Rivet Entertainment - Bill Latka, The Science of Lance Armstrong, Deconstruction, Science Channel, Discovery Channel, high-definition, high definition, television production

TECHNICAL

We do it because we can. Deconstruction: The Science of Building a House is an HD show that was edited and finshed in-house.

Rivet Entertainment shot Deconstruction on the Panasonic VariCam High-Definition camcorder. Its stunning visual quality and ability to shoot at multiple frame rates are the reasons it was chosen by the producers. All scenes shot off-speed were recorded on separate camera master tapes, and then sent out to be re-timed to the native 720p/60 VariCam format.

The footage was digitized into one of our Final Cut Pro systems (Dual 2.0 Ghz G5, 2.5 Gb RAM) for off-line using a Panasonic AJ-HD1700 DVCPRO HD deck.

This deck converts the signal from the native 720p/60 VariCam HD format to a 1080p/23.98 signal. We use the Aja Kona HD card to downconvert the HD signal on the fly into the DV codec at 23.98 fps. We were able to keep our frame rate the same from original off-line digitize through on-line output, so we had no concern with EDL conversion.

All 50 camera master tapes (over 37 hours), renders, graphics and audio were digitized to our 3.5 terabyte X-Serve Raid that provided awesome throughput and space. Off-line edits were posted on-line and output via the Aja Io to various standard-def video formats for approvals. The render of small QuickTime movies for the web was surprisingly quick. We often set up a batch render for the night and posted the movies in the morning.

Once the fine cut was finished, we uprezed the HD footage using the Panasonic AJ-HD1700 DVCPRO HD deck which converts the footage to the same 1080p/23.98 signal used for off-line, but this time, we digitized at full resolution for on-line. As of our production date, the new 720p/60 codec, now available for Final Cut Pro was not ready to go. The footage was color-corrected with the three-way Final Cut Pro color-correction tool.

Graphics and effects were created in Final Cut Pro, Shake, After Effects (PC and Mac) and LiveType, and rendered out in the native Kona HD Blackmagic 10-bit CODEC. This allowed for easy import back into our FCP system.

For post-production sound, we output OMF files directly from Final Cut Pro, which were sent to our sound editor, Mike Payne at Soundstorm. Mike made his edits on Pro-Tools. The project was mixed at Soundstorm, and AIFF files were output and imported into our on-line timeline in FCP. They synched perfectly with our on-line edit.

For final output, we output our 1080p/23.98 signal and four channels of AES/EBU audio directly from our Final Cut Pro/Kona HD on-line system to a Sony HDW-F500 deck for network delivery. We found the workflow to be amazingly straightforward, and allow for the highest quality HD. We're currently testing the latest tools and working with our vendors to streamline the process even more for future shows.

We'd like to give a shout out to our support partners and suppliers for striving to just make it work. The DR Group, Apple, Aja, Plus8Digital, and Digital Garage all deserve our gratitude.