Hi Guys, Just completed another video, which again, i shot on my FX1e. This time, i used a Kona LH card, and captured DVCPRO-HD directly from the component outputs on the camera. One reason for this is that we did have to do several Chromakey shots using a greenscreen, and found the HDV format to be unsuitable.

The quality difference between the DVCPRO HD footage, and the native HDV capture's we did prior to the shoot was remarkable, especially, the lack of compression artifacts and blocking. Most noticable for me was the abillity to really push the colors around a great deal in post... this time using shake, to grade the finished video. The DVCPRO-HD format basically had far greater color information, and made this process simpler and more enjoyable, and i think the results are pretty good.

I will get some full resolution stills up as soon as possible for you guys to see.

On another note, please don't email me about making you a 35mm adapter, i get many emails every day requesting this, and this is simply not something I am able to do at the moment, sorry.

Please feel free to ask any questions or leave feedback, I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks, Nick

www.pixelloft.com/akala.htm

Hey the use of capturing off the components really show, you pulled off some really good key there, I'm impressed, the colours do look alot "cleaner" thats not a surprise, when you work at 4:2:2 colours can really be pushed without fear of snaping it.


Good work Nicholas !


Anhar Hussain Miah

i used a Kona LH card, and captured DVCPRO-HD directly from the component outputs on the camera.

Does this mean you took SD signals from the FX1 into Component in on the Kona Card? There aren't any HD Component out signals on the FX1 are there? If you did take HD component from the Sony you would have had to convert into DVCPRO HD on the Kona side not "captured DVCPRO-HD directly from the component outputs on the camera" which is what you said. Sony doesn't output DVCPRO HD.

That was an awesome video! Great track too. I'd buy it. Very professional, great production values, great lighting, seriously it looks like it cost £30,000. Will chat to you soon Nicholas.

Thanks Yasser and Anhar, I really pleased you liked it.

Hi Douglas, thanks for your post, I think you sound somewhat confused, so ill try and explain it a bit better. The FX1 had 1080i component analog outputs. I had assumed that everyone new (and i am sure that most people do know) that you can't possibly transmit a digital DVCPRO-HD encoded signal via and analog connection. The signal is, like all analog connections not encoded, which is not to say that it wasn't encoded prior to conversion to analog.
I did in fact capture DVCPRO-HD (Whereby the G5 and Kona card was my capture and encoding device), directly from the uncompressed component outputs on the Fx1. The obvious reason for doing so was to use the far higher quality DVCPRO-HD codec instead of the typical HDV MPG one.

I hope this clears things up for you, and thanks for your questions and comments,

Regards, Nick

JUst wondering when your tapping directly into the HD source, and then encode to dvcpro-hd, what sort of chroma resolution are you getting? and how much space per minute is dvcpro-hd taking up on your HDD?

I did in fact capture DVCPRO-HD (Whereby the G5 and Kona card was my capture and encoding device), directly from the uncompressed component outputs on the Fx1. The obvious reason for doing so was to use the far higher quality DVCPRO-HD codec instead of the typical HDV MPG one.
Have you found a capture card that lets you input 1080i component analog and outputs 8-bit HD SDI to the timeline? What I wanted to do from a workflow perspective was edit uncompressed 8-bit HD SDI then burn straight to WMVHD from the timeline PP2. Thereby maintaining as much of the quality as possible.

Nick,

I looked at the video. Very cool. Also looked at some of your other videos. Very much like the look you manage to get.

I saw some of the stills and see you're using a a DIY 35mm adapter. Which monitor are you using? (the one on top of the camera.) Does it allow critical focus and color or do you have another monitor for that?

Rick

Excellent, excellent colors and content, Nick. The Sony HDV tour significantly showed off from your 3Flex piece, coming from a Qualia on the master you sent. This one is terrific work as well.
Love that uncompressed output!
Which 35mm adapter are you using?

Wow, i just can tell.. wooooooow... tha lighting, the main idea, the shots are great... I wish some day I can do anything alike. Congratulations!

I would love to see pictures fo your backstage. How you get the upright position dancers? what is the trick? After effects? Greenscreen? an inverted room?

Great JOB!

Simply amazing! great job! the artist is pretty good too.

Not my style of music, but I really enjoyed this video. Great work

hey guys, thanks for all of your posts, i'm really pleased that the feedback is so good... you never can be sure.

Yasser, i would imagine the chroma resolution is 4:2:2, and the datarate of 1080i 50i DVCPRO-HD is 17.26Mbytes/sec i believe.

Douglas Call, the capture card is the Kona LH for the Mac or PC. This has analog inputs and will capture on a mac with a host of different codecs (including 10bit uncompresed HD), and on a PC, with a raid, it will capture uncompressed HD if you have the money. The best option if you can afford it is to capture to the sheer video codec, which will half the bandwidth and datarate requirements, however the codec is totally lossless. Uncompressed capture at half the cost!

Hi Rick, I will be uploading some behind the scenes stills over the next couple of weeks. I do all the focus pulling myseld, and i use either the lcd mounted on the hotshoe, or the on camera lcd. Get a bit of eye strain, but what the hell. A remote controlled Follow focus is on my christmas prezzie list, but its a long time till christmas :) I use an 800 line sony PVM14L3 Broadcast Finishing Monitor on shoots, for checking exposure, lighting, and focus on locked off shots etc.

Douglas Spotted Eagle, thankyou for using the 3lflex vid on the tour, i'm pleased it has been successful. i am using my own design of 35mm adapter, which i believe is slightly different to alot of the designs around here. (i think there is an old post on here about how it is built)

Thanks Carlos, well there were a couple of tricks, one of which was a giant greenscreen, and the other was an upside down set, which myself, my AD, my girlfriend, and a set builder constructed painstaikingly over christmas, in the freezing cold. (wasn't fun)

Thanks to all you guys, Im glad you like it, and i hope this has addressed all your questions.

Cheers, Nick

Im editing a video in after effects that I shot my self for a female group, I used mainly green screen, I would like u to tell me what u think of it (Production, not the music nor the girls, lol)

Am I getting closer for professional resultS???

www.estamosenvideo.com/movies/sweet_intro.mov

Thanks in advance

PS. Im becoming a fan of your work!

Nicholas
Really really good. Were the singers/band lip synching/playing to their recorded master? I have no clue about music video's obviously......but how long/how many takes did it involve to get this done.

I loved it man! Your stuff is great! I especially love the colors. Its real inspiring. Makes you want to go out drop everything and shoot some quality stuff. Great job man! Congrats.

Hi Guys,

Carlos, The video looks cool man. Like the idea of the newspaper, and the lighting, an animation was really nice.

Mike, basically, we playback from a master, and then the artists perform that part of the track. Most of the shots were a one take deal. The max takes was 3.

Thanks Daniel, i'm really pleased you like it, it means all the hard work actually paid off.

Thanks Guys, Nick

You know, i now I have so much "real" photography to improve, as I have a lack of equipment, like depth of field, lighting, and as I work almost all the doing all by my self, I prefer do my best in post, and I think im getting better, but i wish someday I had the "eye" you have on photography and the artistic Ideas you have on shoot... Well I guess everyone has its strenghts... But i wish I could improve a little my shooting.

Greetings!

Nicholas what a great looking video , my hats off for you, and you really did a great CC, it did hit right on the spot, may i ask what workflow you used witht his
did you shoot on 60i, 50i or the CF modes? keep it up youre looking great!

Thanks Guys,
Rafael, i shot in 50i, and captured 1080 50i dvcpro-HD. I edited in this format, and then de-interlaced in FCP prior to color correction in Shake. The finished color corrected video was then scaled down to SD for delivery uncompressed on a dual layer DVD, where it was laid onto Digibeta.
I usually happily shoot in the CF mode, but being as i could only capture interlaced at 1080, i decided to capture it as raw as possible, and do everything in post.

Hope this helps,

Regards, Nick

I did in fact capture DVCPRO-HD (Whereby the G5 and Kona card was my capture and encoding device), directly from the uncompressed component outputs on the Fx1. The obvious reason for doing so was to use the far higher quality DVCPRO-HD codec instead of the typical HDV MPG one.

I hope this clears things up for you, and thanks for your questions and comments...

Hi Nick,

I think I understand the process.
But, I don't understand the cabling.
How did you connect your component from the FX1 to the BNCs of the Kona LH?
Do such cables exist?
I'm assuming, too, that coming out of the FX1 in this way you give up any opportunity for control and that you are just capturing as it plays out?

Inspirational work.

Best,


Whit Wales

Hi Whit,

You need to get some bnc to rca adaptors, they go for a couple of quid each on ebay.
You obviously still have total control over the camera settings such as ap and shutter, and the computer becomes your deck, so the deck control is you capture window in final cut pro.

Regards, Nick

Hi Guys, Just completed another video, which again, i shot on my FX1e. This time, i used a Kona LH card, and captured DVCPRO-HD directly from the component outputs on the camera.

I get quite confused by all these formats... and also I use PCs instead of Macs. So could I ask you to explain a couple of points please?

1. I thought that DVCPRO-HD was a Panasonic format?
2. Do you know of an equivalent card which can be used in a PC? The Kona is Mac only.

Hi Antony,
You can buy the Kona LH for the PC, the only problem is that none of the editors support capture to HD codecs, so you would have to buy a very expensive disk array and capture uncompressed, instead of into the DVCPRO-HD codec.
I have done most of my work in the past on my PC, however it actually worked out cheaper to buy the mac, and the card and new monitors etc, than it would have been to set up the pc to do capture.

Hope this helps, Nick

Hi Nicholas,

I loved your vids, all of them! They are what makes me happy to own a FX-1!

My friend is raving about Panasonic's new 200 but why bother when you can get shot's like these?

As to lighting, I think lighting makes up for the look of your music videos. Do you have any videos with outdoor lighting?

Your behind the scenes picts of 3Lflex gives me a better idea on how to light for my Fx and I'd like to see what you can do for outdoors.

Also, I know you mentioned not having the time to make the 35mm adapters for anyone, how about sharing your plans on building a 35mm adapter?

Does anyone else here have a link to the thread on a diy project on the adapter? Expecially for the Sony Fx/Z1 72mm lens setup?

Thank you.

Hi Antony,
You can buy the Kona LH for the PC, the only problem is that none of the editors support capture to HD codecs, so you would have to buy a very expensive disk array and capture uncompressed, instead of into the DVCPRO-HD codec.
I have done most of my work in the past on my PC, however it actually worked out cheaper to buy the mac, and the card and new monitors etc, than it would have been to set up the pc to do capture.

Hope this helps, Nick


is the kona LH or the xena LH capable of live capturing via an analog component input ? if so will it encode it on the fly to dvcpro HD? dvfilm.com has a new codec to allow editing of dvcpro HD on Vegas and i think premiere 2.0 has editing capabitlities also, if so , then we dont need expensive disk arrays , cuz a 300gb sata drive could storage a couple of hours of dvcpro hd, right?

Your work is fantastic!!! Really ispires me! :)

Could someone clear something up for me here?

What does the FX1/Z1u output through analog component, if it's not HDV compression? I thought the 25mbits/sec stream was sent through analog as well as going to tape?

So there's more data through the analog output? Or are we simply making the post process easier by putting all the footage directly into larger, more flexible-to-work-with DVCPRO-HD files?

So I know it outputs 1080i, but 1080i what? Obviously not uncompressed...

I feel like I sound like an idiot, but I'm not completely understanding how it's possible that more data is coming through the analog component output.

Analog component outputs on the FX1/Z1 are 1080 50/60i, 4:2:2 uncompressed.