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High Definition Video for Independent Filmmakers
A How To Guide for Digital Filmmakers
Welcome all! This is my blog to share my latest research,
thoughts, etc. on utilizing HD for independent filmmaking.
YES, I am available for consulting
Contact me at mike@hdforindies.com
All content copyright 2004-2007 Mike Curtis.
Friday, July 06, 2007
Working with 24P from Canon HV20
UPDATED with Windows product info, see bottom
Similar to Geoff Frost's post on HVX200 production tips, my other intern, Andy Nelson, has been doodling around with a Canon HV20, and I asked him to post his notes on his experiences with the HV20. Below is his article on dealing with 24p. BTW - if looking to figure out how to get optimal results out of the HV20, FreshDV's interview with Bruce Allen (he of recent Cinegear report) has some EXCELLENT specific details on hands on usage and testing on how to get the most out of the HV20.
This is thematically similar to Steve Mullen's recent piece on dealing with the V1's 24p in Final Cut Pro
More coverage to follow on that, but here's Andy's report on the HV20 and 24p, my comments in italics:
==============
For a thousand bucks the Canon HV20 isn’t a bad little camera, especially after putting some work into getting 24P from it. The HV20 uses HDV, so it only records 60i to tape and adds 3:2 pulldown for its 24fps mode. You can, however, acheive some pretty good results with a reverse telecine to remove the pulldown for full-on progressive beauty. To do this I began by capturing with the Apple Intermediate Codec, as to bypass the temporal compression of MPEG2 that comes with native HDV, and then went two routes for the reverse telecine…(Mike comment - the MPEG-2 compression is from the source HDV, by transcoding to AIC, FCP can process that footage faster, and your recompression/generational losses will be less. This was with FCP 6 not 5.x, BTW)
The Hard Way:
The first way I did this was using Cinema Tools (After Effects or something like JES Deinterlacer will also work ...but using After Effects, with its RGB processing, can clip superwhite and sub-black values - mike). After opening my clip in Cinema Tools, I used the Reverse Telecine button at the bottom of the window. Cinema Tools does not do a “smart” reverse telecine, you have to tell it where to start and what to do. 3:2 pulldown puts the 24P footage down as 60i on tape in a pppii cadence, p for progressive frames and i for interlaced (three progressive and two interlaced, hence 3:2). Essentially, you must tell Cinema Tools what frame of this cadence you are starting with. The button brings up a window with options for Capture Mode, Fields, File, and Frames. It is quite a process to determine the Capture Mode and Fields options, while File and Frames are rather straightforward. This diagram from the Cinema Tools manual was helpful...
Capture Mode has to do with the repeating frame sequence of the clip. I used “Field 1 – Field 2,” which means that my footage contains both fields with Field 1 Dominance, as opposed to the other options: Field 2 Dominance, Field 1 Only, or Field 2 Only.
So if you've been using the HV20 below its full potential--or thinking about how this little camera stacks up, Compressor 3 can give you nice 24P very easily.
Also, if you want to go the extra step and add some shallow depth of field, check out the lens adapter rigs below....
PROLOST - Redrock Gets It
PROLOST - Gold Rims On the Hoopty
PROLOST - TurboHoopty2000
-andy
============
Mike's follow up questions - I'd want to do further testing to absolutely verify that Compressor is figuring out cadence changes within a single captured clip (which could include lots of starts and stops, and stops could be almost anywhere in the cadence process). I'd like to verify whether >100 IRE values do or don't get clipped in this process, and if they do, what steps can be taken to preserve them.
============
Andy's follow up answers - This article on 24P HDV and ProRes from Tim Wilson at Creative Cow has some more info on Compressor's "smart" reverse telecine. He's done at least 20 tests the same way with successful results. I did run another test using footage with very bright whites and as far as IRE values greater than 100 go, they DO get clipped in this process. The workaround, as described in Stu Maschwitz's DV Rebel's Guide, is fairly simple; lower the opacity of the clip to around 90% (or check the scopes until you're under 100) and make sure to go into FCP's clip settings and under "Video Processing" select "Render all YUV material in high-precision YUV" as to not lose image quality while darkening your video.
Mike's continuation of that - ...and then export that in some high quality codec, preferably 10 bit, such as Apple Uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2 or ProResHQ - THEN process via Compressor, THEN bring the levels back in FCP when you color correct (or maybe in Color - I need to check that round trip workflow to see if superwhites and sub-blacks are maintained).
-andy & mike
SATURDAY UPDATE - a commenter mentioned the 3:2 pulldown removal capabilities of Cineform, and I recalled they could do it and do it well, so I emailed David Newman:
Hey David!
This blog post was mostly letting my intern explore and commenting on it a bit more - do you have a specific page that outlines the 24p extraction goodness? And for working with HDMI and HD-SDI sources as well for "live" capturing and how it does that?
He responded:
Hi Mike,
We do have a technote on the subject : http://www.cineform.com/products/TechNotes/InverseTelecine.htm
All our PC products now support live capture and pulldown removal from Intensity, Decklink or AJA Xena in real-time.
The pulldown extraction is not dependent on repeat flags, as it is an image analysis technique that works on all telecined sources, however they are encoded. We originally developed this for the HDSDI output from the Canon XL-H1, since then Wafian uses it, Mircosoft uses it for ingest all the HD materials of Xbox Live, and now it works very well for HDMI sources.
Real-time removal of telecine is helpful is several ways. It can save a compression generation, while not a big issue for CineForm, capturing to 60i then converting to 24p, is a lot of encoding and decoding before the edit. Also with live pull-down removal, compression is easier, takes less CPU and produces significantly small files at higher quality.
David Newman
CTO, CineForm
Thanks David!
-mike
Similar to Geoff Frost's post on HVX200 production tips, my other intern, Andy Nelson, has been doodling around with a Canon HV20, and I asked him to post his notes on his experiences with the HV20. Below is his article on dealing with 24p. BTW - if looking to figure out how to get optimal results out of the HV20, FreshDV's interview with Bruce Allen (he of recent Cinegear report) has some EXCELLENT specific details on hands on usage and testing on how to get the most out of the HV20.
This is thematically similar to Steve Mullen's recent piece on dealing with the V1's 24p in Final Cut Pro
More coverage to follow on that, but here's Andy's report on the HV20 and 24p, my comments in italics:
==============
For a thousand bucks the Canon HV20 isn’t a bad little camera, especially after putting some work into getting 24P from it. The HV20 uses HDV, so it only records 60i to tape and adds 3:2 pulldown for its 24fps mode. You can, however, acheive some pretty good results with a reverse telecine to remove the pulldown for full-on progressive beauty. To do this I began by capturing with the Apple Intermediate Codec, as to bypass the temporal compression of MPEG2 that comes with native HDV, and then went two routes for the reverse telecine…(Mike comment - the MPEG-2 compression is from the source HDV, by transcoding to AIC, FCP can process that footage faster, and your recompression/generational losses will be less. This was with FCP 6 not 5.x, BTW)
The Hard Way:
The first way I did this was using Cinema Tools (After Effects or something like JES Deinterlacer will also work ...but using After Effects, with its RGB processing, can clip superwhite and sub-black values - mike). After opening my clip in Cinema Tools, I used the Reverse Telecine button at the bottom of the window. Cinema Tools does not do a “smart” reverse telecine, you have to tell it where to start and what to do. 3:2 pulldown puts the 24P footage down as 60i on tape in a pppii cadence, p for progressive frames and i for interlaced (three progressive and two interlaced, hence 3:2). Essentially, you must tell Cinema Tools what frame of this cadence you are starting with. The button brings up a window with options for Capture Mode, Fields, File, and Frames. It is quite a process to determine the Capture Mode and Fields options, while File and Frames are rather straightforward. This diagram from the Cinema Tools manual was helpful...
Capture Mode has to do with the repeating frame sequence of the clip. I used “Field 1 – Field 2,” which means that my footage contains both fields with Field 1 Dominance, as opposed to the other options: Field 2 Dominance, Field 1 Only, or Field 2 Only.
The next setting, Fields, is the frame type of the current frame open in the Cinema Tools, either AA, BB, CC, or DD. For this I used “DD,” because that is where my current frame lie.
File is to either keep the same file or make a new one, I chose "New."
Finally, Frame is either 24 or 23.98, I went with “23.98.”
Confused yet? To further disorient, this process only works for a single clip--if you captured all in one clip (as I did with the Apple Intermediate Codec) you must split them up into separate clips for every camera start/stop. This is because every camera start/stop breaks the pppii cadence and starts it anew. Cinema Tools does have a Batch Reverse Telecine option for this, but all clips must have their in-point set to the same Field (as selected in the Field option) in order to begin the cadence at the same frame.
After a short wait, I imported my clips back into Final Cut Pro and could find no interlacing. Success!
The Easy Way:
Compressor, on the other hand, does have the ability to do a “smart” reverse telecine. Smart because it recognizes the cadence and the current frame, but also because it recognizes cadence breaks for clips captured or edited together. I simply loaded up the “Apple ProRes 422 for Progressive material” preset and changed a few things.
First off was the frame rate: under the Encoder Tab, I clicked the Settings button and changed Frame Rate from “Current” to “Custom” and used 23.976.
Then I went to the Frame Controls Tab and turned Frame Controls “On.” A few options down under Deinterlace is the “Reverse Telecine” option.
That’s it. I waited about 15 minutes for a 6 minute clip on a Dual 2.0 G5 and ended up with something identical what Cinema Tools spit out. Not only do I have true 24P, but now my footage is in the friendly ProRess 422 codec as well. Double success!
So if you've been using the HV20 below its full potential--or thinking about how this little camera stacks up, Compressor 3 can give you nice 24P very easily.
Also, if you want to go the extra step and add some shallow depth of field, check out the lens adapter rigs below....
PROLOST - Redrock Gets It
PROLOST - Gold Rims On the Hoopty
PROLOST - TurboHoopty2000
-andy
============
Mike's follow up questions - I'd want to do further testing to absolutely verify that Compressor is figuring out cadence changes within a single captured clip (which could include lots of starts and stops, and stops could be almost anywhere in the cadence process). I'd like to verify whether >100 IRE values do or don't get clipped in this process, and if they do, what steps can be taken to preserve them.
============
Andy's follow up answers - This article on 24P HDV and ProRes from Tim Wilson at Creative Cow has some more info on Compressor's "smart" reverse telecine. He's done at least 20 tests the same way with successful results. I did run another test using footage with very bright whites and as far as IRE values greater than 100 go, they DO get clipped in this process. The workaround, as described in Stu Maschwitz's DV Rebel's Guide, is fairly simple; lower the opacity of the clip to around 90% (or check the scopes until you're under 100) and make sure to go into FCP's clip settings and under "Video Processing" select "Render all YUV material in high-precision YUV" as to not lose image quality while darkening your video.
TUESDAY UPDATE - While recording I found that the super-whites on the HV20 go to 109 IRE, so you should only have to bring the opacity down slightly--I was fine at 92%. On the other end, while recording straight darkness I got 4 IRE, which is just under black if you go with 7.5 IRE as black.
MONDAY UPDATE - FCP's Batch Export does not clip--Compressor seems to be responsible for that. So if you have multiple clips/tapes with IRE levels to preserve, Batch Export can be used before Compressor as described below...
Mike's continuation of that - ...and then export that in some high quality codec, preferably 10 bit, such as Apple Uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2 or ProResHQ - THEN process via Compressor, THEN bring the levels back in FCP when you color correct (or maybe in Color - I need to check that round trip workflow to see if superwhites and sub-blacks are maintained).
-andy & mike
SATURDAY UPDATE - a commenter mentioned the 3:2 pulldown removal capabilities of Cineform, and I recalled they could do it and do it well, so I emailed David Newman:
Hey David!
This blog post was mostly letting my intern explore and commenting on it a bit more - do you have a specific page that outlines the 24p extraction goodness? And for working with HDMI and HD-SDI sources as well for "live" capturing and how it does that?
He responded:
Hi Mike,
We do have a technote on the subject : http://www.cineform.com/products/TechNotes/InverseTelecine.htm
All our PC products now support live capture and pulldown removal from Intensity, Decklink or AJA Xena in real-time.
The pulldown extraction is not dependent on repeat flags, as it is an image analysis technique that works on all telecined sources, however they are encoded. We originally developed this for the HDSDI output from the Canon XL-H1, since then Wafian uses it, Mircosoft uses it for ingest all the HD materials of Xbox Live, and now it works very well for HDMI sources.
Real-time removal of telecine is helpful is several ways. It can save a compression generation, while not a big issue for CineForm, capturing to 60i then converting to 24p, is a lot of encoding and decoding before the edit. Also with live pull-down removal, compression is easier, takes less CPU and produces significantly small files at higher quality.
David Newman
CTO, CineForm
Thanks David!
-mike
Comments:
Neo HDV works very well too (on a PC). Actually does the pulldown removal in realtime on the fly, which is nice. Bad thing is it doesn't keep the timecode info though.
-Blake
www.killingdown.com
-Blake
www.killingdown.com
Thanks Blake. Yes given the blog entries title and almost expected to see our products listed. All the CineForm PC products support real-time pulldown extract from any 24p camera (HV20 and V1U fully tested), whether from Firewire, disk/flash based media, or live from HDMI or HDSDI sources. No waiting, no guessing, no clipping. :)
David Newman
CTO, CineForm
David Newman
CTO, CineForm
Sorry this is OT but: In case no-one is letting you know the Firefox bug is still going strong, still crashing my browser everytime I visit. I do not have this problem with any other website at all so something is weird. Thanks for all the good content though guys!
"To do this I began by capturing with the Apple Intermediate Codec, as to bypass the temporal compression of MPEG2 that comes with native HDV"
Does this mean he did not "record" on MiniDV tape, but to laptop or harddrive, using HDMI out form camera?
thanks,
jay
Does this mean he did not "record" on MiniDV tape, but to laptop or harddrive, using HDMI out form camera?
thanks,
jay
Still a pretty convoluted workflow. Question on the clipping of the super whites and sub blacks. It would rather make more sense to me to just expand that into an RGB file with a LUT and consider that yuor master. Any color manipulation software worth its sald works in RGB (including Apple Color), and its what you have to go to, to create either a film out or a DCI package, and even most mpeg-2 compression engines take it into RGB before taking it back to YcRcB. So at that point would it make more sense to hand it a nice 16 bit RGB format ? Trying to maintain data without clipping and coming from an 8 bit space is silly.
Jeff - the catch is getting it out of Final Cut (via QuickTime) without trimming the super/sub data.
Does it strike anyone else as ironic to discuss DCI packages stemming from a $1000 camcorder?
But yeah, convoluted, but it is what is necessary for good results - wide open to hearing better way!
The RGB/YUV clipping conversion is the catch, nestled in QT is the catch AFAIK.
You mention expanding into an RGB file - unfortunately not quite so simple - if you export a QT file out of FCP, it gets clipped to video legal - QT "helping" us at that point. So you have to fight to get around it to get full range out. So not as simple as it seems - you're expecting it to work right and smoothly.
: )
-mike
Does it strike anyone else as ironic to discuss DCI packages stemming from a $1000 camcorder?
But yeah, convoluted, but it is what is necessary for good results - wide open to hearing better way!
The RGB/YUV clipping conversion is the catch, nestled in QT is the catch AFAIK.
You mention expanding into an RGB file - unfortunately not quite so simple - if you export a QT file out of FCP, it gets clipped to video legal - QT "helping" us at that point. So you have to fight to get around it to get full range out. So not as simple as it seems - you're expecting it to work right and smoothly.
: )
-mike
Just a clarification about using Cinema Tools...if you're capturing from tape and plan to reverse-telecine from 29.97fps to 24 (or 23.98)fps, it's a lot easier if you start logging and capturing each clip on an "A" frame (time code frames ending in 00, 05, 10, 15, 20, or 25...I usually just make sure all my clips begin on the 00 frame to make it easier), Then you can set Cinema Tools to start reverse telecine on the A frame, and then can do a Batch Reverse Telecine.
Before there was "smart" reverse telecine and Advance Pulldown Removal (waaay back when, in the 1990s, with Avid Film Composer and stuff), this was how we did it.
Frank Reynolds
Before there was "smart" reverse telecine and Advance Pulldown Removal (waaay back when, in the 1990s, with Avid Film Composer and stuff), this was how we did it.
Frank Reynolds
Has noone pulled 24p from the HDMI or Component out from that camera yet? I hear a lot but I see no examples except Bruce's .psds which are not that illuminating.
Getting 24p from the 1080i output is a hack anyway. You still have the HDV issues.
It would be nice to see an actual comparison between uncompressed, MJPEG from HDMI and HDV with that camera.
Getting 24p from the 1080i output is a hack anyway. You still have the HDV issues.
It would be nice to see an actual comparison between uncompressed, MJPEG from HDMI and HDV with that camera.
Well in regards to rendering in Final Cut my simple policy is don't do it. Again its more of a hollywood pro perspective as I reguarly have clients come back for uncompressed DPX files. Imagery like this shouldn't be captured to HDV.
Think about it its a cmos camera which means it needs to be debayered. So essentially you're trebling your information into 4:4:4 RGB with a real time debayer algorythm that isn't that great. After that you're reducing to HDV 4:2:0 1440x1080. Its like taking film pissing on it and lighting it on fire, and everone wonders why theres moire on uncle jeremy's horrendous shirt.
Which is fine for the family vacation footage when you want it to have that film look. But taking it into final cut and worrying about your sub blacks and super whites is silly. Its all going to get tossed out the window when it gets reencoded in mpeg-2 for dvd.
Think about it its a cmos camera which means it needs to be debayered. So essentially you're trebling your information into 4:4:4 RGB with a real time debayer algorythm that isn't that great. After that you're reducing to HDV 4:2:0 1440x1080. Its like taking film pissing on it and lighting it on fire, and everone wonders why theres moire on uncle jeremy's horrendous shirt.
Which is fine for the family vacation footage when you want it to have that film look. But taking it into final cut and worrying about your sub blacks and super whites is silly. Its all going to get tossed out the window when it gets reencoded in mpeg-2 for dvd.
PenGun,
For a comparisons between uncompressed, CineForm compressed, MJPEG and HDV compression from the Canon HV20, there is a good post here :
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=94079
The fifth post on this thread provides the download link, with login information. Note: the first points out that the NEO HDV tests where incorrectly converted, but all the other samples are good.
For a comparisons between uncompressed, CineForm compressed, MJPEG and HDV compression from the Canon HV20, there is a good post here :
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=94079
The fifth post on this thread provides the download link, with login information. Note: the first points out that the NEO HDV tests where incorrectly converted, but all the other samples are good.
PenGun - I did some testing with another HDV camera when I reviewed a BMD HDMI card for DV the other month, check DV.com for that article. I basically found that uncompressed HDMI pretty much matches the HDV - just with no compression artifacts. The noise, lack of detail, oversharpening, etc., were all still in there.
Jeff - yes they'll get clipped if you do a straight export - but if going to color correct nicely, you can scale those values to within broadcast legal so you get a nice taper, not a hard clip. THAT's why you want'em.
-mike
Jeff - yes they'll get clipped if you do a straight export - but if going to color correct nicely, you can scale those values to within broadcast legal so you get a nice taper, not a hard clip. THAT's why you want'em.
-mike
Great articcle, guys.
Wouldn't it be better to do your initial capture in HDV rather than AIC? Yes, AIC is a better codec and is easier for FCP to handle. But if the next sstep is going to be rendering it to ProReSHQ, it seems like doing a transcode to AIC on capture is just adding an unnecessary compression.
BTW, on a new 4-core Intel mac pro, editing in native HDV with the ProRes rendering option enabled has been pretty nice. I've had no real issues with it.
Wouldn't it be better to do your initial capture in HDV rather than AIC? Yes, AIC is a better codec and is easier for FCP to handle. But if the next sstep is going to be rendering it to ProReSHQ, it seems like doing a transcode to AIC on capture is just adding an unnecessary compression.
BTW, on a new 4-core Intel mac pro, editing in native HDV with the ProRes rendering option enabled has been pretty nice. I've had no real issues with it.
Thanks, Jason. The reason I went with AIC instead of HDV is that Cinema Tools doesn't reverse telecine HDV clips because of the MPEG2 compression. I had to get it out of HDV in order to go the Cinema Tools route and wanted to be consistent for the comparison with Compressor.
Mike, what kind of crummy camera did you use for your uncompressed capture tests?
If you compare the HV20 to the more-expensive DV cameras that have been historically used for low-end indie features ("HD for Indies", right?), it is a huge leap forward in terms of detail and lack of oversharpening. Latitude's not bad either. Noise is only there if you don't have enough light. And if you're only spending $1000 on the camera, suddenly you have a lighting budget, don't you?
If you stuck a 35mm adapter on your HV20, went back in time 5 years and handed it to Soderbergh to shoot Full Frontal with instead of the XL1, he would be raving about it even more than the Red.
Cameras and computers are advancing at an unprecedented rate right now, so the intelligent thing for most indies to do is to put their cash into other things that don't go out of date so quickly.
Jason, AFAIK, the problem is that Compressor can't do pulldown detection from a codec with temporal compression, such as HDV.
Let's face it - Cineform is currently streets ahead of the Final Cut Pro methods (including IO HD and V3HD). Even if you're capturing from a HDV recording. Its quality is as good or better than ProRes, it is the only solution that removes the pulldown on the fly, and it has no stupid IRE clipping problems.
Let's just hope they make a version that works fully with Final Cut Pro or Avid (we can dream, right?). Premiere is surprisingly good nowadays but there are a few features I really miss from Avid when using it.
Even so, if you were doing a longform project such as an indie feature on the HV20, you'd be crazy not to consider Cineform + Premiere.
I wonder if they have the Quicktime playback and capture component of Cineform worked out totally yet? That way, you could at least capture in Premiere and then edit in Final Cut Pro.
David, how would licensing work for this? I hope people wouldn't have to buy two copies of your product just to work around your lack of FCP capture support...
Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
If you compare the HV20 to the more-expensive DV cameras that have been historically used for low-end indie features ("HD for Indies", right?), it is a huge leap forward in terms of detail and lack of oversharpening. Latitude's not bad either. Noise is only there if you don't have enough light. And if you're only spending $1000 on the camera, suddenly you have a lighting budget, don't you?
If you stuck a 35mm adapter on your HV20, went back in time 5 years and handed it to Soderbergh to shoot Full Frontal with instead of the XL1, he would be raving about it even more than the Red.
Cameras and computers are advancing at an unprecedented rate right now, so the intelligent thing for most indies to do is to put their cash into other things that don't go out of date so quickly.
Jason, AFAIK, the problem is that Compressor can't do pulldown detection from a codec with temporal compression, such as HDV.
Let's face it - Cineform is currently streets ahead of the Final Cut Pro methods (including IO HD and V3HD). Even if you're capturing from a HDV recording. Its quality is as good or better than ProRes, it is the only solution that removes the pulldown on the fly, and it has no stupid IRE clipping problems.
Let's just hope they make a version that works fully with Final Cut Pro or Avid (we can dream, right?). Premiere is surprisingly good nowadays but there are a few features I really miss from Avid when using it.
Even so, if you were doing a longform project such as an indie feature on the HV20, you'd be crazy not to consider Cineform + Premiere.
I wonder if they have the Quicktime playback and capture component of Cineform worked out totally yet? That way, you could at least capture in Premiere and then edit in Final Cut Pro.
David, how would licensing work for this? I hope people wouldn't have to buy two copies of your product just to work around your lack of FCP capture support...
Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Hey Bruce - I'm warming to the HV20 - at first, I was ready to blow it off as a $1000 HDV camcorder.
Seeing Andy's footage, I was impressed by the quality/dollar factor.
But it doesn't get magically better - you just clean up the compression artifacts recording live.
So as an indie, it is a nice little thing.
As a consultant, I don't exactly want to spend all my time focusing on a $1000 camera....'cuz those folks have LOTS of budget to hire a consultant, right?
:D
-mike
Seeing Andy's footage, I was impressed by the quality/dollar factor.
But it doesn't get magically better - you just clean up the compression artifacts recording live.
So as an indie, it is a nice little thing.
As a consultant, I don't exactly want to spend all my time focusing on a $1000 camera....'cuz those folks have LOTS of budget to hire a consultant, right?
:D
-mike
Bruce,
Thanks for the nice comments
Regard Mac support :
"David, how would licensing work for this? I hope people wouldn't have to buy two copies of your product just to work around your lack of FCP capture support..."
We are planning to address this within a few weeks with single license that gives access to both platforms -- the final details aren't out yet.
David Newman
CTO, CineForm
Thanks for the nice comments
Regard Mac support :
"David, how would licensing work for this? I hope people wouldn't have to buy two copies of your product just to work around your lack of FCP capture support..."
We are planning to address this within a few weeks with single license that gives access to both platforms -- the final details aren't out yet.
David Newman
CTO, CineForm
I guess it just comes down to a perspective of making films for a living or for a hobby, and the hobbyists are going to have a much harder time convincing the world+dog that a consumer camera thats been designed for consumers is all that.
From my perspective you don't have anything useful for distribution at the end, and to be perfectly honest if you're not shooting for people to see your film either as a work of outstanding art or one of commercial success. What the hell is the point ?
From my perspective you don't have anything useful for distribution at the end, and to be perfectly honest if you're not shooting for people to see your film either as a work of outstanding art or one of commercial success. What the hell is the point ?
Mike, I went with the HV20 precisely so that I would have money left over to pay people for their expertise... that includes the donation I made to your site! So hopefully I and others will pleasantly surprise you with our consultancy budgets.
If all of the people buying higher-end cameras spent their money on HV20s and a few dozen hours' worth of consulting time with you instead, let's face it, they'd make better films.
But you're right. Few will probably do it. Most will all go and "invest" in fancy cameras and MacBooks that go out of date quickly, and spend too little on timeless human expertise. Apple and the camera manufacturers really have them eating out of their hand, don't they?
This from your buddy who has NEVER owned a camera >$1000, NEVER owned a Mac, only owned one laptop (from 1998, and I STILL use it to write scripts)... and the funny thing is that back in South Africa I was considered the guy who had all of the gear, because my more talented director friends got by with less. None of my DP friends owned a camera, but boy could they light if you gave them a kit. And they knew exactly how to operate every camera - film and video - mainly because they hung around the rental places.
Personally I think people often have fancy gear (Macs, Red cameras, etc) because deep down they fear that they lack talent. Or even worse, they think they're talented, but nobody else recognizes this, so they decide that the answer is that their gear needs an upgrade (not the more likely one - that they just suck). People seem to forget that you don't need to own equipment to be a filmmaker. All it does is make you an equipment dork. And the worst kind is the guy who owns equipment but expects people to work (and consult) for free. The rich, yet stingy equipment dork. I bet they send you stupid emails all of the time (starting with "I shot something on this HVX with some expensive wireless mics but had something set up wrong, can you help?? The deadline is soon. I'm just an indie student, I'm busy paying off my BMW, my camera equipment, my Mac and my iPhone so can't pay you").
Anyway, time for me to stop talking and attempt to prove my point by shooting some stuff with that HV20...
Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
If all of the people buying higher-end cameras spent their money on HV20s and a few dozen hours' worth of consulting time with you instead, let's face it, they'd make better films.
But you're right. Few will probably do it. Most will all go and "invest" in fancy cameras and MacBooks that go out of date quickly, and spend too little on timeless human expertise. Apple and the camera manufacturers really have them eating out of their hand, don't they?
This from your buddy who has NEVER owned a camera >$1000, NEVER owned a Mac, only owned one laptop (from 1998, and I STILL use it to write scripts)... and the funny thing is that back in South Africa I was considered the guy who had all of the gear, because my more talented director friends got by with less. None of my DP friends owned a camera, but boy could they light if you gave them a kit. And they knew exactly how to operate every camera - film and video - mainly because they hung around the rental places.
Personally I think people often have fancy gear (Macs, Red cameras, etc) because deep down they fear that they lack talent. Or even worse, they think they're talented, but nobody else recognizes this, so they decide that the answer is that their gear needs an upgrade (not the more likely one - that they just suck). People seem to forget that you don't need to own equipment to be a filmmaker. All it does is make you an equipment dork. And the worst kind is the guy who owns equipment but expects people to work (and consult) for free. The rich, yet stingy equipment dork. I bet they send you stupid emails all of the time (starting with "I shot something on this HVX with some expensive wireless mics but had something set up wrong, can you help?? The deadline is soon. I'm just an indie student, I'm busy paying off my BMW, my camera equipment, my Mac and my iPhone so can't pay you").
Anyway, time for me to stop talking and attempt to prove my point by shooting some stuff with that HV20...
Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Bruce, I love your comment.
The issue is, as I'm somewhat in that spot right now, that there is a right way to handle a indie/spec project where you can't afford to pay people and a wrong way. And the reason no one wants to do the no/lo pay projects is that a lot of people that aren't paying don't learn to value staff, maybe because of the psychological thing that they aren't paying.
The #1 thing I do on the few spec/no pay projects that makes people happy with the project is to respect their time. I make it a point not to work more than 8 hours and end on time, among other things, such as bottles of jameson for crew memebers.
As far as the equipment thing, some of that equipment is necessary when you want to leave the hobbyist level, and need to deal with real projects and you're dealing with deliverables, and if you've haven't figured out how you're going to scale to that level from the get go, you're going to lose thousands and thousands of dollars when it's time to make the jump.
What it seems to me, without having dealt with it, is that the HV20 is a cam that scales very nicely...
Joseph Mastantuono
The issue is, as I'm somewhat in that spot right now, that there is a right way to handle a indie/spec project where you can't afford to pay people and a wrong way. And the reason no one wants to do the no/lo pay projects is that a lot of people that aren't paying don't learn to value staff, maybe because of the psychological thing that they aren't paying.
The #1 thing I do on the few spec/no pay projects that makes people happy with the project is to respect their time. I make it a point not to work more than 8 hours and end on time, among other things, such as bottles of jameson for crew memebers.
As far as the equipment thing, some of that equipment is necessary when you want to leave the hobbyist level, and need to deal with real projects and you're dealing with deliverables, and if you've haven't figured out how you're going to scale to that level from the get go, you're going to lose thousands and thousands of dollars when it's time to make the jump.
What it seems to me, without having dealt with it, is that the HV20 is a cam that scales very nicely...
Joseph Mastantuono
I dunno I'd go for a HV20 and hack up a capture station for it but that Sony coming down the pipe looks like it may do everything I need and I'm a poor guy.
I think I'm going to sit and watch what the XDCAM EX comes out at. If it's around $8000 and does the 35MB/s mpeg2 with 1/2" CCDs there is no contest. None. An ExpressCard reader is pretty cheap and I'll haul the memory cards to my computer for the first little while.
Best of all I can just stay in Linux and need no hacked up capture station running an inferior OS ;).
I think I'm going to sit and watch what the XDCAM EX comes out at. If it's around $8000 and does the 35MB/s mpeg2 with 1/2" CCDs there is no contest. None. An ExpressCard reader is pretty cheap and I'll haul the memory cards to my computer for the first little while.
Best of all I can just stay in Linux and need no hacked up capture station running an inferior OS ;).
Just confirmed you can also use JES Deinterlace to do the inverse telecine, and I'm almost positive it can preserve super-black and white, but I'm not exactly sure how to prove this.
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