Converting HDV to anything has not a single advantage. In fact it has several disadvantages: (1) cost of your converter which doesn't do anything but decode HDV. Exactly the same thing that happens to every frame of HDV as each frame is displayed during editing. (2) a huge increase in storage space which contains not one bit of information that's not in an HDV file. (3) When editing, a huge increase in disk bandwidth that really limits the number of realtime streams.
With FCP every HDV frame is decoded to 4:4:4 YUV -- better than your box offers. All FX are done in 4:4:4 YUV. The result is displayed and DISCARDED. It is never reused. It is never recoded to HDV -- unless you export to HDV tape.
Since one can edit HDV in RT there is little need to render. But, even if you do need to render short sections -- the render is automatically made to ProRes. (Avid auto renders to DNxHD.)
Some folks claim the export takes long if you edit native HDV. Nonsense. HDV decodes many times faster than RT. The time required is long -- relative to SD -- because one is exporting HD. Makes no difference if one is exporting to HDV, to MPEG-2 for BD, to XDCAM HD. It will be even longer for H.264 or WM. Bottom-line, export time is a function of the export codec -- not the source codec.
Now -- it's possible M100 is far less sophisticated internally than FCP. Maybe they don't have an MPEG-2 codec that can decode long GOP MPEG-2 in RT to 4:4:4 YUV. Maybe FX must be rendered. And, maybe the render codec is forced to be the same as the source codec. If these conditions are true -- the problem isn't HDV -- it's the internals of the M100.
By the way -- HDV is simply the brand name for 1440 MPEG-2. Once you have written an MPEG-2 decoder that works in RT within a Timeline -- all forms of MPEG-2 can be processed: HDV, HDCAM HD, HDCAM EX, and HDCAM 422.
THERE IS NO CONFLICT BETWEEN HDV AND XDCAM EX SUPPORT. In fact that are thousands of more folks with HDV than with any kind of XDCAM.
Of course, this raises the terrible possibility that when Boris says XDCAM support is coming they only intend to convert HDCAM to something else. This will not fly when FCP supports native XDCAM.
PS: Apple is supporting AVCHD by converting it. They claim one can't edit it natively. What they mean is they want to protect their PPC owners. PC-based NLE's have no problem of editing native AVCHD. Intel chips have dozens of instructions that do H.264 and MPEG-2 decoding.
Best Regards,
Steve Mullen
Digital Video Consulting--Las Vegas
www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c
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"Sony V1 and FX7 HANDBOOK" at www.knowledge-download.com/V1-FX7
"Sony HVR-Z1 and HDR-FX1 HANDBOOK" at: www.knowledge-download.com/SonyHDV
"EDITION 2: JVC GY-HD100 HANDBOOK" at: www.knowledge-download.com/JVCHDV
