What's the best tape to use ?

[limeyx]

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However, HDTV cameras cost pretty close to 100K right now, and the tape machines and editing gear to create uncompressed hi-def will cost another 250K. It's a tough reach, even for those of us who make our living with the stuff.
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Mountain Dog

shouldn't that be "HDTV cameras used to cost pretty close to 100K and editing gear to create uncompressed hi-def will used to cost another 250K"

http://www.red.com

 

[limeyx]

Hi Perrone Ford!

My understanding is that miniDV is not stored in a compressed format, but HDV is (using MPEG-2, AVHCD or other compression algorithms). I agree that these are lossy and multiple decompressions/recompressions can result in much poorer image quality. My first video editor (a Casablanca) used MPEG-2 and I could see the loss in just one cycle. The fact that HDV uses these compression algorithms greatly concerns me as the advantage of the higher resolution of HDV is going to be compromised IF one does a lot of editing and archiving of the edited (vs raw) footage. Most of us do that.

Bill: I dont think you will regret going to HDV -- way way better than "SD" stuff on MiniDV tapes despite the compression.

Final Cut Pro can edit the HDV natively, but I am not sure how well that works due to the GOP needing to be changed if you cut the footage.

I am using final cut express 3.0 which translates HDV into Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) for editing (I *think* this is something a bit like a series of intra-frame compressed JPEG ?) Editing is fas and the quality is much better than SD.

I think Final Cut Pro has some other excellent options (DVCPro?) for editing also.

The main things I noticed with HDV even when downrezzing to DVD is:

1) It just looks much cleaner than DV
2) You can play with the footage a lot more before it starts to degrade (to fix colors/brightness/contrast etc.)

I too was hesitant regarding the high-level of compression, and I do think that HDV and AVCHD are just intermediate phases that will hopefully die out at some point soon, but if you want an Underwater cam today, then for most of us it's HDV or AVCHD

 

[drbill]

How right you are... until I win the lottery!

 

[Empty V]

MD I have to disagree with you when it comes to the lubricant issue(tapes). There is a difference between the sony and panasonic miniDV tapes. We conducted some experiments with 3 different decks and ran about 200 tapes through each one. The only deck that had drop frame and other errors was the deck with the 2 mixed manufacturers. I have done a lot of research on this as I too do this for a living and want to make sure my gear is always in top notch condition. If you are going to switch tape manufacturers it's recommended that you do a thorough head cleaning before. If you do that then you should be in the clear.

When it comes to compression, excluding solid state cards like the P2's, if you're transferring video over firewire it's compressed I can't remember the ratio though. The only real way to get uncompressed video HD or SD it by using a capture card. I personally like Black Magic Design's gear. Aja is a great company as well. I'm not a big fan of HDV. It's a compression that is pretty much unusable in the professional world. But that's my problem, most people working in HDV don't have the requirements that I do so HDV is just fine for them. The hardest format for me to deal with is 720 60p. When it comes to integrating it into uncompressed 1080 24p footage it's a real pain.

Billy

 

[Empty V]

shouldn't that be "HDTV cameras used to cost pretty close to 100K and editing gear to create uncompressed hi-def will used to cost another 250K"

http://www.red.com

That camera is no secret, and it's also no secret that it is not a broadcast camera. Different specs for different applications.

That was the one thing I didn't manage to see at NAB this week. It's tough when you have 15 vendors to meet and Autodesk has a booth, what an amazing company.

Billy

 

[PerroneFord]

RED is about as broadcast as IMAX is, though you can downres it. If I had gone to NAB, that would have been my first stop.

What a great concept. I've been watching it for nearly a year now. Meanwhile, I'm making do with my lowly DVX100...

 

[Empty V]

RED is about as broadcast as IMAX is, though you can downres it. If I had gone to NAB, that would have been my first stop.

What a great concept. I've been watching it for nearly a year now. Meanwhile, I'm making do with my lowly DVX100...

Trust me, If I could have hit their booth I would have. Downconverting can be a very time consuming and expensive process, at least with tapes. I just downconverted 2 D5 HD tapes to Beta SP, not cheap even with a hookup.

...I'm making do with my lowly DVX100...

Nothing wrong with the DVX my friend. I've made a lot of money off of mine and continue to. For a certain very large client I have, everything is shot on the DVX. I have 6 opertors with DVX's that I keep very busy. Last time I was at MTV Santa Monica every camera I saw was a DVX.

Billy

 

[PerroneFord]

Believe me, I'm not knocking it. Mine is a DVX100 original, and was purchased new on the advice of a friend who'd shot with one for MTV and Food Network (as well as the Bachelorette). I've done a lot of work with mine, and have some toys for it like a new 6 hour battery and a new Firestore with the big drive to save capture time.

I covered a press conference with it a couple of weeks ago, and I have to admit I felt a bit envious standing next to the guys in the gallery with full size rigs!

 

[limeyx]

Trust me, If I could have hit their booth I would have. Downconverting can be a very time consuming and expensive process, at least with tapes. I just downconverted 2 D5 HD tapes to Beta SP, not cheap even with a hookup.

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I'd honestly be interested to see why you think a RED is not broadcast quality -- essentially 4K resolution either visually lossless wavelet compression or for the real freaks, RAW RAW output at 900Mbits/sec to a RAID array.

Also, I dont think RED has the concept of tapes, but realtime editing in Final Cut Studio 2, as well as quicktime plugins mean that editing should be really easy, especially due to the way I think the wavelet decompression works -- you can essentially very easily extract downscaled versions of the large footage without decompressing the whole thing.

 

[Mountain Dog]

We conducted some experiments with 3 different decks and ran about 200 tapes through each one. The only deck that had drop frame and other errors was the deck with the 2 mixed manufacturers. I have done a lot of research on this as I too do this for a living and want to make sure my gear is always in top notch condition. If you are going to switch tape manufacturers it's recommended that you do a thorough head cleaning before. If you do that then you should be in the clear.
Billy

That's pretty anecdotal evidence. As I said earlier, ANY lubricant of ANY type on the heads is going to result in a head clog. Yes, the different brands do use different lubricants, but that material is designed to stay between the tape spool and the spindle - it should never be on the surface of the tape. If your tapes have lubricant on the recording face, return them.

As I said before, clean the heads properly and frequently. That's it. This has more to do with getting a good recording than your choice of tape brand.

As for RED, it's an interesting rig and it bears watching, but keep your money in your pocket for now. By the time you accessorize that thing, you have spend a small fortune. And you still don't have a camera that produces a product the major networks will accept. That's who I work for, so I have to abide by their engineering decisions.

Mountain Dog