HD & SD Importing, Exporting and Mastering

Import, Export, Master

Let Chicago HD handle your media capturing and mastering needs. Need to composite HD graphics on your graphics workstation but you don't have an HD machine or the ability to rent one? Want to capture your HD footage as anamorphic, 24 fps DV and offline your movie with FireWire drives and a laptop? Does your project require you to master rendered animations or final edited sequences to tape for live playback, distribution or duplication? Chicago HD will take care of you. We'll digitize your HD and SD footage as QuickTime movies or image sequences and export them to FireWire drives or other removable media. We master to just about every HD and SD tape-based format with up to twelve channels of audio (HDCAM-SR). Chicago HD Corp. also encodes video as HD or SD Windows Media, H.264 QuickTime, MPEG-2 and other compression formats.

Full-service and self-service is available. Typically, we try to turn jobs around same day or as quickly as our schedule will allow. Overnight media process sessions may be arranged in advance. Jobs ordered after 1pm for delivery that day may incur a 15% rush charge. Weekend and holiday sessions are billed at a premium rate.

Please refer to our FAQ for more information what we'll need from you to create an estimate for your job.

Chicago HD supports most professional uncompressed and compressed HD formats, including: Sony HDCAM-SR (both 4:4:4 and 4:2:2), Sony HDCAM, Panasonic Multi-Format D5 and DVCProHD, RED footage, P2 media and Sony 1080i HDV. Standard definition formats include: Sony Digital Betacam, Beta SP, DVCAM, DVCPro and DVD.

Frame Rate Conversion (FRC)

A cool feature of DVCProHD is it's ability to allow a filmmaker to over-crank or under-crank the camera during production to create slow motion or fast motion effects. Chicago HD can process your footage and lay it back to HD tape, downconvert it directly to SD tape or export QuickTime movies to a hard drive.

HD Frame Grabs

Graphic files suitable for print can be pulled from your progressive or interlaced HD source tapes. Frame grabs will be delivered as TIFFs or in the file format of your choice.

See examples of HD frame grabs.

HD Film-Out Prep

Chicago HD can prep your existing HD master for film-out, otherwise known at film recording. We will edit your film into separate segments with durations appropriate for film distribution and provide your film lab with the materials they need to get the job done.