View Full Version : best workflow going from PHD to 16bit tiff files for Digital Theaters?


Obin Olson
October 24th, 2006, 10:09 PM
Hello CineForm crew. Our Feature is done. shot on VariCam edited using PHD in 10bit. Now the distro for a big theater chain is asking for 16bit tiff files. what is the best way to get from a 2hour14min timeline of the film to 16bit tiff files?

thanks for the help.

David Newman
October 24th, 2006, 10:26 PM
Most straight forward way is to using After Effects. From Prospect HD under Premiere, flatten your feature into reels of 10-bit CineForm Intermediate (set quality to Filmscan), drop those into After Effects and export out as a 16-bit TIFF sequence (likely per reel also -- ask for film-out house.) Remember 16-bit TIFFs are big -- 1TB per hour of 1920x1080.

Note: make sure you are using the CineForm I/O module within AE (for 16-bit support), not the VFW decoder (8-bit only.) If your not sure hold down "Shift+Ctrl" while AE is starting to force the CineForm requestor to ask to whether to use the 16-bit importer. Also set AE into 16-bit mode.

Obin Olson
October 25th, 2006, 09:05 AM
awesome.

rock it

David Newman
October 25th, 2006, 11:48 AM
Going public with you private requests again? Just call to talk through these matters, but don't call me, I have too much engineering to do.

When do we get to see your movie?

Robert Sanders
October 25th, 2006, 12:58 PM
Hello CineForm crew. Our Feature is done. shot on VariCam edited using PHD in 10bit. Now the distro for a big theater chain is asking for 16bit tiff files. what is the best way to get from a 2hour14min timeline of the film to 16bit tiff files?

thanks for the help.

Are the 16bit TIFFs for a film out or for digital cinema projection? Just curious.

We're starting a shoot in March with two XLH1s tethered to dual Wafian boxes.

Obin Olson
October 25th, 2006, 01:10 PM
David, you really do need to slap me about! ok guess I will do it for you.

Slapping done. ouch that hurt, please use the other cheek next time...opps...I didn't just say that did I?

LOL

:0

sorry David. my bad(again)

Obin Olson
October 25th, 2006, 01:11 PM
DLP projectors 2k

Obin Olson
October 25th, 2006, 01:31 PM
David, any reason to go 16bit tiff from a Panasonic DVCPRO HD 8bit file? I don't see any, seems a jpg set at 100% would do the trick jsut fine...thoughts?

David Newman
October 25th, 2006, 01:45 PM
As you have color corrected with 10-bit processing there is an advantage to the 16-bit out vs 8-bit output. So yes you are loosing data to truncate to 8-bit, even with your 8-bit source. However Prospect HD will give you the best 8-bits, as it now dithers 10-bit to 8-bit outputs. So Targa (TGA) exports are also common film out deliverables (half the size of 16-bit TIFFs -- almost as good.) Use the Premiere Pro's export->movie->Targa to get dithered 8-bit outputs. JPEG is risky, as 100% JPEG doesn't always mean no quantization (depends on the implementation.) Dithered 8-bit TGA files is often preferred for E-Cinema encoding (which is typically 8-bit today.)

Obin Olson
October 25th, 2006, 01:49 PM
Thanks, so that would mean smaller files and no AE workflow? this would be VERY nice!

David Newman
October 25th, 2006, 02:37 PM
Note: it is stilll worth producing CFHD reels first. A very good reason is you can easily review these before exporting the flattened reels to TGA files. I know this is an extra step, but it is best for your film's output quality.