Recording in 4:2:2:4?

[Philip Powell]

Hey all,

Does anyone know of a way to record the output of an HD Ultimatte, that is, the foreground at 4:2:2...and the matte at 4 on the other dual link?

As I understand most any 4:4:4 board CAN do this, but hardly anybody has bothered to write the code for this obscure use. Are there AJA, BM developer forums out there I am reference?

Just to be clear, what I am trying to get is one file (image sequence, or movie file) of both fill and matte digitized.

I believe Drastic Tech does this, but their software is PC only, and Specsoft perhaps, but you are tied to their hardware last I heard.

There may not be a solution but it seems a shame that I have a fast enough array (and an exisiting board set) that can do what I need...just no code written for it. Thanks.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I hate to be *that* guy who doesn't answer the question and asks why you even asked it in the first place... But is there a reason you hate your compositors so much?

http://www.cineform.com/neohd/

 

[Philip Powell]

I hate to be *that* guy who doesn't answer the question and asks why you even asked it in the first place... But is there a reason you hate your compositors so much?

http://www.cineform.com/neohd/

Oh, I don't hate compositors...that would be hating me. No, the reason I ask is, we sell (side business) pre-keyed stock clips

It's purely a workflow thing. I've already done two rounds of production using a similar method, recording to two separate devices (processed foreground and matte respectively and then recombined for clean up in Comp package of choice) Data management of two separate HD streams and then recombining them and backing them up etc. etc. is real pain.

This clips are never composited on our end over another clips, they are sold as a solo item. The end user does the final CC composite.

The ability to trouble shoot problem issues in real time is a big plus via the Ultimatte. (plus no ram previews) I still have to pull them in for clean up, as the mattes are never perfect, but there is a lot less cleanup as we dealt with most of the issues live on set and having one movie or file sequence with the alpha embedded, as compared to three, would make life easier.

Cheers