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Portal
19-03-2004, 01:58 AM
So sorry if this question has been previously answered but i will try to be brief.
I am tired of seeing Vista Programmers Take forever on Gigs to get there crap together for basic video Motage Playback.
What is a way that i can have Beta SP playback Quality by using the Catalyst. ?? I it Possible.
What do i need to make it possible if it isnt.

I have programmed Catalyst before but have never tried to make it a Video Replacement silution untill now. Am i Crazy or what do you think

Thanks
Cameron

samsc
19-03-2004, 11:14 AM
Another counterintuitive thing with digital video systems is this:

The worse the quality of the source- the harder it is to compress.

For example if you source something from VHS - its much harder to make it compress than if the source is digi-beta.

This is because there is a lot of noise and distortion in VHS images.
The compression algorithm has to compress this noise as well.
The data rate of a VHS image - compressed with a codec - will be higher than a digibeta image.

So higher 'quality' images are actually easier to deal with - at greater compression rates- which means you can play them back without raid arrays.

samsc
19-03-2004, 11:21 AM
What is a way that i can have Beta SP playback Quality by using the Catalyst. ??
Cameron

you can control a beta deck..from dmx in the next version...

depends what you mean by 'beta quality'?

It depends on how you compress your footage, and how fast your discs are.

Back in 1995 - i did broadcast jobs with 2MB/s footage - rendering onto d5 - ( but my footage had been shot on 16mm or 35mm film... )
The 'quality' of your movies depends on the quality of your source material, how many times you have recompressed it, how you altered it during your production workflow.
The truth of all the 'quality' issues, is that if your source material looks good and is shot or rendered well then the output will look good.
Beta SP can look terrible, i mean really awful - worse than any current DV camera - if the exposure is wrong - or the footage not very good.
Once you start looking closely at Beta SP footage -it has lots of problems too.
I would never master anything onto Beta SP.
I would always master onto DigiBeta.
( but - i did a graphics job for BBC2 - and mastered onto Digibeta- and the DV dub i did looked better - it was slightly softer - warmer and the colours were better )
---

You can use uncompressed movies with catalyst but you need a fast hard disc array. This is no different to any other non-linear system.
The more 'quality' ( which is equated with compression ) you want - the faster discs you need-
The larger the RAID array you need.
Standard ATA drives - just dont hack it.
---

If I wanted good quality - without using a raid array-
I would use DV movies, and make sure they had been recompressed as few times as possible. I would recreate the final output from the original, and re-source all graphics.
I wouldnt want 3rd generation artbeats movies anywhere near me.

Portal
19-03-2004, 03:53 PM
So how will the Beta Diliver Content to the Screens will it go throught the Catalyst or go straigt via a switcher.

What about Audio off the Beta Deck how would that work?

Would it be safe to bid this technology for a show in May??

Thanks

Cameron