MovieStuff PAL transfer question

[MovieStuff]

Hi, all!

Okay, quite a few people have shown interest in a PAL transfer from the DV8. Unfortunately, the DV8 has a built in NTSC camera and the computer system it transfers to isn't PAL compatible. In other words, I can only transfer to NTSC.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong (and no doubt people are standing in line to do so) but isn't video recorded on miniDV basically just a file that contains a bunch of digital stills? Unfortunately, I'm not totally hip on miniDV technology (the curse of being an old fart) but it would seem like there would be a way to do the following:

1) I transfer at 30fps with no pulldown

2) That is put onto standard NTSC minDV

3) A PAL client then somehow takes all those individual frames and digitizes them into his/her NLE system for playback at 25fps instead of 30fps.

Surely I'm missing something here, which is why I post this for the current crop of media whiz kids to solve. I'm fairly certain I could do this if I exported all the frames as a number still sequence but burning that to a CD would be numbingly slow and not very cost or time wise. Does anyone know of a way to do this same thing to miniDV tape?

-OR-

Is the firewire data stream universal? Certainly I can't just feed the 30fps NTSC firewire signal into a PAL miniDV camera, right? It can't be that simple, can it?

Roger

[crimson]

DV is field based.

If a tape is involved - no. You will need a some kind of technology (deck or software or etc) to convert NTSC res, frame rate, aspec ratio, etc. to PAL.

I dont think the CD-Rom technique is the biggest problem - your NTSC camera is. The incoming image will be NTSC based - losing about 100 lines of res.

EBay+ Used Beta SP cam = possible solution?

Good luck. Maybe a more creative mind can help you.

[basstruc]

Minidv NTSC is : 4:1:1
Minidv PAL is : 4:2:0
not compatible
Matt

[MovieStuff]

Minidv NTSC is : 4:1:1
Minidv PAL is : 4:2:0
not compatible
Matt

I understand the color won't be ideal (or even workable?)

However, let me ask you this:

If I export a JPEG from my NTSC footage and send that to you, can you not put that on your PAL time line and play it back as a freeze frame? Wouldn't the color look the same? If not, then why would your NLE system even know where the JPEG came from?

If the JPEG would work, then wouldn't a numbered JPEG sequence work as well?

Roger

[crimson]

since NTSC is closer to Super8 anyway than PAL - aspect ratio is not a problem.


"Minidv NTSC is : 4:1:1
Minidv PAL is : 4:2:0
not compatible "

this is not a factor at the DV8 stage. There is a problem (read below)...

Roger is right.

my only concern is the camera in DV8 and compression.

What kind? Since its an analgue camera the chroma question can be answered by asking what kind of chroma bandwidth does it offer?

we can safely assume that Roger is getting about 700+ lines of resolution.
The only x variable is color.

Chroma Bandwidth + JPEG compression + your NLE's system

Using the JPEG system will compress the image TWICE, specifically the color.

JPEG does have better color than DV (if I am not mistaken, compareable to 4:2:2 instead of 4:1:1 ) however, you will need to compress the image again to whatever your NLE uses, I assume 4:1:1.

The image quality will not be the same as DV8 -> DV compared to DV8->JPEG -> DV.

[MovieStuff]

Thanks, Dom!

The Hitachi camera is feeding a component signal to my RealTime Pinnacle component board. It does not go into the system via FireWire. So if I export as a numbered JPEG or bitmap sequence, then the entire miniDV compression issue is sidestepped, isn't it? I can also capture at a super high rate of 13mps, if that helps the equation here.

Roger

[crimson]

Roger

I answered it also the other forum.

I did some test with Avid Xpress DV.

I created a gradient image (from R255 G 0 B 0 to R255 G255 B0) with some fonts. Exported it as JPEG and TIFF

I imported it to XDV and exported it back as both TIFF.

The image quality is the same. So at least in this case Avid's DV Codec is up to par.

So, this means, at least to me, DV8 and JPEG stills then DV movie is the same as DV8 direct to DV movie.

[MovieStuff]

Hey, this is a dual-forum simulcast!

(also posted on Mike's forum):

Okay, so let me get this straight: If I capture from my Hitachi camera via component, frame by frame (which is how the DV8 works) and then export that footage from the time line as a numbered bitmap sequence, the PAL end user can import that numbered sequence into his/her PAL NLE system and render it out as a 25fps PAL video clip.

Furthermore, if I snug up the super 8 image to the top and bottom of the NTSC frame during transfer, that frame will end up in the middle of the PAL frame with some black top and bottom, assuming that they enable the "maintain aspect ratio" function of their NLE system and the loss in resolution would be minimal.

And finally, since I am avoiding the entire miniDV compression issue, the color of the numbered bitmap sequence should pretty much look like it does over here from the original transfer.

Now, assuming all this works, my only REAL issue is trying to expedite the exporting of the bitmap files, which on my older dual PII system is REALLY slow. Also, I would not be able to fit much on a CD. Is there any way to save this information on a miniDV tape? Not as a video signal but just the raw digital information?

-OR-

I suppose if they wanted to send me a precious 1 gig micro drive, I could save it to that! An expensive proposition but should work, right?

Roger

[crimson]

i replied it at Mikes.

I did a test with Avid DV and the quality is the same for both JPEG and TIFF converted to DV.

So, at least with my test, DV8 NTSC JPEG stills should have about the same quality as if you shot it with PAL cam and recorded in PAL DV- minus the 50 lines of res.

24x speed CD Burner can record 650 megs fairly quick - about 4 minutes (maybe less).

You cant use DV tapes to store non DV stream data. There was a guy who wrote a program that did it but it was just beta and you will need every customer to have installed in their computer.

[S8 Booster]

Roger, if you have a small digital film file captured from the DV8 posted on your site (NTSC, 30 fps (+/-) raw data - no compression) I can download it and import it into my MAC´s Adobe Premiere to see if it simply can be "converted" from 30fps (or whatever) to 25 fps PAL without any "snags".

I believe that at the time it exists as a a digital file (after the capture card) it is simply a mathematical structure that is not tied up to any TV system. That is only a matter of capturing and final movie production if to be transfered to tape or CD or DVD or whatever.

Do not know how the colours comes out but everybody on the net seem to play the samples posted from your Worksprintes and the colours and everything comes out great whether it (I believe) is captured with a NTSC or a PAL cam.

The capture function on the old MAC AVs allows both PAL, NTSC and SECAM and it seems that the colurs comes out right on the film files on the machine whatever the originating TV system is. Thus I believe the interchanging of these digital files is no problem.

For some customers you might capture the film in your computer (if you have acceptable sized hard drive rack) and transfer it compressed over the net to your customers.

Just some default Adobe Premiere production settings:


Just some ideas :idea: :?:

[Chris-B]

Hi there,
Yes, it would be great if you could put a small NTSC clip on your site and we could see what we can come up with. It would be great if you could just burn the files to CD and send them to your customers to convert them selves.
But I guess you will only be able to have 1 50ft reel per CD.
I hope something can be figured out as I’d love to get some good transfers of my S8 films,
Chris.

[Andreas Wideroe]

A few months ago I tried to capture a NTSC DV film into Adobe Premiere. Even though the film played back fine on my camera it wouldn't be captured into Premiere or copied to a VHS. I switched to NTSC mode in Premiere, still the same dropouts and bad sound.

Would be nice to see if someone finds a way around this. I spent some time reading about it on the net and I got the impression that it was possible, but difficult or expensive.

/Andreas

[mattias]

DV is field based.

you keep saying this, and although i'm pretty sure it's not, i'm curious what your source is. i'm also not sure of what you really mean. i think we can all agree that dv at the "video" abstraction layer is field based, since all "video" is by definition, but we're talking about how the data is stored in the digital domain, right? check out this faq. it clearly states several times that the codec works on one frame at the time, with "adaptive intrafield encoding" to handle motion between the fields:

http://www.adamwilt.com/DV-FAQ-tech.html

/matt

[crimson]

"i'm curious what your source is"

like you said Adam Wilt, magazines, some books and experience.
Part of the DV compression spec is intrafield.
DV also requires a dominant field in order to compress correctly.

"but we're talking about how the data is stored in the digital domain, right?"

All editing software and hardware I have used (Premiere, MSP, Avid, Canpus, Pinnacle, etc) all detects and use DV fields. Most consumer based DV cameras that can do stills actually uses a field to do capture. Though some use frame.

For example, Canopus slow motion uses field in order to create slow mo FX instead of frames. Clearly, the data is stored as field.

Am I confusing something here? What do you consider to be frame based in regardst o this discussion?

[mattias]

Part of the DV compression spec is intrafield.

yes, but each frame is compressed as a frame. there's no way of getting a field from a dv stream without first getting a frame and then throwing away one of the fields. this is the key point of my argument.

DV also requires a dominant field in order to compress correctly.

no, it's fixed. you might be confused since you can set the field order in your nle software, but that is only for it to know how to render the material correctly. the dv codec is still passed one frame at a time with no reference to field order.

All editing software and hardware I have used (Premiere, MSP, Avid, Canpus, Pinnacle, etc) all detects and use DV fields.

yes, so? extracting a field from a frame or creating a frame from two fields if you know the field order is a trivial task. you can store progressive images as fields or interlaced images as frames, and then convert to whatever format you need when you need it. the fact that dv frames may contain field based images doesn't mean that the dv format has to be field based. you can store interlaced images in tiff files or whatever as well if you like, no problem.

For example, Canopus slow motion uses field in order to create slow mo FX instead of frames. Clearly, the data is stored as field.

of course it uses fields to create slow mo. it would have been really stupid not to. but this doesn't "clearly" indicate anything about how the data is stored. again, extracting a field from a frame if you know the field order is a trivial task...

Am I confusing something here? What do you consider to be frame based in regardst o this discussion?

yes, i think you're confusing something. all video is field based in the sense that it uses fields and interlace, that's how the standard was created almost a century ago. the question is whether a dv stream contains a series of frames or a series of fields. and the answer is it contains a series of frames. can those contain interlaced material? yes. can you decompose this material to fields if you need to use field rendering for example? yes. does this mean that the format is field based? no.

/matt