the production pipeline

To help you understand what Microcosm does, we've outlined a typical broadcast production pipeline.

This case study was submitted by Matt Silverman of Phoenix Editorial. This workflow is a proven solution which is used by the majority of people working with graphics and visual effects in desktop video production environments.

• In this pipeline, the footage originates on film, then is transferred to a 10-bit Digital Betacam tape.

• The footage is then digitized into the computer using a video capture card like Digital Voodoo (a 10-bit YUV capture card).

• Finally, this 10-bit YUV file is brought into an application like After Effects, which works 8-bit or 16-bit RGBA, for compositing.

transfer #1 with microcosm

Almost all CG, graphics, and compositing applications on the desktop work in RGB color space. So at this point the original YUV information needs to be converted to RGB.

This is where Microcosm first comes in. It gets over a 10:1 compression on CG elements. Instead of rendering a 5.0 GB movie, you will end up with a 500 MB movie with identical image quality.

• You do not want to convert back to YUV until you are ready to finish editing and need to dump the final product back to tape.

• If you want to add CG elements from any 3D application, the CG is rendered in RGBA space. This initial 3D render should maintain the highest quality, but you don’t want to waste drive space.

transfer #2 with microcosm

After the 3D and live action footage is composited in After Effects, you might need to cut a holdout matte or do some paint touch-up in a program like Commotion. This means you need to render from After Effects, which again should maintain perfect quality without wasting drive space… Time once again for Microcosm!

• Since this image contains grainy film source, Microcosm will not crunch it as well as the CG elements mentioned earlier. But it still does a MUCH better job than Animation compression, coming in around 4:1.

• Ok, so you cut the matte in Commotion, and render that matte to Microcosm. Mattes will get compressed to well over 100:1. The paint touch-up is also rendered to a separate Microcosm file.

transfer #3 with microcosm

With all of your work finished up in After Effects, you will render a final RGBA Microcosm movie to archive. This final movie is then converted to a 10-bit YUV file.

Voilà! The final leg of the Microcosm pipeline.

• The workflow between RGBA applications and YUV video formats is very similar to the way you deal with lossy compression, like Avid AVR77.

• You want to avoid rendering to the Avid codec at all times. You capture it in AVR77, then cut it in the Avid with it still at AVR77. If you need to leave the Avid, you should render it RGBA with a lossless QuickTime codec, then work RGBA until it needs to go back to the Avid.

• Like a lossy compression, the RGB to YUV conversion will produce a loss in quality. Since video is limited to YUV, you have to capture the source YUV, then only want to convert back to YUV right before you go back to tape.

That is edited together with the rest of the show in an editing application like Final Cut Pro, then dumped back to Digital Betacam.

Want to see what other Microcosm users are doing? Go to our Microcosm Gallery section.