client with BETA SP (on my FCP 5 ?) Best way?

[lietsche]

I have a client who has to deliver to a TV Station a series of little documentaries, shot on Beta SP.

The budget is kind of small so he wants to edit on FCP.
I did a huge documentary shot on HDTV (more than 60 hrs of rushes) for example - then we dubbed to everythibng to DVCAM (with TC reference), edited and finally an online HD conformation (in an editing studio) did the thing in order to come back to the native resolution

Now we have to deliver on Beta and it will little subjects in a live transmission.
The producer thinks that we just dub all the Betas to DVCAM (approx 30 hours of rushes) - edit the thing - playout final edit on DVCAM and dub this one to Beta again. I must say I am worried about the image quality (DV compression). The Beta SP camera used is a quiet old one by the way....
He does not want to do an Beta sp online conformation in order to save money but is as well concerned about the image quality.

I wonder if there are other ways to get a good picture quality?
I heard about ways to capture directly the Beta SP through a DV deck with TC???....

This would then save the hole shooting tapes dubbing process and give us the chance to get back to Beta sp with an online confo budgetwise?

BTW The editing machine is a MBP 17", FCS 5.1

I appreciate any thoughts

 

[evil_santa]

There are some Pro DV bridges that convert YUV(betacam output) to DV with timecode and control. We use one on a AVID DV at work. The big problem is you are still working at DV quality on FCP.

Your best bet is to use a system with a capture card such as a decklink or Kona, and work uncompressed. Buy you wont be able to do this in an MBP as you need PCI. You could hire a Powermac / FCP suite in for the project.

 

[lietsche]

There are some Pro DV bridges that convert YUV(betacam output) to DV with timecode and control. We use one on a AVID DV at work. The big problem is you are still working at DV quality on FCP.

Your best bet is to use a system with a capture card such as a decklink or Kona, and work uncompressed. Buy you wont be able to do this in an MBP as you need PCI. You could hire a Powermac / FCP suite in for the project.

What DV bridges are interesting? Then they would not have to pay the dubs of the shooting tapes and we could go for an online editing on native resolution and do a "proper" master...

Whereas your second proposition is not an option, as I rent my MBP to the production company. plus to work uncompressed with 30 hrs of rushes would demand incredible amounts of HD space

 

[LethalWolfe]

Just so I'm understanding this. The guy has enough money to cover xfering the Beta's to DVCAM *or* to cover a BSP online, but not both? If that's the case then using a bridge that evil_santa mentioned would seem to be your best bet (assuming the cost isn't too much).

Another option is to bring everything in DV, lock your edit and then create an uncompressed project in FCP, copy your locked DV sequence into it and do all of your gfx, color correction, etc., in the uncompressed timeline. Render it and output it do Beta SP. Of course the kink in that option is that I don't think you have anyway to output uncompressed from a laptop.


Lethal

 

[3dit3r]

I have one more option to add ontop of evil santa's and lethalwolfe's.

I would offline on the MBP using miniDV tapes with matching TC dubbed from the original camera tapes (cheaper than DVCAM). When you have a final cut, consolidate the sequence. Then take the project file and any other supporting files such as graphics and music to a professional FCP suite with the original BetaSP tapes and output your sequence to a BetaSP tape, or maybe even DigiBeta. You would most likely only need the suite for 1 day.

If this is still too expensive, then you may have to forget about renting out your MBP and have them look elsewhere to edit.

The only kink I see with letalwolfe's suggestion is that the final output, although from an uncompressed project, is still DV. Right?

 

[LethalWolfe]

I have one more option to add ontop of evil santa's and lethalwolfe's.

I would offline on the MBP using miniDV tapes with matching TC dubbed from the original camera tapes (cheaper than DVCAM). When you have a final cut, consolidate the sequence. Then take the project file and any other supporting files such as graphics and music to a professional FCP suite with the original BetaSP tapes and output your sequence to a BetaSP tape, or maybe even DigiBeta. You would most likely only need the suite for 1 day.

That is probably the most common solution, but I'm not sure if the OP has the budget for that.

The only kink I see with letalwolfe's suggestion is that the final output, although from an uncompressed project, is still DV. Right?

The source footage is still DV and in terms of formats DV and Beta SP are very comparable. Where DV starts to lose it is when you do things like graphics and color correction in a DV timeline. Hence the move to an uncompressed timeline for that kind of work, rendering, and output.


Lethal

 

[lietsche]

That is probably the most common solution, but I'm not sure if the OP has the budget for that.


The source footage is still DV and in terms of formats DV and Beta SP are very comparable. Where DV starts to lose it is when you do things like graphics and color correction in a DV timeline. Hence the move to an uncompressed timeline for that kind of work, rendering, and output.


Lethal

Thank you very much for your suggestions.
I was not aware of the uncompressed timeline solution for color correction and so on. Interesting!
I could then consolidate this project with media on an external HD, bring it to a professional editing suite and just output it to a Beta SP then.

But as far I see things the best is do rent the suite for one day (should be enough for approx 40´in total) and to online the edit, it is just the safer way and not too expensive... I do not want to risk a rejection of the TV Station qualitywise and I guess the Producer neither...
It is true if you are colorcorrecting on DV you kind of recognize very fast the heavy compression. And then dubbing it on Beta Digital from DVCAM would mean one whole generation lost, even though we are talking digital, please correct me if I am wrong...? As the program will be inserts in a live transmission I fear that the difference of quality might then be obvious.

To dub on miniDV instead of (mini)DVCAM brings one problem IMHO: The MiniDV is of course cheaper but does not support a TC track??

 

[LethalWolfe]

Thank you very much for your suggestions.
I was not aware of the uncompressed timeline solution for color correction and so on. Interesting!
I could then consolidate this project with media on an external HD, bring it to a professional editing suite and just output it to a Beta SP then.

But as far I see things the best is do rent the suite for one day (should be enough for approx 40´in total) and to online the edit, it is just the safer way and not too expensive... I do not want to risk a rejection of the TV Station qualitywise and I guess the Producer neither...
It is true if you are colorcorrecting on DV you kind of recognize very fast the heavy compression. And then dubbing it on Beta Digital from DVCAM would mean one whole generation lost, even though we are talking digital, please correct me if I am wrong...? As the program will be inserts in a live transmission I fear that the difference of quality might then be obvious.

To dub on miniDV instead of (mini)DVCAM brings one problem IMHO: The MiniDV is of course cheaper but does not support a TC track??

Going from DV to DigiBeta won't be a big deal. W/o dissecting the footage I doubt you could tell a difference. And, in the end, by the time it ends up in someone's home on there $200 TV set from 1993 nitpicking the master quality won't really matter.

There is a lot of content produced on DV/DVCAM and as long as the production value is there it's pretty much indistinguishable from BetaSP.

MiniDV has a TC track, you just have to make sure you are using at deck that accepts and external TC signal.


Lethal

 

[evil_santa]

I dont know the make of the DV bridge we use at work, but something like this would do the trick.

http://dv411.com/dvbridgepro.html

its about $2000 so it might be worth enquiring if you can hire one.