Whats Needed To Convert Digital Raw Footage To Web Files?

[Lee]

In terms of movie content?

Im just curious to know what the process is from actually finishing the shoot, i presume on digital media, then converting that raw data to a web usable file?

Im used to taking DVD content and ripping it right now so im not sure if there are 'extra' steps in the middle that are going to be a learning curve for me or not.

Could one of you folks that shoot movie content give me some feedback on this please?

Regards,

Lee

[nickbaer]

I shoot SONY HDV, capture to Apple Mac Final Cut Pro, edit, export as QuickTime, import into DVD Studio Pro, author, then mail to AEBN.

[Lee]

Okay anyone else...

Regards,

Lee

[gaybucks_chip]

I think i understand your question but am not sure.

I assume you're talking about, for example, HD content that is never recorded onto tape, but captured directly onto a flash media card or hard drive.

Our HD camera outputs directly to an external drive unit. There is an individual file for each start-and-stop of the camera, so a given scene with an hour of raw footage might have hundreds of files, each with one scene or angle.

There really is no intermediate step, actually it's *fewer* steps because you don't have to capture from the DV tape to the computer. On the PC, you have to buy a plugin that allows Premiere or Vegas to access the digital files (they are in MXF format, which isn't natively supported yet in either Premiere or Vegas) and you have to configure Premiere (and presumably Vegas) to the correct frame size and frame rate, but other than that, and dealing with a hundred little files instead of one giant one, the process is pretty identical.

Oh, and also... HD files in native 1080 resolution are huge, about 1GB per minute. We have about 5 TB of hard drive storage, and that's almost full, so we're in the process of archiving everything we don't need (the raw HD files, and edited 1080 HD AVIs, for example) to tape to recapture some of the space.

[Lee]

Chip,

Thats right, it would be HD content.

What im hoping, is that i can process this content once, and have it output ready for both web AND DVD use in the same processing per scene, etc.

Im just wondering if id be able to process both for web and for dvd at the same time (without editing) or am i going to need to have the editing done then the encoding (that make sense?).

As i say, right now, i can pretty much rip DVDs for web usage, im just wondering how 'different' ripping (is that the right term?) the raw data for web useage will be?

Regards,

Lee

[BBweb]

Chip,

Thats right, it would be HD content.

What im hoping, is that i can process this content once, and have it output ready for both web AND DVD use in the same processing per scene, etc.

Im just wondering if id be able to process both for web and for dvd at the same time (without editing) or am i going to need to have the editing done then the encoding (that make sense?).

As i say, right now, i can pretty much rip DVDs for web usage, im just wondering how 'different' ripping (is that the right term?) the raw data for web useage will be?

Regards,

Lee

Capture video
Edit Video
Render full size video avi or mov
Encode vide for web and dvd

[ArmpitLover]

Final Cut Pro, Sorenson Squeeze 4, A decent amount or RAM & ROM, More hours in the day + Patience to edit out the farts, giggles and sirens that go on in the background.

Don't worry Lee, You'll do fine!

[gaybucks_chip]

For the HD content, the only issues are the conversion from HD to SD... you'll need to scale or "downrez" it to standard def (720x480 is NTSC standard). The way we handle it is to output the edited scene once as an HD AVI, and then scale that to a master SD AVI. The SD AVI is what we use to encode all the different formats we need, Flash/WM/Quicktime/whatever.

Once you have your final source media, if you use Squeeze or Procoder, you can then just stack up whatever formats, bitrates, sizes you want and it will merrily go off and create all the different versions for you.

[ArmpitLover]

For the HD content, the only issues are the conversion from HD to SD... you'll need to scale or "downrez" it to standard def (720x480 is NTSC standard). The way we handle it is to output the edited scene once as an HD AVI, and then scale that to a master SD AVI. The SD AVI is what we use to encode all the different formats we need, Flash/WM/Quicktime/whatever.

Once you have your final source media, if you use Squeeze or Procoder, you can then just stack up whatever formats, bitrates, sizes you want and it will merrily go off and create all the different versions for you.

(and that would be the correct professional response)

sorry Lee

[Jasun]

I capture diretly from tape to Final Cut Pro.

I then go back to tape, then recapture from tape into Windows Media Encoder.

OR... if doing quick time I either take the WMV files and convert those directly in Sorensen Squeeze or I take raw files exported from FCP into Sorensen Squeeze.





by the way... I only use Sorensen Squeeze 3 on my old Mac G4 with OS9.

I've never seen a better program for doing web video.. the newer versions look better but the end result is never as good.

[KMBucks]

It depends on how much money you want to spend on editing equipment. What we use is:

Canon XL2 upgrading this month to HD
Final Cut Pro Studio 2

After shooting, on tape or HDD media you upload log and capture it with Final Cut Pro, edit it in Final Cut Pro, add effects or fixes with Stabilize or Motion 3, then export it with the Batch program that comes with studio into any format you need, even WMV. (Giving you have Episode from Flip4Mac installed).

After you have it once inside Final Cut you can really re-export it as many times as you need into any format, and if on a later date you want to re-export everything in a different format its easy and hassle free, just keep your hard drives backed up and stored in a secure location for later use.

New to Final Cut Studio 2 is a program called Color, I highly recommend that all digital video editors take time to master this program as it can really make a difference in the quality of your clips. When I have the time I will be color correcting all previous clips on KM using Color, because it simple just makes it that much better. But knowing what you're doing is essential when it comes to Color correction.

Tip: Final Cut is really good at up scaling good quality shot DV 16:9 to HD quality, its not true HD but its actually very good, surprisingly. However I don't recommend passing it off as true HD

That's my work flow.

[Xstr8guy]

The part that everyone other than ArmpitLover seems to be glossing over is the editing. Maybe I'm just slow, but it takes MANY hours to edit raw footage into a 20 minute video. It's absolutely grueling but very rewarding.

[Alex_Manifest_M]

HERE HERE...To edit, correct the audio, color, add titles and sound track take about 10 hours for a 20 min video. Good thing editing is my favorite part ;-)

[Xstr8guy]

HERE HERE...To edit, correct the audio, color, add titles and sound track take about 10 hours for a 20 min video. Good thing editing is my favorite part ;-)

Oh shwew! I'm glad I'm not the only one taking that much time (and more).

I thought maybe I was doing something wrong, .

[A_DeAngelo]

The part that everyone other than ArmpitLover seems to be glossing over is the editing. Maybe I'm just slow, but it takes MANY hours to edit raw footage into a 20 minute video. It's absolutely grueling but very rewarding.

I agree one hundred percent - some editors have boasted that it takes only 4 hours to edit one scene because we shoot in sequence - I know better - a good editing job can take many hours if not days for one scene - a good editor is worth their weight in gold - I'm just learning final cut and its a bear! (but you can teach this old dog new tricks)

oh, and sound is critical too....!