Dave Clark.com » HD

Video Production at NCC

Dave Clark — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:36:42 +0000

I wrote this up for a handout that I gave out a conference this past week so I thought I would share it here. Here is a quick and dirty look at our video setup here at NCC. Definately leaving out a lot of details but this covers the basics. Let me know if you have any questions.

For the capturing of our Saturday service message we are using a Canon XL H1 camera, which is mounted on the ceiling. The mounting does involve an adjustment option so we can modify the camera height for different speakers. The XL H1 may also be adjusted using Canon Console, which is Windows-based software that allows you to control the functions of the camera remotely via Firewire. The XL H1 camera has a HD-SDI output that delivers an uncompressed HD signal.

The video from the XL H1 is captured via a Mac Pro with a Blackmagic Design Decklink Extreme HD Capture Card. We capture live into Final Cut Pro using the DVCPRO HD codec. The audio send is sent to a separate sound board, mixed down and recorded to the video track via the XLR inputs on the Decklink cards.

After editing, the final file is exported and transferred to multiple hard drives (RAID0 and eSata) that go to each of our locations for Sunday morning services. We are using ProPresenter for presentation of all media. The software allows for easy point-and-click operation of all media elements, which are played from the external hard drive.

Each location has Mac G5 or Mac Pro equipped with Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme cards. These cards have a component output that we connect to our projectors. The machines are all rack mounted in individual carts that allow for easy portability, set up, and tear down. Our projectors are Panasonic PT-D7700U (7,000 Lumen 1400×1050)

For all of our off-site videos we use two Panasonic AGHVX-200 cameras which record to Firestore FS-100 external hard drives or P2 cards, which allows us to avoid the use of tapes.

Technorati Tags: HD, DVCPRO HD, Canon XL H1, Panasonic, HVX-200, Blackmagic Design

HDTV Broadcast Quality – What are you really watching?

Dave Clark — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:34:25 +0000

Ever wonder why one HD channel looks so much better than another HD channel? Well, basically its because they are operation at different bitrates. One channel may be pumping in a 720p signal at 12 Mbps and another might be pushing a 1080i signal at 7 Mbps. So your 720p channel is probably going to look better with less artifacting and more overall pop.

According to ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) president Mark Richer, the ATSC standard does not require minimum bit rates for over-the-air broadcasters. It’s pretty amazing that there is no enforced standard for HD broadcast quality. Basically the bottom line right now is you have to offer a minimum 480i signal which typically comes in at 4 to 6 Mbps. ( The max each 6 megahertz channel can handle is 19.3 Mbps) Seems like there is a lot of space that they could use to increase the quality.

Here is a great article from Popular Mechanics on the details.

Technorati Tags: HDTV, Broadcast, HD, Cable, Satellite, Bitrate, ATSC, 1080i, 720p

Vimeo HD

Dave Clark — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:59:34 +0000

Iv’e heard a few people talking about Vimeo’s HD service, and I’ve actually seen people use it a time or two. So I thought I would give it a look under the hood and see what’s up. It turns out it’s actually a very cool free service and overall I am very impressed and happy with the quality.

Drama in the sky – Time Lapse from Paul Klinger on Vimeo – You can’t embed the HD Version here so you’ll have to click the HD button and go the the Vimeo site.

Vimeo offers its HD service in 720p. Sure its not 1080, but how many people can handle 1920×1080 on their home computers? I would say at this point its still the minority. So 720p does the job and is a nice jump up from the 480 stuff that we are used to.

Vimeo is using On6VP flash for video playback on its site. much like YouTube is doing. YouTube however also offers an h.264 version. (mp4 version) You can add &fmt=18 at the end of any YouTube URL and it will play you the higher quality h.264 version. (stereo audio too) This is how you are able to watch YouTube clips on many devices like the PS3. There is talk on a couple of the Vimeo forums about the possibility of moving to an h.264 format in the future especially when Flash 9 gets a full roll-out as it will natively support playback of h.264 video. The problem with this is that playing an h.264 720p streaming video over a browser on an older machine is probably not going to go well. So Flash for now is the best course.

Once you have uploaded your 720p video, Vimeo keeps the original resolution of 1280×720. During playback you can press the full screen button. Once in full screen mode, on the right there is a toggle for scaling. Which is nice because scaling up from 720p on a hi res monitor looks less than acceptable. Turning scaling off lets you watch the 720p video in its true resolution of 1280×720.

Overall… It’s a nice service. Would love to see some church’s start to stream their webcasts in 720p too.

Technorati Tags: Vimeo, 720p, H.264, YouTube, On6VP, HD