Interlacing

I spent 11 hours on Friday fixing a show, which was cut by an editor outside of Link, the day before air. One of the big problems with the show is that the editor didn't seem to have any concept of interlacing. For example, HDV and DV have different field order--HDV is upper field first, and DV is lower field first. You can't just throw them together in the same timeline without some processing. That processing is namely the "Shift Fields" filter. When editing HDV that's in the viewer into a DV sequence using the overwrite or insert command, FCP will automaticaly apply the Shift Fields filter with the correct setting--it also scales and distorts the video so it looks proper. However, I think if you just drag an HDV clip into a DV timeline, then FCP does not apply the filter, scale, and distort settings to the clip.

If you don't apply the shift field filter when you are mixing footage with different field orders, then you will got stuttery playback. Chris & Trish Meyer have a good write-up on fields along with all the particulars you need to know to handle interlacing in After Effects. Check out this article from ProVideo Coalition:
Field Order - Who’s on First?

I suspect that the show that I fixed was edited on an LCD monitor. FCP makes it easy enough to use a computer LCD to display footage that I think more and more people are doing without a video monitor. Some might even say that interlace is dead because 99% (not actual number) of new TV's are progressive anyway. Well, as long as you are delivering for standard-definition, then I think you have to got to look at your show on a CRT monitor that can properly display interlace (except for those rare cases, when you have a 24p show that is only going to DVD in standard-def.) There will be plenty of CRT TV's around for a long time, and plenty of broadcasters using 480i or DVD video encoded as 30i.

Capture More Than One Source at Once

This looks like an interesting new product. It's called MovieRecorderDV. I got the details on this press release. It says it will capture multiple streams of DV video at once and cites an example of using a laptop to capture multiple sources. I can see it as a mini control-room-like setup in the field. Although I have some doubts about how many video streams could be handled on a single firewire bus, especially if you are trying to capture the video on that same firewire bus. Seems like you would need to record either to the internal drive or have another bus (either firewire or SATA) on an ExpressCard setup for a laptop. It's a bit pricey--around $900.

Another interesting application would be as a central recorder for a setup like Mosaic, where we are recording a bunch of stuff off-air. Instead of buying DVD-Recorders with hard drives, a central Mac could record multiple feeds at once. Softron has a product called DV Recorder, but I'm not sure if it's the same product. DV Recorder is programmable.

Or if you are a really productive editor, you can be capturing from multiple deck while at the same time, you are editing in FCP. How's that for multi-tasking.

There's also Movie Recorder for working with non-DV sources of video, like uncompressed SD. Another $900 for this too. How about some HDV support?

Format Rundown

Here's a couple of good articles (Part 1 and Part 2) that runs through different formats on HD for Indies. The HDV section is really dated, but otherwise it's a good rundown on the basics on these formats technical-wise. Skips some newer formats like Sony's IMX codec, AVCHD, and AVC-Intra. I've actually found wikipedia isn't a bad place if you want to buff up on technical stuff like formats.

Here's what's covered:
DV
DVCPRO50
Digibeta
HDV 720 (JVC) vs. HDV 1080i (Sony)
DVCPRO HD
HDCAM
D-5
HDCAM SR