Best capture of DVCAM ...SDI or firewire ?????

You don't list your system config, so I'm not sure how to answer. Do you have a 3rd party capture card or box?

Generally speaking, you won't get any better than what's recorded on tape, which means you can't improve on a firewire capture.

However, if you will be doing a lot of chroma key work, by capturing uncompressed via SDI you gain the advantage of 4:2:2, which will sharpen edges, giving you a slightly better key. Very slightly better.

To capture via SDI, you must have a 3rd party capture device, like an Aja Kona card or Aja Io.

DVCAM uses the same preset as DV. The difference is in the way it's recorded on the tape, not the data on the tape. There's some debate over whether you can get better quality capturing via SDI, but I don't see how you can get better quality than a straight digital transfer of the data via firewire. Editing and in particular compositing is another story. You may get better quality working in a different format however, unless you've got fast drives and a top class system, you may be best off working in dv until you're ready to finish.

Message was edited by: Michael Grenadier

Brian, Will you see any difference if you capture via firewire and then convert your material to an uncompressed format via compressor or just edit in an uncompressed timeline?

Most decks that have both FW and SDI will do a better job of it than either FCP or Compressor.

This brings up an interesting question that I'd love to know the answer to. If you do indeed take a DV file and either reencode it using say Pro Res or uncompressed (or capture it that way via SDI), once you DO something to it, such as color correction, because it's in a more robust codec NOW, does it really make a difference, or will it still look crappy since it started in DV? I'm curious because DV usually looks pretty crappy when you start to color correct it, but if changing codecs allowed for better color correction (since the better codec allows you to access more colors), it's possible that the final answer is yes, use SDI because it will turn out better in the long run.

Anyone have a good answer for this?

As Sony says, DVCAM is an "8 bit digital component recording with 5:1 compression ratio and sampling at the rate of 4:1:1." When you ingest it using Firewire and the DV NTSC (or PAL) 48kHz Capture Preset that's as good as it gets. Though some DVCAM decks offer an SDI output (for non-firewire editing purposes) I think that what it's spitting out is still 8 bit/5:1 compression/DV 25Mbps 4:1:1 DVCAM. Or am I missing something?

Back about a thousand years ago, when I still used the Cinewave analog card, I'd capture dv as SD 4:2:2 video, and could do some nice compositing with it. correction was marginally better, but not all that stunning. Never tried SDI though.

The deck will output SDI as uncompressed 4:2:2 with chroma smoothing that is, with most decks, superior to the smoothing that FCP does. The bitrate when using Aja or Decklink codecs is about 21 or 28 MB/sec. DV is about 3.6 MB/sec.

Then save your money and just use firewire DV. You'll be fine.

I don't think SDI capture is gonna help you a great deal in this workflow, but talk to the people doing the PAL to NTSC conversion. They may have a better handle on it. Doing an actual short test is not a bad idea.

Slightly off topic but might give you some ideas;

As far as my experience goes, I normally prefer to convert to the final format ASAP.
If you really plan to finish in NTSC then it is good to get to NTSC before you do GFX or tweaks.

The Alchemist is nice, but any graphics, or hard grading will degenerate in the conversion.
Personally I find that getting rushes/wilds/source-tapes converted, and then editing in NTSC, and output to NTSC is the best option.
Your 'cuts' will look like cuts too, not mini mixes as what sometimes happens.

You could capture into FCP straight from Alchemist while it records to digital Beta, or NTSC DVCAM backups?
I know a great facility that has done this for me in the past, and they do the NTSC output for me to digital beta too once my edit is finished.
I just bring in a hard drive, they have FCP and roll it out.
Luckily they do DVD masters too so they do the full package after I cut straight from my digital files from FCP.


FC

Excellent point, but it might be cheaper to do a rough cut and just convert selects. But you're definitely right about graphics and the "soft cut" effect.