Best way convert digi-beta to fcp??? at DVinfo.net

Milton Ginsberg · January 21st, 2011, 11:34 AM

DVD rights to a 100 minute B&W film I directed years ago have just reverted to me.
I have a digi-beta of the film and want to redit it for streaming and DVD on FCP on an imac i7.
Should I have video lab turn the tape into PRO RES 422?
Would PRO RES HQ file be to big to handle?

William Hohauser · January 21st, 2011, 12:33 PM

ProResHQ isn't too big unless you have a very old system, which you don't. It might be overkill for SD DigiBeta but get it anyway. It will fit on a typical new 500gb hard drive (use a FireWire drive) easily, 250gb might be more than enough. An HD 720 movie file in standard ProRes is around 90gb for under two hours. It's worth the price to get a pro house to capture it as they should be using a good SDI to ProRes convertor to do it. Cheaper than renting the equipment and easier than setting it up.

Craig Parkes · January 22nd, 2011, 01:40 PM

PRO RES HQ is a very good choice for this as William suggests - Only better options quality wise would be 10bit Uncompressed - but the space requirements and hard drive speed requirements are going to mean you will have trouble playing that back efficiently on your average desktop system, and the quality difference isn't what anyone would call obvious.

Sareesh Sudhakaran · January 22nd, 2011, 11:33 PM

Digibeta is 4:2:2 compressed at around 90 Mbps. You should be fine with prores 422 LT which is around 102 Mbps. If you want to be on the safe side, go with prores 422 but HQ is overkill. Especially since yours is B&W.

Steve Oakley · January 24th, 2011, 05:30 PM

ProRes LT looks pretty bad. its noisy. I thought I would use it, but after some tests, it was just ugly from the very first clip. Standard ProRes works fine. Going to HQ nets you very little, but east 2X more drive space.

Shaun Roemich · January 24th, 2011, 10:27 PM

Using the AJA data storage app on my iPod indicates that 100 minutes of SD footage in ProRes HQ will occupy 54.8GB...

That's a no brainer for me. Just go with ProResHQ.

If you were talking about editing everything from scratch again and there was 60 hours of footage to ingest, I might advise differently but for 55GBs...

January 21st, 2011, 11:34 AM	#1
Milton Ginsberg Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: New York NY Posts: 35	Best way convert digi-beta to fcp??? DVD rights to a 100 minute B&W film I directed years ago have just reverted to me. I have a digi-beta of the film and want to redit it for streaming and DVD on FCP on an imac i7. Should I have video lab turn the tape into PRO RES 422? Would PRO RES HQ file be to big to handle? __________________ mg

January 21st, 2011, 12:33 PM	#2
William Hohauser Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: New York City Posts: 2,650	ProResHQ isn't too big unless you have a very old system, which you don't. It might be overkill for SD DigiBeta but get it anyway. It will fit on a typical new 500gb hard drive (use a FireWire drive) easily, 250gb might be more than enough. An HD 720 movie file in standard ProRes is around 90gb for under two hours. It's worth the price to get a pro house to capture it as they should be using a good SDI to ProRes convertor to do it. Cheaper than renting the equipment and easier than setting it up. __________________ William Hohauser - New York City Producer/Edit/Camera/Animation

January 22nd, 2011, 01:40 PM	#3
Craig Parkes Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 444	PRO RES HQ is a very good choice for this as William suggests - Only better options quality wise would be 10bit Uncompressed - but the space requirements and hard drive speed requirements are going to mean you will have trouble playing that back efficiently on your average desktop system, and the quality difference isn't what anyone would call obvious. __________________ www.afterglow.co.nz

January 22nd, 2011, 11:33 PM	#4
Sareesh Sudhakaran Trustee Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Mumbai, India Posts: 1,385	Digibeta is 4:2:2 compressed at around 90 Mbps. You should be fine with prores 422 LT which is around 102 Mbps. If you want to be on the safe side, go with prores 422 but HQ is overkill. Especially since yours is B&W. __________________ Get the Free Comprehensive Guide to Rigging ANY Camera - one guide to rig them all - DSLRs to the Arri Alexa.

January 24th, 2011, 05:30 PM	#5
Steve Oakley Trustee Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: United States Posts: 1,158	ProRes LT looks pretty bad. its noisy. I thought I would use it, but after some tests, it was just ugly from the very first clip. Standard ProRes works fine. Going to HQ nets you very little, but east 2X more drive space. __________________ Steve Oakley DP • Audio Mixer • Editor • Colorist http://stevenoakley.com

January 24th, 2011, 10:27 PM	#6
Shaun Roemich Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Vancouver, British Columbia (formerly Winnipeg, Manitoba) Canada Posts: 4,088	Using the AJA data storage app on my iPod indicates that 100 minutes of SD footage in ProRes HQ will occupy 54.8GB... That's a no brainer for me. Just go with ProResHQ. If you were talking about editing everything from scratch again and there was 60 hours of footage to ingest, I might advise differently but for 55GBs... __________________ Shaun C. Roemich Road Dog Media - Vancouver, BC - Videographer - Webcaster www.roaddogmedia.ca Blog: http://roaddogmedia.wordpress.com/