too! Let me know how it went...

That helps! Thanks!

The 'Apple solution' I'm considering is: shooting varicam, edit in Final Cut, distribute footage of FX scenes to a bunch of artists via harddisks, get them back and piece everything together again. The 'artists' involved are 3d / matte painters / compositors. Makes any sense?

The movie is a cooperation of a lot op people, including artists with a lot of experience. SD and chromakey / greenscreen is not new for us - but only on digitbeta material. HD / film is completely new for all of us. We will work with partly built sets. We will have access to a proper stage. We won't have a lot of time, though, and no money. We're querious how digibeta footage relates to DVC HD stuff. Is it better? Equal? Worse?

It's a very low budget :-( So postproduction costs are a big issue. That's why we consider the VariCam in the first place. But setting up a test shoot if we know beforehand that it won't work - hence the question. Is digibeta a consideration? Will it give a better picture keyed and blown up to 35 mm projection?

It's for a film-out but we're on a tight budget. Considering data rates and storage issues, we're quite impressed by the Panasonic - Apple route. But we have a lot of greenscreen (50 min+) work... What do you think? regards, T.

We're thinking of using the VariCam to shoot a green screen scene. Anyone got experience? Will it work with the DVC compression? What to expect? Any input will be appreciated.