Moving from Mac to Win

[Kaspar Kallas]

Hi

I have been involved with SI2K from the very beginning and even edited the very first feature finished with this cam (Magnus (2007))

Now I have worked on many shorts and documentaries, being a FCP kind of guy for a long while it was no brainer to move back to FCP as soon Cinform became available for mac. Now FCP, QT, Apple has some serious issues with high bit depth, rgb footage. PP4 seems a huge leap forward and I am thinking of moving all my production back to PC for better performance.

The daily tools would be:
PP, AE, Nuke, SpeedGrade, Mocha

1. The tools would limit me to nvidia, so this would mean no full screen playback?
2. If no full screen, then also no 3d (when it comes available)?
3. Only way to get full screen is to use AJA board and sdi->HDMI converter?
4. Metadata is only controllable from PP, will the changes made be available to other software?
5. If I use 30" Dell and sacle 2K to 1:1 will I see tearing (it used to be in PP v2 with NV FX5400) in realtime playback.
6. Would it be better to use XP or Vista?

I would really love to see the same image I see in SpeedGrade in my editing software, Not the case with FCP. Also would love the RT engine.

Thank You
-Kaspar Kallas

Digital Sputnik

[David Taylor]

Hi Kaspar,

Regarding Mac, we're just about to release support for Kona on Mac. This is an excellent feature addition for monitoring. But in general as your email suggests we can enable more features and control the processing on Windows better than we can on Mac because of interfaces we can work through.

On Windows we still recommend using a Xena card for monitoring. Yes, it is an expense, but it also guarantees color accuracy. In addition to HD sources, our 2K and 4K sources are properly routed through the Kona card, so the workflow is quite flexible.

Also, this is new news to many, but we are actively working on our "First Light" application that will allow metadata control outside Premiere Pro. This is good news from many standpoints. First Light will also include a player so you can directly look at color information without running WMP or any other player tool. I don't want to get too carried away by making associations, but think "Lightroom" when you think of some of the metadata controls we'll have in First Light. This will be available before NAB.

Vista versus XP doesn't matter too much anymore, although we encourage customers to use 64-bit OS if practical as the extra memory is good for PPro.

[Kaspar Kallas]

Hi

Thank You for the reply on SUNDAY!

1. I do hope that Prospect product line will get migrated to mac in some time, but realistically I guess it will take some time. Cool calculation would imply that I will work on some project in the mean time that would greatly benefit from the RT engine. All my software I can transfer lic for win so I am very inclined to try this once more.

2. As for the Kona card, what would be the HW needed to monitor 2K? I think it will have to get downscaled to 1080p?

3. Is the color fidelity a problem of PP? I ask because I am very happy with the color reproduction of SpeedGrade system - but then again they are not limited by other parties (thy have very specific HW and the Soft is created by one developer)

Lightroom for cineform would be VERY cool!

Thank You
-Kaspar

[Craig Davidson]

Originally Posted by Kaspar Kallas

Hi

Thank You for the reply on SUNDAY!
...
2. As for the Kona card, what would be the HW needed to monitor 2K? I think it will have to get downscaled to 1080p?

...

Thank You
-Kaspar

For 2K, it looks like you would need a Kona 3 (Xena 2K). Right now it is scaling down to 1920x1080, but should have enough bandwidth to handle the 2K.

[Kaspar Kallas]

Hi

I know that different SDI interfaces do support 2K different variants, but what would be the screen that shows the full 2K?

Thank You
-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

To recap, I still need to know:

1. Does the image "tear" when in PP 1:1 scale on 30" dell?
2. No full screen playback to another Nvidia attached DVI screen?
3. Is the metadata in place in 3d party apps, such as nuke?
4. Is there a 2K SDI screen available in "sane" price category?

what is Your setup for working with CF 2K or 4K files?

Thank You
-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

Bump!?

Really nobody can answer that? So I have setup a new system to test this.....
At least can someone tell me if I can monitor CF from SDI port on very expensive NVidia card?

Thank You
-Kaspar

[David Newman]

We don't recommend NVidia, use an Xena card for SDI monitoring. NVidia will not do overlay anymore, we have to many projects going on to address that, particularly when ATI still works fine.

Metadata works everywhere if it uses AVI wrapper and mostly for MOV sources (on the PC.)

[Kaspar Kallas]

Hi

But that breaks compatibility with SpeedGrade! Also it seems like a step back to go SDI out these days, where I would use files straight for projecting (well HD and 2K over DVI) and very good calibration for the screens.
I know I see only 8bit, but I cannot make a difference on very good screen between 10 and 8 bit(and I do this for a living), so I see this as a thing for display port when it comes around.

Thank You
-Kaspar

[Kaspar Kallas]

OK

no fullscreen playback,
1. will I get decent 2K image 1:1 on dell 30" screen without "tearing" artifacts in playback in PP3 and Prospect?
2. will I see the "same" colors in PP window that I see in SpeedGrade when I render out the footage?

Thank You
-Kaspar

[David Newman]

1. I expect so. Haven't used a 30" display since NAB 2008, it work fine then.

2. Yes, if SpeedGrade uses the same metadata, which they are working on.

[Kaspar Kallas]

Hi

I have a huge issue on mac, I have some footage shot with si2k in 85fps, while recorded as 24fps (locked in silicon DVR - cant do anything about that) then how can I get the QT to interpret it as 25fps? Even FCP would be good.

-Kaspar

[David Newman]

I'm sure there are QT tools that allow you to change the frame rate. This works fine with AVIs, so it will work with MOVs.

[Kaspar Kallas]

Hi

Unfortunately there arrant any... the cinematools work only on apple codecs. Right now I am using the qt repair tool for CF files with different frame rate, but this works only on windows and it is hassle to transfer the files.

-Kaspar

[David Newman]

There are a dozen on the PC, I think if you look harder the same should be on the Mac. It only a few bytes in the header. Also CFRepair is the slow way compared with something like AVIFRate.exe