export to tape

[Olabode Lawal]

good morning.i have rendered a 7d music video i just shot in this format(quicktime and animation compresion)first of all is it a good setting to get the best quality out.and i also changed from 8bit color depth to 16bit.really dont kmow why i did that though.the main question is since i have almost 36gb of size of the video still in HD format,is it possible i export to a mini dv tape because distribution over here is always in mini dv tapes.want to know if its possible to export direct from the timeline to tape and still maintainin quality.

[Jay West]

1. Is it possible to export your HD project to standard definition mini-DV tape?

Yes. With PPro CS4 and 5, you: (a) add a "widescreen 48 khz" standard def sequence to your project, (b) drop your edited HD sequence onto the SD sequence, and (c) click File _. Export -> tape.. PPro will proceed to render your timeline to widescreen SD format and then print to tape.

2. Is it possible to maintain the HD quality?

No. SD is SD. If you can deliver HDV instead of SD, that will be much closer to your Quicktime original. The export to tape process is the same with HDV except that you pick the HDV setting for your new sequence..

3. I have never worked with a (Canon?) 7d and rarely work with Quicktime. Maybe somebody else can speak to whether your choice of QT Animation for an editing or rendering format is good or not.

[Peter Manojlovic]

Yes, you can export to tape (miniDV), with the HDV preset, since miniDV tape holds HDV information, and has the same bitrate..
The people receiving your tape must have equipment that will read back the HDV information from the miniDV tape.

You don't need to go to 16bit.
Whether you export directly from the timeline, or create a new HDV sequence, it shouldn't matter. Premiere will need to render the footage to get the export out to tape..

As far as your original sequence presets, i'm a bit skeptical. I'm assuming that you're on a Mac.

I'm on a PC, and use a third party codec (Matrox), and render out to something that's not so intense on my computer..
If you're on a Mac, then ProRes would be a better codec to work with.


Good luck!!!

[Bart Walczak]

Quicktime Animation is mostly used to encode animations, because it is almost uncompressed. As a codec for video it is perhaps very wise choice. If you're on Mac, use ProRes 422. On PC encode it to uncompressed (probably you won't see much of a difference in size) 8-bit or 10-bit. If you're worried about space, use H.264.

If you want to record it to tape as HDV, create a sequence with HDV presets, but you will need an HDV camera or recorder to write it to tape!

[Olabode Lawal]

am so grateful for your replies.thanks a lot guys.dvinfo i simply the best.but i still would want to know the best render settings one could be using.the animation compression eats too much file size.

[Bart Walczak]

Are you on PC or Mac?

[Olabode Lawal]

dont like mac systems.i use a pc based system with adobe cs5

[Jay West]

So, are you looking for an uncompressed editing format/intermediate that will yield file sizes smaller than what you are getting when converting your 7d cam's "mov" footage into QT Animation?

For a PC, there may be better choices although I am not sure how much smaller the files sizes will be.

Take the following suggestions with the caveat that I do not use a DSLR and it has been quite a while since I have done much work with Quicktime. My recollection (possibly faulty) is that QT Animation does produce very large files. Because it does have alpha channel support, it works effectively for titles and motion graphics although I recall it being not so great for editing the actual video. Also, I recall it using 8-bit RGB color, which can be limiting for color grading/correction/matching. It seems to be a least-common-denominator (some would say a "worst case scenario") moving video between PCs and Macs.

On a PC, you might be better served by running your 7d footage into an "intermediate" format that is a high-definition "avi" that will be easier to edit. Bert favors a Matrox product and my personal preference is Cineform's NeoHD. Bert can chime in on where you could get the Matrox codec to test out. Cineform has downloadable, fully functional 30 day trial versions. (You also could look at the less expensive Cineform NeoScene which, I believe, is also supposed to work Canon 7d footage.) These work well with PPro CS5, give you ten bit color (better for matching/grading/correcting), and tend to work better with CS5 on PCs than QT files.

I am not actually sure if Cineform file sizes will be a lot smaller than QT Animation. I do multi-cam shoots of events using three Sony AVCHD cams shooting 24 Mbps AVCHD. The Cineform avi conversions are generally about 5 to 6 times larger than the original AVCHD files.

When you run your 7d "mov" footage through QT Animation, how much larger are the AT Animation files?

[Bart Walczak]

If you just want to export to tape, then simply export it with the settings of the tape you want to export to, which are:

1. If the format is HDV, export directly to HDV. Most likely it will be 1080i. Then import the clip to Premiere, put it in HDV sequence and record it to tape. There will be no loss of quality.

2. If the format is DV, export as DV AVI file, either PAL or NTSC whichever standard you're on. Again, there will be no loss of quality between the final render and what is exported to tape.

Both HDV and DV use mini-DV tapes, so make sure you know which format it is supposed to be delivered in.

For personal archive there is not much choice on PC. If you can spare some money, go for Cineform. If you can't, 8-bit or 10-bit uncompressed will give you the best quality, H.264 will give you a master file for blu-ray and such. Other possibilities include XDCAM 422 (mpeg-2 but with 4:2:2 chroma sampling) or DVCPRO HD, both of which are trade-offs.

Hope this helps.