Rick Martinez

Not clear about your specific system, but for NTSC video I've seen some equipment that automatically raises the black levels to 7.5 IRE to comply with the "setup" level because a setting that defines the black level (choosing between 0 or 7.5). Using SMPTE bars the 100% pure white information should correspond to 100 IRE level, in the three levels of black (in the button right - small vertical bars on the "black" area), the left one correspond to 0 IRE or absolute black. These three levels are represented as a staircase in the waveform monitor. 100 IRE should correspond to 0.7 volts in luminance level and the video signal standard as a whole is one volt peak-to-peak, so there are 0.3 volts in the unseen sync.

I would say that you may consider Adobe Premiere. Not my favorite NLE, but it's used in some professional facilities and its easy to use. Also a plus is its integration with Adobe After Effects and other programs of the Suite. I edited in Avid from 1995 to 03 and understand that may be complicated for some. Now mainly use FCP and Autodesk Smoke.

There is some info here, in the part related to cinematography: http://www.3dfightclub.com/Production.html These articles are mostly related to visual effects. Inside the runaway brain of f/x guru Kevin Mack. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.08/mack.html Fight Club A World of Hurt (Cinefex article) http://www.edward-norton.org/fc/articles/worldofhurt.html

I would go uncompressed. ProRess 422 go up to 145Mbps and HQ reach 220Mbps according to Apple. the format can work 4:2:2 / 10-bit. But remember that introduces some compression algorithm that must sacrifice some info to reduce file size. Regards,

Check carefully because probably you discarted one field cutting your vertical resolution. Converting to progressive ideally implies that each field will becomes its own frame but because a field is only half the scanlines of a full frame some type of interpolation must be introduced to "re-create" the missing lines. Various methods are used to accomplish this, from line-doubling to more sophisticated motion-adaptive. In any case you can do some type of deinterlacing through field combination or field extension. With field combination or weaving you add each field and work better with static images (any change between field will create artifacts). This method preserves some vertical resolution. Blending (another form) will average each field as one frame and here you lose vertical resolution making your images look soft. Sophisticated equipment combine these methods with other technologies for better results. Remember that interlaced and progressive are captured differently.

A raw file is a record of the data captured for the camera sensor that may be encoded in many different ways. You will need Red Alert to review and transcode your footage with the defined settings and render it at 2K, 4K or DPX / TIFF files for traditional DI. Also you can create proxies (as reference movies of the original files) for handling the editing.

Henke, Phil is right. A hardware compressor won't have a big degree of difference in relation to a software based setting aside processing speed for the process. Probably your quality issue is more in the side of the compressing scheme/and your defined parameters. I thought your were asking more about capturing directly from camera SDI HD outputs to disk array without compression introduced for tape or solid state memory storage. I can't advice much on the MPEG DVD. (Just do simple works in that area for costumers reviews). Sorry

1080 can also be registered as progressive (P). The number 1080 defines lines or pixel and end up determining the frame resolution: Let's say you are recording at 1920×1080, that imply 2,073,600 pixels per frame or the equivalent to a little more of a 2 Megapixel in a digital photo camera resolution. From a practical POV some broadcasters use 720p as their primary high-definition format and others the 1080i (which probably will end up being the most used for TV). Progressive is better but there are many legacy technological issues that point to the interlace for the big broadcasters (specially live). Understand the interlace on the base of dividing the vertical resolution of the frame in two fields that will be broadcast sequentially (1/60 of second for NTSC). One field will contain the even lines and the other the odds which your eye integrate recomposing the whole frame. Interlace creates many quality issues. If you open many graphic programs they offer the ability to import files as progressive or interlaced. If you choose interlaced need to decide the field order selecting from upper or lower field.

Excellent advice Mullen!

David, If you are trying that your film looks like done in the 60's you can shoot with the clean quality of the EX-1 but study the camera moves, lighting style and scene compositions popular at the time and work accordingly. This is the most important part. Then in post-production after the film is edited you can work in the look through plug-in filters or stand alone software. For example: There are technicolor plug-ins for Final Cut Pro that resemble that film technique (the best part is that some are free, check this page: http://pistolerapost.com/pluginz/index.html ) Other software is Magic Bullet but is more expensive: http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/c...c-bullet-looks/ Hope this help, Ricky

Tom, I would really go back to FCP. The Mac is now very stable and the program works really well. Best wishes.

Premiere is no usually seen in professional post houses even if recent versions can handle works pretty well. I personally don't like it. Avid and FCP are more common. The learning curve in Avid is difficult but the application is excellent after you master it (specially for long format editing). I started with this system in 1995 and used it to around 2003. Final Cut is pretty easy to learn and functional so has been substituting many Avid suites everywhere. I work mostly with Discreet Smoke but this one is high-end and expensive. In your case I would go FCP.

I have Blackmagic Multibridge Pro (External Unit) and work wonderful importing from camera and digibeta through SDI to my FCP RAID. (Link here: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/multibridge/) Aja also offer the Kona models and they are good. (http://www.aja.com/html/products_macintosh_kona.html) Check carefully the specs.

Daniel, Good work. I just watched it one time and felt it a little long and probably would cut it more fast paced (that's maybe because I work too much with promotional spots). The other thing is the first shot, in my opinion should be more catching. I support the idea of variety because portrait multiple skills for potentially different projects except that you are trying to project specialized skills. Good luck and keep the good work, Ricky