what's better for post low chroma or high?

[Marty Welk]

ONLY in the spirit of trying to get answers for the 35Mb/s stuff in these EX cams, i need answers that would be FOR this 35-25 rate, not for fully uncompressed things.

if the intent of the post was for FILM production, and not based on the EX cameras (be it film or not) then these answers should be in the cine area of the forum. and would probably apply across the board there no mater which camera is used.

a camera that has little or no compression doesnt apply to these suckers untill you add in something like the convergant design.

so IF the parameters were sucky 15&20-1 compression, then do ya do Kodachrome processing when the bits still exist or not?

also using a "way back machine" , "We'll fix it in post" was always a joke, 10 years ago before the great computer fixing was usefull and worked fair, it was highly recommended to not wait till post , and do it right the first time.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

with 2-3 cams both being operated correctally 99% of the time,and a switcher that doesnt miss 1% of the time, there is little that Requires post.

A few notes here:

I've managed to get 2 EX1s (and a Z1 or Z7 sometimes) matching up okay through careful setup and 'mutual white set' but there are differences between EXes. Maybe subtle ones, but it depends on how close you want the match without tweaking in post.

It's NOT like having a rack of CCUs and a vision engineer to ride the dials. Alas.

SD-SDI on EX1s? I have to say I wasn't overly impressed but it is what it is. It's not as good as a $1k HD-SDI to SD-SDI box from AJA or something. I am SO hoping that the EX1-R is going to do better.

You mention Theatrical lighting, and it sounds like you're no fan of the HVX 4:2:2 method. Well, XDCAM is by no means as bad as HDV with strong coloured lighting, but it still happens - easily calmed by nudging the chroma down later - but like you say, you don't want to spend time in post.

I looked long and hard at NewTek's SDI Tricaster which I think may have some paint controls at the head end, as well as some other pretty impressive tricks, but my market's not ready for it yet. Could fit yours?

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

ONLY in the spirit of trying to get answers for the 35Mb/s stuff in these EX cams, i need answers that would be FOR this 35-25 rate, not for fully uncompressed things.

Ok, when shooting 35Mbps on my EX1, I shoot with the color at about 70% saturation, and the luma reading about 15-90 IRE.

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

so IF the parameters were sucky 15&20-1 compression, then do ya do Kodachrome processing when the bits still exist or not?

Yes, but not as much.

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

also using a "way back machine" , "We'll fix it in post" was always a joke, 10 years ago before the great computer fixing was usefull and worked fair, it was highly recommended to not wait till post , and do it right the first time.

The word "right" is the tricky bit. What might be right for you, may not be right for someone else. And the choice I might make while shooting a 30 minute sit down interview might be quite different to me shooting a multi-day outdoor scene for a movie. If you can guarantee the weather, then maybe you can afford to shoot high-con, full sat. If the weather might change over the course of the day, or a couple days when you need to shoot, then the "right" way might be to shoot in a manner that will let you match the looks later in post.

[Marty Welk]

Originally Posted by Matt Daviss

SD-SDI on EX1s? I have to say I wasn't overly impressed but it is what it is. It's not as good as a $1k HD-SDI to SD-SDI box from AJA or something. I am SO hoping that the EX1-R is going to do better.

may have some paint controls at the head end, ?

oh great dont say that , wait what did you say :-)

i have Now becomes committed to the EX1r minus any return policy. using multiple EX1r things only, because many people already indicated that would be the only way to pass profiles so they all are set the same , so that i have covered (i think).

ummm, now i am in trouble, i thought that the HD-SDI outs on the EX cams was less compressed stuff? all good clean quality? was something not good about the EX1 SDI output?

but then i also forgot to ask anybody (oops) if the HD-SDI is post the internal camera processing. and now that you mention a switcher with color controls . . .

[Marty Welk]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

Ok, when shooting 35Mbps on my EX1, I shoot with the color at about 70% saturation, and the luma reading about 15-90 IRE.
.

and with that "hi-sat" matrix on? , can a person just tweak up the color itself and leave the hi-sat Matrix and its lump sum change off?

[Perrone Ford]

HD-SDI out is very, very good. It passes muster for BBC, DiscoveryHD, NatGeo, etc. But it's not RAW. There is still some image processing taking place (like taking off that green hue you don't like so much), but it's minimal. And it's a far cry from what gets recorded on the SxS cards.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

and with that "hi-sat" matrix on? , can a person just tweak up the color itself and leave the hi-sat Matrix and its lump sum change off?

I've never used hi-sat.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

oh great dont say that , wait what did you say :-)

Don't panic. The HD-SDI is very good, but the EX1's downconvert to Standard Def (I am NOT talking EX1-R, just the older EX1) is a little soft and lacking in oomph. So if you're committed to EX1-R, good on you. I pick mine up tomorrow, hopefully. And I will immediately get it home and check out its Standard Def credentials.

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

many people already indicated that would be the only way to pass profiles so they all are set the same , so that i have covered (i think).

Yes, the profiles contain numeric data so two cameras have the same settings. However, and again I stress this is with EX1s, I found slight niggling differences between cameras when using pre-set white balances, but when using manually set white balances, it can take a couple of goes to get them the same on a monitor. But I, like many people, still cut in post using FCP multicam (or do it manually for 2-3 cams). So I can go the last mile in post.

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

and now that you mention a switcher with color controls . . .

Ho ho, it's not a CCU! Just some control over gain, Red and Blue in blacks and whites, and that was on the analogue model, not the SDI model which was unavailable for demo. But it is worth a look-see.

[Marty Welk]

"I found slight niggling differences between cameras when using pre-set white balances, but when using manually set white balances, it can take a couple of goes to get them the same on a monitor. "

If that happened it would suck, in my mind , just from reading the manuel and here about the profiles and adjustements, i was planning on:
creating a SINGLE profile for everything (in my dreams)
using a preset white, shifting the WB slightly as needed
shifting the other Single color tint thing slightly as needed
then split screening and seeing 2 perfectally matched cameras.

then worring about the other 201 things that still need to be set up.

only because Manuel SETting of the WB is hard/impossible to do if the white card (huge) and lighting angles to both cams are not the same. AKA trying to get a white card balance has more possible chances for being different.

[Marty Welk]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

HD-SDI out is very, very good. It passes muster for BBC, DiscoveryHD, NatGeo, etc. But it's not RAW. There is still some image processing taking place (like taking off that green hue you don't like so much), but it's minimal. And it's a far cry from what gets recorded on the SxS cards.

If you completely switch up profiles in the camera, are the changes to the processing of the color and contrast range and all reflected in the SDI output?

[Marty Welk]

When Switching Live , then stuffing that into a computer:
When smooth (slow or fast) DISSOLVES between 2 cameras does not MATCH exactally in color, and there are 300+ of them in hour, that Post Processing the now combined video in normal computer editors would take Twice as long as it would take to re-edit the whole thing in the computer from the original cameras backup recordings.

that means either it is matching before i start, and 30+ hours of editing are done Live in 1 hour, or i might as well have shot it FOR wasting 30 hours editing it.

Post color correcting 1of2 cameras that are mix together already , and not with cuts, means not only color correcting little pieces at a time but also having to Keyframe the color changes through the dissolve AT the dissolve rate which varies. meaning no computer could use its magic, unless it was AUTO color, and we all know it would fail miserably as the pictures change.

Cam A +++
Cam B ---
Both ====

++++++++=======---------========++++++++=======---------========
|color A | Keyframe| color B | Keyframe|color A | Keyframe| color B | Keyframe|

Post Color processing the FINAL mix, when both cameras Match, means post processing both at the same time, which is easy, and Whole sections of the combined can even have different post processing.

so there is No post processing Both cameras as seperate units once dissolved/mixed, unless you just want to torture yourself :-)

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

i was planning on:
creating a SINGLE profile for everything (in my dreams)
using a preset white, shifting the WB slightly as needed
shifting the other Single color tint thing slightly as needed
then split screening and seeing 2 perfectally matched cameras.

Hey Marty, you have just managed to produce the ideal Sales Proposition for a bunch of matched cameras that go through Camera Control Units in a 19" Rack, feeding an engineering switcher upstream from a Production Vision Mixer.

"Just like we did it in the olden days".

I've shot a lot of two cam stuff with Z1s and I've mucked in on a couple of the MacVideo multicam shoots (the Adobe event and slightly less so, the FCP SuperMeet in London) and though I say so myself, the two EX1s were pretty damn close - I used the same picture profiles then did a symultaneous white set with the card in the presenter's light and the cameras brought to it (not white set in position).

What I can say: two EX1s with identical Picture Profiles, and identical Preset White Balances, DO NOT MATCH. There's production differences, quantum level events, moments at the factory where the food was bad in the canteen, whatever. The two did not match.

The way to make them match was to do a manual, but simultaneous white set.

Just like I learned from the engineers in the studio 20 (eek, 25) years ago - gather your cameras together in a little huddle, point them at a single source in the position of your main (mean, modal, average) presenter position, and line them all up from that. For the engineers, that was a manual black balance, white balance, gamma, pedestal, iris and so on. I guess we just get the same Picture Profile, then White Set at the same iris, gain and and shutter speed.

But hold on one cotton picking second - I am trying to analyse what you're really wanting to do and what I haven't seen in your explanation is the use of 'multicam' editing. I use Final Cut Pro, but I think other edit systems do this:

You film each camera angle as one long take per camera, and sync then up with each other in your edit system. You then play back each stream symultaneously and in sync, with a preview of each camera, then using the keyboard, effectively vision mix the whole enseble together. Any screw-ups, and you simply stop, back up a bit, then go again. Any additional stuff you do, you do. At the end, you export your vision mixed, colour corrected, captioned edit as one movie.

The trick is that you only need colour-correct each camera ONCE. Do the heavy lifting with a mutual white set, then go the last mile in post. Then just cut on the fly.

Would that float your boat?

[Marty Welk]

Indeed what you said , but i didnt hear the part about them not matching , brain freeze :-)

initially i will do the seperated cams on seperate timelines , color match the two cams , then blend.

$10,000 dollers later (price of switcher), i will be going back to Live shooting with matched cameras. And if they dont match then tell sony i am going to buy CHEAP cameras for the other views , and match them instead :-) mabey Cannons or panasonics even.
tell them that for $2000 instead of $6000 i can get by on one leg , see if they quit having them manufactured in china :-)

If i gotta get EX-3rs and $2000 doller "paint boxes", i will send the whole kit back, move to cancun and retire on the money i saved :-)
WTF do they call them paint boxes for anyways, they dont paint nothing, they should be called CCMU Crappy Color Matching Units

[Leonard Levy]

"What I can say: two EX1s with identical Picture Profiles, and identical Preset White Balances, DO NOT MATCH. There's production differences, quantum level events, moments at the factory where the food was bad in the canteen, whatever. The two did not match."

YUP! Too bad but that's the real world.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Marty Welk

If i gotta get EX-3rs and $2000 doller "paint boxes", i will send the whole kit back, move to cancun and retire on the money i saved :-)
WTF do they call them paint boxes for anyways, they dont paint nothing, they should be called CCMU Crappy Color Matching Units

BTW - shouting out to the lurkers here... This is what we're talking about:

YouTube - Nipros CCU for EX3

Frightening costs.