Film Look and 16:9 aspect
Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:08 am
It has been a little while since I've contributed and I wanted to share something that might help folks out. Most people might already know this, but I've discovered that in order to get a 16:9 dvd from my S4KP using Arabesk without the Blu-Ray drive, you might be better off making a scene of your project and then transferring it to a 16:9 DV project.
I'm shooting my TV show with three Sony HD cameras: the new FX1000, a HD1000U, and a small HC9. I set the HD1000U and the HC9 (often attached to my Letus with 35mm lenses) in Cinematic Effect mode. And I shoot everything with the FX1000 in either 30p for TV or 24p for my documentary projects (the progressive format is 30/24 progressive scan recorded to miniDV or compact flash in 60i, meaning our NLE digests the footage perfectly).
Anyway, I edit everything in 1080i on a 26 inch HD monitor (single screen although in my AVIO I always edited in dual which I like better and is an option with the S4KP).
So after I cut my show in HD, I create a new project that is DV, Full, and 16:9. I add the HDV scene to the clipboard and import it into the DV project. This converts the HDV to DV and then once rendered and exported to DVD using Arabesk produces a mighty fine dvd. Unlike the problems I've experience with going from the HDV project to SD DVD using Arabesk (weird aspect and high contrast), I get a uniform looking full 16:9 result.
It is important to note that for HDV I've found that the footage should be captured originally at the HD FULL setting. The Normal default produces some odd issues and I think should be avoided. The reason for using this setting is an enigma to me (I suppose it has to do with file size for storage).
Here's my latest TV show, featuring WATCHMEN footage and a locally made short film: http://einsiders.com/features/columns/s ... rticle=452
Note that the WATCHMEN footage provided to me by Warner Bros. (thank you), was downloaded in H.264 and then run into the S4KP from DVD over SVideo and RCA. This is why there are very small jumps a couple times which was related to a dvd skip (I've fixed this going forward). But this backward procedure is not how I'm going to do this going forward. My plan is to use Media Manager to import all digitally. I'm still working on this approach and have had some crashes so far (with audio files it works perfectly). The TV show runs on two metro Atlanta cable stations and online.
Finally, the film look I'm getting is good I think. Purists will shutter, but I think Sony's Cinematic Effect on their consumer and in the case of the HD1000U pro/consumer (same camera in a big box) is really something like 30 progressive. From what I can tell, this gimmicky digital effect takes 30 frames and drops 5 frames to get the effect. This means that you may lose data, however, it won't be noticeable to most folks where action is limited. I don't think it would be good for sporting events. Also, I mess around with the WB Shift when in this mode to get a nice red or cool blue when I want that. I know I'm faking the film look, but the results speak for themselves. And there is no issue capturing this footage into the S4KP, which ought to be high on your list.
To achieve something like 30p without losing most of the manual options, you can mess around with the shutter and color, wb shift, sharpness, and so forth, but the Cinematic Effect gives me good results with one button. I added it to the touch screen menu so that I can turn the camera on and hint that button immediately. You can shoot stills as long as this is engaged, however.
Let me know what you guys think of my show. I've done three now and it has be picked up by the stations weekly.
I'm shooting my TV show with three Sony HD cameras: the new FX1000, a HD1000U, and a small HC9. I set the HD1000U and the HC9 (often attached to my Letus with 35mm lenses) in Cinematic Effect mode. And I shoot everything with the FX1000 in either 30p for TV or 24p for my documentary projects (the progressive format is 30/24 progressive scan recorded to miniDV or compact flash in 60i, meaning our NLE digests the footage perfectly).
Anyway, I edit everything in 1080i on a 26 inch HD monitor (single screen although in my AVIO I always edited in dual which I like better and is an option with the S4KP).
So after I cut my show in HD, I create a new project that is DV, Full, and 16:9. I add the HDV scene to the clipboard and import it into the DV project. This converts the HDV to DV and then once rendered and exported to DVD using Arabesk produces a mighty fine dvd. Unlike the problems I've experience with going from the HDV project to SD DVD using Arabesk (weird aspect and high contrast), I get a uniform looking full 16:9 result.
It is important to note that for HDV I've found that the footage should be captured originally at the HD FULL setting. The Normal default produces some odd issues and I think should be avoided. The reason for using this setting is an enigma to me (I suppose it has to do with file size for storage).
Here's my latest TV show, featuring WATCHMEN footage and a locally made short film: http://einsiders.com/features/columns/s ... rticle=452
Note that the WATCHMEN footage provided to me by Warner Bros. (thank you), was downloaded in H.264 and then run into the S4KP from DVD over SVideo and RCA. This is why there are very small jumps a couple times which was related to a dvd skip (I've fixed this going forward). But this backward procedure is not how I'm going to do this going forward. My plan is to use Media Manager to import all digitally. I'm still working on this approach and have had some crashes so far (with audio files it works perfectly). The TV show runs on two metro Atlanta cable stations and online.
Finally, the film look I'm getting is good I think. Purists will shutter, but I think Sony's Cinematic Effect on their consumer and in the case of the HD1000U pro/consumer (same camera in a big box) is really something like 30 progressive. From what I can tell, this gimmicky digital effect takes 30 frames and drops 5 frames to get the effect. This means that you may lose data, however, it won't be noticeable to most folks where action is limited. I don't think it would be good for sporting events. Also, I mess around with the WB Shift when in this mode to get a nice red or cool blue when I want that. I know I'm faking the film look, but the results speak for themselves. And there is no issue capturing this footage into the S4KP, which ought to be high on your list.
To achieve something like 30p without losing most of the manual options, you can mess around with the shutter and color, wb shift, sharpness, and so forth, but the Cinematic Effect gives me good results with one button. I added it to the touch screen menu so that I can turn the camera on and hint that button immediately. You can shoot stills as long as this is engaged, however.
Let me know what you guys think of my show. I've done three now and it has be picked up by the stations weekly.
