4K for TVCase Study of Sony Pictures Television efforts in 4K

Production

Phil Squyres, SVP, Technical OperationsSony Pictures Television

With assistance and comments from Bill Baggelaar, SVP, Technologies, ColorworksAnd Rebecca Moon, Project Coordinator, Colorworks

4K the new 3D ?…is it our new benchmark for the future ?

4K was the big topic at CES

It certainly seems it might be MORE viable than 3D…There is already serious movement to extend the broadcast & distribution sections of our industry out to support 4K and even 8K

There is a healthy industry in signage and digital display that will no doubt drive the growth of 4K

Digital Cinema has adopted it to an extent…

It’s much easier to extend production & post to 4K than to 3D

Incremental instead of geometrical in terms of effort & gear

Easier to visualize the added value of a very high or ULTRA high resolution master in your vault

SPT has shot 5 productions in 4KMade In Jersey – 1 hr drama for CBS – pursued at the request of the DP

DP Daryn Okada – Sony F65 – completed 8 episodes (finished in HD only @ Technicolor)

Save Me – ½ hr comedy for NBC

DP Lloyd Ahern – Sony F65 – 8/13 completed (all 4K finish @ Colorworks)

Masters of Sex – 1 hr period drama for Showtime (all 4K finish @ Colorworks)

DP Michael Weaver – Sony F65 - 2/10 completed

Michael J Fox – ½ hr comedy pilot for NBC (4K finish @ Colorworks) – complete all 22 episodes in 4K (at a lab, yet to be chosen, in NYC)

DP Michael Grady – Sony F65 PLUS – JUSTIFIED – Season 3 & 4 shot on the Red Epic in 4K (HD) – DP Francis Kenney

4K Remastering

Breaking Bad – 1 hr drama for AMCShot 35mm 3 perf – currently being remastered in 4K @ Colorworks

Currently working on season 2

SPT will shoot 3-5+ pilots in 4K

Comedy pilot LA – ½ hr. – all F55Comedy pilot NYC – ½ hr. – F65/F55Drama pilot LA – 1 hr. – all F55Big Drama pilot LA – 1 hr. – probably all F55Big Drama pilot outside LA – 1 hr. – F55/F65Possibly 1-2 more comedy ½ hrs. – 4K

Why 4K for TV?Business – future proof your library against technical advancements - UHDTV & consumer displays capable of 4K resolution

Creative – 4K raw (especially on the F65 & F55 gives us incredible exposure latitude, color space, resolution for reframing & blowups)

Technical – 4K raw is not only closer to film so that you can begin treating it like film…but its workflow* is more efficient than film

*once you figure it out….

4K for TVCover what we’ve learned producing TV episodes in 4K with details in these key

areas….

ONSET ISSUES

DAILIES

CONFORM

GRADING

TITLING

ARCHIVE

24P Dailies Lab / Colorworks

Operated by Sony Pictures Television to support dailies for our single camera productions

Process dailies for editorial… archive footage to LTO and do some visfx pulls… offer color management support either in preproduction or limited amount of nightly dailies color grading

Connected to Colorworks /TV Production Backbone via 10gigE pipe…

Operated by Sony Studios to support mastering and finishing of features and TV product

Supports 4K and 2K transfers, conforms, grading and titling

TV Finishing is a separate operation geared to faster pace production and post of TV episodics and moviesThe two facilities work together to complete our 4K productions for TV

Bill BaggelaarSVP, Technologies, Colorworks

4K IssuesSize of the data and the bandwidth to move files around in your facility is something you have to pay attention to…

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Camera packages - should NOT cost more

Cost of media can be moderated (by investment)

Movement of large files can be minimized by workflow design

New options reduce costs of grading and finishing 4K

ON SET - CamerasThe F65 is smaller & lighter than the F35 or Genesis

It is bulkier than the Alexa, but shorter – front to back

The Red Epic and F55 are smaller and lighter than Alexa, F65, F35, or 35mm film

Regardless…4K is easier to shoot and deal with as compared to 3D production

Looking at combination F65 & F55 packages

ON SET - MediaLOCAL SHOWS – Send the camera media directly to the lab with no onset backup

Our typical F65 shows shoot with 4-1TB cards per day ***

At the dailies lab, those cards can be downloaded, archived and returned to set by the next afternoon using lab-sized systems.

Eliminates the need for on set data wrangling – saves time and money

Consider purchasing these cards rather than renting which reduces the cost of camera package.

ON SET - MediaOUT OF TOWN – We’re experimenting with 2 optional workflows to protect us against the catastrophic loss of the original 4K files.

Previously - We never had a cost effective option to backup film or linear tape and… the only experience we ever had with loss… was with film (xray), never on videotape.

ON SET - MediaParallel Backup

using HD recorders, which can trigger to record each time the 4K recorders start and stop…we capture the camera output in HD only – which we can uprez back to 4K for inclusion in the 4K master if need be.

Local Backup with parallel proxy recordingUse external device to capture a dnx115 copy during shooting – send that to the lab via internet or courier for dailies creation

Send 4K cards to a local near set operation for downloading and backup overnight or…..

4K files held on a local RAID until the 4K shuttle drive arrives at the lab (2x a week via Fed EX instead of an expensive nightly courier drop)

DAILIESWe learned quite early on that processing dailies (logging, syncing, color, trimming) using the full size original 4K files was anathema!

Requires expensive hardware, netware, and hogs all the resources you have.

We opted to make a proxy copy of the 4K early in the dailies process.

NOT a proxy to use for HD mastering - we’re mastering in 4K

This is specifically a proxy to use for creating HD editorial dailies.

This then is a challenge for onset systems

DAILIES WORKFLOWDownload 4K from SR Memory cards using 2 Sony D1 readers into a Resolve workstation attached to a very fast raid via SAS. (max out the speed of the D1s)

Raid serves as a temporary storage location and keeps the 4K files off of our WIP SAN.

If we’re doing dailies color grading at the lab – Resolve can be used working directly off the fast raid…prior to transcoding the files

Resolve is used to transcode the 4K (with or without color) to dnx115 which is then pushed onto the Dailies SAN

DAILIES WORKFLOWThese dnx115 files are used in our dailies system to organize, log, sync, apply color (if color is done on-set or by presets), and to trim the clips.

The processing to editorial dnx36 is pushed off to a faster workstation for the actual transcode to 36.

The editorial dnx is consolidated and the bins and ales are merged to facilitate re-linking.

Finally, h.264 & MPEG2 files are transcoded from the finished and confirmed dnx36 editorial files.

4K FILES FOR CONFORMImmediately after ingest of the 4K files into the fast raid…

The cards are sent to ARCHIVE for copying onto a “Post Raid” – portable 12TB raids for moving camera original files around to other labs, visFX pulls and as the source for our 4K LTO archival tapes.

After the 4K-to-DNX115 proxy is completed, the 4K files are pushed from that fast raid… over 10 gig lines to Colorworks for eventual conforming the 4K master.

EditorialCreative editing progresses as usual…dnx36 files on the Avid (assistant editors know they have greater latitude with blowups and repositions for HD release)

VisFX pulls are done as needed…typically as dpx sequences

Stock footage is pulled as HD or 2K and uprezzed for inclusion into the 4K master

Finishing in 4K?Some might question the necessity of finishing in 4K at this point in time…

Why not just capture 4K, use a mezzanine or proxy copy to finish in HD and hold the 4K for later remastering

After all, no one is viewing 4K today…

RemasteringDoing the work twice… cost = 2X

Doing it the second time is more difficult, especially if its done much later

We’re learning about that lesson on the remastering project for Breaking Bad – 6 seasons of shows in HD

Rescanning and remastering BB in 4K

Issues faced in later remastering

In ANY TV show, there are last minute “discoveries” noted during the final stages of post…typically during grading.

Then last minute “fixes” are inserted to meet the creative intent, cover goofs and to meet deadlines.

Often these fixes are last minute, seat of the pants, “coverups” that aren’t well documented if even noted in some paperwork.

In any episode, there may be several…in 100 episodes = there can be several hundred “hidden undocumented fixes”

Rebecca MoonProject Coordinator, 4K TV Finishing & Remastering,

Colorworks

Remember we’re now working in 4K for 4K release…

The viewer will now be able to SEE more of these bits

The remastering will HAVE to deal with them

The reconform process that MIGHT have been automatic… stops while creative humans study the problem and try to figure out WHAT was done

And then they’ll have to mimic a 4K version of the HD fix – or decide to uprez the 2K…which, at best, will add time in completing the project and additional costs.

PREFERENCE then for today’s productions becomes:

Finish in 4K - IF YOU CAN.

Conforming 4KColorworks was designed from the beginning to be able to handle 4K work

Choices in infrastructure, including storage and tools were scaled to deal with 4K features

Extensions of that concept were applied to the buildout of a TV oriented finishing facility completed just prior to start of the current TV season – enabling a quickstart for 4K TV

Conforming 4KConsists of 3 platforms

Avid Media Composer – to read & organize the edls and bins sent over by editorial

Smoke – to conform from the Avid cuts and to insert various fixes and effects in 4K

Baselight – to complete the final conform

Conforming 4K4K files moved from dailies to TV Backbone

4K files are pulled into the active Colorworks SAN after the edls are scanned on an Avid MC.

4K fixes (as needed) are done on Smoke

Conformed on Baselight from the raw 16 bit original camera master footage

Grading & TitlingAfter conform – grading is also handled on the Baselight (also from raw 16 bit files - conformed)

Titling in 4K is created in various Adobe products (at 8K resolution, if necessary, dependent on font style & serifs)

Traditional stages of finishing are followed…as files.Online Master / VAM / CTM / Completed titled master

A final 4K IMF is the target finished product

SPT 4K TV Workflow

Baselight8

2k VFX4K VFX

Editorial

Sony F65 Camera

F65RAWF65RAW Lite

24P Facility

Sony PicturesProduction Backbone

ALE DNx

HD

✚

Dailies Process

4KF65RA

W✚

LTO Archive

4KF65RA

W

VFX

HD Output

Render 4k DPX &

4K IMF (MXF)

SmokeConform/

VFX

Avid

Conform

Avid

Bins

Review 4k on Sony VPL-VW1000ES

4k Projector

HD Color Reference Dolby PRM-4200

Final Archive – 4K Footage

During post production – 2 separately created sets of archival LTOs are created

In dailies – 2 archival sets of LTOs are madeLTO set of the 4K OCM

LTO set of the HD proxies made from the 4K plus editorial dnx

Once the 4K footage is pushed to the TV Backbone, archival LTOs are made of all of the footage and any intermediate mastering copies created during finishing

Rebecca MoonProject Coordinator, 4K TV Finishing & Remastering, Colorworks

FINAL COMMENTS ON THE 4K EXPERIENCE….

Sources for more info

Joel Ordesky – Sony DMPC – information on F65 & F55

Peter Postma – Filmlight – information on 4K in Baselight