Problems offlining in HDV codec?
by lkcline
on
Mar 10, 2007 at 7:00:27 pm
Hello,
I recently shot 15 hours of footage with the JVC GYHD250U. 720/24p, and it's beautiful. My editor loaded all of this footage in it's native HDV codec into Final Cut, but he tells me that because that is an MPEG2 codec, there could be problems during offline. To avoid any issues we are thinking of downcoverting to DV codec for offline. Questions:
1) Has anyone offlined in HDV and experienced problems with your edit points? Does FCP drop your in and/or out points?
2) What is the recommeded workflow for offline and online, keeping in mind that I want to finish in uncompressed 720/24p?
Re: Problems offlining in HDV codec? by Tim Kolb on Mar 11, 2007 at 1:52:10 am
Offline?
Could you simply online it as long as it's on the drives?
If you use a timeline set for uncompressed, you won't have the HDV recompression issues during the edit...then render to whatever you need for an output.
Re: Problems offlining in HDV codec? by Michael McIntyre on Mar 11, 2007 at 3:54:04 am
Have you tried googling HDV offline / online? You definitely do not want to edit with HDV. One major obstacle is whether or not you have timecode breaks on your tapes. I don't know the JVC camera so I can't speak to it specifically regarding that issue but others have had issues with babysitting re-capture.
Also, focus can be cause for concern. Whereas DV is forgiving when it comes to soft-focus problems, HDV footage is not. The DV -> HDV offline / online has worked for me as long as timecode is solid.
As for Tim's mention of editing uncompressed, that becomes an issue of your system's abilities and big render times.
Re: Problems offlining in HDV codec? by Tim Kolb on Mar 11, 2007 at 6:17:10 am
[Michael McIntyre]"As for Tim's mention of editing uncompressed, that becomes an issue of your system's abilities and big render times."
Actually, not really. this workflow was suggested to me by Graeme Nattress and I think it's the best of a few worlds...it's not editing uncompressed...it's editing HDV on an uncompressed timeline. The media is still HDV so drive space and proc speed issues won't be much different from editing HDV native. It basically just avoids any recompression until the end when you output to whatever you choose (ideally something better than HDV). If you output via HDSDI to something other tha HDV, your render times should be much improved over "conforming" edited HDV back into a continuous HDV stream.
Re: Problems offlining in HDV codec? by redgum on Mar 11, 2007 at 6:23:44 am
Tim, would you like to spell out the process? Do you ingest as "native" HDV or "Cineform" to an uncompressed timeline? Or do you ingesr uncompressed from the deck or card?
Redgum Television Productions
Broadcast & Corporate Documentaries
Brisbane, Australia
Re: Problems offlining in HDV codec? by Steve Connor on Mar 11, 2007 at 9:42:44 am
The beauty of HDV is that you don't need to downconvert to DV for "offline" as HDV takes up no more drive space than DV!
This workflow has been mentioned quite a few times on this forum.
1. Ingest all material in native HDV in FCP
2. Edit in HDV including all FX and CC, if you have too many complex effects at once HDV can be slow, but otherwise on a reasonably fast Mac you'll get loads of realtime.
3. When edit is finished, drop your finished sequence into a timeline with your finishing codec of choice. We use uncompressed mostly, this means all your graphics and CC etc, are re-rendred at uncompressed quality and there is only 1 recompression of the HDV material.
There is no better workflow for working with HDV in FCP, it's even recommended by Graham Nattress, who knows a thing or two!
Re: Problems offlining in HDV codec? by Harry Pallenberg on Mar 11, 2007 at 4:52:49 pm
What Steve said above is exactly what a our post house in LA is doing on lots of indi type projects as well as broadcast TV. Its what we are doing on our gig ( as suggested by the post house)... They usually drop the finished HDV seq. into a uncompressed HD and render then out HDSDI to a HDCAM deck... LOOKS GREAT, COSTS LESS!
Thanks,
Harry.
Forum Cowmunity Leader: Indie & Doc
Forum Cowmunity Leader: HDV
Re: Problems offlining in HDV codec? by Michael McIntyre on Mar 12, 2007 at 2:10:53 am
I stand corrected. Live and learn I suppose. I chalk it up to reading about so many HDV horror stories that we'd always avoided it - embracing instead the offline / online workflow.
Not to digress too far off-topic but how does this workflow compare to going AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec)? I know space and speed become issues but other pros / cons of this codec?
Re: Problems offlining in HDV codec? by Michael G on Mar 12, 2007 at 12:15:56 pm
The rule with codecs is not to transcode if possible. HDV should either remain native or be converted to uncompressed. AIC is a transcode.
I prefer the downconvert to DV for offline and then online recapture uncompressed via the Canon XL H1 (HD SDI output). The advantage of this approach is that the edit suite doesn't need HD monitoring and FCP does DV without any stress, even on older edit machines. With newer computers and an HD monitor, that becomes less of an issue so HDV native editing should be considered.
Re: Problems offlining in HDV codec? by liamcward on May 22, 2007 at 8:08:43 pm
One problem you could run into is based more so on the fact that you shot hdv 720p24, how are you intending to delivery your footage? The problem we have run into is HDV 720p24 being a non-drop format, and in order to delivery 29.97 drop frame, we have run into very difficult problems.
