Hi everyone

Iam planning on shooting a lowbudget feature film on an ex1.
Because it is mainly being shot indoors i would like to take the componant output from the camera via blackmagic intensity into my quadcore mac pro.
I would like to be able to do heavy post work e.g. colour grading and so forth.
iam still wondering if i should capture to regular prores 422 or prores 422 hq?

If memory serves me Blackmagic Intensity is HDMI which would work if you're using EX1R but not for EX1. The Matrox MXO2LE has HDSDI in. It can be used with PCIe card for MacPro or Express card for MacBookPro.

my apolliges its an intensity pro, hdmi + componant inputs.

my apolliges its an intensity pro, hdmi + componant inputs.

That's the problem. There's no HD-SDI in which is what you need unless you have an EX1R (which can use HDMI). Intensity Pro will not record uncompressed digital signal from the EX1.

A NanoFlash is a very portable solution.

The Decklink Studio card would be a better option. It's only about $95 more and gives HDSDi as well as HDMI. HDSDi or HDMI will give better results than composite.

The Decklink Studio card would be a better option. It's only about $95 more and gives HDSDi as well as HDMI. HDSDi or HDMI will give better results than composite.

you mean componant dont you?

also the the deck link studio card is more than $95 over the price of an intensity card if iam not mistaken?
http://www.jigsaw24.com/default.aspx?&IP=3WG-VEHSC-VECCPL-VECC4FC-BMHDCC&ITEM=JIGSX532AVA

I spoke to a video enginer who works for a soho post company about sdi vs componant capture.
He said although its a backwards way of capturing a hd signal from a camera the end result will be a Negligble difference in quality on a short run cable not exceeding 5 meters.

Yes I did mean component and not composite.

The bottom line is that HDSDi will be better. It eliminates 2 stages of analog to digital conversion along with the noise that will almost certainly be added by the A/D conversion. While at first glance this may not seem significant and visually the difference will be small, having a cleaner signal will greatly help your post production flexibility. Noise limits what you can do with your material in post, less noise means less degradation of the image when you grade or transcode. If your movie is going to be shown on a large screen you really want to retain as clean an image as you can get. Plus a HDSDi card will give you more flexibility in the future.

It's your choice but for the small amount of extra money I would want the better image. Plus you only need one cable.

Yes I did mean component and not composite.

I was gonna say lol
any one caught capturing composite signal for the purpose of shooting a feature film would need to be whipped like a rented mule lol.

Ok Alister, everything you have said i agree with.
So if i capture using prores 422. will this be enough?
i understand that if needed i can then edit of a single fw800 drive and it will be a smoother post work flow, plus i want to colour grade and be able to project to a large screen.

or do i need to capture prores 422hq?

I would capture at the highest quality you can, so ProRes HQ. Once you have captured everything you can always work with a lower quality codec for everything else.

Capture at HQ and and you can choose your final quality from HQ down. Capture at regular ProRes and you can't ever get back up to HQ.

ProRes is very good and may be acceptable for your end product, but HQ is better.

I swear, I can never find the information in the FCP docs when I want it - they don't include it in the "supported video formats" appendix that I could see. <sigh>

Anyway, isn't the primary difference between ProRes SQ and HQ purely the bitrate? So basically if you're recording 100mbps uncompressed data from the EX1 into something like the Nanoflash or whatever, you'd want the best bitrate codec you can get away with, in this case HQ? If my memory serves, SQ is 50mbps and HQ is 100mbps. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Otherwise, the color space is the same between the two. So for example if I'm using my regular 35mbps XDCAM EX footage, SQ is fine for that, but for what the OP is looking for, HQ is the better option.

Also, ProRes is considered a lossless codec, correct?

HQ is 220 Mb/s and SQ is 147 Mb/s. They are both labelled as "visually lossless" which IMO means you cannot see any degradation with the naked eye. This is not the same as a true lossless codec. While the codecs are both good, I'm not convinced that an I frame only 10 bit 422 1920 x 1080 codec running at only 147 Mb/s is really suitable as a mastering codec for high end productions. It certainly has a place for corporate or web delivery but you will get some image degradation over multiple generations.

You could get a component to HD-SDI converter :)

I think what Alister is suggesting is that a project of this importance should be carried out at the highest quality in every aspect of production. Skimping in any way will come back and bite you on the bum for sure.

But a component to HDSDi or HDMI converter would probably cost more than the Blackmagic card with HDSDi.

Why not just rent or buy a NanoFlash.

It is so much easier to deal with. A lot less wire and no computer to worry about.

I used to capture to my AJA KONA SDI in the studio, now I use the NanoFlash, a fantastic product.

And you can use it on location so easily.

You could buy it for the production, and then sell it when you are done. I bet someone involved with the production would buy it.

HQ is 220 Mb/s and SQ is 147 Mb/s. They are both labelled as "visually lossless" which IMO means you cannot see any degradation with the naked eye. This is not the same as a true lossless codec. While the codecs are both good, I'm not convinced that an I frame only 10 bit 422 1920 x 1080 codec running at only 147 Mb/s is really suitable as a mastering codec for high end productions. It certainly has a place for corporate or web delivery but you will get some image degradation over multiple generations.

Alister, do you think it's worth it to even going higher than HQ and capturing the 10 bit 422 HD SDI of the EX1 to ProRes 444? Would you see any gains over HQ?

Also, what about Cineform? I'm not sure if it's visual lossless or true lossless but I have heard since it's wavelet it's more robust than ProRes. Question is if it's worth for somebody cutting on FCP since ProRes would be just much more handy. Thanks Alister.