| finishing HDV in HDCAM
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 | finishing HDV in HDCAM
by lostinaustin on Jan 31, 2007 at 6:31:24 pm |
I've been told that the only way to finish an HDV originated show is to clone/convert your HDV camera masters to HDCAM tapes for ingest, otherwise (because of the MPEG-2 compression) you won't have a frame accurate list. Without this intermediate (and very expensive) bump up to HDCAM, you would also have trouble outputting to HD and would instead need to output SD and then upconvert.
Does this mean that everyone who is shooting HDV is actually finishing in SD?
Is this HDV-HDCAM workflow one that any of you are familiar with?
The MPEG-2 compression/frame accurate edit stuff I understand, but it seems to me if you brought the HDV SDI thru an HD KONA card you should be able to output HDV and then bump up to HDCAM without problems.
Any thoughts/experiences would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Karen
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• | | | |  | Re: finishing HDV in HDCAM
by Uli Plank on Jan 31, 2007 at 7:29:57 pm |
Which editing system are you working with? There aren't many native systems for HDCam...
I'd rather work in DVCProHD if you don't like HDV, it's not very heavy on the system ansd pretty good quality.
Regards,
Uli
Author of "DVDs gestalten und produzieren", a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.
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• | | | | | Re: finishing HDV in HDCAM
by lostinaustin on Jan 31, 2007 at 7:46:28 pm |
Dear Uli,
FCP 5.1 and a Dual core 1.2GHz G5 pre-intel w/8GB RAM.
I'd love to work with DVCProHD, but I'm shooting a documentary and the workflow and storage issues with the P2 seem daunting both time-wise in the field and cost-wise in the edit. That's why I started considering HDV, but if you are forced into finishing SD or spending a lot of money to get close to HD quality, I wonder what all the fuss is about.
Thanks for your feedback.
Karen
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I believe it has been mentioned on these boards, but I know a few people capturing HDV via firewire, cutting HDV native in FCP then when done, dumping the seq into a uncompressed HD seq - doing titles, FX and color correcting on the HD uncompressed, render and out HDSDI to a HDCAM deck. This way you can get by most of the edit with small slow drives, but you'll need a smoking raid for the last steps.
Thanks,
Harry.
Forum Cowmunity Leader: Indie & Doc
Forum Cowmunity Leader: HDV
Dual 1.8 G5 ** 1GB ** 10.4.8 (Office / Photoshop)
Dual 2.0 G5 ** 4GB ** 10.4.8 Kona 2 (FCP Machine)
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• | | | |  | Re: finishing HDV in HDCAM
by Brian Mills on Jan 31, 2007 at 10:02:12 pm |
I would recommend finishing in HDCAM over DVCPRO HD because DVCPRO is adding a higher level of compressin to an already heavily compressed video stream - esencially giving you a "double whammy" of compression. HDCAM, although also compressed, is at least much less so.
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Strangely, I visited a post facility just today to explore the possibility of transferring HDV via component to a HDCAM deck. Once there deck is free we plan to run some tests to see if this can work. My HDV workflow is the el cheapo route: edit on Premiere Pro 1.51 with Cineform AspectHD, do colour corrections, titles and effects using the Cineform wavelet-based codec in RT, and then transcode back to M2T for export to a HDV master.
This is the method that purists suggest you DO NOT follow, as uncompressed HD is the ideal.Well, I don't have access to an uncompressed suite, so that's not an option for me. I've completed several 60min documentaries using my workflow, and projected the completed films straight from the HDV deck via component. Stunning quality. Now I'm going to find an inexpensive way to transfer my completed HDV film to HDCAM. If a straight transfer doesn't work, then we may have to capture it onto a Nitris as HD and then go out HD-SDI to HDCAM, but this will be costlier. The inexpensive conversion from HDV to HD for final delivery is the missing link for me thus far. Derek Antonio Serra
Filmmaker
http://www.controversifilms.co.za
http://www.indv.co.za
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• | | | | | Re: finishing HDV in HDCAM
by lostinaustin on Feb 1, 2007 at 4:12:00 am |
Thanks to everyone for the feedback. When it's all said and done, I'll have acccess to a full blown uncompressed online. For me the question is how best to prep the offline in HDV native without sacrificing quality or spending a ton extra at finishing. I'm still researching this one but will check in if I find out anything you guys have not already pointed out.
-Karen
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• | | | | | Re: finishing HDV in HDCAM
by Uli Plank on Feb 1, 2007 at 6:09:10 am |
Sorry, it seems you missed my point. AFAIK, you can't edit NATIVE HDCam on the Mac, it's a proprietrary format from Sony never licensed to others like DVCProHD is. We'd be talking uncompressed HD then, which needs a potent RAID anyway.
If you don't need massive GFX or CC, just edit HDV native and play out SDI to the HDCam deck via a Matrox MXO.
Regards,
Uli
Author of "DVDs gestalten und produzieren", a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.
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• | | | | | Re: finishing HDV in HDCAM
by lostinaustin on Feb 1, 2007 at 3:11:51 pm |
Thanks for the clarification.
Best,
Karen
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I keep hearing people talk about offlining HDV. But this make no sense. It's HD. Yes it's compressed, but it's HD compressed. If you edit the native HDV there is NO online process required. Your editied HDV project is the best quality it's ever going to be. The only reason to bump it up to HDCAM is for delivery to places that don't take HDV (which is nearly everybody at this point.) Also, it is possible to take a HDV tape to Dupe house (like Lighting Dubs in LA) and have it transferred to HDCAM.
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• | | | | | Re: finishing HDV in HDCAM
by lostinaustin on Feb 2, 2007 at 3:29:03 pm |
I know what you mean, but I've been a bit baffled by this ever since people started to "on-line" DVCAM and miniDV footage. I've always suspected that the compression happens in the camera and that it stays constant whether you bring in material thru SDI or firewire. Perhaps that's how it works with HDV as well? I've never met anyone who can explain the concrete benefits of bringing in these prosumer formats "uncompressed." (Aside from perhaps a better color space and frame accuracy (a big one) when it comes to HDV.) Maybe that someone is out there?
When it comes to moving from HDV to HDCAM just thru a dub, my main concern would be quality. I've seen some stuff that looked great in digibeta and then the HD dub was just awful. But I guess that's all in the frame rate differences and the transition from SD to HD?
At any rate, thanks for the feedback.
-Karen
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Thanks - very interesting.
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The only, or at lest the main reason to move your HDV native cut to a HD uncompressed seq. is so you can go intoa 4:2:2 color space for color grading, and also to add your titles, lower 3rds and FX - that way they will not get crunched by the HDV codec.... if you only have very light titles and no FX, and don't need color corection... then the dump & render to HD uncompressed might not be needed.
Thanks,
Harry.
Forum Cowmunity Leader: Indie & Doc
Forum Cowmunity Leader: HDV
Dual 1.8 G5 ** 1GB ** 10.4.8 (Office / Photoshop)
Dual 2.0 G5 ** 4GB ** 10.4.8 Kona 2 (FCP Machine)
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• | | | |  | Re: finishing HDV in HDCAM
by Michael G on Feb 5, 2007 at 11:08:00 pm |
Dubbing HDV to HDCam prior to editingis a waste of time, money and tape.
I still think it best to edit HDV as down converted SD DV codec using the camera/ deck downconvert option. DV editing is a doddle for most computers and edit suites.
Using Media Manager, I then recapture online using a Canon XL H1 via HD SDI into a Decklink extreme. All finishing is done in 10 bit 4.2.2 uncompressed HD. If you have access to this sort of setup then I think it is the best way to make editing easy and get the best quality final result.
Pro100HD is a great camera format. HDV is also an excellent camera format, particularly the price considerations. I just don't see the point in editing with either of those two codecs although Pro100 is much better as an edit format.
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• | | | | | Re: finishing HDV in HDCAM
by Dr. Dropout on Feb 6, 2007 at 5:08:10 pm |
Vegas 7 can easily output an HDV timeline or HDV file to an HDCAM deck (60i, 50i, or 24p, w/ multichannel audio if needed) over HD-SDI using an Aja or Decklink on a properly configured system. Prior to mastering you could also monitor over HD-SDI.
I would presume any NLE that has HD-SDI capability could do this, not sure though.
If you haven't seen it yourself, well-shot HDV material holds up very well in an HD-SDI transfer.
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• | | | |  | Re: finishing HDV in HDCAM
by Michael Slowe on Feb 19, 2007 at 3:55:55 pm |
Sorry, just returned from abroad and saw your post. I shoot HDV and for editing upgrade the material to HD using the Convergent Design HD-Connect and stay in HD, no time wasted. I then either (both usually) master to HDCAM tape (expensive rental but not too often) or downscale within Media 100 to DV. If I can I also use the HDCAM deck for downscaled DV copies as they are better than the Media 100 downscales.
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