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DVCPRO HD and Storage Space


James Mann

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Hello All

 

I am trying to get my mind wrapped around the various complications related to the DVCPRO HD post process or workflow, if you must.

 

One thing I am having trouble getting a straight and consistant answer on is:

 

How much drive space is needed to digitize/capture DVCPRO HD footage at its full 720p resolution (uncompressed; intended for editing).

 

The answer I am looking is something like:

 

1 hour of DVCPRO HD footage = _______ gigabytes.

 

Thanks for playing.

 

James Mann

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One way to look at it is that DVCPro 100 is 100 Mega bits per second. So, divide by 8 bits per Byte, multiply by 60 seconds per minute and again by 60 minutes per hour. That works out to 45 Giga Bytes per Hour (45 GB/Hr). We're using that for offline editing on a 1080p/24 show.

 

So, since you're interested in 720p, if you go 720p/24, you should be able to get by with 20 GB/Hr, using DVCPro 50. If it's 720p/60, you're up a little to 50 GB/Hr.

 

Note, though, that DVCPro is a compressed format. Uncompressed 1080p/24 4:2:2 8 bits deep would be 1920 x 1080 x 24 x 2 x 8 = 796 Mega bits per second. The compression is only about 8:1, so it looks very good. We edit with it, no problem.

 

I should probably put this stuff into a spreadsheet instead of messing with the pocket calculator.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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One thing I am having trouble getting a straight and consistant answer on is:

 

How much drive space is needed to digitize/capture DVCPRO HD footage at its full 720p resolution (uncompressed; intended for editing).

 

You're probably getting more than one answer because there IS more than one answer. It depends on the recorded fps format. For example, recording in the 24p"N" mode will fit 40 minutes onto one 16GB P2 card, but only 16 minutes of 60p or 1080/60i (24p with the added 3:2 pulldown). Tape of course does not support the 24p"N" format.

 

I'm sure the P2 cards don't use quite the entire capacity for recording, and John's spreadsheet may break it down better. But this should give you a rough idea:

 

http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/s...del=AJ-P2C016RG : click on "recording time chart."

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Hey thanks Mr. Nash.

 

I guess I wasn't clear here...We are shooting the Varicam on DVCPRO HD tape at 720p and a frame rate of 24p.

 

I think that John's numbers are pretty good. Just found a guy to help us through our post process and his numbers were very similar to John's. Mathmatics I guess...

 

Well. Thanks for your help fellas. I do appreciate it.

 

James

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  • 2 weeks later...

hi, john ! as i understand, '1920' are the horizontal lines and '1080' are the vertical lines '24' is the fps and '8' is the video's vtr bit-quantization, right ? but what is the '2' ? please clarify. thank you, kpv rajkumar

Edited by kpv rajkumar
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