AJA Ki Pro

If you thought that there were more than enough tapeless recording devices already on the market by Focus Enhancements, Edirol and Convergent Designs, you would only be partially right. The AJA Ki Pro sparked a lot of enthusiasm at NAB 2009. While it clearly offers cameramen many benefits, it also provides some opportunities for the world of post production.

The Ki Pro was developed by AJA, but like the Io and the IoHD before it, the internal software was co-developed with Apple. Ki Pro approaches tapeless field production from an NLE-friendly, rather than camera-native, design. It records QuickTime movies using embedded versions of Apple’s ProRes 422 and ProRes 422HQ codecs. As a result, you can open these files directly from the hard drive using any QuickTime compliant application, as long as the ProRes codecs are installed on your computer.

As an aside, the name Ki Pro stems from the Asian concept of ki or chi. This is a term for the life force or inner power of all living beings and plays a large part in the philosophies of many types of martial arts.

Configuration

The AJA Ki Pro uses a small, lightweight form factor. It’s about the size of a very large paperback book and can be attached in the field to various camera rigs. The standard package (MSRP $3,995) includes the Ki Pro device, a 250GB removable hard drive and AC power adapters for the Ki Pro and the drive, for when it is detached. Optional accessories include larger capacity drives, solid state storage and a cage and rail system called the Exoskeleton. The latter is a bracket and mount to install the Ki Pro onto a camera rig or tripod and then to attach a small camera to that Exoskeleton system.

Think of the Ki Pro as a recording device that’s built around a version of the AJA FS1 format converter. This means that you not only record in native 525i, 625i, 720p, 1080i or 1080psf, but you can also up/down/cross-convert a signal to one of these formats on input or output. The front panel gives you access to transport controls, menu functions and mix levels for the analog inputs. The back panel holds a series of input and output connectors for HDMI, SDI, component analog and composite video. There are also unbalanced RCA and balanced analog audio XLR connectors with a mic, line and phantom power switch. Finally, there are other interface connections, including timecode in/out, a 9-pin serial port, 1394a, 1394b and Ethernet.

The Ki Pro includes a removable, Mac-formatted 250GB hard drive, which docks to the Ki Pro and connects over a custom multi-pin connector. It can also be connected externally to any computer with a FireWire 800 port (1394b). The Ki Pro front panel sports two ExpressCard|34 memory slots, for optional future recording to a card-based medium.

In the field

I found the Ki Pro to be extremely well thought out. You can run it in the field off of battery or the AC adapter if you have shore power. The system can be controlled from the front panel, a LAN or wirelessly through an access point like an Airport base station. This means you can control it remotely from a laptop or even an iPhone or iPod Touch via a web browser. The latter might come in handy if you have a Ki Pro mounted at the end of a camera crane.

The record settings, like format, clip name, conversion, timecode values, etc. are set by an operator using the front panel controls or one of the remote methods. The menu is easy to navigate once you get the hang of it, but it’s easier to do from the web interface. I tested it through my home router without any issues. Plug in the IP address as the URL and you have access to all the Ki Pro settings (and operational control) using Firefox, Safari or another standard browser.

As an editor, I appreciate the thought put into naming conventions. Unlike the cryptic methods used by camera manufacturers, the Ki Pro lets you assign reel IDs and clip or scene numbers in an EDL and script-compatible manner. Typically all recordings on one drive would have the same reel number, from 001 to 999. Recordings can be designated as clips or scenes with appended alphabetical values and take numbers. Once you assign the initial values, subsequent recordings automatically increment the take number until the operator makes a change. Your first recorded file might be labeled as SC12ATK1, the next would be SC12ATK2 and so on. When you mount the drive on your computer, it shows up with the name of 001 (or another assigned reel number) on the desktop.

Actual use

At the time of this review, shipping units like my evaluation Ki Pro have 1.0 software. Not all functions are yet enabled. For example, I couldn’t start/stop recordings from a camera. AJA is planning an October firmware update that will enable such automatic recording. You will be able to roll the camera and if it provides SDI embedded timecode or has LTC timecode output, then the Ki Pro starts recording when it sees the timecode value change and stops when the value stops changing.

Another function I like is auto-format-sensing. Whatever is coming into Ki Pro will automatically be the native format recorded, unless up/down/cross-conversion is assigned. The exception is 23.98PsF media. To properly record these files, the operator must change the Record Type from Normal to PsF. I was able to test this with SDI from a Sony EX-3 and it worked as advertised. In a future update, AJA plans to provide VFR support as in its KONA and IoHD products. This means you would be able to record the output of a Panasonic VariCam and the Ki Pro would record and recognize the variable speed flags.

AJA started development of Ki Pro long before Apple released its new Final Cut Studio, which included additional ProRes codecs. It is likely that AJA will eventually expand the recording options to include other ProRes codecs; however, the Ki Pro is a single-stream 4:2:2 SDI device. This makes it unlikely that the current Ki Pro model will support the new high-end ProRes 4444 codec. Personally, I have no problem with this, because Ki Pro is intended to be a mastering device on par with high-quality videotape. ProRes 422 equates to the data rate of HDCAM at 147Mbps, while ProRes 422HQ is close to HD-D5 at 220Mbps. In its present form, Ki Pro delivers outstanding visual quality already matching or surpassing all other HD camcorder recordings.

One of the big benefits of Ki Pro is that it extends the life of cameras that have good image technology, but weak recording systems. Many Panasonic VariCam owners aren’t keen to change to newer P2 cameras, since their tape-based VariCams still create very compelling images. Adding a Ki Pro and recording the full-raster, uncompressed HD-SDI output from the camera as native 720p or converted 1080i, means that there’s a lot of life left in those VariCams. Another example is Canon’s XL H1, which is a great camera burdened with a 25Mbps HDV recording mechanism. Ki Pro adds a superior recording system to that camera.

Post production

All of the above makes Ki Pro a great recording product, but the real beauty is for Final Cut editors. Simply eject the 250GB drive, connect it to your computer via FW800 and it mounts on the desktop. All files are contained within a single AJA folder. You can copy those files to your local drive or edit directly from the Ki Pro drive. If you want to edit directly, simply import the AJA folder into the FCP browser and the clips are immediately available. I received a “media not optimized” prompt on my MacBook Pro, but, I didn’t see that same message with a Mac Pro tower. This is a result of how FCP’s Dynamic RT technology indexes performance on these two different computers. Nevertheless, various HD clips in both ProRes 422 and ProRes 422HQ played fine from the Ki Pro’s removable drive on both the laptop and the workstation.

The AJA Ki Pro offers other advantages away from the field. Since up/down/cross-conversion is built-in, simply cable the Ki Pro to nearly any monitor and you can play out audio and video. I was even able to connect HDMI to my living room flat panel and see the high-def video from the Ki Pro. Since the drive uses standard Mac formatting, you can also copy compatible QuickTime ProRes files from the computer back into the AJA folder on the drive. Once the drive is docked back into the Ki Pro, these files can be played out through the video spigots as if they were recorded by the Ki Pro. In addition, the front panel will display the file name, even if it doesn’t conform to the clip/scene naming convention used by the Ki Pro.

(Note: According to AJA this is not yet officially supported, due to some remaining audio work. This will be fully implemented in a future update. Also in the future will be support for the i/o of up to 8 channels of audio over embedded SDI and HDMI.)

This last situation brings up some interesting possibilities. Many small shops are resisting the need to purchase HD VTRs, which can potentially cost more than their entire edit system. If you need to deliver a high definition videotape master (HDCAM, HDCAM-SR, HD-D5, etc.), Ki Pro could be used as an intermediate source. Copy the show to the Ki Pro drive and then take the complete unit to a facility that owns the necessary deck. Connect the Ki Pro to the VTR using SDI and dub from the Ki Pro to the videotape. Granted it’s two steps, but the cost of the Ki Pro, the service and tape stock is a lot less than owning a high-end VTR for only infrequent use. Several days’ rental alone of an HDCAM-SR deck would pay for the Ki Pro.

In closing, it’s important to note that although the ProRes codecs are optimized for Final Cut, this doesn’t mean Ki Pro recordings are limited to only Final Cut Pro. If you run Adobe’s CS4 products on a Mac, then ProRes and ProRes HQ files open and can be used in both Premiere Pro and After Effects. (Final Cut Studio or a ProRes QT component must also be installed to enable this.) Same for Media 100. These files can also be imported into Avid Media Composer, but will be transcoded into DNxHD media upon import. (That might change down the road, if Avid includes drivers for QuickTime files within its Avid Media Architecture API.) Finally, Apple offers a free Windows playback-only QuickTime component for ProRes files. This enables you to open and play ProRes-encoded movies on PCs with QuickTime installed.

On the whole, AJA’s Ki Pro is a versatile product that has quite a few useful applications in the field, the studio and in post. AJA has earned a stellar support reputation, which goes a long way towards pushing the Ki Pro ahead of the competition. If you’ve been looking for a tapeless acquisition device that was designed with post in mind, then look no further. The AJA Ki Pro is it.

© 2009 Oliver Peters

Written for NewBay Media LLC and DV magazine

Blackmagic Design UltraScope

Blackmagic Design’s UltraScope gained a lot of buzz at NAB 2009. In a time when fewer facilities are spending precious budget dollars on high-end video and technical monitors, the UltraScope seems to fit the bill for a high-quality, but low-cost waveform monitor and vectorscope. It doesn’t answer all needs, but if you are interested in replacing that trusty NTSC Tektronix , Leader or Videotek scope with something that’s both cost–effective and designed for HD, then the UltraScope may be right for you.

The Blackmagic Design Ultrascope is an outgrowth of the company’s development of the Decklink cards. Purchasing UltraScope provides you with two components – a PCIe SDI/HD-SDI input card and the UltraScope software. These are to be installed into a qualified Windows PC with a high-resolution monitor and in total, provide a multi-pattern monitoring system. The PC specs are pretty loose. Blackmagic Design has listed a number of qualified systems on their website, but like most companies, these represent products that have been tested and known to work – not all the possible options that, in fact, will work. Stick to the list and you are safe. Pick other options and your mileage may vary.

Configuring your system

The idea behind UltraScope is to end up with a product that gives you high-quality HD and SD monitoring, but without the cost of top-of-the-line dedicated hardware or rasterizing scopes. The key ingredients are a PC with a PCIe bus and the appropriate graphics display card. The PC should have an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5GHz processor (or better) and run Windows XP or Vista. Windows 32-bit and 64-bit versions are supported, but check Blackmagic Design’s tech specs page for exact details. According to Blackmagic Design, the card has to incorporate the OpenGL 2.1 (or better) standard. A fellow editor configured his system with an off-the-shelf card from a computer retailer for about $100. In his case, a Diamond-branded card using the ATI 4650 chipset worked just fine.

You need the right monitor for the best experience. Initial marketing information specified 24” monitors. In fact, the requirement is to be able to support a 1920×1200 screen resolution. My friend is using an older 23” Apple Cinema Display. HP also makes some monitors with that resolution in the 22” range for under $300. If you are prepared to do a little “DIY” experimentation and don’t mind returning a product to the store if it doesn’t work, then you can certainly get UltraScope to work on a PC that isn’t on Blackmagic Design’s list. Putting together such a system should cost under $2,000, including the UltraScope and monitor, which is well under the price of the lowest-cost competitor.

Once you have a PC with UltraScope installed, the rest is pretty simple. The UltraScope software is simply another Windows application, so it can operate on a workstation that is shared for other tasks. UltraScope becomes the dominant application when you launch it. Its interface hides everything else and can’t be minimized, so you are either running UltraScope or not. As such, I’d recommend using a PC that isn’t intended for essential editing tasks, if you plan to use UltraScope fulltime.

Connect your input cable to the PCIe card and whatever is being sent will be displayed in the interface. The UltraScope input card can handle coax and fiber optic SDI at up to 3Gb/s and each connection offers a loop-through. Most, but not all, NTSC, PAL and HD formats and frame-rates are supported. For instance, 1080p/23.98 is supported but 720p/23.98 is not. The input is auto-sensing, so as you change project settings or output formats on your NLE, the UltraScope adjusts accordingly. No operator interaction is required.

The UltraScope display is divided into six panes that display parade, waveform, vectorscope, histogram, audio and picture. The audio pane supports up to 8 embedded SDI channels and shows both volume and phase. The picture pane displays a color image and VITC timecode. There’s very little to it beyond that. You can’t change the displays or rearrange them. You also cannot zoom, magnify or calibrate the scope readouts in any way. If you need to measure horizontal or vertical blanking or where captioning is located within the vertical interval, then this product isn’t for you. The main function of the UltraScope is to display levels for quality control monitoring and color correction and it does that quite well. Video levels that run out of bounds are indicated with a red color, so video peaks that exceed 100 change from white to red as they cross over.

Is it right for you?

The UltraScope is going to be more useful to some than others. For instance, if you run Apple Final Cut Studio, then the built-in software scopes in Final Cut Pro or Color will show you the same information and, in general use, seem about as accurate. The advantage of UltraScope for such users, is the ability to check levels at the output of any hardware i/o card or VTR, not just within the editing software. If you are an Avid editor, then you only have access to built-in scopes when in the color correction mode, so UltraScope is of greater benefit.

My colleague’s system is an Avid Media Composer equipped with Mojo DX. By adding UltraScope he now has fulltime monitoring of video waveforms, which is something the Media Composer doesn’t provide. The real-time updating of the display seems very fast without lag. I did notice that the confidence video in the picture pane dropped a few frames at times, but the scopes appeared to keep up. I’m not sure, but it seems that Blackmagic Design has given preference in the software to the scopes over the image display, which is a good thing. The only problem we encountered was audio. When the Mojo DX was supposed to be outputting eight discrete audio channels, only four showed up on the UltraScope meters. As we didn’t have an 8-channel VTR to test this, I’m not sure if this was an Avid or Blackmagic Design issue.

Since the input card takes any SDI signal, it also makes perfect sense to use the Blackmagic Design UltraScope as a central monitor. You could assign the input to the card from a router or patch bay and use it in a central machine room. Another option is to locate the computer centrally, but use Cat5-DVI extenders to place a monitor in several different edit bays. This way, at any given time, one room could use the UltraScope, without necessarily installing a complete system into each room.

Future-proofed through software

It’s important to remember that this is 1.0 product. Because UltraScope is software-based, features that aren’t available today can easily be added. Blackmagic Design has already been doing that over the years with its other products. For instance, scaling and calibration aren’t there today, but if enough customers request it, then it might be available in the next software update as a simple downloadable update.

Blackmagic Design UltraScope is a great product for the editor that misses having a dedicated set of scopes, but who doesn’t want to break the bank anymore. Unlike hardware units, a software product like UltraScope makes it easier than ever to update features and improve the existing product over time. Even if you have built-in scopes within your NLE, this is going to be the only way to make sure your i/o card is really outputting the right levels, plus it gives you an ideal way to check the signal on your VTR without tying up other systems. And besides… What’s cooler to impress a client than having another monitor whose display looks like you are landing 747s at LAX?

©2009 Oliver Peters

Written for NewBay Media LLC and DV magazine

NAB 2009 – 10 goodies you might have missed

By now you’ve probably caught up on all big announcements from NAB 2009. If not, then hop over to Videography or DV for the NAB coverage supplied by my colleagues and me during our blogs and wrap-up stories for the magazine. In this post I’d like to focus on 10 relatively inexpensive items that will improve your productivity.

 

 

AJA Video – The AJA Ki Pro was the hit of the show for many, but don’t forget the Io Express. The new little brother of the IoHD follows on the heels of the older IoLA and IoLD, except that it now handles HD. Io Express connects via PCIe instead of FireWire and is ideal for laptop monitoring and mastering.

 

 

Automatic Duck – The Duck is known for timeline translation, but has brought back a popular application from the past. Media Copy 2.0 reads an Avid AAF or OMF 2.0 file or a Final Cut Pro XML file, figures out which media files are used by that sequence then copies the media to a location you specify. This is a great way to consolidate media and helps out where FCP’s own Media Manager is deficient.

 

 

Blackmagic Design – Lots of buzz about their UltraScope waveform monitor, but check out their DVI Extender. I’m not a big fan of the Gefen extenders so I’m glad to see BMD’s product, which uses standard BNC connectors and SDI cables to extend computer monitor signals. The DVI Extenders can also be used for DVI-to-SDI video conversion at HD and SD resolutions.

 

 

Boris FX – Boris Continuum Complete 6 – Always a winner, BCC continues improving and covers nearly every host system on the market. BCC6 for After Effects is out and BCC6 for FxPlug (FCP & Motion) is in beta and will hit the market soon. New effects include extruded 3D text using the Boris Blue engine and reflections. The FxPlug version will have a few extra twists, such as an interactive preset preview browser.

 

 

Chemical Wedding – Location crews will welcome the Helios Sun Calculator, which is available through the iTunes Store as an iPhone application. This convenient tool provides accurate information about the path of the sun and how that may influence the planning of a shoot.

 

 

CoreMelt – This has been a popular set of effects filters and transitions available in Noise Industries’ FxFactory toolset. New this year are the V2 filter sets that run independent of the FxFactory filter management tool. CoreMelt V2 packs can be purchased either as a complete collection for FCP or After Effects, or as individual modules. For example, if you only want color correction filters or only glow filters, then those can be purchased without buying the whole collection. I especially like their color correction filters, which use intuitive sliders and feature a heads-up-display for grading curves.

 

 

Euphonix – I love control surfaces and if you hate to mix in FCP, Pro Tools or Logic with the mouse, then the Euphonix Artist Series is for you. These modular panels include MC Mix, MC Control and the new MC Transport. You can mix-and-match modules depending on whether you just want fader control or more panels with programmable hot keys.

 

Matrox – They are one of three strong hardware suppliers for FCP and Premiere Pro editors. MXO2 has become quite popular, so take a look at the new MXO2 Mini, if you’d like something even more portable. It can ingest and output HD via HDMI or analog connections plus analog-only for NTSC and PAL. It is a cost-effective monitoring and conversion unit for the laptop user. Even better, Minis will include the MAX encoding option. For an additional cost, MXO2 Minis can be purchased with onboard, hardware-accelerated H.264 encoding, adding more functionality to the unit. This means all three MXO2 products with MAX can be used to accelerate any H.264 files using Compressor. The NAB demos provided considerably faster-than-real-time performance.

 

 

Noise Industries – You’ve got to love FxFactory. The 2.0.7 update is available as a free download and every release adds a few more free effects plug-ins. FxFactory filters are supplied by Noise Industries as well as other development partners like iDustrial Revolution. iDustrial just released its own update to their really cool Volumetrix filter set. If you do a lot with type also check out Motype. A new partnership has been announced with Boinx for a series of tile and shatter filters.

 

 

Singular Software – PluralEyes was the simplest, yet most amazing FCP companion at the show. It’s essential if you do a lot of multicam editing in FCP. PluralEyes automatically synchronizes multiple sources without the use of timecode. If you shoot a concert with pro-consumer camcorders, there is no longer any need to hand-sync each clip. Instead, PluralEyes will analyze the audio tracks and line up the various sources in sync with each other based solely on the alignment of the audio.

 

Check out DV and Videography writers’ commentary during the show at DV’s (Almost) Live from NAB blog: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

 

© 2009 Oliver Peters

What’s wrong with this picture?

“May you live in interesting times” is said to be an ancient Chinese curse. That certainly describes modern times, but no more so than in the video world. We are at the intersection of numerous transitions: analog to digital broadcast; SD to HD; CRTs to LCD and plasma displays; and tape-based to file-based acquisition and delivery. Where the industry had the chance to make a clear break with the past, it often chose to integrate solutions that protected legacy formats and infrastructure, leaving us with the bewildering options that we know today.

 

Broadcasters settled on two standards: 720p and 1080i. These are both full-raster, square pixel formats: 1280x720p/59.94 (60 progressive frames per seconds in NTSC countries) – commonly known as “60P” – and 1920x1080i/59.94 (60 interlaced fields per second in NTSC countries) – commonly known as “60i”. The industry has wrestled with interlacing since before the birth of NTSC.

 

Interlaced scan

 

Interlaced displays show a frame as two sequential sets of alternating odd and even-numbered scan lines. Each set is called a field and occurs at 1/60th of a second, so two fields make a single full-resolution frame. Since the fields are displaced in time, one frame with fast horizontal motion will appear like it has serrated edges or horizontal lines. That’s because odd-numbered scan lines show action that occurred 1/60th of a second apart from the even-numbered, adjacent scan lines. If you routinely move interlaced content between software apps, you have to careful to maintain proper field dominance (whether edits start on field 1 or field 2 of a frame) and field order (whether a frame is displayed starting with odd or even-numbered scan lines).

 

Progressive scan

 

A progressive format, like 720p, displays a complete, full-resolution frame for each of 60 frames per second. All scan lines show action that was captured at the exact same instance in time. When you combine the spatial with the temporal resolution, the amount of data that passes in front of a viewer’s eyes in one second is essentially the same for 1080i (about 62 million pixels) as for 720p (about 55 million pixels).

 

Progressive is ultimately a better format solution from the point-of-view of conversions and graphics. Progressive media scales more easily from SD to HD without the risk of introducing interlace errors that can’t be corrected later. Graphic and VFX artists also have a better time with progressive media and won’t have issues with proper field order, as is so often the case when working with NTSC or even 1080i. The benefits of progressive media apply regardless of the format size or frame rate, so 1080p/23.98 offers the same advantages.

 

Outside of the boundary lines

 

Modern cameras, display systems and NLEs have allowed us to shed a number of boundaries from the past. Thanks to Sony and Laser Pacific, we’ve added 1920x1080psf/23.98. That’s a “progressive segmented frame” running at the video-friendly rate of 23.98 for 24fps media. PsF is really interlacing, except that at the camera end, both fields are captured at the same point in time. PsF allows the format to be “superimposed” onto an otherwise interlaced infrastructure with less impact on post and manufacturing costs.

 

Tapeless cameras have added more wrinkles. A Panasonic VariCam records to tape at 59.94fps (60P), even though you are shooting with the camera set to 23.98fps (24P). This is often called 24-over-60. New tapeless Panasonic P2 camcorders aren’t bound by VTR mechanisms and can record a file to the P2 recording media at any “native” frame rate. To conserve data space on the P2 card, simply record at the frame rate you need, like 23.98pn (progressive, native) or 29.97pn. No need for any redundant frames (added 3:2 pulldown) to round 24fps out to 60fps as with the VariCam.

 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t address raster size. At the top, I mentioned full-raster and square pixels, but the actual video content recorded in the file cheats this by changing the size and pixel aspect ratio as a way of reducing the data rate. This will vary with codec. For example, DVCPRO HD records at a true size of 960×720 pixels, but displays as 1280×720 pixels. Proper display sizes of such files (as compared with actual file sizes) are controlled by the NLE software or a media player application, like QuickTime.

 

Mixing it up

 

Editors routinely have to deal with a mix of frame rates, image sizes and aspect ratios, but ultimately this all has to go to tape or distribution through the funnel of the two accepted HD broadcast formats (720p/59.94 and 1080i/59.94). PLUS good old fashioned NTSC and/or PAL. For instance, if you work on a TV or film project being mastered at 1920x1080p/23.98, you need to realize several things: few displays support native 23.98 (24P) frame rates. You will ultimately have to generate not only a 23.98p master videotape or file, but also “broadcast” or “air” masters. Think of your 23.98p master as a “digital internegative”, which will be used to generate 1080i, 720p, NTSC, PAL, 16×9 squeezed, 4×3 center-cut and letterboxed variations.

 

Unfortunately your NLE won’t totally get you there. I recently finished some spots in 1080p/23.98 on an FCP system with a KONA2 card. If you think the hardware can convert to 1080i output, guess again! Changing FCP’s Video Playback setting to 1080i is really telling the FCP RT engine to do this in software, not in hardware. The ONLY conversions down by the KONA hardware are those available in the primary and secondary format options of the AJA Control Panel. In this case, only the NTSC downconversion gets the benefit of hardware-controlled pulldown insertion.

 

OK, so let FCP do it. The trouble with that idea is that yes, FCP can mix frame rates and convert them, but it does a poor job of it. Instead of the correct 2:3:2:3 cadence, FCP uses the faster-to-calculate 2:2:2:4. The result is an image that looks like frames are being dropped, because the fourth frame is always being displayed twice, resulting in a noticeable visual stutter. In my case, the solution was to use Apple Compressor to create the 1080i and 720p versions and to use the KONA2’s hardware downconversion for the NTSC Beta-SP dubs. Adobe After Effects also functions as a good, software conversion tool.

 

Another variation to this dilemma is the 720pn/29.97 (aka 30PN) of the P2 cameras. This is an easily edited format in FCP, but it deviates from the true 720p/59.94 standard. Edit in FCP with a 29.97p timeline, but when you change the Video Playback setting to 59.94, FCP converts the video on-the-fly to send a 60P video stream to the hardware. FCP is adding 2:2 pulldown (doubling each frame) to make the signal compliant. Depending on the horsepower of your workstation, you may, in fact, lower the image resolution by doing this. If you are doing this for HD output, it might actually be better to convert or render the 29.97p timeline to a new 59.94p sequence prior to output, in order to maintain proper resolution.

 

Converting to NTSC

 

But what about downconversion? Most of the HD decks and I/O cards you buy have built-in downconversion, right? You would think they do a good job, but when images are really critical, they don’t cut it. Dedicated conversion products, like the Teranex Mini do a far better job in both directions. I delivered a documentary to HBO and one of the items flagged by their QC department was the quality of the credits in the downconverted (letterboxed) Digital Betacam back-up master. I had used rolling end credits on the HD master, so I figured that changing the credits to static cards and bumping up the font size a bit would make it a lot better. I compared the converted quality of these new static HD credits through FCP internally, through the KONA hardware and through the Sony HDW-500 deck. None of these looked as crisp and clean as simply creating new SD credits for the Digital Betacam master. Downconverted video and even lower third graphics all looked fine on the SD master – just not the final credits.

 

The trouble with flat panels

 

This would be enough of a mess without display issues. Consumers are buying LCDs and plasmas. CRTs are effectively dead. Yet, CRTs are the only device to properly display interlacing – especially if you are troubleshooting errors. Flat panels all go through conversions and interpolation to display interlaced video in a progressive fashion. Going back to the original 720p versus 1080i options, I really have to wonder whether the rapid technology change in display devices was properly forecast. If you shoot 1080p/23.98, this often gets converted to a 1080i/59.94 broadcast master (with added 3:2 pulldown) and is transmitted to your set as a 1080i signal. The set converts the signal. That’s the best case scenario.

 

Far more often, the production company, network and local affiliate haven’t adopted the same HD standard. As a result, there may be several 720p-to-1080i and/or 1080i-to-720p that happen along the way. To further complicate things, many older consumer sets are native 720p panels and scale a 1080 image. Many include circuitry to remove 3:2 pulldown and convert 24fps programs back to progressive images. This is usually called the “film” mode setting. It generally doesn’t work well with mixed-cadence shows or rolling/crawling video titles over film content.

 

The newest sets are 1080p, which is a totally bogus marketing feature. These are designed for video game playback and not TV signals, which are simply frame-doubled. All of this mish-mash – plus the heavy digital compression used in transmission – makes me marvel at how bad a lot of HD signals look in retail stores. I recently saw a clip from NBC’s Heroes on a large 1080p set at a local Sam’s Club. It was far more pleasing to me on my 20” Samsung CRT at home, received over analog cable, than on the big 1080p digital panel.

 

Progress (?) marches on…

 

We can’t turn back time , of course, but my feeling about displays is that a 29.97p (30P) signal is the “sweet spot” for most LCD and plasma panels. In fact, 720p on most of today’s consumer panel looks about the same as 1080i or 1080p. When I look at 23.98 (24P) content as 29.97 (24p-over-60i), it looks proper to my eyes on a CRT, but a bit funky on an LCD display. On the other hand 29.97 (30P) strobes a bit on a CRT, but appears very smooth on a flat panel. Panasonic’s 720p/59.94 looks like regular video on a CRT, but 720p recorded as 30p-over-60p looks more film-like. Yet both signals actually look very similar on a flat panel. This is likely due to the refresh rates and image latency in an LCD or plasma panel as compared to a CRT. True 24P is also fine if your target is the web. As a web file it can be displayed as true 24fps without pulldown. Remember that as video, though, many flat panels cannot display 23.98 or 24fps frame rates without pulldown being added.

 

Unfortunately there is no single, best solution. If your target distribution is for the web or primarily to be viewed on flat panel display devices (including projectors), I highly recommend working strictly in a progressive format and a progressive timeline setting. If interlacing is involved, them make sure to deinterlace these clips or even the entire timeline before your final delivery. Reserve interlaced media and timelines for productions that are intended predominantly for broadcast TV using a 480i (NTSC) or 1080i transmission.

 

By now you’re probably echoing the common question, “When are we going to get ONE standard?” My answer is that there ARE standards – MANY of them. This won’t get better, so you can only prepare yourself with more knowledge. Learn what works for your system and your customers and then focus on those solutions – and yes – the necessary workarounds, too!

 

Does your head hurt yet?

 

© 2009 Oliver Peters

Adobe Creative Suite 4 – A First Look

Hot on the heals of last year’s huge Adobe software release, the company has quickly turned around another batch of impressive updates in its new Creative Suite 4 line-up. Once again, these products can be purchased individually or as part of various collections for web, video and print. Plus the all-in-one Master Collection. All CS4 products will ship by the end of Q4 2008. The Creative Suite family constitutes major growth for Adobe, which expects to ship approximately 500,000 pieces of just the video portion of this software to over 300,000 customers by the end of 2008.

 

I’ll focus my comments on Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium – the collection for video professionals. Its main applications include Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Flash Professional, Encore, OnLocation and Soundbooth. In addition, there are also other utilities designed to aid your workflow, such as Bridge, Device Central, Dynamic Link and Adobe Media Encoder.

 

Common feature enhancements

 

Going into depth on each application in the collection would require the entire magazine, so I’ll stick to the highlights. Across the board, Adobe has concentrated on several big improvements and additions between CS3 and CS4. These include user interface changes, searchable metadata based on XMP support and speech-to-text technology. The user interfaces of the various applications continue to move closer to a common Adobe layout. This tabbed workspace design is most completely implemented in Premiere Pro, After Effects and Soundbooth. Most of the applications have gained search fields that operate like Apple’s Spotlight. Typing information into the search field of a Premiere Pro bin will filter the displayed contents to match your criteria. In After Effects, for example, you can filter timeline layers to only display tracks where the object’s position has been altered, simply by typing “position” into the search field. Most of the applications have been metadata-enabled so meaningful descriptions, titles, keywords and copyright information can be captured and embedded into files using open source XMP technology.

 

Both Premiere Pro and Soundbooth have added a powerful, new speech recognition technology called Speech Search to automatically transcribe dialogue into searchable text. After the transcription process is complete, simply click on a word in the generated text (now part of the clip’s metadata) and the media file will instantly cue to the corresponding point. It’s a great technology, but I was less than satisfied with the accuracy of the automatic transcription. I picked one of Adobe’s demo clips (an interview with cinematographer Rob Legato) and had Soundbooth create a transcription. Legato speaks quickly but clearly, however the accuracy was only about 50% and turned such phrases as “a short shooting schedule” into “the court shaving scandal”. The latter might make for an interesting movie plot, but I wonder whether the time required to edit a transcription is too great of an offset to effectively use this feature on a real project. The accuracy was better on a different test file, but still at least 25% of the phrases were incorrect. In spite of that, Speech Search seems like a very useful tool for documentary editors. In fact, even some Avid editors have theorized that you could use Soundbooth CS4 to create transcriptions that in turn could be imported into Avid Media Composer for use with their

ScriptSync feature.

 

Aside from Speech Search, the biggest new product feature in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and After Effects CS4 is the native support for various tapeless camera formats. You can natively edit content from Panasonic P2 (DVCPRO, DVCPRO HD and AVC-Intra), Sony XDCAM-HD and XDCAM-EX media without transcoding or rewrapping. Premiere Pro can access the metadata for these clips and edit directly from the cards or use its built-in Media Browser to transfer the media to your local media drives for better performance. Running Premiere Pro CS4 on a dual-core 2.8 GHz iMac was a pleasure. Native 720p/23.98 DVCPROHD clips (imported from P2) played smoothly and JKL transport controls were very responsive even on media playing from the internal drive.

 

Although not technically part of this release, Adobe is currently working with RED Digital Cinema to develop a plug-in that would enable Premiere Pro and After Effects users to natively edit with RED’s .R3D camera raw files. You can see demos of how this will work at Dave Helmly’s blog. Adobe recognizes the potential of a raw workflow and plans to give editors access to debayering, gamma, ISO and white balance controls within their software.

 

The biggest changes

 

The most radical change in the Production Premium bundle is Adobe OnLocation CS4. The interface has been “Adobe-ized” and no longer sports the appearance of physical test gear installed in a rack. It now runs on both Macs and PCs and operates as the front-end, direct-to-disk recorder for an integrated end-to-end Adobe workflow. As before, it turns your desktop or laptop into a recording station, complete with monitor (your screen) and software scopes, but now features better clip management and the ability to add metadata to clips. DV and HDV cameras connected via FireWire work with OnLocation.

 

Soundbooth CS4 has evolved from a two-track to multi-track audio tool. Adobe does not view Soundbooth as a DAW competitor. It offers Audition (only sold individually) for those customers. Instead, Soundbooth CS4 is designed as a “helper” application to be used with Premiere Pro by video editors or Flash Professional by web developers. Soundbooth is designed as a less complex, task-based application for audio recording, editing, clean-up, mixing and music production. Although you can drill down into the effect filters and make custom adjustments, Soundbooth groups its processes by tasks with default presets. There are a decent set of tools for two-track audio production, similar to what you might find in BIAS Peak Pro or Sony Sound Forge. These are augmented with music composition tools using Adobe’s royalty-free scores. You can purchase new scores from Adobe’s Resource Central website, as well as download a wealth of free sound effects. Score creation with Soundbooth CS4 is similar to using Smart Sound’s Sonic Fire Pro, letting you tailor the length and arrangement of the score to your video. Now with multi-track support, you can mix dialogue, music and effects within Soundbooth CS4. A video editor will find Soundbooth CS4 useful for its clean-up and music tools, but a web producer would potentially do 100% of the audio production for a Flash website or a podcast with Soundbooth CS4.

 

The rest of the collection

 

Changes in the other applications might seem less dramatic depending on your needs. Photoshop CS4 Extended has gained 3D layer support. For the first time, you can import 3D objects into Photoshop. These can be manipulated in 3D space, including the ability to add textures, paint and make color modification. After Effects CS4 supports these 3D layers and also gained numerous enhancements. It includes a new built-in cartoon effect and comes bundled with Imagineer Systems’ Mocha for After Effects 2.5D planar motion tracking application.

 

Video layers were added last year to Photoshop CS3 Extended, so CS4 makes Photoshop an even more powerful tool for motion graphics of all types. Even the basic version offers more power than most video editors use, so I wish Adobe would offer a cheaper version with features that fit between Photoshop Elements and Photoshop CS4. I’m also surprised that Adobe hasn’t developed natural media painting features in Photoshop. This still seems to be an area left solely to Corel Painter.

 

In the past, you had to access the Adobe Media Encoder through Premiere Pro, but it is now included as a standalone application. It includes presets for all the popular media options (MPEG2, H264, iPod, Flash, etc.) and is one of the cleanest encoders I’ve used. I think you’ll find it a worthy rival for Apple Compressor, Sorenson Squeeze or Telestream Episode.

 

Although Flash CS4 Professional is part of this video bundle, you can now generate a Flash project directly from After Effects. Flash CS4 Professional received a total makeover with a timeline more like After Effects, but if you’re still more comfortable working in After Effects, then start there and later export to Flash CS4 Professional for completion. Another Adobe application that works with Flash is Encore. As in CS3, the updated CS4 version lets you author standard DVDs, Flash projects and Blu-ray high-def DVDs from a single project file. The CS3 version limited the Flash projects to 640×480 window sizes, but this limitation has been lifted in CS4. Now interactive Flash projects created in Encore can be designed in up to HD window sizes. Speaking of interactivity, Adobe is touting better Blu-ray authoring in Encore, though no BD-J authoring. I had no way to test this, but Blu-ray authoring is not yet a mature process. There have been compatibility issues with early players and Adobe has posted a number of trouble-shooting suggestions online. Since Blu-ray is an evolving technology, do your research if the sole interest in this software is to create Blu-ray DVDs.

 

More tools for your tool chest

 

As in the past, this collection is one of the most comprehensive “studio” bundles with a price that bests the competition in value. If you’re an Adobe fan, CS4 is a worthy upgrade. If you rely on Apple Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer for editing, Adobe is betting that there are enough essential applications in the bundle to make it worth your while just to pick up the whole package. Photoshop and After Effects are integral tools for most editors and Encore continues as a powerful, yet low-cost DVD authoring tool, so right there in three applications, you have paid for all the rest.

 

Adobe is a company that’s neutral in many of the big platform debates. They sell software and don’t have a vested interest in selling hardware. As such, there’s plenty of third party hardware and plug-in support to make Premiere Pro attractive to first time NLE users or switchers from other systems. With integrated metadata support, native operation with the most popular tapeless cameras and the ability to export to just about every one of today’s popular media formats, Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium is a package you’ll want to add to your system.

 

Written by Oliver Peters for Videography magazine and NewBay Media, LLC.