When hired to create a series of spots driving viewers from Discovery Networks’ SD channels to Discovery HD Theater, Santa Monica’s Steam decided to do it in full HD style. Steam shot with two Sony F900 HDCAMs, then maintained uncompressed 4:2:2 video quality in a 24p pipeline that revolved around Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.

At the shoot, creative directors Scott Bryant and Tony Molenda set up their BOXX 8200 workstation with a 2 TB S-ATA array and a Blackmagic Decklink HD Pro capture card tucked inside. A Decklink Workgroup Videohub routed HD signals between cameras, computers, decks and HD monitors and downconverted the signal for SD monitoring. That allowed the team to do pre-vis on set- which helps instill confidence in a client.

One camera shot live action on a main stage while the other shot green screen. In all, the team shot enough material for 36 spots, including a main promo and interstitials. The Steam team headed back to the studio with four hours of HDCAM tape footage in tow. "We figured it would be handier for us and a little safer if our source media was tape so that we’d have timecode and a tape backup," Bryant explains. "We did tests, and the quality difference between sucking directly from the camera and digitizing from HDCAM tape was negligible."

Molenda edited in Premiere and Bryant handled graphics in After Effects. "On some of these things, the shots would go back and forth a couple of times," Bryant recalls. "We got nervous about teeny bits of lossiness. But since we stayed with the same codec, there was never any generation loss."

All the color-correction and keying was done in After Effects, at 24 frames, to avoid pulldown issues. "The Blackmagic card has 3:2 pulldown preview, so it will insert pulldown for SD monitors. That was never an issue either, and when we played it out, no conversion was required."

Molenda did the final audio mix in Premiere. For approvals, the team made Windows Media 9 clips at 720p, a neat way to get HD into the hands of the client. The system worked out so well that Bryant plans to continue using it and refining it."We’re getting ready to start a music video using the same workflow," Bryant says. "It saves a lot of money and time."