TECH TIPS
Playing Catch-Up with HDV Offerings And Learning from Mistakes
New Courseware, Classes Available to Guild Members
by Bill Stetz
 Capture/Print screen interface of Lumiere HD utility program, which has some resemblance to the capture pane of FCP. |
Editing High Definition, or HDV, in Final Cut Pro (FCP) is not new, but it has been refined more and more with the most recent version of FCP, 5.1.1. Recently, Apple Computer held a seminar for Guild members at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel, taking advantage of the evening to expound on FCP’s virtues under the theme “High Definition Workflows for Film and TV Post.” The presentation, mostly handled by Scot Barbour, Apple Computer Inc. Manager of Pro Applications Market Development––West Coast, was impressive in its examples of good work practices in the organization and labeling of clips, sequences and reel work. I highly recommend to all editors or assistants using FCP, or curious about FCP workflow, to attend any subsequent presentations of this seminar.
Prior to this groundwork approach presentation, I had the opportunity to work with two editors on an HDV project that I initiated for a dramatic short. It is interesting that both editors were unaware of the correct time base capture process for projects shot at 24 progressive (24p). It’s also embarrassing that I actually wrote an article on this entitled “Avid does the Math, 23.976 vs. 24 fps for NLE” (Editors Guild Magazine, Nov-Dec 05, volume 26, number 6), yet still made assumptions that the editors would properly handle the prep work in the captures. I did nothing about ensuring that the work was done correctly. It wasn’t.
As interesting as it is to discuss “vaporware,” reading the fine print of the program’s capabilities is often the best practice for making strides in work with the least amount of setbacks. I read the fine print and still messed up.
 Three more of the Lumiere HD interface screens used in the tedious process to make HDV 720p, 24fps material palpable to the FCP editing enivronment. Shown: Program Stream step. |
FCP is specific about what it will capture correctly and what it won’t. With the introduction of new cameras in the marketplace with HDV capability, it is attractive to put FCP through its paces in the new format. While FCP will handle HDV editing in stride, getting the original picture into FCP may present a challenge.
My particular project was shot using a JVC GY-HD100 camera at 720p, 24fps. The original picture playback was rich, sharp and nicely saturated. As my project was shot in late February, and I couldn’t wait for the Apple Final Cut Studio upgrade (scheduled to arrive after March 1), we used Final Cut 5.0 to edit this picture.
Apple had not, and has not to date (even with the most recent version of FCP), provided the appropriate codecs to capture true 24p picture from this camera. According to Barbour, the solution for the JVC camera, some Sony products and other cameras is to be released in the imminent future as a small, free upgrade to the program for owners of Final Cut Studio 5.1. This feature of direct capture of 24p content by FCP was demonstrated at the recent NAB show in Las Vegas. Presently, FCP will capture 30p video and audio from the JVC camera, but without the accompanying timecode. Captures come in as clips with timecode starts of 00:00:00:00 no matter what the actual timecode of the material is.
As a short background, HDV is implemented in the industry standard as an MPEG stream that has imbedded in it the audio tracks and timecode. This MPEG stream must be deciphered or demuxed to extract from it the video, audio and timecode information as separate elements that the NLE application can use or read.
 Timeline Codec process screen. |
Back in February 2006, with original material shot as 720p, 24fps, and not enough software support for the relatively new format, I was left with a couple of options for importing video into FCP 5.0 and neither of the them proved completely desirable for professional work. I chose to buy a small standalone utility program called Lumiere HD that captures the video from the original HDV tape playback, but does so through several time-consuming steps for each clip capture that results in high-definition QuickTime footage that may be edited but does not have the original accompanying timecode numbers that the camera recorded to it. Not only was my footage without original timecode numbers, it was more often than not out of sync with the soundtrack when the separate video and audio were paired in FCP.
Luckily, most of the material shot had slates that aided in synching the material. But I discovered through the editing period that even when sync was established for each particular batch of clips, audio drift would occur. This malady I attribute to my own lack of adherence to the 23.976 fps capture rule for modern DV and HDV cameras. Even though the nomenclature of frame rate is referred to as 24fps shooting, 99 percent of the time prosumer and professional cameras record video at 23.976 fps to pair with the simultaneous 48,000khtz recorded audio. This is done to avoid 3:2 pulldown hiccups in the likely case that you may convert your picture and sound to a 29.97fps (30fps) time base for use in standard definition or DVD playback environments.
 Transport Stream screen. |
I knew this and thought my editors knew this––yet all my footage (five hours of it) was painstakingly captured through the tedious Lumiere software capture process at 24fps (not 23.976 or 23.98fps)! I was under a deadline to finish this project for delivery within four days of shooting and neither I, nor the editor, was about to re-capture the footage at the slightly different frame rate (a process using Lumiere HD that is not done in real time, and would have taken closer to 12 hours to accomplish). So the editing project became a regimen of cutting in clips and constantly re-synching audio to picture, depending on how far down the batch capture the clip was taken.
It worked, but it was not ideal. With no unique timecodes for shots, re-doing this process later would not only be non-automatic, it would be starting from scratch. As of February 2006 when I bought the application, Lumiere HD has been shiping version 1.6b6, which is touted as supporting the JVC HD100 camera but, as I described, it will not transcode corresponding timecode in the capture output. Other software approaches to this problem, I have heard make for the same results.
There are hardware solutions to the timecode issue which are a much faster approach to the HDV acquisition process. Although my budget did not allow using this solution, feeding component video from the playback and using Firewire control, AJA’s Kona cards and Black Magic cards, as well as products from Miranda, will allow you to ingest your source material in HD with accompanying timecode in real time. These solutions also allow for captures of more data, which facilitates more precise color correction when making scene color adjustments. Obviously, until Apple’s own solution is released soon, this is the most practical and efficient way to capture HDV material shot at 24p. Again, FCP will capture 30fps HDV progressive material (29.97fps, as well as 59.94fps progressive takes) directly using Final Cut Pro version 5.1, but associated timecode will not be retained in your clips.
Understandably, as all manufacturers of HDV cameras implement their recordings slightly differently, Apple computer is delaying the revision of its capture components for FCP 5.1 until it has a fairly wide cross-section of the marketwide products accommodated in its upgrade. Assuming that this upgrade happens shortly, and hopefully by the time you are reading this, I will have the footage already in hand to put the 24p capture to test.
I have already been contacted by other producers who found themselves in the same ditch dealing with this capture SNAFU. Hopefully, with this information in hand, you will approach any HDV editing project you have in the works with the caution and tools you need to make your workflow a smooth venture for you and your clients.
Bill Stetz is art director of Editors Guild Magazine and an independent producer and director of live action and animated content. You can find more information about his film project mentioned herein at http://www.americanprairie.net/threshold/. He may be reached at director@americanprairie.net.
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