ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

11 years, 5 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

My pleasure :-)

11 years, 5 months ago - Kyri Saphiris

Thanks but not looking to go to a Soho post facility! I just need to know, if I shoot something on my cheap home AVCHD camcorder, is there free software available to convert the final product to a format that would be acceptable by festivals. Most seem to specify DCP format only, and others also include HDCAM as an option. So, it's about whether AVCHD can end up as one of these. I only have Cyberlink PowerDirector editing software, again just cheap consumer level stuff, nothing professional. The point is, I need to know if any free options are available in my situation! Thanks.

11 years, 5 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

BTW a post facility will do a far better job of this and cheaper than renting your own deck.

11 years, 5 months ago - Kyri Saphiris

Thanks again Paddy.

11 years, 5 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

http://www.opendcp.org/
http://www.dcpbuilder.com/

Not recommendations per se, but these are free ways to make a DCP. As to how many of the DCP spec features it will support, it won't be the full range of a professional suite (alternative subtitle and audio support, surround, etc) so best bet is to do a 30sec sample and then try playing it out at your local cinema (get friendly with the projectionist) on a weekday morning.

11 years, 5 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

First confirm what the festival wants, and what they'll accept. No point playing out to HDCAM if they'll also accept a hard drive/blu ray. Pretty much any post facility will offer playouts to take formats and conversions, if you're in Soho just ask your nearest.

11 years, 5 months ago - Kyri Saphiris

Thanks Paddy. At least I now know it's possible so my next step is to find out how to do it.

11 years, 5 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

AVCHD is a low bitrate/quality MPEG4v10 implementation for solid state/tapeless consumer camcorders. You can use it to create a DCP, you can record it to HDCAM tape (HDCAM is a tape format, hence my talking about going to a post house as opposed to renting a deck). AVCHD is not incompatible with either delivery format, but it is lower quality than either of those formats are capable of.

DCP is basically a set of JPEG2000 still frames where AVCHD has a lot of intraframe encoding/compression so files are a lot larger.

Does that help at all?