HDTV and Film

[stingslang]

can anime studio handle HD and film. Isn't grey kid using it on a feature film prodject?

[Rasheed]

Well, the Pro version of Anime Studio can handle the image format quite easily, but probably not the 5.1 Surround Sound. You will still need a proper professional non-linear video editor like Apple Final Cut Pro, or similar.

[LittleFenris]

Yes Anime Studio Pro can handle the resolutions needed to produce true HDTV and film projects. It can handle rendering out a 4000x4000 pixel project...more than double the width of "true HD" (1920x1080).

[artfx]

Not that it's really important, but the HD format is wide and 1280x720, my personal format of choice, and 1440x1080, are just as "true" HD as the 1920 format. In fact, they have some advantages in many cases.

[LittleFenris]

Not that it's really important, but the HD format is wide and 1280x720, my personal format of choice, and 1440x1080, are just as "true" HD as the 1920 format. In fact, they have some advantages in many cases.

1280x720 is 720p which is really enhanced definition, not true high definition. High def is 1080i and 1080p. I haven't really seen the 1440x1080, I always use 1920x1080.

[artfx]

From PBS Red Book:

"High Definition is defined as picture formats 1080i and 720p/60 and Dolby AC 3 Surround Sound. During the transition period of undefined length, PBS will accept programs as high definition in 1080i and 720p formats."

NBC Broadcast guideline:

"The Digital Television (DTV) standard allows broadcasters to choose among several different formats that they can transmit. There are two high definition formats: 720p and 1080i."

HDTV Standard

"...1,280 x 720 pixels (720 lines progressively scanned with a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio) or "1080i" (1920 x 1080), which represents a 16:9 widescreen image with 1920 pixels across each of 1080 interlaced scan lines. These are the only two High Definition formats defined by the HDTV standard. All network broadcasters use one or the other for their HD programs. For instance, ABC and Fox broadcast in 720p, while CBS, NBC, and PBS use 1080i."

I personally have never encountered the term "really enhanced definition" in my years in the industry, nor heard it mentioned when submitting tapes to our post house.

[LittleFenris]

I personally have never encountered the term "really enhanced definition" in my years in the industry, nor heard it mentioned when submitting tapes to our post house.

"really" wasn't part of the "enhanced definition" naming in my statement, it was just my english. Do a search on Best Buys site and you'll see TVs that say "enhanced definition" and not "high definition". I understand you are the hollywood type but I've also been dealing with TV stations, cable stations and such for almost 10 years now. Unfortuntely we do mostly TV ads and NONE of them are ever put to HD for the final output. I've edited quite a few in HD (mostly 720p from an AG-HVX200 camera) but they get down-converted to SD (480i) for final output to the stations.

[artfx]

How do you like the HVX200 footage? We rented one for some pickups and element shoots for one of the movies we are doing and I was amazed what we could capture with it. We were all thinking, "How great it would be if we could run out and shoot a cheap film with this while we have it."

One thing that is great about the HVX, especially doing slowmo in 720p is that the footage blows up to 1920x1080 just fine. I wouldn't be surprised if we see movies done entirely with the HVX on the big screen one day soon.

[Touched]

I'm not sure what resolution they're using, but many theatrical filmmakers have been using high-def digital video for theatrical release for some time. At least as far back as the later Star Wars movies. Lucas made a big deal about his use of digital video rather than film.

[artfx]

Well, in this case, it's not so much about resolution as much as it is about cost. The F900 or F950 that Lucas and Rodriguez used on Star Wars or Desperado 3 costs well over $100,000 if you want stuff like a lense on it. (It cost a lot more back then when it was the #1 camera on the block) The Panasonic HVX200 costs closer $6000 total which was really an industry changing move on Panasonic's part.

Now of course, this cheaper camera can't do everything the big expensie guys can do, but it was considered good enough to do some pickups shots on Spielberg's Munich movie and has been used to do larger parts on other films, which says a lot for the future of the industry.

[LittleFenris]

How do you like the HVX200 footage? We rented one for some pickups and element shoots for one of the movies we are doing and I was amazed what we could capture with it. We were all thinking, "How great it would be if we could run out and shoot a cheap film with this while we have it."

One thing that is great about the HVX, especially doing slowmo in 720p is that the footage blows up to 1920x1080 just fine. I wouldn't be surprised if we see movies done entirely with the HVX on the big screen one day soon.

I've been very impressed with the footage from the HVX200 actually. I've edited footage that was shot on 35mm film, 16mm film, BetaSP video, MiniDV video and our own HVX200 shot straight to P2 cards. I think the footage easily looks as good as the 16mm film if not the 35mm. The only thing I've noticed is the HVX200 really seems to be finicky about lighting...more so than the film. The footage can get dark easily if not lit right but can also get a bit washed out if its lit too brightly. The other thing though is that I always got the 35mm footage after it had been color corrected and transfered to BetaSP. The HVX200 footage I'm getting raw so I end up doing the color correction and all myself now. We went from doing all our shoots on film 2 years ago to doing every shoot on the HVX200 after using it for a couple smaller shoots and seeing how great it really was and how the workflow worked great for us. It's a bit scary going from tape media to tapeless. There just seems to be something comforting about having a "master tape" instead of a "master hard drive" but you get over that pretty quick.

I've used some fastmo footage from the camera for a commercial we did for a congressional client. We wanted the footage to look like an old silent movie and it worked like a charm. The client loved the spot and I was happy with it too. I haven't tried upscaling the footage to 1080 though, we just shoot and edit in the native 720p/24fps setting. When we get to the point where the TV stations are asking for 1080 then I'll worry about the upscaling on that camera. For the price I don't think we could have bought a better camera though.

[ktron]

I think you'll find that Lucas was working 1920x1080 24P

1440x1080 is a cheat size that is used in HDV to get around streaming limitations of the DV tape format. Many distributors and broadcasters will only allow 10% of source footage to come from HDV, probably because the colour/luminance depth is so poor and error correction is not as good as "uncompressed" 1920x1080 formats.

[ktron]

can anime studio handle HD and film

Its quite amazing what AS can handle. Big bit mapped BGs at resolutions sufficient for HD with lots of overlays and tons of vector layers, stuff Flash can't even think about importing never mind animating or rendering.

[human]

can anime studio handle HD and film

Its quite amazing what AS can handle. Big bit mapped BGs at resolutions sufficient for HD with lots of overlays and tons of vector layers, stuff Flash can't even think about importing never mind animating or rendering.

Do you have any experience with animating hi-res (foreground) bitmaps in AS?

[ktron]

Do you have any experience with animating hi-res (foreground) bitmaps in AS?

Some. We generally try to create overlay elements as vectors but we use PNGs if we have to use bitmaps.