Digibeta Recommendation: Anyone know where I can get a first-class tape made?

[Stephen Pruitt]

Hi all. . .

We were referred to a vendor in CA to have a digibeta tape made to send to our distributor, but when the test DVD came back (and thank God I asked for a test DVD!), it was beyond horrible. Our beautiful RED footage looked like it was a third generation VHS tape! We have verified that it was not a file problem. The file we sent them was pristine. The DVDs we burn using Compressor are remarkably clean, as well. This thing, well, if you saw it, you wouldn't believe it.

Basically, we're just looking for someone to take our Prores 4444 1920x1080 and turn it into a great-looking anamorphic Digibeta Cam tape at a reasonable charge. No bells and whistles. Just a Digibeta Cam tape with a test DVD to make sure they did it right.

Thanks much.

Stephen

 

[Rob Gardner]

You may be just suffering the whiplash that comes from looking at the same footage in SD after getting used to seeing it in HD. I have a difficult time with this, but you just can't make it stop being SD.

 

[Jake Bastian]

Have you tried DG fastchannel ( http://www.dgit.com/ )?

 

[Paul Provost]

we do downconverts to digibeta through our kona 3 all the time in house and get very good results, but as mentioned above, digibeta looks nothing like 1080. just the way it is. contact me for pricing info.

 

[Ben Holmes]

With respect, what good is a test DVD? Digibeta, despite being SD is a very low compression format, and can only be output by using a video card to play to tape. You have no idea how the DVD was made, probably a composite connection to a DVD recorder from the BITC output. This proves nothing about the quality of the dub, and was probably met with baffled looks in the post house when you requested it.

Go there, and ask to view the digibeta. If it's critical, have it QC'd as well.

 

[Greg M]

Call us, we can help

888-898-6010

 

[Greg Huson]

www.digitalservicestation.com

We're part of a cooperative of boutique post houses that also provide support for work at home editors, single-seat shops, or folks that generally don't have HDSR, digibeta, etc. In defense of your other vendor, often we make DVDs using composite DVD recorders - but if you were concerned about quality, and made that clear, I certainly wouldn't make YOURS that way! I'd re-capture the digibeta, encode and author using the same software you use - compressor and DVD studio pro.
For output we'd either use the Kona 3, or a combination of AJA and terranex- depending on what looks best. Using the frame converter and scaler built into the HDCam SR is also an option.

 

[MichaelP]

Why not encode the SD MPEG2 file directly from the HD master file? Why go through the tape process at all?

Michael

 

[Marc Wielage]

We were referred to a vendor in CA to have a digibeta tape made to send to our distributor, but when the test DVD came back (and thank God I asked for a test DVD!), it was beyond horrible. Our beautiful RED footage looked like it was a third generation VHS tape!

Have you screened the actual DigiBeta tape? Book half an hour of viewing time at a local TV station and have them spot check the DigiBeta for you on a reasonable monitor, and judge it that way. This shouldn't cost more than a hundred bucks, tops.

It's very possible that the DVD got screwed up and your tape is still fine. I know of some major LA post houses who have made monumental screw-ups on DVDs and screening copies before.

I'd also like to know the signal path and method by which they converted your original footage. Bad things can happen with signals going from "here" to "there," especially if the client is not there to supervise or at least approve what's happening.

 

[paulherrin]

like these guys said, i can tell you making a dvd from certain formats can get a bit hairy at times without specialized equipment (that's not always much worth getting). there are obviously other factors that could have messed up the dvd or initial conversion. if possible i would go ahead and check out the tape unless the post house has confirmed that the dvd you got is pretty much in league with it, and suggested that was the best they could do at their place.