HD For Indies

Oops, a little more blogwad, but I thought this one deserved to get cracked out as its own article:

Assimilate Scratch (a Windows based color correction and digital intermediate color grading tool) to support QuickTime media import:

Assimilate's Scratch software is getting some upgrades - they can now import QuickTime media (and this IS confirmed with them):

"SCRATCH now support quick time IMPORT. It'll be public in the next software release which i think is plan for this coming weekend. BUT go ahead and get the exclusive and mentioned it.

When you'll build your SCRATCH system "a la carte" you must include SCRATCH EXTENSION- Media Layer. Media Layer today inc. the ability to import quicktime.mov files into the SCRATCH timeline/CONSTRUCT. WE plan to add more file formats to it moving fw.

Anyway, as soon as the new software build is release i'll send both of you what's new on it."

That was followed with some more emails:


"Mike,
 
the workflow for FCP would be the same as with basically any other offline suite, edit and export EDL cmx3600, export QT movie Reference of the offline,  scan or capture full res 2k/hd to DPX 10bit log with TC embedded on header, load media into the SCRATCH CONstruct, load EDL, assemble. done.
cut/dissolves , speed changes , flip/flops , comments/notes are all supported via standard EDL.
transformations as in repositioning, rotation and scaling , aspect ratio adjust , custom notes , multilayering are all supported via XML.
 
the other way around also works, as in bring the media as a conformed clip, use EDL to reverse assemble, that cut in events the single shot, then work on SCRATCH in a shot by shot basis.
SCRATCH do not handle interlaced footage correctly for repos, you would need to de-interlace that footage first or merge fields with a process/plug-in to avoid any artifact on transformations to that media.

--------

I asked about codec support in this model - there are some codecs that are Mac only, I consider these to be the "Pro" codecs - the ones that come with Final Cut products.

The answer:

Mike, you are right about some of your guessing. DVCPRO,50, HD and HDV does not work with Quicktime on windows, at least on my system as I do not have a codec for it. DV and Apple 8 & 10 works ok, same with all of the cross platform video I/O hw. below is a list of some files tested today.
 
(I had asked about gamma shift due to Mac/PC differences:) - can't comment on the gamma shift due to Mac/PC.
 
supported:
AJA KONA 10bit log RGB
AJA KONA 10bit RGB
AJA KONA 2Vuy
AJA KONA 2vuy
AJA KONA V210
Bluefish444 V210
Bluefish444 BV10
DRastic YCbCr
AVID Packed
AVID 1-1x
AVID DNxHD
AVID DV
AVID DV100
AVID meridien compress
AVID meridie uncompress
Blackmagic rgb 10bit
HD Uncompressed 10-bit 1080i50
HD Uncompressed 10-bit 1080i60
HD Uncompressed 8-bit 1080i50
HD Uncompressed 8-bit 1080p24
HD Uncompressed 8-bit 1080i60
HD Uncompressed 10-bit 1080p24
Default QuickTime Movie
Animation NTSC
10-bit Uncompressed PAL
uncompress 8bit 422
Photo - JPEG 75 NTSC
H.264 40Kbps
H.264 100Kbps
H.264 300Kbps
H.264 800Kbps
H.264 LAN
10-bit Uncompressed NTSC
8-bit Uncompressed PAL
8-bit Uncompressed NTSC
8-bit NTSC
DV NTSC
DV NTSC Anamorphic
none
DV PAL Anamorphic
uncompress 10bit 422
DV PAL
Photo - JPEG 100 NTSC
HDTV 1080 8 bit
NTSC 8 Bit
NTSC 10 Bit
PAL 10 Bit
PAL 8 Bit
HDTV 720 10 Bit
HDTV 720 8 Bit
HDTV 1080 10 bit
Cinepak
Intel Indeo Video4.4
Motion JPEG A
MPEG-4 video
Video
Planar RGB
Component video

not supported:

DVCPRO HD 720p60
DVCPro50 NTSC
DV50 NTSC
DV50 NTSC Anamorphic
DV50 PAL Anamorphic
HDV 1080i60
DVCPro HD 1080i60
DVCPRO HD 1080i50
DVCPRO50 PAL
HDV 720p30
DVCPRO HD 720p60
DVCPRO HD 720p24
Pixlet NTSC
HDV 1080i50
DVCPro HD 1080i50
DV50 PAL
Sheervideo (This one works OK under windows with QTPlayer)

----(end email)-------

...so if you shot in an unsupported format, you could always Media Manager Recompress To a supported format, like AJA or BMD's uncompressed codecs. So at least that is one step closer, and you don't have to go to tape or convert the whole thing to DPX files.

....thanks to Nacho and Leo for taking the time to answer all my persnickety questions!

-mike