Complex OB - opinions sought

[HallmarkProductions]

We are shortly shooting a full HD multi-camera job. We will be shooting on 4 SonyHDC 1500 cameras, with:
2 x XJ72
1 x HJ22
1 x HJ11 lens.

We will prepare a live mix in the OB truck, with each camera signal also being recorded onto individual decks for later amendments to the edit. Audio will be dealt with separately.

The question is, what are the best recording decks (and format). HDCAM or XDCAM HD? Will HDCAM give us better results? I believe so.

We do not have any HDCAM decks in our edit suites, but we could transfer in from XDCAM HD. Of course, we could hire a HDCAM deck for a day.

When it comes to the edit, we will need to be able to ingest the material into FCP . Ideally, we will want to do a multicam edit, with 5 or 6 layers. No effects, cuts only. We will need to play out to tape (or XDCAM HD). For editing with MAC, what do we need to capture the HD material? What spec MAc will cope with the job? I am thinking of a Macpro dual 3.0ghz 8-core, with 4gig ram, and 512mb graphics card. I guess I will need to have a RAID system?

Chris

[PaulD]

Hi
With regard to the Mac, if your record decks have HD-SDI outputs, the your need a AJA Kona or Io HD setup, or the BlackMagic equivalent.

If you use ProRes 422 (HQ or SQ) as the editing codec, you can get by with quite modest RAID kit - a dual drive FW800 box will do, although an eSATA RAID - internal or external, will give you much better performance.

[infocus]

Probably not available in time for you, but in principle this would be a great job for Convergent Designs XDR - http://www.convergent-design.com/CD_Products_FlashXDR.htm .

Much better potential quality than HDCAM or standard 35Mbs XDCAM, and in a much more ingestible format. Be interesting to work out the economics of the CF cards versus HDCAM tapes and deck hire......

[HallmarkProductions]

Thanks Paul.

is the machine spec otherwise a good selection? I think the esata RAID will be the better bet - is there a significant difference in cost?
In/out HD card - like this?
http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/public/view_item_cat.php?catalogue_number=blackmagic_deck link_hd_extreme_pcie

There is a huge difference in cost between the different types of these cards - any specific recommendations?

Chris

[ClaireTall]

I think if I were doing this job then I would be using cameras that can record onto tape/disc (PDW 700 would be my favourite) and into an HD mixer via HD-SDI, Anycast/ FOR-A and out to the big screens and simultaneous record of live mix to HDCAM, XDCAM HD 35mbs or HDD type media.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

[HallmarkProductions]

Hi Clare

Long time no speak!

I did think about individual tapes, and the Anycast too, but the production warrants something better than the Anycast on this occasion.The production involves a full-spec HD OB truck with engineering. All the cameras will be controlled by a camera control unit based in the truck, and there will be an engineer there just responsible for loading the tapes/discs. The truck also has large HD monitors for each source, the vision mixer will take up to 12 inputs, and thus will be considerably better than the Anycast. The cameras are the industry-standard for this kind of thing, and it is usual practice to record in the truck rather than on individual cams.

Yes, it will cost more than individual cameras, but, there is more control.

Really, it is what happens after the shoot is done that I am thinking about, in terms of workflow for the edit. There will be a live mix done in the OB truck, and the record decks will alll have a sync timecode for later edit. We intend to "tidy up" the edit later, just in case of any cutting errors (hopefully, minimal!). The DVD will be sold in Europe, but also in japan where there is a big demand, but, at this stage, we are only producing an SD PAL version - BD and NTSC SD will be done elsewhere.

THe XDR looks interesting, thanks for that, but, maybe a bit too "new" for me to risk without it being established. At least the XDCAM and HDCAM are tried and tested. I reckon you are right though, it would work out less than the cost of decks and HDCAM tape.

[PaulD]

is the machine spec otherwise a good selection? I think the esata RAID will be the better bet - is there a significant difference in cost?
In/out HD card - like this?
http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/public/view_item_cat.php?catalogue_number=blackmagic_deck link_hd_extreme_pcie
Hi
A Mac Pro is a Mac Pro. Rendering is slightly quicker with a faster CPU, but all models are capable of what you want. 8 GB of RAM is best - 1GB per core is needed to avoid bottlenecks.

AJA are a broadcast-centric company with solid proven products, which have an advantage in their products real-time HD<>SD scaling performance.
On the other hand BlackMagic were the innovators of this sort of technology, and how it can keep costs down.

If your edit is going to be a simple 'quicky' job, then any of the lower-cost 4/5 drive RAID 0 boxes + eSATA card will do. If you will be editing (or re-editing) over a longer period, and only hiring expensive ingest decks for a day or two, then a fault-tolerant RAID 5 array might be justified.

[simond83]

Ok, here's what i'd do.

Record in the OB truck to HDCAM SR. Once the shoot is done, get all the masters duped with BITC to plain old DV tapes. Then do your edit offline in DV. Once you have your EDL, hire a HDCAM SR deck for the day and then ingest all your HD-SDI footage into your system (BM or Kona is fine).

Your EDL will drop everything onto your timeline for you and then you just need to add your text and export your OMF file for the final audio edit.

Si