Blackmagic Forum

I'm planning to shoot a TV commercial (will air on TV so need broadcast quality) for a company and was wondering what the best settings on there camera to shoot would be? Which mode, what fps?

Someone said the best settings might be 2.5k raw at 29.97p?

I've seen a few TVCs shot on the BMC starting to appear in Australia. Most people are generally just shooting ProRes because it's "good enough" (especially given every TVC is finished to Digital Betacam still anyway!) - and the RAW workflow just adds more time and money to the post process.

The frame rate will depend on what country your delivery the TVC to. For example, in Australia, we do everything at 25fps, because we're PAL based.

Just wondering...is there a reason you put "good enough" in quotations? Are you implying that it is not as good as it should be? Or are you implying that there is a "good" way of doing it as opposed to "good enough"?

If you were aiming for the best possible image quality - shooting RAW would make the most sense. It also future proofs your project.

But... ProRes still looks really good.

I'm in the US. I shoot 24 FPS because I prefer the cadence. I have been shooting mostly ProRes in Film mode with a bit of DNG when I think I need the flexibility; actor standing in front of a bare window in broad daylight, for example, or I know I'll need to push the exposure later, the DNG is cleaner and I can remove the chroma noise. So, potentially problematic shots get the raw treatment, everything else is ProRes; and it's mighty fine, too. After the spot is finished, I allow for a reverse telecine to deliver for broadcast if that's what the station requires. But, I usually deliver progressive 1080/24 without complaint. It's working out well so far. If it were a movie-movie, I'd shoot raw. On a side-note, if we get compressed raw at some point down the line, I'll probably shoot most everything that way and just budget in the extra post time needed.

If the client wants me to edit and color correct I would for the most part "always shoot raw" , If they have another editor in mind you need to ask if he/she can deal with the Cinema.DNG files, otherwise I would suggest ProRes to the client for ease of edit, Broadcast Commercials are shot at 30fps (29.97) in 1080P for US broadcast (depending on the clients request), some like the motion blur that 24fps produces, You can always Shoot in native 24p (23.98). Export and create two versions, one at 24p and one at 29.97 with 3:2 pulldown added for broadcast but you get judder so I would not suggest shooting 24fps.
One major thing you need be aware of is Broadcast safe colors (Whites) as you probably know, and your title safe margins, That brings me to another reason 2.5K or 4K is the way to go, since it allows you to crop & re-frame your shot and fit any title or graphics if your framing is a little wide & sloppy since the final output will be 720 or 1080P, That 4K can be a huge advantage and is forgiving if you know how to take advantage of it.

3:2 Pulldown Explained for broadcast
http://www.projectorpeople.com/resources/pulldown-2.asp
http://www.extron.com/company/article.a ... 32pulldown

We shot some stuff in prores for tv as this camera was rented and only one ssd with it.

As spots are here aired locally and only 16:9 PAL then the resolution did not matter so much.

It was still really good to grade in Resolve. I would like to shoot raw for more demanding stuff.

Raw gives you also nice abilities to stabilize or reframe a bit if you air 1080.
Just be sure to test out the workflow before hand if you have difficult and / or expensive shoot.

Considering the number of TVCs shot in h264 the implication that prores is somehow only 'good enough' is pretty funny.

Damn right it's good enough.

imo canon h264 is all rubbish when you need to color correct it.

Margus Voll wrote:imo canon h264 is all rubbish when you need to color correct it.

indeed!

Margus Voll wrote:imo canon h264 is all rubbish when you need to color correct it.

h264 & co. are distribution codecs, optimised to use as low bandwith as possible, while looking good to the naked eye. They achive this goal by supressing all the information that would only become apparent when you start grading and color work. In my opinion you can only ever use h264 for any production if you can control color and gradation inside the camera and will only "touch up" the footage in post.

Mac Jaeger wrote:

Margus Voll wrote:imo canon h264 is all rubbish when you need to color correct it.

h264 & co. are distribution codecs, optimised to use as low bandwith as possible, while looking good to the naked eye. They achive this goal by supressing all the information that would only become apparent when you start grading and color work. In my opinion you can only ever use h264 for any production if you can control color and gradation inside the camera and will only "touch up" the footage in post.

Well that sounds about right, But If and when H.265 ever arrives we will see a major shift for this codec, and I'm positive it will look incredible with a much better resolution and color gamma and compression.

H.265 is late to the party, but lets wait and see if it arrives baring gifts

H265 will also be a distribution codec, more or less useless for post processing. The codec gurus get better and better at understanding our visual system and deducing what parts of an image can be removed without the viewer noticing it. But it's exactly these missing details that limit your post processing options dramatically. So the more "efficient" codecs get, the less suitable for editing purposes they become.

Loads of commercials have been shot using using the BMCC at pro res never mind raw and they're good enough for some of the worlds biggest brands they should be good enough for you. Hell you could shoot a commercial on a canon 500d. its down to how good you are over the cameras abilities.

I work on a TV show with the BMCC, we shoot Prores in "film" mode at 30p.. it works beautifully. Delivery is also in ProRes to the station on a usb stick..