Workprinter Hd Transfer experimentation

[El Jeffe]

I have been wanting to do my own Super 8 transfers in High Def using the Workprinter and the Panasonic Hvx200. I got my self a Mac Pro 3.0 ghz with 9 gigs of Ram and setup a Raid 0 array consisting of 3 16mb 500gig drives.

Capture mate recognizes the camera and can accept the Dvcpro Hd codec which is a pretty mellow codec to compute and I thought this setup should have no problem. When capturing I am experiencing the frame blur associated with the timing being off. I have tried adjusting the timing belt and had no luck.

I am in no way looking for technical support from Roger or anyone else, but just wanted to share information for anyone that may be looking to do a similar setup. I am open to any suggestions on getting this setup to work however, so if you have any ideas feel free to chime in. I am going to be receiving a couple externals Drives this week for a project so I may add them into the raid array to see if that does anything. I was thinking maybe the firewire cable may be an issue it's a 14ft cable. Perhaps I need to go with a capture card solution.

[MovieStuff]

Hi!

I know of no one that is capturing HD using a workprinter with a Mac. However, I have a number of clients that have been using a workprinter with a PC and the only set up that seems to work dependably at the workprinter's 8fps capture-on-demand rate is a PC with 5 drives. One drive is your system drive. The other four should be SATA-II drives with 16mb cache that form a Raid. This Raid should be via a Raid card that uses a PCI-Express slot and not a software Raid or using the motherboard raid controller. You will also need a second PCI Express slot for a Decklink Intensity Pro card. The Intensity Pro card will let you capture uncompressed or you can use the motion JPEG format, which retains almost all the quality but allows you to change your compression rate to a file size that is a bit more manageable. For this reason, you might consider the Decklink card for your Mac. It might help you get things under control. So far, our HD experiments on a PC look just great.

Hope this helps.

Roger

[Rachel Oliver]

Hi;

Roger have they/you been using cinecap as the capture program for these HD captures? I'm close to trying this out with my WP set up for HD weddings but cinecap is a tad ambiguous on it's res abilities....

[MovieStuff]

Hi;

Roger have they/you been using cinecap as the capture program for these HD captures?

Yes. Looks fabulous.

I'm close to trying this out with my WP set up for HD weddings but cinecap is a tad ambiguous on it's res abilities....

The current version of CineCap was designed for standard def DV and was not written for HD. It just happens to work with HD. However, Jeff is working on a version of CineCap specifically for HD via the Decklink Intensity Pro card. I have personally captured using that card for HD experiments and it looks just great. Again, you need a pretty whompum computer if capturing uncompressed (as outlined above) but it works fine. We will soon be offering a version of the WorkPrinter that has a variable speed so that clients that want to experiment with uncompressed HD capture can slow the WP down to about 3fps for computers with standard 2 drive raid arrays. But in the Motion JPEG mode, they should be able to capture at the workprinter's standard 8fps frame rate. As I say, the Motion JPEG mode looks, at least to me, as good as the uncompressed. Very useful.

Roger

[Konton]

Hey Roger,

Sounds like you are making the Workprinter Pros all over again. As I recall the one I had did 1/3/6fps. Now you're making me miss it. I think the remote you made for that model was very cool. I assume 1fps would easily work for HD? I've been meaning to try one of those blackmagic cards, but you can't get them in Vietnam, or pretty much anything that related to filmmaking or video work.

[Rachel Oliver]

Hi;

Sounds really cool Roger, I will be sure to check out the JPEG codec, thanks for the info.

Rachel

[MovieStuff]

Hey Roger,

Sounds like you are making the Workprinter Pros all over again. As I recall the one I had did 1/3/6fps. Now you're making me miss it. I think the remote you made for that model was very cool. I assume 1fps would easily work for HD?

Thanks. The old WorkPrinter-Pro units had three set speeds of 1, 3 and 6fps. The new WorkPrinter-HD units will have an infinitely variable speed from about 3-10fps. I have determined that 1fps is really rather pointless for my target market, which is small shops working in volume transfers. 3fps is already pretty slow but, if someone just has to transfer in HD, and doesn't want to invest in a jumbo computer, then it would be a workable compromise.

I've been meaning to try one of those blackmagic cards, but you can't get them in Vietnam, or pretty much anything that related to filmmaking or video work.

The Decklink card is pretty darned good, I have to say. And I had forgotten how useful the Motion JPEG codec was.

Roger

[El Jeffe]

Something else I have not seen discussed much is the block size you choose for your Raid array. Typically with video you are using large files sizes so you would want a large block size. However if I understand how the workprinter units works you would want a small to medium block size since the computer is capturing each frame at a rapid rate.

I did experiments with this and saw no changes with changing the block sizes. Anyone else thoughts on this?

[MovieStuff]

Something else I have not seen discussed much is the block size you choose for your Raid array.

Hmmm. Dunno. We've always just used the default! 8O

Roger

[adamgarner]

Any success on this? Roger and I have talked about this a few times, because I'm really interested in getting this operation going too.

My belief is that this will work wonderfully if you have 2 things.

1: Decklink Pro
2: Raid (Sata OR....SAS).

The Decklink will take the component video out on your camera (direct from the chip rather than your recorded medium, so the image quality is awesome and uncompressed).

The RAID is to handle the writes. Now, I understand that the RAID speed will depend on the number of spindles you add ("drives" in Enterprise IT speak). For ME, I have a Mac Pro. This means that I have 3 extra internal slots (in addition to the OS drive) that I can use in a RAID. I like this option because I don't have to buy an external RAID configuration. I'm limited though, because I can't have 5 disks.

What I CAN do, however, is buy SAS drives, rather than SATA drives. I can do this if I have a Mac Raid card (runs about 800 bucks). SAS drives spin about twice as fast as SATA (SAS: 15K rpm SATA: 7500 rpm), so the throughput is about twice as fast. So with a 3 drive SAS array, you're reading/writing at the speed of awesome. You can probably assume that a 3 drive SAS raid equates to a 6 drive SATA raid.

SAS drives, however, are VERY expensive. SATA, well... pretty cheap since it's old technology.

So, if you're on a MAC PRO architecture, you may want to look into a SAS array. The cost may be about the same, but it's a very elegant solution.

If you're on some other platform, buy a 5-10 disk array. My guess is a SATA 3 disk isn't quite quick enough. Close, but not quite.

[El Jeffe]

With the new Workprinter HD's I believe my setup will work. I will just cut the fps in half and do my transfers at 3fps rather than 6fps. Good to know someone else is out there trying things with a mac. I am also not trying to go uncompressed yet. Just trying to get some nice quality HD transfers using the DVCPRO HD codec. With my current setup and the workprinter going 3fps I have to believe that this will work.

jeff

[adamgarner]

So, how is it that you're capturing compressed DVCPRO HD with a workprinter? That should only happen if your capture card compresses it, or you're recording to a P2 card. I assume you're using an HVX200. I don't have a work printer yet. I just understand the workflow theoretically as I try and design it for a future buy.

The way I understand it, if you capture with a deck-link, you're just sending the live signal from the camera chip to the capture card. See what I mean? You're not recording anything. Just using the CCD's (or CMOS) sensors and sending out the component signal. It never goes to the card (or miniDV tape).

If you capture uncompressed, don't forget you can recompress it to Apple ProRes422(HQ). (You need a Kona card to capture to prores on the fly). I can not tell a difference between full uncompressed 1080p and the prores compression the prores is so good. It's amazing and runs lightning fast on an intel mac pro. That's how I roll. There are some examples on my website.

Make sure you let me know about your set up and the results. I'd love to see something, and know how many SATA spindles you got away with!

As far as working on a Mac, I don't know how else one would do professional grade work. I mean, I use FCP/Motion/Color ALL the time for this kind of work. I supposed you could go with Adobe... but even then I would only trust the apple platform.

[downix]

Geesh, and here I was hoping for a 1fps workprinter as I was plotting on mating it to a direct computer link, which can only handle 2fps tops at quality as/is...

8)

[El Jeffe]

The way that the workprinter worked for me in standard def was that you have the camera connected to your computer via firewire you send your dv signal through that. I did some tests on a macbook pro first and found that when I connected the Hvx200 while in p2 mode I can send the HD signal over via firewire with the DVCProHD codec. Once I new it could work I invested in a Mac Pro thinking a 3 drive raid Array would work because DVCProHD is pretty easy to work with. Because I run FCP and have all those codecs on my machine Capturemate would recognize it and allow me to capture in 1080i or 720p. I am just running into problems with vertical smearing from capturing frames at they are advancing, which like I said should be solved when I can take the transfer down to 3fps.

After I get things working like this then I will probably go the capture card route. I am not a transfer house though and do not intend to be. I just enjoy spending money .

[adamgarner]

Oh, ok. Got it. I didn't know you could send the image in real time with the fire-wire out. I don't use an hvx though. I've got a sony fx1. I run into GOP compression issues. Roger recommended the component out which is smart. I dig your set up though. Anxious to hear how it goes.

I'm not a transfer house either, but I've spent thousands on HD millenium transfers at Pro8 for my "paid" projects. I'll tell you, if I knew I could get negatives to transfer great (without any weird dust or artifact issues) I would have bought one long ago. I have to shoot a LOT of my stuff with the Vision stock for lower light and more exposure latitude. If you're doin' that... well, I'm all ears!!!