kicking HD out of my computer

[sean90291]

I'm starting to turn my mind to the question of how I will get my completed 2K or 1080p projects out of my Avid Xpress. I will try to avoid a Mojo and an AJA card (expensive!). I can't help thinking that the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray burners now coming down the wire will offer me a file-to-file solution for getting these high-res projects off my computer and into a portable, playable medium. Is there compression during that PC-to-HDDVD burn process (for example when using something like Pinnacle Studio)? Or am I maintaining my project resolution?

[J. Bernard Vallon]

i havent used HD burners. I'm sure that if you burned a disk as a data DVD youd get a regular old 50 gb disk with your full res project on it.

I'm pretty sure H.264 was invented to burn HD footage onto blu ray disks to play in HD players, like mpeg4 was invented for regular DVDs, so you could fit 2 hours of footage on a 4.7 gb disk.

H264 from what ive seen is really good compression though, with very little loss of quality.

I could be mistaken.

[sean90291]

Right, good point. I guess I don't even know what 90 minutes of 2K or 1080p would be in terms of gigabytes out of Avid Xpress. Probably a question I should pose on Avid's forum.

But it definitely seems that many of the concerns about getting high-res footage out of an NLE will be helped by staying in a file-to-file workflow (as opposed to a file-to-tape workflow that requires expensive AJA cards and HD decks). Unless I'm delivering to a broadcaster, I can exhibit theatrically at most festivals and distribute online by using HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. If a broadcaster or distributor wants to buy, well at that point, it's worth finding the tools necessary to get the format they want (eg., tape or what have you).

[Rob Lohman]

i havent used HD burners. I'm sure that if you burned a disk as a data DVD youd get a regular old 50 gb disk with your full res project on it.

I'm pretty sure H.264 was invented to burn HD footage onto blu ray disks to play in HD players, like mpeg4 was invented for regular DVDs, so you could fit 2 hours of footage on a 4.7 gb disk.

H264 from what ive seen is really good compression though, with very little loss of quality.

I could be mistaken.

Regular DVD has either MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 (rarely used), not MPEG-4!

Both Blu-ray & HD DVD support: MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) / VC-1 / MPEG-2

So you can use a regular MPEG-2 encoder (as long as it supports compliant HD resolutions) and a Blu-ray / HD DVD authoring application. Obviously MP4/H.264 and VC-1 are much more efficient with disk space than MPEG-2.

Professional authoring apps like Scenarist (http://www.sonic.com/products/Professional/Scenarist/quicklook.aspx) already seem to support both Blu-ray & HD DVD authoring. For encoding you would need something like CineVision (http://www.sonic.com/products/Professional/CineVision/quicklook.aspx).

Obviously there are or will be tons of other compression & authoring applications with varying features and prices.

Blu-ray & HD DVD look good for distribution, but obviously have yet to gain serious market penetration. There's also D-VHS but I have no idea how many of those exist in the US (haven't seen any here in Holland at all).

Wikipedia has some good information to get you started on both formats:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD

[Nick Shaw]

Is there compression during that PC-to-HDDVD burn process (for example when using something like Pinnacle Studio)? Or am I maintaining my project resolution?

You don't lose resolution when you go from PC to HD-DVD, but there is re-compression, so you will lose quality. HD-DVD and BlueRay are distribution not mastering formats, so although you can distribute and exhibit on these formats, I would suggest you still need to keep a master copy at a higher quality. This does not need to be tape (indeed if you're working at 2k or higher it can't be). I would suggest you made a data backup in whatever format you do your finishing in, be that Avid DNxHD, REDCODE RGB or whatever. A feature film in any of these formats will be too large to fit on a single HD-DVD or BlueRay disc, so you need to either span multiple disks, or look at a higher capacity archiving system such as a hard-drive or an LTO tape [LINK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape-Open)]

[Joe Carney]

Nick is right, a lot of places will take a portable HD with a firewire or usb2 interface. Then they send it back to you when done. Same goes if you need to get it to HDCAM for broadcast. There are some of the newer channels that want a direct upload/download to their system via sattlelite.

Joe C.

[sean90291]

Good info (ah yes, compression leads to lower QUALITY not lower RESOLUTION). There seems to be an increasing number of workarounds for dealing with high-res footage. As HD-DVD rewritable disks get cheaper and cheaper, backing up the master for a project on multiple data disks (HD) doesn't seem like a problem at all then.

[MikeCurtis]

Mojo and AJA are too expensive? Wow, wait till you see HD deck prices...$100K for a loaded out HDCAM SR deck, anyone?

: )

-mike

[Gbabymogul]

Sean, just fyi, if you want to master 1080p 4:4:4, you won't be able to preview more than a SD downconvert out of X-press Pro. You have to go to Adrenaline to get true HD master preview/monitor. Even the Mojo SDI isn't 'true' HD. Same with the Aja card out of Avid. You also have to master in their DNxHD codec - don't know if you care about that.

Avid wants to keept the offline-online paradigm. IMO, it's to keep their high end suites prices artificially high. Wait till NAB to buy, at the very least (although anticipating a sea change in Avids attitude might be optimistic)

:o

:beer:

[sean90291]

Hey Gbaby. That's very good info. Can you tell me--what is the REAL downside to being unable to preview more than an SD downconvert? I know if I'm trying to deliver something to NBC, I need to know EXACTLY what the colours will look like. But as an indie guy exhibiting at festivals and distributing via DVD, if I get a colour in my master that's 2% off of what I'm seeing in my SD downconvert...I guess I'm not that fussy. If I sell the thing, then I pay for a new onlining. But this is also all quite new to me. So I'm just trying to tease it all apart. (Oh, and DNxHD codec sounds like it's actually pretty good from what I hear--I do realize it's compressed however.)

As for a sea change from Avid...hm...you're right, I won't hold my breath. I wonder if other NLEs offer better workflows for what we're trying to do. Like Premiere Pro 2.0? I love Avid because it's what I've learned, and I'd like to keep riding the horse in the direction it's going. But maybe I won't have much choice.

[sean90291]

Mojo and AJA are too expensive? Wow, wait till you see HD deck prices...$100K for a loaded out HDCAM SR deck, anyone?

-mike

I won't ever buy an HD deck. I just can't imagine it, no matter what the price. I will stay in a file-to-file workflow until all forms of tape are truly obsolete. I realize, for the pros delivering on a daily basis to major networks, they need those decks. But for an indie filmmaker, being able to avoid several thousand in costs for Mojos and AJA cards can be important to finishing a film (or even starting one in the first place). Hey, getting my Red is emptying my bank account right there. But I've been shooting in SD with all kinds of workarounds, without the high-end equipment, and managing to generate some creative projects that are well-received. I plan on using just as many workarounds with Red. I just wanna get the pretty picture from camera to computer to (some kind of) screen. I won't be LucasFilm anytime soon, sadly.

[Gbabymogul]

Hey Gbaby. That's very good info. Can you tell me--what is the REAL downside to being unable to preview more than an SD downconvert? I know if I'm trying to deliver something to NBC, I need to know EXACTLY what the colours will look like. But as an indie guy exhibiting at festivals and distributing via DVD, if I get a colour in my master that's 2% off of what I'm seeing in my SD downconvert...I guess I'm not that fussy. If I sell the thing, then I pay for a new onlining. But this is also all quite new to me. So I'm just trying to tease it all apart. (Oh, and DNxHD codec sounds like it's actually pretty good from what I hear--I do realize it's compressed however.)


We'll primarily, it's so you can check a variety of things pixel for pixel which will match up with your deliverable -> focus, artifacting (not colur per se) etc...as to the perecentage of how far off it will be via a Sd downconvert ? you got me there. About a year ago when we were seguing into private production projects we looked seriously at the HVX (even doing a film out), Avid, and a variety of other min-studio equip. Unfortunately, we decided to keep on with the offline-online (hiring freelance faciltators) workflow until 'true affordable HD' came along. Although for us, we had to take into consideration distributor relationships.

It's sorta hard to segue into more spec-type projects with your own cash, so in a way we're sympatico with ya'. :) Methinks your workflow could work. Just wanted to give you a heads up. And as an addendum, you could always bring your footy over to our place (when we get it set up) to preview the 1080p pre-final or master...as long as you bring the beer. ;) At least I hope we'll find a way to preview true 1080p 4:4:4 without selling the car.

BTW, i dig Avid too... One hopes they'll be part of the RED revolution...

:beer:

[Steven Parker]

sean90291-

don't despair! indie films keep us going!

I too am cleaning out the bank acct to make this happen and it's scary but necessary for me. we can do it, brother

your instinct to stay in a tapeless environment is spot on; a company I work for rarely goes back to their HD masters once everything's on a hard drive. They do all editing and color work from that, and send clones around for sound, VFX, etc. A final master is sent to the dubhouse on a smaller capacity hard drive for duplication. They work in FCP, so everything's in QuickTime files which makes it all pretty easy. The most time-consuming aspect is the digitizing at full-rez, and rendering out the final project.

I can't imagine Avid not being able support a tapeless workflow as well. Maybe it is time for Premiere...

[Nick Shaw]

Avid is always slow to catch up. Look how long it took them to have HDV support.