LOL, managed to avoid the spit-take!

Look, I'm a quality freak. Whatever I do, I want to do the best it can be done, always creating and preserving the highest video and audio quality from acquisition-to-master and from master-to-deliverable, within the target specs of the job. In my analog beginnings in this business you wouldn't believe the hoops I would jump through for a bump in quality. 

My quality freak-ish-ness nowadays translates to the principles of good, intelligent (non-wasteful) workflows. I believe in the proven concept of over-sampling, but often the budgets, projects and crews I'm working with do not shoot resolutions higher than 1080p. Rarely I get a 4K-shot RED job to "finish" in 1080p, but enjoy it when I do. 

But I believe strongly in doing all you can to work in what I think will remain a dominant standard for mastering (and deliverables) for a good long time. That's 1080p. The fact that a client may want a smaller deliverable today is not enough to sway me (very often) to throw away that resolution at the start of the project. Rather, I'll produce it 1080p and deliver a 720p and enjoy the benefits of oversampling (for that deliverable) but also have that 1080p master and raw footage to draw upon in case there's a future higher quality use. 

As far as low-data rate green screen keys, sure--I've seen it done....and I've even pulled them myself. Doesn't mean I want to. When I work with XDCAM footage at 35mbit vs. at, say 220mbit 422 recorded by a nano-flash one of my DPs uses, the differences are more readily apparent in the keying than even the viewing of straight video. The stuff just eye-dropper-keys so freaking well without nearly as much choking, fiddling, etc. BTW as you crank up the data rate you do see diminishing returns once you get over about 120-130mbit on XDCam 422 but it's still interesting to compare. I've settled on 140 long-GOP for interviews and b-roll and 220 I-frame for keying an vfx.

Carey

On Feb 16, 2012, at 10:39 AM, Dave Bittner wrote:

Another factor to consider is whether or not you're dealing with a fixed data rate at any point in the acquisition or delivery phases. 

For example, much of the in-house acquisition with do is shot with a Sony EX3. We chose that model as our default camera to own because it can handle, out of the box, the vast majority of our needs. And we can (and do) throw a Pro35 adapter with prime lenses if we need that particular look. 

But it's limited, internally, to 35mbs, variable bit rate. Again, for the vast majority of the stuff we do, this is sufficient. (Carey just did a spit-take, spraying some really good wine all over his computer monitor.) I've had no troubles pulling clean keys, for example. But I've also got 15+ years experience pulling keys, and that surely helps. 

So, the question is, do I throw that 35mbs at a 720p frame or a 1080p frame? Most of the time I choose 720p. And to my eyes it looks great. I never find myself pressing my nose against the screen, lamenting digital artifacts, like we used to do back in the DV25 days. Would 100mbs look better? Probably. Most likely. But the 35mbs looks great, takes up less room on my hard drives, and has various other workflow advantages. It's a good, practical solution. (We edit and archive in ProRes.)

My work is primarily B to B, and most of the stuff we produce ends up online, so again, 720p is a good, practical choice.

 There are plenty of studies out there which demonstrate that resolution is just one part of the image-quality equation. 

Dave

Dave Bittner - Pixel Workshop Inc.

www.pixelworkshop.com

410.381.8555

Twitter @bittner