Recording Prores 422 and downconversion

[northernmunky]

I'm running a TV studio in a school at the moment, and everything we record is recorded straight to Prores422 in 1080i.

We do some chromakey work so of course I keep that footage in Prores422, but... for everything else, all the other equipment here is all Standard Def 576i or projected on equipment that supports not much more than 720 frame sizes. As it's a school with limited hard disk space, we simply have no need to have all our recordings in ProRes quality footage and we certainly don't need 1080i frame sizes just yet so I'm sticking with 720p for now.

At the moment, for everything we record I batch convert to HDV 720p 50/25 and at the moment that's serving quite well and produces a reasonable file size without too much impact on image quality, but does anyone know if there is a better codec I could work with since HDV is certainly not my favourite, but it produces the file sizes I need to work with.

Thanks all!

 

[KeithPratt]

• What hardware are you using to capture?
• What camera?
• How are you mastering?
• Do you care about having it in HD for the future or is it not that kind of thing?
• Are you keeping all footage or just the end edited product?
• What version of FCP do you have?

If I was in your position and had the requisite hardware and software, I'd record straight from the camera as ProRes Proxy 1080i50 (full-fat ProRes for footage to be keyed), edit, then master to 576i50 in whatever format was appropriate for exhibition.

If I needed to keep all footage for archive, wasn't bothered about HD for posterity and had an AJA capture device, I'd down-convert the footage on capture to 576i50 (apart from the footage to be keyed, which I'd keep as 1080i50).

This is a lot more efficient than capturing as one codec and raster and immediately converting to another codec and raster.

I batch convert to HDV 720p 50/25

Which one? 720p50 yields a very similar file size to 1080i50...

 

[northernmunky]

• What hardware are you using to capture?
• What camera?
• How are you mastering?
• Do you care about having it in HD for the future or is it not that kind of thing?
• Are you keeping all footage or just the end edited product?
• What version of FCP do you have?

If I needed to keep all footage for archive, wasn't bothered about HD for posterity and had an AJA capture device, I'd down-convert the footage on capture to 576i50 (apart from the footage to be keyed, which I'd keep as 1080i50).

Which one? 720p50 yields a very similar file size to 1080i50...

MacPro with Final Cut 7 using a Blackmagic Decklink Studio to capture from the vision mixer. The Cameras are the Panasonic HMC151 recording to SDHC cards - all imports as Prores. The majority of the stuff I do gets converted to H.264 in around 480x270 resolution / 720p and the odd DVD.

The major projects I'd like to keep the footage incase I have to revisit it which is why I need a better archive solution, but the students projects... there's just no point even using anything better than HDV 720.

As far as I can tell, when importing from the HMC151, I can set it to import as Prores Proxy, but for the Blackmagic I'm not sure if I can import as anything other than Prores?

I'm converting Prores 422 1080i50 down to HDV 720p 50 for editing.

 

[KeithPratt]

As far as I can tell, when importing from the HMC151, I can set it to import as Prores Proxy, but for the Blackmagic I'm not sure if I can import as anything other than Prores?

Have you got the latest drivers? Surely they must have implemented capture as ProRes Proxy by now.

I'm converting Prores 422 1080i50 down to HDV 720p 50 for editing.

I really don't see the point of cross-converting from 1080i50 to 720p50. It takes a while to do it at decent quality and is almost the same file size. If your projector will not accept 1080i, do the conversion at the end on the final piece only.

The major projects I'd like to keep the footage incase I have to revisit it which is why I need a better archive solution, but the students projects... there's just no point even using anything better than HDV 720.

I'd recommend you try to find a way to archive the media as ProRes Proxy 1080i50 (i.e. leave it as captured). It'll take up 50% more disk space but is much less hassle in every way than your 720p50 HDV workflow.