Re: HD question

Ask three people this and you'll get five answers.

Most of the answers will include the phrase: "it depends".

Checklist:

Is it something ephemeral that is going to become "stale" very quickly and never re-used? If yes, then SD might be fine.

Is the main user only ever going to need it in SD?

Are your users actually happy with SD as long as it is letterboxed?

Is there a need or possible need for being able to change the camera framing in post, for example, to get around jump cuts from a badly shot single-camera interview? Then HD recording lets you do that and preserve SD quality.

Is this going to go up on the web ever, and if so, in an off-the cuff casual manner or a higher profile, pro-looking effort? For the quality version, and HD master can help. For the quick knock-it-out thing, SD should be adequate.

Is this something that might eventually be archived and re-used by some future film maker, and, part two of that, does that future film maker gain anything really from a framing change from SD 4x3 to HD16x9 in the raw footage? My own take on this has been, for something very static like a guy in a chair, alternating between medium and very tight shots, no; the 16x9 frame is, if not exactly "wasted", at least it is not offering anything additional aesthetically, outside of some more leeway in positioning the framing. Now, if the guy is standing alongside an object or prop of some kind that's part of the interview, maybe the wider frame and higher rez can be used to vary the shots in the future.

So those are the kinds of things I ask myself when I try to make this decision, case by case.