monitoring 1080p30 from the 5dmarkii

Received an inquiry from a reader and after writing up my response realized this might make good bloggery.  His question was essentially How do I look at the stuff I’m shooting on my shiny new Canon 5D Mark II? (my own editorial tone added for consistency’s sake).  Bonusly, I’ve stepped up my blog game and embedded url’s in the pics so click through to get more info.

Monitoring 1080p is a considerable undertaking, especially if you want to do it right.  First things first, you’ll need to start with a

Apple Mac Pro

or a

Apple 17" Macbook Pro

or both.

Burning a Blu-Ray disc requires software like

Apple Compressor 3

and an external BluRay disc burner

LG LightScribe

Bonus link here to build your own Compressor BluRay setting.

Monitoring native 1080p30 out of Final Cut Pro is can be a bit tricky, essentially you’ll need a capture card like the Matrox MXO for instance

Matrox MXO

and a monitor of some kind, preferably with native 1080p resolution like the

Dell 2407 WFP

or the

Apple 23-inch Cinema Display

I’m using a setup similar to this at home.  At work we use an AJA Kona 3

AJA KONA 3

monitoring on an HD  broadcast monitor via HD-SDI

JVC DT-V24L3DU

Otherwise, you can simply view the footage in FCP’s canvas as it plays back in your time line and not worry about the expense of a setup like this until the finishing stage.  Then you could happily walk your project over to a facility with the professional setup and order from their lunch menu while a Colorist cracks jokes and crushes your blacks.

It’s the dollars vs doable decisions that really make this craft an art form IMHO.  Cranking out broadcast quality 1080p material on a 10k FCP setup (and it really is 10k if you’re paying for all the software) is not something you can do overnight. But, it can be done.

proactively • man that’s a lot of alliteration • peter

blog bomb – FCP -> AE CS4

It used to be you needed to send 500 bucks to Wes Plate and use his Automatic Duck to go from FCP to After Effects.  Not anymore…

First, send your heartfelt apologies along to Mr. Plate.  He’s awesome.  Then, check out Adobe’s video tutorial.  Rory, eat your heart out.  Now you’ve got a business justification to upgrade to CS4.  And if you’re too lazy to wade through the entire 8min video, the breakdown is:

1. In FCP, export Apple XML v4

2. Open in Premier CS4

3. Highlight clips in timeline, create new After Effects composition.

4. Bonus option, alternatively send from Premier to Encore to make a Blu-Ray disc project.

Of course some of you may deem this as totally silly.  We’ve already got a compositing application in FCS 2 called Motion!  And even Shake can get stuff from FCP!!  Why got to Adobe!?

Well, as a Motion 3 Apple Certified Trainer I applaud your retort and encourage your passion.  But as a real world Editor / Producer, a lot of times the Graphics company I contract with doesn’t work with Motion.  Yes, I would prefer that they did and sent me all my opens, transitions, and lower thirds as Motion Master Templates.  Alas, AE users die hard, just like Avid editors.

So this is good news for us FCP editors who want to string out a sequence with a couple of edits and then hand it off to an AE shop to sexy it up.  Just make sure you media manage your media correctly.  Hrmmm, maybe that’s a topic for a soon to be released FCProse video tutorial…

proactively • not drinking the koolaid, just pointing it out on the buffet line • peter

And here’s a little bit of Vimeo random contact awesomeness.  Watch it in HD, you won’t be disappointed.

Hey, they used After Effects in this so it’s got a little bit of relevancy. Kinda…

canon & bicycles – hv30 vs. 5dmarkii

And the theme for this comparison is… bicycles! Here’s a Vimeo SD embed of a video I shot & cut for the Travel Channel Academy with my Canon HV30 at 1440x1080p24

And here’s two YouTube high quality SD embeds of footage shot with a pre-production model of Canon’s new 5D Mark II Digital SLR at 1920x1080p30

Sure, the 5D is 3500 bucks off the shelf, and my entire HV30 kit with wide angle lens adapter, boom mic, camera bag, and a sweet lens cleaning pen topped out at 1200 bucks. But holy hell, look what an additional 2400 bucks can get you!

So what’s the point of even looking at the Canon XH-A1 or the Sony Z1U at a very similair 3,xxx dollar price point? None. Or maybe you’re required by DCI to jump through flaming hoops of razor wire to deliver tapeless footage (my sympathies). Or then maybe you like recording video AND sound. I’ve yet to see, err hear, any audio examples at all from the 5dmarkii.

Anybody out there know of any? And when the hell is my Apple TV going to start playing YouTube in HD???

proactively • just make the sound up in post • peter

vimeo contacts – random awesomeness

It’s funny what videos you stumble onto when someone adds you as a contact on Vimeo.

Found this after Nick Wilcox-Brown added me as his contact. Maybe he found me from one of my recent FCProse tutorials…

…and so I checked out Nick’s recent likes and found David Hubert’s London video. Great to see another amazing clip shot exclusively with a Digital SLR still camera. I think Chad Richard’s tutorial is going to keep coming in handy, especially the bit on how to create an image sequence using Quicktime.
I especially like how David created pans and zooms in post (After Effects being his weapon of choice). Looks very realistic, very smooth, and the DSLR obviously provides the resolution to pull this off. Good luck zooming and panning without compromising resolution using DVX-100 under-cranks.
proactively • it’s a wonderful life in post • peter

blog bomb – youtube in HD

OK, apparently YouTube read my latest blog post.  Thanks guys!

But, my brother Jon gets the credit for this one.  Here’s a cut and paste from the Salvia family email chain that rattled cages earlier today.  Jon writes:

FYI, I received a comment on the RNR YouTube page for one of the Donavon Frankenreiter videos. The commenter wrote that the video looked great in HD 720p. I tried watching the same video in High Quality and, well, it didn’t look like HD. After doing some Googling I came across this article from November 20th…
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/11/20/youtube-experimenting-with-720p-hd-video/

Here’s the Donavon video that received the comment:

So test this out. First start watching the vid in Normal Quality. Next start watching the vid in High Quality. To watch the video in HD, the commenter provided this code <&fmt=22> to add to the end of the URL.

YouTube is very quietly testing 720p HD. This is huge.

Dammit Jon, why did you get to be the first one to hear about this!  I’m the older brother, WTF?!  Oh, and Jon also wants me to be sure to let you know that stereo audio is enabled, too.

Anywho, we’re all winners.  Just upload your 1280×720 3-5mbps h.264 128kbps AAC audio quicktime to Vimeo, YouTube, and Motionbox for the most efficient distribution of your HD content.  Then once YouTube processes your video, just add &fmt=22 to the end of the url and enjoy!

Wait, what’s Motionbox, you ask?  Could be the next blog bomb here at proactively.  For now, put on your steel tipped shoes then check out the link here cause you’ll be tippy-toeing the cutting edge yet again.

In the meantime, here’s a few Salvia Bros. productions in glorious YouTube HD for your viewing pleasure:

The Black Keys - Strange Times

Whartscape 2008 - The Mae Shi

Nellie McKay - Mother of Pearl

proactively • blog bombing • peter

***UPDATE***

For those of you who’ve made it this far, here’s a bonus round: embed youtube HD movies.  Jon’s got the scoop again:

Add &ap=%2526fmt%3D22 to the “value” of the object’s movie parameter and the embed “src” paramater. Looks HD to me but loads very, very slowly. Also, the YouTube embed is still the same 4:3 ratio size. Letterbox bars are included. However, once in full screen it becomes apparent, I think. Try it out for
yourselves.

And not to put his journalistic integrity integrity into question, Jon cited his source to boot.

So lets see some HD YouTube embeds of 5dmarkii footage, Canon HV20 & HV30 footage, Nikon D90 footage, RED One footage!  If you got something hot, post it in the comments!